“I thought I was mentally strong enough to resist the spirit.” Sicarius rolled his head back to stare at the heavens before lowering it again to add, “Hubris.”
Amaranthe bit her lip. She shouldn’t feel tickled by his admission, especially when he was standing there, bleeding on the dock, but Sicarius so rarely gave away his feelings that she had to admit pleasure at hearing him so clearly disgusted with himself. “Hubris is a common flaw amongst imperial men.” She had more than her share of it herself.
“Yes.”
“A very human flaw as well.”
“You sound pleased.” A hint of puzzlement infused his tone.
“It’s just that between your athletic prowess and your dedication to your training… Well, it’s like I said earlier. Sometimes you don’t seem human.”
“There are other people like me in the world.”
Yes, that Nurian warrior mage certainly must have been one, but Amaranthe had never met anyone else of Sicarius’s caliber. “Oh?” she asked, seeing a chance to tease him-they could use a little lightness after that adventure. “How many? Twenty? Thirty?”
“Five.”
Amaranthe smiled, wondering if he knew them by name. “Do you know if the female thief made it?”
She touched the sheath on his waist that usually held his black knife and found it there once again. He had gone to retrieve it.
“She did not. Your aim was accurate.”
He sounded faintly proud. Amaranthe couldn’t help but remember that her intent had been to take the thieves to the magistrate, or at least tie them up somewhere the army could find them.
“I wonder if they were in it for the money or if their government sent them,” she said, hoping for the former. If she had to kill people, she wanted them to be people who… well, people who deserved it, though she admitted she wasn’t someone who could fairly judge that.
“I heard them speaking,” Sicarius said.
“And?” Amaranthe prompted when he did not volunteer more.
“They were brother and sister, seeking to regain their family’s honor after a disgrace. They would have been heroes, had they returned home with that much Turgonian technology.”
“I see.” Maybe she shouldn’t have asked. It disheartened her to realize those two had been on a mission not so dissimilar to her own. “We better tend to your wound and head back to the city. We’ll have to take a break from training while you recover.”
“We?”
“You don’t expect me to tread water while holding a brick over my head by myself, do you?”
