Page 159 of The Sun He Buried

His hand closes around my wrist.

Fast.

I gasp.

One eye opens against the snow.

Purple.

Bloodshot.

Annoyed.

Good.

“You’re alive.”

“A crushing disappointment.”

His voice comes rough through the mask.

He releases me and closes his eye again.

“You need to come inside.”

“No.”

“You’re lying in the snow.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Cranky.

Very cranky.

I stand, retrieve his coat from the fence, and shake the snow from it.

“Do not.”

I lay it over his back.

Eirik turns his face far enough to get the mask out of the drift. Both eyes open now. The pale-green one has a dark bruise beneath it. Dried blood marks the edge of the silver near his jaw.

“Did you come down here to be irritating?”

“I came to see whether you were dead.”

“And now that your curiosity has been satisfied?”

“Inside.”

He pushes onto one elbow.

The movement stops there.

His fingers dig into the snow. The split skin across his knuckles has already closed, but red lines remain between them.

“Did somebody hit you?”