Page 78 of A Chill in the Flame
“You’re disgusting.” Her eyes widened. “She and I haveshared a bed! We’ve—”
He leveled an unamused stare and leaned against the same tree that tethered Knight. “While I’d like you to keep in mind that, yes, I do have the power to have been there watching your every intimate touch, I prefer for the partners to perform consensually if they’re putting on a show for me.”
Her nose twitched. “You are repulsive.”
Tyr lifted a shoulder. “You say that now, but you look like the kind of person who’d enjoy an audience. Most narcissists do.”
“Is this why your woman left you?”
He cast his gaze to the trees once more. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Dwyn’s words took on razor-sharp accusation. “No. No, noble Tyr. This isn’t lovelorn, this is love lost. She was killed, right? Is that it? Is that why you’ve crossed the Straits—you’re on a righteous mission to avenge your…what? Betrothed? Your wife? Your lover?”
His face wrinkled in a flash of disgust. “The words of a witch who’s never known love.”
“Fuck off and make yourself useful.” She gestured to the grass, the trees, the pressed road beyond. Dwyn abandoned her torment and returned to the task at hand. “If her snake is here, how far off is she?”
He glared. “Makemyselfuseful? I just killed a hell-snake the size of an ox. Why don’tyoumake yourself useful? You have the ability to find her, don’t you? Unless calling on fire wasted what you took from the farmers.”
She looked at her hand, flexing and unflexing her fist. “It wasn’t just the fire. You also made me heal you.”
He raised a single brow. “I made you fix what you’d broken. I’m sorry if you don’t enjoy the consequences of your actions.”
Dark hair danced around her shoulders as she shook her head. “I’ll need new blood, but I have an idea.”
Tyr’s mouth turned down. “I’m guessing if you’re going to try to replicate what Ophir did for finding things, you’llwant a manufacturer. There should be one in the next town. You can find them everywhere in Sulgrave.”
“First: no, I don’t want to copy Firi’s compass-watch. Second: this isn’t Sulgrave. The continent is backwater once you get south of the Straits. Which I should be grateful for, I suppose. If they had evolved beyond monarchs, we wouldn’t be chasing a princess across the world, would we? But no, I don’t need a manufacturer.”
“You need a tracker’s abilities, don’t you?”
“I used that farmer husband’s life to char the palm of your hand, but the wife will do just fine when it comes to tracking power. I can still feel her blood humming within me,”
It was a struggle not to sneer whenever she spoke. “You’re disgusting.”
She’d been ignoring him completely, eyes trained on the snake’s body when she said, “Did it just move?”
“It’s probably an involuntary reflex. Some cadavers spasm.”
“It’s not dead!” Dwyn leapt backward, half of her body careening into the trunk of a tree as she stumbled out of the way. The snake’s tongue flicked out of its mouth. She held her hands out in front of her as she continued to back away, but there was no water on which she could call. Its body twitched, then began to worm toward its severed head.
“What the fuck?” Tyr balked, shaking his head at the snake. He swung his sword on instinct, chopping the wriggling torso. Three disconnected parts paused for only a moment as corpses should before they began to move.
“This isn’t possible.” He gaped at the horror, then lofted his sword overhead once more.
“Wait.”
“Wait for what?!”
“I want to see…” Dwyn took several cautious steps toward the man to stop his butchering. “Let’s see what it does.”
“What could it possibly do?” His words came out in sputtered repulsion. Knight whinnied uncomfortably beside him, pulling on its tether to try to put as much distancebetween itself and the snake as possible.
“Shh, boy.” Tyr tried to calm the horse, but its fright was clear as it yanked its head against its constraint.
Dwyn’s tone changed, words hitching with excitement. “It’s not dead! This is goddess-damned incredible. Look at its blood, Tyr. The thing doesn’t bleed red. Look!”
The pieces of the snake twisted and moved as if searching for their missing pieces. A second wave of sulfur and meat hit them as the wind stilled. Grass and leaves crunched beneath its enormous body as one severed part found the other. The bisected sections of its smooth, black body rolled into one another. Smoky tendrils began to reach from one side of the body to the disconnected piece like a sweater unraveling in reverse. Tyr swore as Dwyn gasped. The snake was knitting itself together.
