The world would be a mess. The OriginSeed is pure myth. Bloody waste of paper and ink, the lot of it.
I flip sharply back to the index. Working myself into a temper about a stupid legend is not going to help.
Right, Kitten has a seed of some kind, a tainted-by-mortal-blood and blocked-or-severed-by-magic seed, but a seed nonetheless. Something that works with glass, but is not glass.
SandSeed would make sense if such a thing existed.
SaltSeed – now that holds promise. I rush through the pages, finding it near the end of the book.
SaltSeed. To see the world down to something so small and value each grain as a handle on a door. Then hold that small-precious piece of life, and choose if the door shall be opened, or locked with a knife.
Bloody Silvari scribble.
There’s a red line through the title – extinct. So there isn’t any hope that I can find one and ask them how their power works. The line drawing is of something shattering, but not glass. It looks more like a salt crystal – or grains of sand.
I scan through the list of Seed’s once more. Flipping through page after page in quick Allure-sped succession. No Haryk-Larsan. None. Whatever a Haryk-Larsan is, it has nothing to do with Seeds of Power.
More questions, less answers, and now I need to sleep.
Eight Paces
I sense Killian stirring an eternity later. My eyes, glazed over but still opened, flicker to life. At first checking if the small shadow is still in his boot. Which it isn’t, because it wasn’t real.
Killian rolls onto his back, runs a hand down his face, then holds it up and looks intently at it like something is wrong.
Like he was expecting to see blood, and not seeing blood leaves his brow drawn in confusion. He glances at the window and the early morning light, then launches to his feet, eyes searching for half a beat before they stab in my direction. The emotion in them just as sharp as any dagger.
“Shadow,” he growls, the sound low and angry in the early light.
I blink, and when I open my eyes again, he’s kneeling in front of me.
“What did you do?” he rumbles.
“You were sleeping,” I manage.
He pulls my right arm from its cradle against my chest, ripping the splint off. My fingers are a light purple-blue color, and everything from fingertips to elbow is bruised in sharp contrast to my normally-tanned complexion. He grips my wrist, poised to pull down on the inside of my elbow, then stops.
With a grunt, which I have no translation for, he grabs me by the waist and hauls me up in his arms. Almost over his shoulder, but not quite. I try to wrap my arms around his neck, but I’m pretty confused about what’s going on right now.
Confused. Tired as bralls. Slightly dizzy and definitely in pain.
Then, in a burst of Saber speed, we’re out the door, down the stairs, across the stream and all of the way to the other side of the dead crops. He leans forward, almost laying me on the ground, but then he lets me drop the last foot or so. I land with a thump and squelch.
“Why?” I groan, failing to catch myself in any way.
He crouches in front of me and resumes gripping my wrist and my elbow before answering. “Because you’re going to scream, my love.”
My love? The words roll around in my mind, warm and oddly inviting, considering they were just spoken by Darkness himself.
Then they’re swallowed up by the fact that he’s wrong. Screaming involves a lot of energy. As he pulls and adjusts, realigning the bones, the sound that escapes me is more like that of a dying cow. My back arches, but I don’t fight him. When he lets go, I slump into the wet grass and muddy ground, panting.
“Thank you,” I manage, the pain ebbing from stabbing to throbbing.
He stands to his full height, casting me into his shadow, and pulls something from his pocket. I catch a glimpse of movement before a silver blade drops into the dirt beside my head. Very, very close to my head.
My eyes might be about to pop out of their sockets right now. It’s my blade. The one I’d dropped by the stream the day we first arrived.
It’s followed by a dart. My dart, the one I’d left on the windowsill in the attic.
He’s wearing a loose shirt and plain linen pants. None of his usual belts and holsters – which makes sense, because he was trying to sleep on a couch.
“Where the chuck were you hiding them? Down your pants?” my mouth demands.
“It doesn’t matter where I had them. They should have been securely on you,” he growls as he leans down. One hand grabs the front of my shirt and yanks me up, the other behind my neck. Fingers splayed, but gentle – stopping me from looking away from him.
Mud rains down from my back, and I can feel its slickness between his hand and my skin. For half a second my feet aren’t even touching the ground – then he stubbornly relaxes his arms just enough to let my toes sink into the sodden earth.
I lift my good arm, because the pain in my other arm is forcing me to press the thing into my chest, and press the tips of my fingers to the bottom edge of his scar. I know it’s probably the most dangerous thing my body can think of, and I know it’s stupid – but I have no choice.
My fingers are trembling, but my voice holds steady as I ask, “Why was it bleeding?”
He lets go of my shirt and snatches my fingers away, closing my hand into his fist hard enough to force a whimper from my lips.
I should have known. The guy looks seriously pissed off. I-should-be-running-away kind of pissed off. The muscle in his jaw is ticking, and the hard set of his eyes
