Page 83 of Of Sword & Silver

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about mortals in all my years, it’s that they are so often blind to what is right before them—they don’t want to see it, don’t want to upset their fragile notions of where they belong in this life.

And the next.

“Why would I be destined for it? I’m nothing special. Just one of Sola’s many blood orphans.”

“You are, for better or worse,” I say slowly, trying desperately to help her see it, knowing I cannot tell her plainly, “the only one special enough to drink from that chalice. The silver tongue, the first blessed with such power in an age or more. You are the distillment of magic and chaos, the embodiment of all that Sola holds precious.”

“Fuck Sola,” she says, and I know I’ve lost my opportunity to help her understand.

This is going to kill me. It’s slowly ripping the shreds of my soul further and further apart, and for the first time in my memory, I want something other than my old self back.

I want Kyrie.

I want her smiles, and her terrible jokes, and her mischievous looks, and I want to earn the heat and desire she lavished on me in that small, gods-forsaken village in the Hiirek foothills.

For better or worse, for my ruin and hers, I would sell what’s left of my time on Heska to have Kyrie beside me forever.

“That’s why you had to drink from the cup,” I tell her, shaking my head, because lies don’t come easily to me. Not now, not with Kyrie in my lap, tired and cold and so sad it makes my heart ache. “You.”

I almost tell her then, the truth that will end us both so savagely that it will change the course of history.

She had to drink from the cup because Kyrie, with her chaotic sunshine warmth, is the only one I could love.

“The mare is going to be fine, Kyrie,” Caedia shouts. “Come up here, you two.”

“We have the fire going,” Morrow rumbles. “There’s food.”

I look past the flame-haired beauty in my arms to the barrels all around us.

“Morrow, you’re going to have a headache tomorrow,” I call back.

“What? I don’t think you should threaten him,” Kyrie says tiredly, without any real heat.

“I’m not.” I can’t help but huff a laugh at her. “These barrels?” I knock on one, and sure enough, it’s not empty. “They’re full of something. Based on where we are, on the outlands of Chast, I’m going to guess rum or whiskey. This is probably a bootlegger’s stash.”

Her pretty lips form a round O, and I barely resist hugging her to me.

“Then we should celebrate being alive while I still can,” she says, and though her lips smile like it’s a joke, it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

The worst part is, I can’t disagree.

29

KYRIE

Morrow’s singing again. Caedia is too, and Lara’s dancing around, clapping her hands as a fire crackles in the hearth. Morrow grabs her by the wrists as he sings, and she laughs uproariously as he spins her around.

Aside from an occasional ear twitch, the horses and Mushroom pointedly ignore us, just like we’re pointedly ignoring the fact we’re rooming with them until the worst of the storm passes. As for Fil, he’s braving it on his own somewhere, and the thought makes me worried for the huge cat all over again.

Lara invents a ridiculous verse about the drunken soldier, making Morrow boom it out, too.

“What would you do with a drunken soldier,” he belts, “when you tie his boots together?”

Lara dissolves into giggles, barely able to stand on her own.

I’m laughing too, but it all too quickly turns into a cough, a cough I can’t seem to get the better of, gasping for air, my eyes watering.

“Here,” Caedia says, putting my hands around a cup of steaming tea.

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