Katerina's brow knit at the odd phrase the blond woman had used. "Red Scorpion? Please, madam, what is a scorpion?"<br/><br/>Her confusion turned into a harsh glare as her eyes fell on the man from the Patriarchy. "Aelus Ekkard, is it not?" she said to the man who had never shared his name. "The Skinwalker. I dissolved your chains and freed you from bondage. And then you sided with that man over there, rather than the one who actually helped you," she said with a nod to Peschek's convulsing corpse. "I have had cause to kill two men today. You would do well to remember that. To remember that in the first moment of my life that was mine to control I killed a man. I liked it. But it will not happen to you. Not today. I am saving your life, Skinwalker. I will not harm you, nor will I allow you to come to harm for your cowardice. What I ask in return is your loyalty, complete and unquestioning."<br/><br/>Katerina smiled up at Kolya as the man gently lifted her onto a horse. "Thank you, big brother." The man did remind her of her older brother, far over the mountains, outside of Ruthen in the land of Suomark, by the cold gray sea. Before he was slain by the pirates, before her coward father sold her to them in tribute to avoid another attack. Years ago now.<br/><br/>Before she had found the book.<br/><br/>"To the nearest town, then?" she asked, quickly and perhaps too loudly, anything to keep the memories from rushing back.