Page 14 of Steel Heart Iron Claws

Is…is Iyre doing this?

But then, from the corner of my eye, I spot one of the indigo-cloaked women moving among the bodies, her lips working silently as she holds her hands in front of her, lowering one finger at a time as though counting down.

She’s petite, though her broad-shouldered armor and cloak give her the look of someone much larger. Her skin is the soft brown color typical of northern Kravada, her silky black hair twisted into a loose braid. Above her cloak’s brooch, I can make out a godkissed birthmark.

“Lady Iyre,” she says to the goddess in Astagnonian, with a heavy accent. “I cannot stop time for more than ten seconds.”

Already, half her fingers are lowered—which means I have five more seconds of being immobile.

Iyre is the only other person impervious to the godkissed soldier’s frozen time. She approaches me languidly, smoothing back a strand of hair off my face.

Four more seconds, I count.

“Ten seconds is sufficient, Captain Tatarin,”Iyre replies calmly.

Three seconds.

Iyre picks up a heavy iron chain from a pile near the campfire that a blacksmith was mending. She hefts it in her hands, then approaches me with that ice-cold smile.

Two seconds.

“If you’re going to act like an animal, princess, then we’ll treat you like one.”

She wrenches my hands to my front, and I’m powerless to stop her. She binds them tightly together so that I can’t move my fingers to puppet the cloudfox.

One.

When time finally restarts, I’m a girl in chains.

Chapter 5

Basten

Eyes like the ocean shallows.

One perfect freckle on her right cheek.

Thosebreasts.

I’m moaning aloud like a thirteen-year-old boy when I wake, all tangled in Rian’s sheets, a sheen of sweat coating my skin. She’s there. Right at the edge of my mind. In the dream that’s slipping away…

“You filthy fucker.” A pillow smashes into my face. “That’s the last time I give youmybed.”

Groggy, I blink awake to find Rian folding his blanket from where he slept next to the fireplace.

I run a hand through my damp hair. “What—what are you on about?”

“If anyone’s going to stain my sheets with nighttime spunk, it’ll be me. With the town’s latest whore. Now clean yourself up and finish packing. The carriages will be ready to leave at dawn. Unless you’ve changed your mind about coming to Old Coros? Decided to stay here and make love to my mattress?”

I throw the pillow back at him. “Fuck you. I’ll be packed.”

It doesn’t take me long to gather my things. I nod to the guards as I leave the castle and head for the city gates.

As I make my way to the game warden’s cottage I call home, I’m struck by how deserted Duren is. Most of the shop windows are boarded up in fear of looters. The markets are empty. The only increase in traffic comes from more drunks and opium hounds than usual, staggering down alleyways or passed out in doorways. I guess everyone deals with the news of the Third Return in their own way.

In another life, I’d probably be with those bums. Drooling into the filth. If Rian hadn’t seen potential in me all those years ago.

When I finally shove open the door of the game warden’s cottage, I take a moment to look at my home—my life—with a stranger’s eyes.

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