26. Swordplay #2
I breathe a little easier without the wall of him overwhelming me.
And yet I hold still, knowing better than to run or fight right now.
He might toss me to Cyphus and decide I’m no longer worth the trouble.
If I have to pick between the two of them, Tage is the lesser evil.
At least he never woke me in the middle of the night to confess his fantasy of eating me.
No, he probably keeps that to himself.
“I will decide what to do with her,” Tage says in precise, exacting speech. Not exactly comforting. Clearly, he will do something to me. “Does that sound agreeable to you, Cy?”
The words themselves are innocent enough. Even polite. But there’s an undeniable edge to them . . . a threat. A promise of violence.
A long beat falls as Tage and Cyphus lock on each other in wordless challenge.
No one stirs a ripple in the pool of silence. Danhy and Viggo watch, waiting. We all wait.
At last, Cyphus gives a nod. “Fine,” he agrees tersely.
Danhy and Viggo turn to leave.
Cyphus lingers.
Tage hasn’t moved. Tension radiates from him as he holds Cyphus’s gaze.
Finally, Cyphus breaks and looks away, dipping his head, but when he lifts his face, his blue-black eyes find me. I suck in a breath, seeing in those depths what sent me running tonight in the first place.
Turning, he slinks away, and suddenly I feel like I can breathe again, freed from a binding tether.
Until I’m reminded that I am not alone.
There’s still a beast at my side cut from the same cloth as the one that just left.
Tage’s scathing voice sounds beside me. “You’re treading on dangerous ground. It’s getting harder and harder to justify keeping you around.”
“Then don’t!” I yank my arm free. “You could have avoided all of this if you let me go.” I gesture toward the tunnel. “You only had to let me slip away. Instead, you caused a commotion and alerted the others.”
“I caused it?” He closes his eyes in a long blink as though grasping for patience. When he reopens his eyes it’s to reveal them brighter, hotter, angrier—bits of coal kindled. “I thought we had an understanding. You were to remain here as a guest—”
I let out a mirthless laugh. “Oh, I remember. You said that. I never agreed to anything.”
His eyes narrow. “And what do you think will happen to you out there? You think you would just traipse out of these mountains unscathed?”
“I have to go. There’s never going to be trust between us. I don’t belong here. At best, you’ll keep me around as your servant . . .” My voice fades.
He cocks his head at an angle and queries, “And at worst?”
I stare at him mutely, unable to say it . . . as though uttering all the terrible things Cyphus said to me would plant the ugly ideas to sprout into his head. As if they aren’t already there, seedlings germinating.
He sighs and the sound is tired. “It seems we’ve come to an impasse. What am I to do with you? Am I to stand guard over you every moment of every day?”
My breath catches. “No,” I quickly rebut. Not only would that make escape exceedingly difficult, but I would have to endure his presence, his nearness with no reprieve.
My eyes light on the arsenal of weapons near the cave’s entrance. Earlier today Danhy and Cyphus had spent a good amount of time polishing and sharpening blades, the grind of steel on flint filling the air every time I passed them on the way to the kitchen.
Spurred to action, I stride forward and pluck a sword from the collection. The hilt instantly feels comfortable in my grip, and I’m grateful for all the hours I trained alongside the guard so that I can handle weaponry with a modicum of skill.
Strangely, I feel stronger holding this sword. It’s a nice fit. My sword and dagger of iron always felt heavy in my hand, but this blade of steel is different. Lighter. Easier to wield in some way.
I’m smiling by the time I spin around to face him, staring down the long gleam of steel.
He’s not smiling.
The twin lines on either side of his mouth deepen. “This again?”
“I lowered the sword from you the last time.” I remind him. The concession was mine. He didn’t best me.
“And this time you won’t?”
“That’s right. This time I’m not surrendering,” I grate out, inching toward the tunnel I tried to flee through before he caught me.
He moves casually, following. “Stop right there,” I snap, my sword gesturing toward his feet.
“Just let me go. Once I’m gone, you’ll stop arguing with your pride.
You can focus on the things that matter.
You won’t have to worry about having me around causing problems.” I beseech him with my eyes, earnest and imploring.
He pulls back slightly, clearly surprised. “You think I need help mollifying my pride?”
I shrug uncertainly.
“I’m their alpha. My word is law.” A ruddy hue flushes his face, and I know I’ve affronted him. “They know who their leader is. Don’t worry about them.”
How can I not worry about Cyphus?
“This is all foolishness. You don’t want to die, and that’s what will happen if you venture out there alone.”
“I won’t die. I know how to survive on my own.”
“Not out there.” He strolls around me, presenting me with the hard line of his profile.
Firelight dances over him, caressing the strong lines of his face, seeking the elusive hollows like a lover desperate to touch.
I rotate, following him with the tip of my sword.
My grip begins to sweat around the hilt, and I readjust my fingers.
“Alone out there . . . is a different kind of thing. A different kind of alone.”
He continues his deceptively lazy saunter around me, setting my teeth on edge.
“Let me tell you what it’s like out there when you’re alone and ill-equipped.
In that great vast endless sea of white where every landmark looks the same.
” One side of his mouth lifts in a bitter twist. “If you’re not hiding or fighting off one predator or another, then you can’t even think straight and make good decisions because you’re so fucking hungry.
Sometimes you start to see things, hear things.
” His eyes go a bit glassy, and I know he’s back there again, remembering. “You can’t even tell what’s real.”
My chest squeezes. “How old were you?” I whisper, telling myself not to care, to not let my curiosity get the best of me, to not fall for his allure.
He’s like a beautiful stallion, all fluidly dancing muscle beneath taut skin, and I can’t help watching him hungrily, listening with greedy ears as though his words have the power to cast their own spells.
Prismatic eyes flick to me. “Twelve.”
My stomach dips. Younger than I was when I fell prey to my curse. Younger than anyone should be left to survive on their own.
“I hadn’t come into my own yet . . . could scarcely summon my dragon.” As though asked, he explains, “We don’t begin to shift until we reach adulthood. I’d only just learned how to transform into my dragon before I was cast out.”
I try not to appear interested, keeping my sword trained on him, and yet anything to do with him or dragonkind vastly interests me, feeding my well for knowledge of this world.
“Who cast you out?”
“My pride . . . the skelm.”
Something sticky and sick curdles in the back of my throat. “You said you weren’t one of—”
“I’m not.” His words come at me like the flay of a whip. “I rejected that life once I understood it. They took me on my first hunt right after I turned, and I . . . I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t.” He looks away.
“Do what?”
“What they told me to. What they did. What they do.” He looked at me then.
“What they did to your village is customary. They believe it their duty. To destroy. To feed on humans. To kill. I wouldn’t .
. . I turned and flew home. When they returned, they cast me out.
” He huffs out a breath. “Twelve years old. My voice had scarcely even deepened. I wasn’t strong enough to maintain my dragon form.
I was just a scrawny lad wandering the Crags, sleeping in trees at night to avoid predators. ”
It’s not an image I want, but it pushes through the door anyway. Tage, a vulnerable boy with dark, tender eyes, crawls inside me and takes residence right beside the cursed, lonely girl who pleaded and begged her family to speak to her, to see her.
Tage lifts a hand. “Until I found this cave, quite by accident. I was running from a pack of wolves and discovered it. I built a home here, alone at first, then eventually finding the others. Arvos. Danhy. Viggo. Cyphus.” I resist curling my lip at this last mention.
“My survival was luck. An accident. Happenstance. Any number of times I could have died . . . but you think you can manage it? You think you can take on the Crags and survive? Should I just let you go out there to perish?”
“Or you could just return me to Penterra yourself,” I suggest.
He angles his head sharply in a way that is all animal, his nostrils flaring as though catching a scent. “I can’t do that.”
“You won’t.”
He ignores that, exhales long and slow, and then asks with a nod to my sword, “You really know how to use that?”
“You think I don’t?” An idea comes to me. “Let me show you. Go on. Pick a weapon.”
He looks amused, and it ignites a spark inside me. “Go on,” I press. “Let’s fight. If I draw first blood, then you let me go.”
“I’m not doing that.”
The look he gives me is insulting. “Afraid to lose to a human?” I goad.
“You’re being a child.”
“Come now. Let’s play.”
At my taunt, his amusement falters. Something passes over his violet-dark eyes. The air between us charges, becomes as dense as the mist coiling low around our ankles. His gaze swings slowly to the nearby arsenal as though considering my proposal.
My pulse flutters erratically at my throat as he approaches and selects a sword. He’s really going to do it. Everything inside me seizes, tightening with resolve.
“Very well.” He tosses the weapon in his hand like it’s no heavier than a spoon. “Show me what you can do.”
We circle one another, taking measure.