Page 37 of Of Sword & Silver

“For the blood to give us answers.” He stares into my eyes, and dread curls in my belly. There is something… so inhuman in them. Unfathomable. Dark.

“You have my permission,” I say on an exhale, unable to stand the pressure of his gaze.

Instead, I look into the coffin, where something very dead is staring up at me.

And it blinks.

12

THE SWORD

The sooner Kyrie understands that I am not like her, not at all, the better. The sooner she falls into line and understands her role in this age-old dance of gods, the easier it will be. For both of us.

So I let it slip into my face.

What I am. Who I am.

And she looks right back at me, without the terror or tears that most mortals would show. Instead, she gives permission, and it infuriates me even more.

She should be afraid. A weak, short-lived creature such as she should be quailing, and yet, she persists.

Admiration and respect take root in spite of myself.

I should keep hating her.

It will be easier in the end if I can dig out those feelings before they bloom into something more, no matter what fate expects. It will be easier for both of us.

Kyrie glances back up at me expectantly, though her face is even paler, her freckles standing out like morning stars against her skin.

“Well? Are we doing this or what?” she snaps out, all fire, though even my dulled senses can scent her fear at what I’m about to do.

The direcat paces on the dust-covered stone behind us, a low growl in its throat.

It takes me by complete surprise: the urge to comfort her, to tell her she is going to be alright, that she has nothing to fear from the dead in this crypt.

And I know in the same heartbeat that no matter how hard I push her away, how solidly I construct a wall of malice between us, it’s too late.

She’s already under my skin.

Anger rises at the immutability of fate, of what I’ll have to do to this… mortal who’s already crawled her way into my life and made herself at home.

She hasn’t pulled away from my grip, just waits patiently, a lamb to the slaughter.

I take her wrist, raise it to my mouth. Kyrie doesn’t falter, doesn’t pull away, barely flinches as I press my teeth to the thin skin there and rip at it, the warm salt of her blood flooding my mouth.

Flooding my being—with her power. Opposite of mine, full of life, the song of the chalice mingling with her own magic in a heady flow. My body trembles, and though the moment lasts less than a split second, it feels like a lifetime.

I regain enough of my senses to push her bleeding arm away from me, then fit her body into mine, her back rigid with tension as I lean her over the stone crypt, letting the hot trickle of her potent blood dribble into the mouth of the dead.

“Power from mortal willingly given,” I chant, the words as familiar as the day I wrote the spell. “Pact with the dead unwillingly made. Order and chaos together unriven. Death is ordered to give aid.”

Power surges between Kyrie and me, but a soft gasp is the only sign she gives that she feels it.

I close my eyes briefly, as though that can block out the soft way her body melts against mine.

Focus.

If this doesn’t make her turn away from me in utter disgust, if this doesn’t see her running from me, then nothing will.

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