Shit.
To be fair, I could just … ask Rhordyn for all the answers I’m seeking. He seems to be in a talkative mood.
I risk a peep, watching him skim through a book that looks so frail in his large hand, brow pinched.
No. I’d rather eat my own liver than send my curiosity marching to his slaughterhouse.
Again.
Worse—what if heindulgesit?
I’m not sure how I’d handle that.
Not anymore.
It’d be more a curse than a gift. Would make it a little harder to hate him.
Resigned to my fate, I get back to the small pile before me, cut the stack in two, sit cross-legged on the floor, then snatch one to flick through. Mercifully, it’s written in the common tongue.
A tense silence stretches between us.
It’s full of thieved glances past my hair; of nipping flutters of chill that hit me in the side of the face when I least expect it—his scent packing the room full, drugging me a little with every contraband breath.
My body reacts to his nearness,desperateto fall into his orbit.
Subtly, I reach around and pinch the back of my arm, the action hidden by my veil of hair …
No.
* * *
Imassage the back of my neck, a thick, leather-bound volume on the art of war bared across my stretched legs; my brimming knapsack lumped on the floor beside me.
My stare runs off the page to where Rhordyn’s crouched like some perched beast, blowing off the spine of a small, red-bound book. He begins flicking through the pages with a veracious sort of hunger, pausing before snapping it shut like a monster’s maw.
I flinch.
He pushes up and turns, striking me with his full attention for the first time in hours as he stalks forward, strong thighs tensing with every powerful step, making me feelminiature—tucked on the ground in a dusty fold.
He stops before me and extends the book.
Frowning, I look between the blank spine and his condemning stare. “What’s that?”
“A somewhat accurate translation of Valish.” My heart thuds to a stop, and I swear he sees straight through my skin and flesh and muscle and bone to the startled organ. “Thought you might find it useful.”
His stare dares me to look.
Tosee.
To pour over the pages and assuage my hungry curiosity.
I glance at the book again, regarding it in a whole new light—a single word hacking at me like the honed tip of a diamond pickaxe.
Milaje.
Milaje.
Milaje.
