Her eyes rounded when Serovek gently poked her ribs with the silabat's tip.
“True, but not before I skewered you like a roasted chicken with this handy stick of yours.”
Her chuff of laughter made him smile. He liked her laugh. From what he was learning about her, she was a solemn woman and her laughter rare. He'd once thought her humorless until she began trading quips and taunts with him. An endless cache of fascinating qualities lay behind those bright citrine eyes and dour expression, and he had every intention of discovering them.
Something in his face must have given away a hint of his thoughts. Anhuset's amusement faded, and the air around them pulsed with a different kind of tension. She pulled the waster away but didn't move from her spot atop him. A slender finger, tipped in a sharp black claw, speared a lock of his hair before twining it around her knuckle. “You're even uglier this close up.”
The blood coursing through his veins rushed toward his groin. He dropped the silabat to rest his hands on her hips. “And you're just as beautiful.”
Those firefly eyes narrowed. “I imagine that silver-tongued charm felled a battalion of women at the Beladine court.” She gave his hair a quick tug before unwinding it from her finger. “I still won't swive you, margrave.” She rolled off him and stood.
Serovek lay supine a moment longer, missing the feel of her weight and heat on him. “Ah, sha-Anhuset. You're a harsh woman,” he teased. “Breaking my heart as well as my back.”
“Don't tempt me, Lord Pangion. My threat to tear your arms off before this trip is over remains.” She held out a hand, which he took and gained his feet. The yellow shading in her gaze flickered, and Serovek had the sense her gaze passed over him. “You're nimble for such a big man,” she said, the faintest thread of admiration running through her voice. “Fast too.”
He brushed straw bits off his clothes and out of his hair before giving her a wry look. “So to sum up, I'm big, ugly, and annoying.”
Once more, the brief flash of pointed teeth in a smile that vanished as quickly as it appeared. “So sayeth you.”
Unlike her, he didn't hesitate in showing her his grin, widening it even more when her nose wrinkled at the sight of his own square ivories. She had made him laugh, made him lust, and most of all made him forget the nightmares that plagued his sleep.
He bowed to her. “You have my gratitude,” he said. “I'll be a walking bruise by daylight, but the sparring did what I couldn't do alone.”
She took the silabat he held out to her. “And what's that?”
“Quieted the sounds of Megiddo's screams in my head.” Just saying the words made him shudder inside, and he shoved down the echo of the monk's torture and the galla's laughter before it broke through the wall of silence he'd built with Anhuset's help.
She passed him to return the silabat and waster to their place among her baggage. “I've always believed there isn't anything a good brawl and a few bruises can't fix.”
“I'm sure a little Kai magic never hurt either.”
The sudden stiffness in her posture surprised him, and her expression turned wary. “I suppose,” she said in a noncommittal voice that was a telltale sign itself, as was her abrupt change in subject. “You should try and sleep before the dawn comes. Even an hour or two will help.”
This wasn't the first time she'd reacted in such a way to one of his casual remarks about the Kai's ability to control magic, and Serovek wondered at her reaction. That her people were born with such an inheritance was no secret. He'd warned his men countless times to be especially wary when dealing with Kai raiders crossing their borders. They were a physically tough people and hard to kill, and any magic they wielded, no matter how minor, made them even more so.
He tucked the observation away for later, when he could mull it over without the remnants of his recent nightmare clouding his thinking. Her suggestion to try and sleep before the following day's travel was a sound one. Still, the thought of returning to the stall where Megiddo rested didn't appeal to him, even now when the blue luminescence surrounding the bier had disappeared. “Maybe you should sleep instead. I'll keep watch until dawn.”
She scooped up his blankets and tossed them at him. “Remember, your night is my day. I'm wide-awake. If I need to sleep, I can do so while I ride. You're the leader of this expedition. You need your wits about you.” She lifted her chin to indicate the empty stall across from the one they currently occupied. “Sleep there if you need or go back to the inn. A soft bed awaits you if you want it, and distance from the monk.”
“I'm not Pluro Cermak,” he snapped, affronted by her allusion to a need for posher surroundings or a desire to avoid the monk. “Megiddo might be in a barn again, but I'll not leave him here alone.”
“He won't be alone, Lord Pangion.” Anhuset's more formal address didn't quite disguise the sympathy in her voice. “And I doubt anyone would compare you to his brother under any circumstance.”
He'd lashed out unfairly. The residual fury at discovering Megiddo's resting place in a ramshackle barn had ignited with Anhuset's suggestion. There'd been nothing beyond the remark other than practical advice. “Forgive me,” he said and offered her a second bow of the evening. “You didn't deserve my rancor.”
Anhuset's shoulders lifted in a shallow shrug. “It's of no matter. I suspect you and I will brawl with words as well as wasters and silabats on this trip. You didn't try to tear my arms off. There's nothing to forgive.”
Once more, she chased away his demons with her acerbic wit and made him laugh. Serovek left her with Megiddo and their gear to find
