12. Reznyk
Chapter 12
Reznyk
SILVER BLOOD
“ S hit,” I mutter to the wind.
I lower the spyglass and rub my hand across my face. I’m sitting with my back to the wind, hidden by the trees, watching the meadow where I attacked the hunting party with my illusions.
A few raindrops filter through the pine needles to fall against the back of my neck. The clouds have been writhing all day, and the air is heavy with another incoming storm. If the party tracking me had any sense at all, they’d start setting up camp in the meadow now, before the rain really sets in.
I raise my spyglass once more, trace the ragged edge of the forest, and find the shivering figures standing in the meadow. There are five men dressed in dark traveling clothes, two of whom appear to be having an intense difference of opinions.
And there’s Kira.
Her cheeks are bright red. Her long hair is pulled back into a loose braid. She looks cold, exhausted, and somehow even more attractive than she did last night. Part of me wants to run down there with my teakettle and a dry blanket. I sigh, then lower the glass once again.
She is hunting me.
I knew it when I first saw her, this woman who looks so much like Lenore in the middle of the Dagger Mountains with men who must have been hired by the Towers. Hells, she told me herself last night.
Gods, I’m an idiot.
My plan to scare the Towers away from the Daggers failed. Clearly, the men in the meadow below weren’t afraid of the hunters’ stories about magical wolves who disappear when you shoot them.
Great. I glance toward the dark peaks looming above me. If I’m fast, I could slip over the ridge tonight and vanish in the forest on the far side of my valley. Another scattering of raindrops beats against my face and the low rumble of thunder drifts on the wind. If I’m fast, and possibly suicidal, I could attempt to cross the pass. In the dark. During a storm.
But they would keep hunting me. Kira told me they’re after something stolen. That’s not exactly an accurate description of the amulet, but what else could they mean? I stare at the spyglass in my hands, then back at the clouds hanging heavily above the meadow. If I cross the pass, they might follow me. They might discover the wolves, and what lives with the wolves.
I shiver under my cloak. Strange, feeling like I have something to protect. I could kill them, of course, but?—
The taste of wine on her lips. The gasp she made when I leaned forward and ran my fingers up the inside of her thigh.
Thunder rumbles again, closer this time. I lift the glass and run it across the meadow, stopping at Kira. She’s talking with the man next to her, who’s tall and far too handsome. She leans toward him. Something inside my chest twists painfully. Magic trembles under my skin. I set the spyglass down, cup my hands together, and push magic through the wind and rain. It solidifies against my palms, becoming something cold and smooth and sharp.
I stare at the blade of magical fury I created. We were all good at something, the four Elites of the Towers. Aveus created illusions, Syrus could heal, Pytr controlled flame.
And I killed. I made weapons that sliced the air, weapons that shattered the straw-stuffed targets in the courtyard. I made weapons that would melt inside their victim’s body, clogging their blood vessels.
My vision blurs. The weapon vanishes, nothing more than rain and mist. But when I look down at my hands, I can still see it, coated in blood that will never wash away. Silver blood.
“Godsdamn it,” I snap.
I push myself to my feet as a rain-soaked gust of wind slaps me in the face. I can’t run. I can’t kill them.
There’s no Exemplar in their little party, which means no one in that meadow knows what the amulet looks like. They won’t know what it actually is, or what it was meant to do.
Hope flickers inside my chest, a tiny whisper of a spark in the gathering storm. If I can convince them I don’t have it, that I’m not a threat to the Towers, will that be enough? Will they leave the Daggers?
I shake my head. It seems like a fool’s hope, that I could reason with anyone sent by the Towers. It’s far more likely this whole thing will end in blood. And I don’t want to see Kira again?—
No, that’s not true. Of course I want to see her again, preferably naked in an enormous bed with another bottle or two of wine to split. But I want to be the stranger in the lodge who rescued her from those mighty hunters when I see her again.
I don’t want to see her as what I truly am. The Godkiller.
Magic hisses under my skin. I close my eyes and try not to think about Kira sitting on her bed in those tiny little shorts, her lips dark and her eyes hastily lined with kohl. As if she needed to make herself look any better.
I open my eyes and stare at the meadow. The sun has already dipped below the lip of the mountains; shadows fill the hollow below like wine fills a cup. It was only a dream, the night I shared with her. I’m never going to have a chance to play that role again.
I mutter curses under my breath as I run my gaze over the meadow, wondering where they’re going to set up camp. There are no good options, really, but they’d have to be idiots to set up near the river. It’s already swollen with rain, and I’d bet all my shills it’s going to spill its banks tonight.
But they’re not by the river. They’re not by the far edge of the forest either, and they’re no longer standing in a shivering huddle and arguing.
Something that’s almost fear traces a path up the back of my neck as I bring the spyglass up. There, on the edge of the meadow, I catch a fluttering glimpse of the last of the men vanishing into the woods below me.
They’re climbing. In the dark and the rain.
Toward me.