Page 14 of Of Sword & Silver

“Thank you for clarifying,” I chirp at him. “I really wasn’t sure. You were being so very clever about it all.”

He pauses for a moment, glancing skyward.

Snow falls in thick bands around us now, the flakes fat and heavy and already muffling the normal night noises of the forest clawing up the face of the Hiirek Mountains.

“I should leave you here, disciple of Sola, and let you die a slow, agonizing death from the curse you no doubt deserve.”

“You will not leave me, disciple of Hrakan.” The words fly from my mouth, shot through with the toxic power of my silver tongue. I should regret it, using my so-called gifts without meaning to, but I don’t. Not at all, not when he’s being an asshole to me for no reason after I helped him, and not when my life is on the line.

“You swore an oath to me.” I almost make him swear to laugh at my jokes, too, just to be a bitch, but I think that would probably get on my nerves, too.

Besides, I like to earn my laughter. Most of the time.

“Tell me thank you for saving you,” I say, my voice thick with my power, my tongue numb with the amount of it I’m funneling out of me.

A cold sweat breaks on my forehead and lower back, a sign I’m pushing my gift further than I should.

The man standing in front of me shivers, and for a second I think I have him. I’ve done it.

“I will not thank you for something I could have done myself, disciple of Sola.”

I wince at the last words: disciple of Sola. Nameless, worthless even, without the goddess who plucked me from the streets as a child and raised me in her temples.

Not that I had a choice.

Never a choice, not with Sola.

“Then why didn’t you do it yourself?”

“Because I didn’t want to,” he snarls.

I push my power further, knowing it’s going to exhaust me, but too pissed off to care. “Why didn’t you want to?”

The magic of our bond—the oaths we’ve sworn to each other—stretches taut as I pour my so-called gift into it. It’s like nothing I’ve felt before, eldritch and thick with power, nearly tangible where it tugs at my stomach.

The Sword staggers slightly.

So, it affects him too. He feels it too.

My eyes go wide at the magic coursing between us.

He finally turns back around, staring at me with a new light in his eyes, a light that’s more terrifying than anything he’s said thus far to me.

“How, exactly, did you receive your curse?” There’s a strange gravity to each syllable that seems to force the snow to blow sideways.

I shift my weight, shrugging my shoulders.

“It’s not important. Freezing to death before curing it would be a problem, though. I suggest we get to where my supplies are and make camp before this storm gets worse.”

I don’t add that it seems to be getting worse only now, after the bond between us flared.

A bond I created because I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t slit my throat while I slept.

My fingers absentmindedly go to my neck. His gaze follows the gesture, something like sorrow in it, before his face shutters. He nods once, then continues heading silently up the mountain slope.

At this point, silence is fine by me.

I don’t feel like talking anymore.

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