17. Zeke
Seventeen
Zeke
I’d never wanted to shoot anyone, especially not some mysterious other-half from a prophecy. What did I want with power? It was a dangerous thing.
And Azzie… I didn’t understand the potency of our connection. It was a tug that insisted if she was gone, I wouldn’t be complete.
I wasn’t interested in letting her kill me either, though.
There was more slack in her arm than before. I’d relaxed my grip as well, pointing the barrel away from her head. She let her throwing knife drop, so the ring on the end hung from her finger.
“I’m going to put this down,” she said.
With a terse nod, I did the same with my nine, and we climbed from opposite sides of the bed, putting more distance between us. It took more coordination than I thought I had to dress, watch her, and always make sure I could lurch for my weapon if needed.
The silence, punctuated only by the rustling of clothes, was deafening. My shirt was out of reach and so was hers, so we hit a new stalemate as she pulled her bra on.
“I can’t work on your blade if we don’t trust each other,” I said. It was more than not being able to keep my eyes off her; the magic wouldn’t work if I tried to enchant an item for someone I didn’t trust. “And this is at least two or three days’ work.”
Azzie clenched her jaw. “I know.”
“What do we do?”
“You have the upper hand. I need my knife repaired and you don’t have to do it. Why haven’t you kicked me out?”
Because she was sexy. Fun. Smart. The sex was great.
None of that was enough, even added up, to risk my life over.
“Because I’m not interested in letting a few ancient assholes dictate my life,” I said.
Azzie jammed her hands in her pockets and jerked her head at her holster. “I’ll leave my good knives in here while you work…”
If I did the same. That was reasonable. I didn’t carry while I worked anyway. I took a step closer to the door, then outside my room, and forced myself to take my eyes off her while I grabbed her shirt from the floor, and then mine. “Truce?” I handed over her clothing.
She pulled the top over her head. “Truce.” She moved toward the end table closest to her. “Just grabbing the broken knife.”
Why did I trust her? It was difficult to say, but I did.
She extracted a blade, flipped it deftly and caught it, handle toward me, then handed it over.
It was a tedious dance, the polar opposite of the one that got us here, but it drove the point home. If neither of us was going to act, both of us were safe. I locked the bedroom door behind us as we walked out, sealing our weapons away. Only my thumb print would let anyone into the room—a measure in place for the clients I didn’t trust, and didn’t have to because they didn’t bring me elven enchantments.
I nodded to a stool opposite my workspace at my table, and she took a seat. With some probing of her knife, I got a sense of the best way to pull the weapon from its handle, and got to work separating the two.
“Two to three days?” Azzie said.
I nodded. “Are you staying in town?” Not that I expected her to tell me where.
Here .
The voice in my head was loud, and I wasn’t sure it was mine.
Who else’s would it be?
Right.
“That’s probably best.” Azzie’s tone was uncertain. “I came here right after I arrived, so I haven’t made arrangements yet.”
Unwrapping the handle was easy. Prying the grip off required more caution. Though the tip of the blade was broken, a faint hum ran through the wood and bone secured to the tang. There were runes on the metal that I could recreate, but the elven blood in the bone meant I couldn’t damage the grip. It was the irreplaceable bit.
“You could stay here.” What was I saying?
The look of shock Azzie wore made me think she was wondering the same thing. “What?”
“I have a separate space for clients.” As if that made my offer any better.
She furrowed her brow deeper. “I saw what you have. The house and the forge. No basement. No extra property.”
She’d taken that in amid a fight with an undead minion, and everything that came after?
“It’s a spare room. Sheets are clean.”
Her snort slipped out. “For now,” she muttered.
I couldn’t help my smirk. “Is that a yes ?”
“I think it makes sense for us to keep an eye on each other. So yes.”
The relief that spilled through me at her agreement caught me off guard. She was staying. How was that a comforting thought?
I set about cleaning the hand grips. There was a fine line between removing the grime and removing anything else, which meant keeping most of my focus on my work. But I still wanted to talk to Azzie. “How long have you known?” About the prophecies. About magic and gods…
As she watched me, she swung her feet back and forth. Occasionally she’d catch a boot heel on a rung of the stool, then the lazy kick would resume.
The entire setup was deceptively normal.
“As long as I can remember. All of it. You?” she said.
I couldn’t fathom being raised with knowledge of a magical world. Then again, when Finn told me, so many pieces clicked into place and it felt right, as if part of me had always known. “Mom taught me I had a destiny, but not this kind. I didn’t learn about gods and prophecies and magic until after…” she passed. Years later and I still couldn’t say it out loud.
“Me too.” Azzie’s reply didn’t make sense. “Mom, I mean. She…” Azzie sighed. “When I was about twenty.”
Our lives ran in parallel there too. Seemed as though fate was a manipulative fucker. “How did you cope?”
“Poorly. Sex. You?”
“Same. But booze.” My hand slipped, and I scowled at the bone grips. No damage. Good. I didn’t want to follow this line of conversation.
She gave a hard shake of her head. “The guy in the bar who wanted a blowjob. Did he tell you about the magic shit?”
Better. I could do this. My focus on my work slithered back in. “That was him. How did you know where to find me today?” My clients tended to be tight-lipped about who and where I was.
“The friend who gave me the blades told me if I ever needed work done, I’d find my way to someone who could help me.”
The words sounded off and I looked up long enough to study Azzie. She was telling the truth, but something was missing from her story. “So you just closed your eyes and here you were?”
“I have an associate who’s good at learning things and putting pieces together. Including snippets of rumors about where blacksmiths who work on magical blades can be found. She got me your location, but couldn’t find a name for me.”
That checked out. Names were as valuable as currency for some people, which meant most didn’t use them freely. “And that just happened to bring you to me ? The person you’re destined to kill.”
“No such thing as coincidences, right?” Her fingers twitched on the table, as if she was fighting making a fist. “Technically it doesn’t say which one of us will do the killing.”
I might as well get this part out of the way. “Yeah, but here’s the thing. Whatever kind of power they’re promising, I don’t want the job.”
“What?” The shock in her retort surprised me and so did her stunned look. “The things that gods can do? The people they could help? How do you not want that?”
Easy. “I was raised around people who wanted and worshiped power. Being average was a moral failing and there was always a drive to be more. To be better. Not better than tomorrow than they were the day before, but to be better than the people around them.”
“That’s not what this is about.” Azzie sounded offended.
I shrugged. “Maybe not for you, and in that case good for you.”
“Gods can make a difference.” She slammed the heel of her boot against her stool, causing a thump. “They don’t. They hold themselves above everyone else, as if they weren’t fucking born into their place in the world. Like they did something special to deserve worship, and they do nothing. Most of them are thousands of years old, and they’re still fucking children. They could make a difference, and they don’t. I won’t be that.”
The passion in her reply was tinged with hatred and determination. When I looked at her, for a moment I swore a soft halo shone around her.
It was the sunlight streaming through the barn doors.
She sounded sincere, though.
“If anyone can do it, it’s you.” I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I did. “I make a difference in other ways, so if you want the job it’s yours. You don’t have to fight me for it.”
I shouldn’t trust this woman I’d only known for a few hours, who believed she was fated to kill me, but I did. She was supposed to be the literal death of me, yet I couldn’t find a reason to feel threatened.
Maybe it was stupid of me to listen to that instinct, but if I couldn’t trust my own thoughts I’d go insane. I looked up at Azzie. “I need to focus on recreating this pattern. Watch my back?”
She nodded. “Always.”
Why did that single word sound like more of a promise than any I’d been given in my life?
I grabbed a pencil and my sketch pad, and fell into the work of drawing out the runes that were on her blade. Getting a feel for the shape and intent, and the magic that radiated from them. I lost track of time and the world when the focus consumed me.
When I looked up, the sunlight bleeding into the room had shifted and the air was cooler. Azzie had her head tilted to the side, and she was studying my work.
Not that there was much to see. On the page, it looked like a series of basic, blocky lines. There was a nuance in the intent, though. The power came from the tiniest details.
She tensed. “Don’t move.” She was on her feet in an instant, hand falling to her hip.
The soft sound of a latch clicking came from behind me. Of the forge door being pushed open. Finn . He was back a few days earlier than expected.
A sword appeared at Azzie’s side, and she gripped the hilt.
Fucking—
“Don’t. He’s a friend.” I pointed at her, a threat in my voice I couldn’t possibly follow through with. We’d deal with the fact that she was still armed after I made sure the two of them didn’t fight.
I turned so I could still see her out of the corner of my eye, and watched Finn stride across the room, his attention fully on me.
“Welcome ba—” My greeting was cut short when he cupped my face between his hands and crushed his mouth to mine.
The kiss stole my breath and caught me off-guard. Not because it was a new sensation, and it was always an incredible one, but we didn’t have a welcome home smooches kind of relationship.
When he broke away, I let out a grunt.
“Who’s the fighter?” Finn asked at the same time Azzie said, “You lied to me.”
I lied? Excuse me?