Page 11 of Of Sword & Silver

She holds out a black strip of fabric, and I watch her face carefully, able to make out her delicate features in the darkness.

Distrust runs through me, a typical first reaction to one of Sola’s sworn, but she simply sighs and ties the fabric over her nose.

“Dipped in cathswith’s pollen. It should deaden the smell.” She fishes a second strip out of a pouch on her hip, and I deign to take it from her.

I tie it over my own nose, my fingers not nearly as nimble as hers, and when I breathe in, it’s with relief. The worst of the smell is gone, replaced by the floral honey scent of cathswith flowers.

“You’re welcome,” she says airily, sketching a sarcastic bow.

I don’t answer because I know that’s what she wants. I might have been in Cottleside Prison for the last decade… but I know her type.

I wait for her to move on, or disparage me or… Hrakan, but what she does instead surprises me.

She grins.

Wide.

A real smile pulls up the corners of her mouth, showing off her white, even teeth, and it hits me full force then, how stunningly beautiful this little creature is.

“You know, everyone warms up to me eventually,” she tells me evenly. “I’ll figure you out sooner or later.”

I blink, sending out a tendril of my own death magic, testing to see if she’s winding some of her power around me.

The only magic in this tunnel is mine, though.

“You won’t,” I tell her. Better to shut her down early. Neither one of us has anything to gain by being friendly.

“I will,” she says sweetly, smiling even wider, the fabric over her nose crinkling. “And I love a challenge.”

With that, she swishes off, her emerald green cloak twirling around her feet. They fall elegantly, nearly noiselessly on the floors, which have begun giving way from the packed dirt to stone.

I shake myself mentally.

She’s a thief. Of course she moves quietly, elegantly.

I would do well not to notice anything about her, whether it’s her dancer-like movement or her smile or her gold-flecked green eyes.

The fabric over my nose shifts when I scowl.

Forcing my feet to move, I pick up the pace, thinking hard about my own plans. The woman’s cursed, clearly desperate enough to break me out and swear to help me.

If she weren’t pledged to my greatest enemy, I would almost feel sorry for her. Almost.

Instead, I clench my teeth, my hand going to the sword I’ve belted to my hip. Not my sword.

My bare feet slap against the slimy stone floors, so cold needles of pain trickle through my soles.

I would rather be outside the prison than in, and even though I need the red-haired woman for my own plans—plans it seems the gods approve of, if the dead guard is any indication—I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something important.

Something important about her.

My eyes narrow, focusing on her lean frame cutting a quick path through the underground sewers. We hook a left, then a right, moving lower through the system, and an icy river of sludge appears, moving at a glacial pace.

In spite of myself, gratitude wells in me for something so simple as her preparedness. I push it down, mentally cursing myself.

Foolishness. I must be starved for a crumb of kindness after my decade in Cottleside.

Every horrible moment within those walls was well-deserved in preparation of this moment.

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