Page 15 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy

Aurienne remained unenthused by Mordaunt’s idea but, having no better suggestion to make, found herself limited to sprinkling a bit of disaster-mongering into the conversation. “I don’t think it’s wise of you to shadow-walk two people at once. Your seith system is fragile. You mustn’t push it to extremes.”

“Carrying you along isn’t extreme.”

“Is the carrying along literal?” asked Aurienne.

“Yes,” said Mordaunt. “Do you want to be my sack of potatoes or my bride?”

“Potatoes,” said Aurienne.

“Unromantic choice, but youarestarchy.”

“Have I got to do anything?” asked Aurienne. “Use my seith?”

“No,” said Mordaunt. “I’m going to sweep you off your feet.”

Which he proceeded to do. He slung Aurienne over his shoulder, exactly as though he were handling a sack of potatoes, which offended her. She hung there with her arse in the air. The chicken and mushroom pie she had just eaten sloshed into a new position.

“I’ve changed my mind,” said Aurienne, tapping at Mordaunt’s back. “Bridal-style, please, or I’m going to lose my dinner.”

Mordaunt slipped Aurienne into place accordingly. Now she found herself in the appalling position of being held like a lover by him. He smelled of blackthorn smoke and shaving soap. He radiated his usual warmth.

She had desired to be In Control, and would have preferred anything to this intimate positioning. It felt perilously natural to be held by him. Such was Fate’s sense of humour. Aurienne wished that Fate would mind its own business and not meddle in her affairs.

The moon above was almost full. Lovelily she cast her light on Mordaunt, who held Aurienne like a paramour in the dark.

“Ready?” Mordaunt squeezed her tight. “Don’t want to leave bits of you behind.”

“Leave bits behind?” repeated Aurienne.

Before she could ask for a more fulsome report of the risks involved in the shadow-walk, Mordaunt swept her into it. First they were here, at one end of the ambulatory, and then they were over there, at the other end.

About ten percent of Aurienne’s brain registered fascination with this feat. The rest of it sloshed against her skull in a nauseated stew. Mordaunt might’ve warned her that every moment in the shadow-walk would feel as though her molecules had spun out and joined the iniquitous dark—that she would lose all sense of sight; that her breathing would be oppressed by the thickness of his seith over her; that, aftereach discombobulating step, she would be left with a brain like a centrifuge; that she would want to spew out the entire contents of her GI tract, as well as the organs themselves, if they would kindly detach themselves for the purpose.

Aurienne came out of a near faint to find herself clinging to the front of Mordaunt’s cloak. Masticated chicken pie heaved ominously in her stomach.

She would never eat again.

“Bit vomity, eh?” said Mordaunt.

Aurienne disentangled herself from Mordaunt to stand on her own. Her triumph lasted but a moment; the world whisked itself out from under her feet and sent her scuttling sideways like an excited crab. She fell into a heap.

The world oozed. Presently it congealed. A swimmy eye cast in Mordaunt’s direction confirmed that he was trying not to laugh about as hard as she was trying not to vomit.

Also: he had lied. He had promised that she would be fine. She was not fine.

Mordaunt squatted next to Aurienne and said, “Down like a bag of spanners.”

“This isn’t funny,” said Aurienne, clinging to flagstone and dirt.

“It’s an unalloyed delight.”

Aurienne could normally stem nausea with her tacn pressed to her own forehead. She tried. It didn’t work. This was not regular nausea. This was sickness born of walking the unwholesome Path. Her every fibre shook in revulsion; her very seith tingled in alarm at the wrongness of it.

“You’ve walked the Dusken Path now,” said Mordaunt. “You must be the first Haelan to do that.”

Aurienne was not gratified by the honour. “I’m a d-disgrace to my Order.”

“Let’s try again,” said Mordaunt. “Permit me to help you up.”