Page 140 of Knot Their Soldier: Part Three

Blaze can gut a man without blinking, but praise from someone he loves makes him lower his eyes and turn sweet. There’s power in that. Delicious, filthy power.

Then I add, "You should have told me."

"Were you going to help?"

"Nah, that's your thing. You don’t need me stomping around and ruining the artistry."

That earns me the grin he was trying not to give.

"Could always use a hand digging pits." He shrugs.

Memories of his past pit traps flash through my mind. Spikes buried under leaves with soil packed loose around the edges. A killing ground disguised as untouched forest. It’s a brutal way to die, and Blaze builds every trap with terrifying care.

We start walking, our boots thudding against stone in sync.

After a few steps, I say, "Shade has a job for us."

Blaze goes still beside me. "Us?"

I nod.

"What's the job?"

"He says it's important. He's been quietly working on it for the past few days."

"That tells me nothing."

"It wasn’t meant to."

He makes a face at that, but keeps pace, waiting for me to elaborate. I'm thinking of withholding more from him, making it a bit of a game, but I'd like to sleep again in the near future. If I don't tell him, he'll terrorize me in some new, fucked-up way. I don't fancy a new scar in the shape of a question mark carved into my thigh.

"Shade found a way to use the terrain. Knox agreed, but doesn't want anyone else to know. Not even Halley. Says he doesn't want her burdened with keeping a secret from the war council. Guess he figures it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission."

"Halley isn't going to like that," Blaze says, but he doesn't disagree with Knox's assessment.

"No, she isn't."

Keeping this from Halley sits wrong, but I understand the reason, even if I don’t like it. Halley is under so much strain that we can't be sure one more issue won't make her snap.

"Sounds like my kind of mission. Off the books and morally questionable," Blaze says, his steps lighter at the prospect of a juicy new objective.

If he thinks he likes the sound of it so far, he's about to cream his pants.

"They need people who know explosives well enough to get one shot right."

Blaze’s whole posture changes, his head whipping to look at me with wide, hopeful eyes.

"Explosives?"

"Yep."

"Boom?"

I nod. "Boom."

"What are we hitting?" he asks, rubbing his hands together excitedly.

I look ahead. "You’ll know when we get there."