Page 12 of Of Sword & Silver

The great game has begun anew.

I pull my bitterness and anger close to me like a cloak, ice-cold flames that will fuel me until I’m done with the woman steadily picking her way through the sewers and leading me to freedom.

5

KYRIE

Fresh air blows across my face, whipping my hair from its braid in a relentless icy blast. Northern Heska summers are cold, but to come up to Cottleside on the cusp of winter?

Frigid doesn’t begin to describe it.

“A bit brisk,” I say as the Sword finishes climbing out of the tunnel behind me. I eye his bare feet, which are filthy with the grime and dirt of the sewers.

His silence is oppressive, but he closes his eyes, lifting his chin. The wind seems to pick up at his attention, sending his white-grey hair blowing in tendrils around his face. It’s an absurdly masculine face, too, his jaw so strong and cheekbones so sharp I half wonder if they’d cut to touch.

There’s something youthful and ancient about him all at once, a compelling juxtaposition of opposites. I tug my cloak around me, grateful for its warmth.

Sleeping Cottleside stretches out below and behind us, and I shiver at the dark, turbulent waters of the North Sea beyond it, white-capped waves only visible when the oil lamp of the lighthouse catches them in its gaze. Within the city, a few windows are lit from within, glowing like tiny beacons under the cloud-cloaked night sky. A bit further north, smoke drifts from the prison walls, and my lips twitch in a grin at the absolute havoc I wreaked.

No doubt no one there is sleeping.

Ha.

My skin prickles, and my attention jerks back to the prisoner I freed from its walls.

He’s watching me, an impenetrable expression on his face. I know enough about people to see he trusts me about as far as I could throw him.

And since there’s no way I could throw him, I should probably watch for a knife in my back.

“I am glad I had you swear an oath to me as well,” I grumble.

He doesn’t respond to that, either.

“Anyone ever tell you what great company you are?” I squint at him.

“No,” he says, dark eyebrows lifting slightly.

“Shocking.” I wait, hoping he’ll at least rise to the bait.

He doesn’t.

Ugh.

“My supplies are way up there.” I jerk my thumb behind me at the purple-blue stain on the skyline. “The Hiirek Mountains. I figure we need to get as far as we can from Cottleside as fast as we can, just in case the guards decide their god of order needs you back in a cell.”

I pause, waiting for input, but he’s looking past me at the Hiirek Mountains jutting into the night.

“The night should help hide us,” I continue, but the Sword’s already moving, his long legs eating up ground as he heads in the direction I pointed.

“Right.” No point in talking.

The ground’s uneven, rocks frozen to the dirt, and I’m annoyed at how fast the Sword’s able to make his way across it.

“I don’t know what I expected,” I grumble to myself, keeping one eye on the uneven ground and another on the Sword’s broad back. “A thank you? Gratitude? Oh, Kyrie, thank you so much for saving me,” I tell myself in a rough approximation of his rumbly bass. “I am in your debt. Together we will find a cure.”

Carefully, I step over a rotting log, one I nearly slipped on earlier on my trek down the mountain. “I am with you, Kyrie, sworn to help, and it’s the least I can do for getting me out of Cottleside.”

I keep up a steady stream of mumbling, mostly because I hate being quiet when I don’t have to be, and secondly because from the way his stomping becomes exponentially more aggravated, I can tell I’m getting under his skin.

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