Page 33 of Of Sword & Silver

I step closer and she steps back, thudding into the moss-dusted stone walls of the barrow. I advance once more, and she raises her eyes to meet mine, still undeterred.

“I am hiding everything,” I repeat, slowly this time, willing the words to sink into her fragile flesh, “because at the end of this quest for your life, to find the cure for a curse you willingly drank, willingly stole, I will continue to be who fate has ordained me to be, and you will continue to play the role fate gave you.” Another warning. As much a riddle as anything else.

“Fine,” she says slowly, her gaze darting between my eyes. “Lovely. Let’s just make everything harder on ourselves. Why not? What could go wrong?”

The question she should be asking is what happens should it all go right.

“Why do you think you felt compelled to drink from it—from the chalice?”

“What do you mean?” Her face scrunches up adorably in confusion, her delicate features highlighted in the wode light. “Of course I felt compelled to drink from it. It smelled delicious, like everything I ever needed. Who wouldn’t have?”

“Who wouldn’t have?” A harsh laugh sputters from my throat. “The disciple that owned the chalice, and the one before him, and anyone else who had it in their possession before you came along, I presume.” I stare at her, trying to get her to see the truth of it, to look beyond.

She tosses that long red infuriating braid, and I grind my teeth. “They knew it was cursed. Obviously they wouldn’t have drank it.”

Frustrated, I pound the tunnel wall above her head with my fist, guilt flitting through me as she flinches. “Would you still have drank it if you knew what would happen? That you’d have to free me? Work with someone like me?”

For a second, it seems as though she might answer truthfully, like she might piece together the heart of the matter.

“Of course not,” she lies easily, the way one trained by the Sisters of Sola does, without a second thought, without a hint of deceit. I see past it only because I witnessed the aftermath of another silver tongue, during the last Fae war.

She tilts her chin up, her pulse thrumming in her neck. “But I did, so here we are, and the least we can do is respect one another.”

“Respect is the least of my worries.” I push off the wall, too aware of her scent, of the smell of her red hair and the lie in her green eyes, of the way her constellation of freckles reminds me of stars I haven’t seen in over a decade.

“Staying alive is the most of mine, so if you can at least clue me in on what the hells we’re doing here, I would be so honored.” The word drips with sarcasm.

“The dead are nothing to be feared,” I tell her. Something I’ve always known, and true, though not the answer I think she wants.

“No shit, they’re dead. I’m more worried about whatever nasty thing’s taken up residence amongst their corpses, you asshole.”

Irritation rankles me, not for the first time since the incorrigible woman freed me, and certainly not for the last. “Did you forget who it is you’re with?”

“The great and terrible Sword, who is so great and terrible that he refuses to tell me his own name,” she says in a mocking voice. “So great and terrible that he doesn’t even have a sword besides the one swinging between his legs, likely doing all the thinking for him as well?—”

My irritation erupts.

“Maybe if you spent as much time thinking about why we’re here as you have about my cock you wouldn’t annoy me with your petulant questions.”

“You wish I was thinking about your cock, Sword,” she retorts.

My fists clench at my sides.

The problem is, I do wish that. It would make things much easier if she were pliant and amenable to me.

But she’s not, nor am I to her, so I banish the thought, and hope to never suffer it again.

11

KYRIE

It’s just so easy to needle him. Really, it’s too much fun.

I’ve said I like to work alone, and mostly, I do, but there is something very satisfying about being able to annoy the Sword whenever I get bored. Especially when he’s such an easy target.

He’s silent after my latest barb, predictably about his sword again, and I can’t help grinning to myself.

The direcat bumps my back, bringing up the rear of our ridiculous little trio.

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