Page 74 of The Shattered Rite
His gaze took her in with a quick, exact sweep: cut along the cheekbone, grit stuck in the lashes of her right eye, blood slicking her knuckles, the left wrist overworking. “You’re hurt,” he said. Observation, not pity. “Blink before it crusts. You’ll lose depth.”
She didn’t move.
He slid a square of dark cloth from his sleeve and held it out—fingers open, palm visible, no advance. “For the eye.”
She stared a beat, then took it without lowering the blade. The cloth was clean. Warm from his wrist. She wiped once; the world sharpened by a degree.
“Better,” he said. “Now breathe. Three counts in, four out. Your left wrist is lying to you—shift your grip or you’ll drop the point when you cut.”
Her jaw clenched. She adjusted anyway. The tremor eased.
“Why are you helping me?” she asked, watching him over steel.
“It costs me nothing,” he said, soft. “And you’re more useful alive.”
“Useful to whom?”
“To whatever comes next.”
That should have chilled her. It didn’t. Not quite. He was studying her, yes—but not like prey. More like a craftsman evaluating a tool he intended to keep sharp.
“Step back,” she said.
He did. No argument. Choice, not surrender.
The corridor breathed around them, the sour tang of the last creature still in the air. Far down the passage, a fainttinklike cooled glass under stress. His head turned toward it. “When you hear that,” he murmured, “the walls are thinning. Don’t hug the stone—stay center, watch for mortar spidering.”
“You know these things well,” she said.
“I’ve walked this space before.” A glance to her hands. “And you’re beginning to tire.”
“You’re an illusion,” she said flatly.
“Am I?”
“That or you’re somehow a part of the trials. Or you’ve been following me again.”
“I’m not here just for you,” he said, voice low and infuriatingly calm. “I have work to do.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Work.”
“And you, it seems, are very good at finding trouble.”
Her pulse kicked up. “So you are part of this?”
He smiled, a flicker of amusement warming his eyes.
“Not exactly,” he murmured. “Not officially. But you assumed that I was an illusion at first? That’s telling.”
“Telling how?”
“For you to have seen me here before means you must have been thinking about me,” he said softly.
Her grip on the sword tightened. “I’m a little busy trying not to die to be thinking about you.”
Gods above, why did her heartbeat betray her so loudly it was hard to think?
“You look like you know how to multitask.”
