Page 22 of Of Sword & Silver

“I wasn’t sure if I dreamed it,” I say. Did the Sword really… hold me tight and stroke my back until I fell asleep again?

Half of me doesn’t believe it, especially considering the animosity between us, but here’s the evidence that I did not, in fact, dream what woke me in the middle of the night.

Massive footprints in the snow. I crouch down, inspecting them, spreading my fingers and placing my own hand in the divots left by a huge creature. There’s room to spare.

“I’ll be damned,” he swears.

“No argument from me,” I say sweetly.

He doesn’t respond, though, simply walks around the tracks, pausing to tie back his shoulder-length hair, carefully tugging it over his pointed ears.

Not that I’m watching him.

“Direcat.”

“No way,” I stand up, brushing my hands off on my pants.

“Better check if your mule was a meal last night.”

Panic grips me, my eyes going wide. “Mushroom?” I call out, racing to the side of the clearing where I tied him last night.

Mushroom whickers, walking sleepily towards me, long ears flicking all around.

Oh goddess. I close my eyes and tilt my face skyward, sucking in a huge breath of relief.

“You’re fine. It’s fine.” I pat his neck, and when I turn, I find the Sword staring at me with a calculating expression, his pretty eyes narrowed.

“Not meat after all,” I say, like I could care less. I don’t need him to know how much I love the stupid beast. I don’t need him to hold it against me, the way the Sisters of Sola would.

My chest tightens, and I toss my hair. “You’ve got enough meat for everyone, I think.” I wink outrageously at him again and am rewarded with a dark look.

“I thought direcats were extinct.” I’m still stroking Mushroom’s neck lovingly, and I make myself give him one more pat before turning away.

“They are of the goddess Dyrda,” he says in a low voice, his attention fully back on the huge tracks peppered throughout the campsite. “I do not think many exist still, considering the wars.”

“The wars?” I frown, completely thrown off. “You mean Doston trying to take over Heska?” Doston, our southern neighbor, has no regard for Heskan religion and magic, and their incursions have been more in earnest the past few years.

Chaos is good for business though, so I haven’t given them too much thought, except to avoid most jobs in the southern parts of Heska.

“No,” he says firmly, which doesn’t shed any light on anything.

Right. So there’s some kind of war that I haven’t heard hide or hair of, or good old Sword is a bit behind the times after his stint in the pokey.

“How are your toesies, old man?”

“Ready to get the hells on with it,” he growls. “Don’t call me that.”

“Old?” I ask. “An antiquity like you shouldn’t be concerned with something as petty as age.”

“A man,” he corrects, turning away.

Right. A man. Wouldn’t want to be associated with us lowly humans. I stare at his back for a moment, at the way the ragged shirt lines up with white scars across his back, some pinker and newer than others.

What the hells is he? Elves have pointed ears like that, or at least, the stories say they do, but he is too large to be an elf, too broad. They’re supposed to be slender, willowy. Nothing about the Sword is slender or willowy. My eyes narrow as I watch him move. Elegant, precise, efficient—he moves with a grace and light-footedness that belies his size.

My lips twist to the side. He must have some kind of Fae blood—though the Fae are also supposed to be all but extinct. They did it to themselves, factions warring between themselves on behalf of the gods until the age of the Fae ended and became a tale humans told each other in warning.

Maybe he is a thousand years old.

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