Page 72

“What kind of pathetic weapon is that?” She asked, eying his stuffed arm.

“Do you like it?” Fenrir twisted to the side, batting his eyelashes while the wooden hand arced gracefully past Daedra’s nose. “Think if I time it right, I can knock an arrow out of the air?”

“Do you...jest?” The cot groaned when she leaned back, eyes locked on the hand, like she wasn’t actually sure if it was dangerous or not.

“Wow, that’s a serious question, isn’t it?” Fenrir twisted again and Daedra’s eyes narrowed when the hand sailed past her face again. “Do they not make jokes where you come from?”

“Do humans not usually lose limbs in battle?”

Fenrir laughed. “Okay, okay, that’s fair.” He came to a stop, hand swinging around his back to slap his side and then hang limply by his hip. “I guess having a one-armed king makes some people uncomfortable, so I have to wear this until everyone gets even more uncomfortable, then I can come back up here and let you hack it off like you did with the real thing.”

Again, Daedra narrowed her eyes. “Why do you allow them to make you weak?”

“Because it’s funny?”

If looks could kill, Fenrir would be six feet under rather than twenty stories up.

“I do not understand you,” Daedra spat. “You served an Empress who commanded Hell’s Fist, slaughtered her enemies and made pyres of their corpses, all while harboring the deadliest mage known to both our worlds, yet you make jest?”

“What else am I supposed to do, wallow in guilt and self-pity?”

Daedra’s eyes narrowed like he was a bad taste to swallow. “Do not humiliate me.”

Fenrir laughed again, deep and rich. Oh, under different circumstances, they could have gotten along just fine. Maybe still could, if he got past her prickly exterior to the gooey parts inside. He’d done it once with Orpheus. Though, unlike Daedra, Orpheus had been worn down by years of abuse and a psychotic, narcissistic best friend who’d just tossed him on his ass.

“Whatcha reading?” Fenrir asked, already recognizing the cover. “A romance novel? Really?”

Daedra sneered, slapping the book cover face-down atop the bed; Fenrir swore that was a flush. “Have you come here for a reason, Ama?”

“Actually, yeah.” Fenrir dropped onto his chair. “Want the long version or the short version?”

“Preferably, the version where you leave.”

Fenrir laughed. “See, the Myrkur do make jokes. So, short version? I’m very bored.”

Daedra muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, may the old gods receive me, before sighing and looking him in the eye. Arms crossed over her chest, legs crossed atop her cot, Daedra said, “If it’s information you’re after, I have very little to give.”

“Why do I believe you?” Fenrir grinned when Daedra visibly bristled. “To be honest, you could tell me the antidote to the poison you gave me?”

Daedra frowned. “Poison?”

“You know, the stuff that rotted my arm off and I’m pretty sure is the reason I’m out of energy all the time.”

“You’re tired?” Daedra asked, face twisting. “When our warriors grow weary and need to rest, we tell stories of our greatest conquests.”

“Now see, I knew there was a reason I came up here.” The folding chair creaked when he leaned over his knees, like what came next was some long-kept secret. “Tell me, Daedra, what has been your most glorious hunt?”

“Besides you, Ama?” Again, that blunted humor—Fenrir smothered a grin. “That would be a Prometheus, one of Hell’s most ancient, atavistic horrors. A creature that feasts on flesh for the sheer pleasure of it, the taste acquired after the first of its kind reached through a chasm of Hell into your world and snatched a mage from their burrow.”

“A burrow, eh? Must have been a long time ago.”

“Before the sands began to fully flow between our worlds. It is rumored this breach is what introduced magic to your world, and my kind to ours.”

“Myrkur and humans are related?”

“We share an ancestor. That very mage, so the story goes. The Prometheus took his hand, and so drunk off the taste of flesh, it collapsed into a mindless stupor. The mage fled, but without a way to return, made his home in Hell.”

“So, who’d he, ya know, uh—” With his one hand, Fenrir tried to make the appropriate gesture. Daedra’s scrunched up face grew worse. “When a man and a woman discover they love each other very very much—”