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thought. With her plastered up against him as close as anyone had ever been,
her panicked breath warming his shoulder and melting his resolve, he wondered
if in his inexperience he had simply underestimated the power of crude desire.
Shay had stolen a kiss from her in the guise of comfort. Dare he succumb to
temptation and try the same? Dare he turn and draw her close and set his lips
to her cheek? Soft skin there, to be sure, and not so far from her mouth.
Would such a touch be enough to ignite the lasciviousness of her nature as the
monks had warned ?
Somehow he thought not. More than likely, she would gut him and be done with
it. Aye, she was not one to be trifled with. She'd proven that the first night
at the well, going for her knife against the blade-master himself. He should
have taken greater heed.
The hum came again, farther away, and he wondered if they would not both be
better served if he set his hand to getting them out of the cavern alive,
rather than trying to immolate them with lasciviousness.
"C-come," she suddenly said, slipping around him on the stairs and pulling him
along by the hand. She was still shivering like a leaf in the wind. Not much
fire there to burn a man, he granted.
In three steps, she led him off the stairs into a tunnel that twisted into the
earth. He followed more out of a dubious impulse to stay near her rather than
the common sense that told him she'd already gotten herself lost once and
needed his help.
The tunnel grew progressively narrower and lower, curling in on itself, until
they came to the end of it with him crouching for lack of headroom.
" 'T-tis safe to light the b-blades here," she told him, and he believed her.
They were out of Crai Force.
Holding both crystal hilts in his hands, he squeezed and ignited a lambent
glow. The heat was slow to build, but 'twas there, coming to life between his
palms.
A shuddering sigh escaped her, and she reached out with her hands, opening
them to the light, warming, herself as if 'twas a fire he held.
" 'Twas n-near frozen I was," she stammered.
With good reason as far as he could tell, looking her over. Her hair was
sopping wet, her clothes sodden. Water dripped off the hem of her silvery
green tunic, pooling on the floor. The warm puffs of her breath made small
vaporous clouds in the cold air.
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"Are you hurt?" he asked. She didn't look to have a mark on her unlike
himself but that didn't mean she'd escaped her ordeal unscathed. Nor could she
be any too happy that 'twas he who had found her.
He doubted if she would have fought Shay so fiercely.
"Nay." She shook her head, and water fell from her leaves and twigs like a
fine rain. "I be of a piece."
Once her fingers were warmed, she leaned back against the tunnel wall and
began searching through the pouches hanging from her belt and a green baldric
bandoleered across her chest. She rummaged for a while before pulling out a
soppy pinch of lavender and offering it up.
"It will ease you, if you like."
When he shook his head, she stuck the petals in her mouth.
"We're safe here for the moment, long enough to get warm," she said, her head
bent once more over her pouches. She must have had a dozen of them, but had
lost her pack.
"Safe from what?" he asked.
"The Sha-shakrieg."
"Sha-shakrieg?"
Her gaze flicked up to meet his, and her eyes shone aqua in the dreamstone
light. She held a piece of seedcake in her hand, and it, too, was the worse
for having been dunked in the river. "Spider people."
She put the seedcake in her mouth.
Spider people.Sweet Jesu. Mychael squeezed the blades tighter and cast a wary
glance toward the tunnel opening. God's ballocks. She'd trapped them. 'Twas
what he got for following his damned impulses. "What are spider people?"
"A wasteland tribe from Deseillign," she said around the mouthful. "They were
allies of the Dockalfar in the Wars of " She stopped suddenly, and he turned
to find her staring at the side of his face where she'd cut him, where the
blood still trickled down his cheek. Her own face paled at the sight.
He started to wipe the blood away with his shoulder, but she stopped him.
"Wait," she said. "Wait. I have rasca." She reached for her pouches again, and
he noticed her fingers trembling.
"Are you sure you're not hurt?" he asked, hoping she hadn't just realized
'twas him tucked away with her in this far corner of the cavern. Mayhaps the
light was only strong enough now for her to see. 'Twould be enough to startle
anyone who felt a need for warding signs in his presence, to find him looming
over her with a pair of daggers at the ready.
"Aye," she said, though the wavering of her voice belied the word. " 'Tis just
a bit of the scare left in me.
I'm not usually so skittish, but the spider people eat elf children, and it
being a while since they might have seen one, I was afraid they would make a
mistake and acci-dentally chew off my arm, or take a bite out of me middle
before they realized I was full grown." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]