Page 51 of Of Sword & Silver

I’m fit to burst. We haven’t made time to cook since that first night after I rescued the Sword from Cottleside, and we made do with the hard bread I’ve carried in my pack for weeks, vegetables that had seen better days, and the remains of my peppery smoked jerky.

“Lara, I love you,” I tell her, rubbing a hand over my swollen stomach. “This was so good.” The urge to cough hits me and I cover my mouth, trying to swallow around it.

I take a long drink of wine, letting the alcohol burn my throat and relax my chest.

I don’t fool Lara or the Sword, who both watch me with matching concern.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I tell them once I put my goblet down. “We’re doing everything we can.”

“Did you want me to pretend like I don’t know why you’re here, or can we cut to the chase?” Lara asks, uncharacteristically bunt.

“We can cut to the chase,” I say with a sigh.

The Sword is silent as the grave.

I close one eye. Well, that expression has a different meaning since our little necromantic experiment in the barrow in the Hiirek Mountains.

“Are you drunk?” Lara asks me. “You’ve barely drank any wine.”

“No, just thinking about how chatty the Sword’s friends are,” I bat my eyelashes at him and he sighs heavily, rolling his eyes in disgust.

Ah yes, back to normal, then. All’s right with the world.

“Cutting to the chase,” Lara says, lacing her fingers into each other. “You need the Crown of… her crown.”

I blow out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, relieved Lara didn’t say the goddess’s name.

“The King of Diamonds has it.”

Understanding rushes across Lara’s plump face. “I didn’t see that. I saw a ball, dancing, you and a few others, and the crown being placed on your?—”

The Sword shifts next to her, and Lara falls silent.

“On my head?” I finish for her, leaning forward on my elbows. “Why? I drank from the cursed chalice and now I have to wear that bitch’s crown?”

Lara sucks a breath through her teeth at my curse. “Careful.”

“She’s not fucking listening,” I say, pouring myself more wine. “If she is, she’s enjoying my torment.”

“I doubt that,” the Sword says. His lips are turned up in grim amusement.

“That’s because you think I lie about everything,” I tip my glass at him, and a bit of wine sloshes out. Okay, maybe I am a little less sober than I assumed. “I promise you this. If the goddess that stole my life away is watching us, then she is enjoying every minute of me trying to escape my fate.”

“Your life has only ever belonged to one,” the Sword says, face more animated than I’ve seen, his teeth clenched. “It does not belong to her. Never has. Never.”

I stare at him. Does he mean my life’s been my own? After they slaughtered my mother, my whole family? After they stole it from me, made me swear oaths I didn’t believe in?

“I never expected you to be outright cruel,” I whisper. It hurts, too, the cruelty of his words, when he’s seen the damned scars, seen the truth of my feelings, my life.

He blinks at me.

“That was beneath you.” The words are jagged in my throat. My life has never been my own.

“I did not—” he starts.

Lara clears her throat, and he closes his mouth.

“You know the visions aren’t always exact, Kyrie.” She purses her lips, then refills her own goblet. “It doesn’t matter. Do you worry about being so close to Alaric? What if he?—”

---