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She didn’t miss that his chest was rising and falling faster, just as hers was as she skimmed his lodestone.
The gem flared, a low flash that only she sensed as a jolt of awareness rushed through her.
For a moment, she swore shadows of figures with blades, slashing their way through multitudes, appearing behind Killen.
She flinched and pulled back. ‘Fokk, that thing is alive.’
She gave him a quick swing to the back of his head, and he growled with a smile, evading her swipe with a swift side move and fast adeptness.
He was getting fast.
Over time, their training had become more fluid and more synchronised.
In the íkhara, their swords danced through the air as if driven by an invisible force, their bodies moving in perfect harmony. Each parry and thrust was filled with an undeniable energy, a longing that surpassed their roles as teachers and students.
Just like whateverthefokk this conversation was now at the kantina.
His eyes glittered, and she shivered. His jaw clenched as he chewed on his ever-present mood lifter.
‘What’s that you keep chomping down on in your mouth?’ she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.
He lifted a brow. ‘Want some?’
‘Depends on why you’re jonesing for it so hard. Never seen you a day without it rolling around on your tongue.’
He shook his head, his silver hair falling about his temple. ‘It’s not addictive. It’s klaw, a stimulant herb native to the fissured deserts of its northern regions where I grew up. The indigenous Devansi have turned to it for its medicinal properties for centuries if not millennia.’
‘What does it relieve?’
He shrugged. ‘Many ailments including allergies, blood diseases, edema, cancers and skin injuries. Even back pain and headaches. It helped me when I had lost my sight, and my migraines were torturous, to say the least.’
She reared back a little in surprise. ‘You were blind?’
‘Naam. Little known fact. For most of my formative years, all I perceived were shadows and the hereafter visions my hawkstone shared with me.’
‘The cause?’ Sana’a asked, deeply intrigued.
His lips twisted. ‘Your freakin SHärd on Devansi. It took my sight by trying to extract the lodestone from me. I spent years in darkness and pain because of it. Klaw helped manage my agony.’
Her eyes clouded with concern. ‘Sorry to hear.’
‘De nada, not your fault, khany’s. No need to apologise,’ he rumbled, his eyes gleaming with emotion.
She sensed his pull and searched his face for a long time, her gaze lingering on his eyes. ‘How’d you find your healing?’
‘From the SHärd, if you can believe it,’ he rasped. After its deranged madness was over, it let me go; then it healed me. Klaw remained. Still, I use it because I like the flavour. It also helps ease my muscles after training.
‘How so?’
‘It kicks anti-inflammatory ass.’
She huffed. ‘Sounds miraculous.’
‘Try it,’ he invited in a husky timbre.
He reached into his waistband and produced a brown pouch, extending it over her left hand.
She opened her palm, and he shook a few leaves onto it.
