Page 112 of Silk & Sand

Footsteps pounded across the hard pack. “Raider!”

Raider didn’t move, didn’t blink. Seth slammed to his knees beside him and dropped his sword. His hands hovered over Raider. Over the quicksilver.

“Are you hurt?” Seth asked, his eyes wide with shock. “Raider? Are you … okay?”

When Raider still didn’t respond, Seth’s hands went from hovering to exploring, hunting for injuries amid the metal. Raider flinched away from the touch. He sat up.

The quicksilver armor encased his limbs in pearlescent ridges and spikes. He felt its cool touch over his back and face. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe, but it wouldn’t go away.

“Raider—say something.”

Raider glanced at Seth’s shocked face and away. He climbed to his feet and stared at the colossal, inert body of the sand serpent. Its black coils stretched across the hard pack. Its massive, vicious head had tumbled toward the city wall and lay facing the mudbrick. It seemed to stare at Aqarat, though one eye was ruptured and the other was just as sightless.

Seth, who had also gotten to his feet, followed Raider’s gaze and breathed, “Gods.”

Seth bent and picked up his sword. He swiped it clean on his pants then sheathed it at his back. Raider could feel Seth’s gaze on him again.

Seth said, “Come on,” and jerked his head toward the broken gates. He took a step and stopped. “Raider. Come on.”

Raider blinked and looked at Seth, actually looked at him. Seth had a nasty scrape along one elbow and would no doubt have some awful bruises, but he was alive. He wasn’t maimed. He was alive.

Raider breathed out in belated relief, and the quicksilver retracted with a shhhhkt, baring his skin and new, unfamiliar wounds.

Seth reached back and took Raider’s hand. He squeezed Raider’s fingers. Raider didn’t squeeze back, but he did let Seth tug him forward. They walked across the hard pack, Seth’s eyes flicking sideways to him every few seconds.

As they neared the wall, Seth let go of Raider’s hand and walked up to the massive, severed head. Raider stopped and crossed his arms over his bare torso. Movement caught his eye, making him look up.

Malik stood atop the city wall, watching.

Raider dropped his eyes to Seth as the Curator grabbed hold of something on the sand serpent’s face and tugged. It came free abruptly, sending Seth staggering back.

Watching Seth inspect his multi tool, Raider felt part of his brain wake up. He said, a little angry, “You’re fucking unbelievable.”

Seth swiped the prongs clean on his vest then retracted the folding barb into its housing. “Why would I leave it there?”

“Why would you put it there?”

Seth slid the device into his belt with a grin.

Raider loved when Seth grinned. He didn’t do it often, and Raider wondered how many people had ever seen it at all. It was so damn gorgeous. Seth was so damn gorgeous. Tough. Strong. Fucking fearless.

Raider would never forget the sight of Seth flying toward the sand serpent’s head, of him landing on the creature’s snout and striking his sword into its eye.

Raider wished, deeply, fiercely, that he hadn’t found that goddamn book so he could take Seth’s grin all the way into himself. He wished he could throw his arms around Seth and feel how alive and whole he was. He wished he could feel Seth’s arms around him and believe, even if only for this moment, that it was a safe place to be. That it was his place to be.

But all of that was impossible.

Because Raider had found that book. And because he was too afraid to find out whether Seth had lied to him. He didn’t want to know, not yet. He wasn’t ready. Not with so many memories ripping him up inside, making him way too vulnerable.

He had pushed those memories back during the fight, but he could feel them clawing their way through him again, seizing tight around his heart, his lungs, his throat.

Seth’s grin faltered. “Come on,” he said again, and Raider followed him. Again.

Raider cast a final look back at the sand serpent. He shuddered at the knowledge that he had killed it, that he was capable of such a thing. Because of what Kahzir had made him into.

An arcane instrument, as Seth had once called him.

A weapon.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com