Page 16 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy

She flung a hand in his direction and said, tragically, “If I die tonight, see to it that someone feeds my cat.”

Mordaunt’s gloved hand closed on her bare one. He pulled her up, took her in his arms again, and stepped back into the shadow-walk. Blackness came over Aurienne; the pressure of his seith pushed against her brain, against her guts. She was conscious, in ways she had never wished to be, of the exact shape of her pancreas and her eye sockets.

Aurienne and Mordaunt materialised a few feet away. Aurienne squirmed out of Mordaunt’s arms. She went down again, exactly like a bag of spanners.

Mordaunt knelt next to her. “You’re doing better.”

His confidence seemed imprudent to Aurienne, presently indisposed. The world continued its spin. She considered anchoring herself to it using her teeth, but didn’t, because she needed her mouth to say, “I wish to die.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“Bugger off.”

“You’re on solid earth.”

“It’s not solid. It’s curdling.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“What if I don’t get used to it?”

“I shall shadow-walk your queasy self through the Færwundor as quick as I can, and ask that you spew away from my boots.”

In one graceful movement, Mordaunt regained his feet and pulled Aurienne up with him.

“Ready?” he asked.

Aurienne held in a nauseated sob, clung to his cloak, and said, “Yes.”

There again was the unholy flare of Mordaunt’s seith, the blinding press of darkness absolute, the insalubrious smoke of the Dusken Path stifling her breath, the exhilaration of being here and then, incredibly, there. They traversed the few dozen feet between one end of the ambulatory and the other instantaneously.

Aurienne hated to be impressed by anything Mordaunt related, but mastery was mastery, and this was masterful. She trembled, below her nausea, with adrenaline. It was incredible. It was magical. What a pity one had to walk the Dusken Path for the privilege. And the vertigo, gods, the vertigo—

Aurienne resumed her position as a bag of spanners.

“Cheer up,” said Mordaunt. “You’re discovering something new. Isn’t that the apotheosis of every researcher’s life?”

Aurienne clutched at the floor and the remains of her dignity. “This isn’t discovery. It’s a torment.”

She contemplated the decisions that had led her here, shadow-walking with a Fyren. In retrospect, the decisions were unsound; the logic, feeble; the outcome, harrowing. Once again, she regretted everything.

Mordaunt considered her limp corpse with his fingers at his chin. “I do cause swooning. Should’ve factored that in.”

“Your touch,” said Aurienne, “is an emetic.”

“A what?”

Aurienne’s dignity gave an expiring burble; she vomited the last of it upon the flagstones.

“Mint?” offered Mordaunt.

4

The Begbéam Moon

Osric

The night of the Begbéam moon found Osric in excellent spirits. He was merry, hopeful,excitedeven. At the last full moon, Fairhrim had managed to slow his seith system’s degeneration; perhaps this time she would stop it entirely.