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Good heavens. The smithy’s wife was awake.
Coldness spread across Senna’s chest. A few feet away, Finian extracted the blade from its arm-sheath. She shook her head wildly, silently. He tipped his head to the side, one palm up, looking at her like she was crazed.
She gestured adamantly to the sheath on his arm. He just lifted his brows, but, as the silence extended, he slowly redeposited the blade. She smothered a sigh.
It felt like hours before they moved again. First Finian, then she, slunk back to the stairs, hunched over and breathing fast. Senna spied something out of the corner of her eye. She moved closer.
A broadsword, in a beautifully adorned sheath stitched with bright threads resembling fantastical shapes of animals and lettering in an unknown language. It looked like a warrior’s sword, a king’s sword. It looked like Finian’s sword.
Without another thought, she lifted the massive weapon, staggered down the stairs, and hissed at his back.
He spun, his eyes glittering in the darkness, his body reflexively crouching into a fighting stance. The fi
re-glow of the oven lit up dark shadows on his face. He looked wild and dangerous, and she was about to hand him the hugest sword she’d ever seen.
“Here,” she whispered.
“My blade,” he murmured, stepping close.
“Yours? Truly?” She’d only thought it looked like a sword he might have.
“Aye.” He took the weapon and held it reverently, handling its weight as if it were a dinner platter. He slid it halfway out of its scabbard. The flat glitter of steel flashed in the firelight. “The scabbard, too,” he whispered. “I thought ’twould be quickly assumed by another, although the spells woven in it would not work well for any other. And never a Saxon.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “I am doubly indebted.”
They left the smithy’s building and crept along the side of the open exercise field, a labor in madness which frightened her into a dry mouth and prevented her from talking for a good three minutes. Finian seemed impressed. They ducked between the buildings, silent moving shadows: one-room cottages, a chapel, the stables.
As they passed the kitchen gardens, Senna stumbled in a rutted furrow and muttered a curse. It sounded like a shout in the quiet nighttime. She snapped her head up.
Finian stared at her, frozen.
Then, keeping time with her hammering heart, the boot steps of a soldier drew near.
Chapter 11
They threw themselves against a wall, barely breathing. The soldier walked by, striding on a path perpendicular to them. Senna held her breath. He kept walking, never looking over, and finally disappeared behind another building. She rolled her head to the side and looked at Finian.
“I think—” she whispered, so quietly she could barely hear herself.
He shook his head sharply. Another five minutes of silence, then another soldier came by. Senna pushed the back of her head into the wall and focused on looking like a pile of refuse. The guard passed.
Ten more minutes and no more soldiers came. Finian let his body relax off the wall. Senna followed suit. She opened her mouth. Swiftly, and in utter silence, he cupped the back of her neck and pulled her forward.
“Patience and silence, lady,” he murmured. “For God’s and my sake, patience. And silence.”
Now, why on earth did her body warm up at his words?
Nodding curtly, she swung away, leading them to a corroded section of the inner bailey wall, an easy ascent of some eight feet. Gripping the loose, crumbling footholds, she scrambled up. A small stream of rubble broke loose, and she went sliding halfway back down the wall.
Finian stopped her with his shoulders and arms. They froze, holding their breaths, completely still, his hands firm and warm on her ribs, her buttocks resting on one of his shoulders. She tried to ignore the startling rush of heat his touch brought to her face and other, less moonlit regions of her body. Nothing moved in the night. She looked down, he looked up, then he cupped her bottom with both hands and pushed her the rest of the way up the wall.
Flinging herself to the top, she spun and crouched down, hand extended. Finian leapt up without effort and without touching her hand. He smiled as he came up, just the slightest all-knowing, roguish lift to the corner of his mouth. That was about how he’d touched her when he hoisted her up the wall. She ignored it and turned, still in a crouch, to peer over the other side.
He crouched beside her, his body hot and strong. Ten feet below was a small pile of clippings from the castle garden. Ten feet was nigh on two of her.
“’Tis a long way down,” she whispered tautly.
He turned in her direction. His face was shadowed. “Not so far, lass.”
“Far enough.” Could he hear panic in her voice? It had frozen her fingers to the lip of the wall.
