Page 59 of Of Sword & Silver

Disgust roils my stomach. I shouldn’t have said anything, much less blasted him with a dose of my horrible power just because I was feeling cranky.

I might be an asshole, but that’s too far, even for me.

“What’s done is done,” the Sword says in an infuriatingly calm voice. “No reason to continue fighting amongst ourselves.”

The path widens slightly and I urge my horse forward, walking alongside Morrow’s huge beast of a mount, guilt scraping me hollow inside.

“Morrow,” I say his name nastily. Well, you can take the liar out of Sola’s sisterhood, but you can’t make her play nice, or something. “You can say whatever you want. You don’t have to listen to my directive…” I trail off, but Lara gives me a warning look. “You can say whatever you want,” I finish awkwardly, the words infused with my magic.

Morrow gives me a thorough sidelong look, and I ignore the tree branches clawing at me.

“Kyrie,” Lara prompts.

“I’m sorry I used my power on you,” I grit out.

“I’m sorry I assumed your experience was anything other than what it was,” Morrow says agreeably.

My nose wrinkles in annoyance.

Leave it to Lojad’s follower, our shield, to be patient with me to the point of boring. I expected an outburst. I expected outrage. I didn’t expect… an apology.

I glance sidelong at him. At least he’s kind, I suppose.

“Do you smell that?” the Sword asks suddenly.

My mouth opens automatically to make a childish joke, until I catch wind of it, too.

“Smoke,” Morrow says, his voice thick with concern.

Tension descends on our group, and we urge our horses into a faster pace. Their hooves drum the half-frozen ground and we all go silent, the knot in my chest growing tighter.

A pervasive sense of wrongness saturates the world all around, as though the landscape’s suddenly shifted left.

I want to ask if anyone else feels it, but one look tells me all I need to know.

Their expressions are set, Lara’s pinched in worry, Morrow’s gaze far away and concentrated. The Sword looks as grim as ever.

It sets my teeth on edge.

The screams begin soon after. A bell tolls somewhere not too far ahead.

“A village is under attack,” Morrow calls out, unnecessarily. Obviously there’s a village under duress, or they wouldn’t be ringing their bell. We wouldn’t smell smoke, and we wouldn’t hear screams.

The question is, what the hell is attacking it?

Lara looks back at us expectantly.

“Do you feel the gods’ hands in this?” she asks.

A chill goes through me, and I grimace.

“No,” I snarl. “And if the gods are the ones responsible for attacking that village, then they should go fuck themselves.” My pulse pounds in my head, my anger peaking at these so-called gods of ours who see us as playthings and puppets.

A laugh booms out from behind me, and it takes me a second to realize it’s the Sword.

“Kyrie has a point there,” he says mildly. “For one raised to lie, she doesn’t mince her words, does she?”

The ground vibrates. The screaming gets louder, and birds take flight en masse from the fir trees all around.

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