not stop limping.
Kessligh reined Terjellyn to a halt before her. “Bad?” he asked her from that height, eyeing her limp and the boot in her hand. Sasha kept moving, ignoring both horse and rider. Kessligh held a hand down to her. “Come on, get up.” And stared in blank disbelief as Sasha continued limping straight past him, eyes fixed on the distant house with grim determination.
For a moment, Kessligh sat in his saddle and watched her. Sasha thought he might simply ride back and leave her to finish the journey alone. She didn't care. Strangely, at that moment, she didn't care about anything. Movement behind her, then, as Terjellyn trotted easily to her side.
“Sasha, you'll make the ankle worse.” A calm, matter-of-fact statement. No alarm. No concern. Sasha felt a spark of fury. She limped on, relishing the pain each cold, shivering step caused. “With treatment, it might only trouble you for a few days. But if you keep walking on it, that could be longer. If you need to fight, you won't be able to.”
Always the practical concern. Always worried about her “role” as his uma. Always interested in what she could do for him, no concern for what she wanted herself. She kept limping. She'd reach the house herself if it were cause for amputation.
“Sasha, don't be a damn fool.” With tired irritation, now. No anger. He didn't care enough to be angry. She was just another strategic exercise to him. A project for his beloved Nasi-Keth. “Sasha? I'm warning you, get up on the damn horse. I don't have time for this childish nonsense.”
She limped onward. Behind, there came a light thud as Kessligh leaped from the saddle. Footsteps approached, then a hand grasped her shoulder, hard, pulling her about with precious little concern for the ankle. Pain stabbed, and Sasha swung at him in blind fury…and struck a glancing blow to his head as he ducked, grabbing that arm. She tried to rip her arm clear, lashing with her left fist, which caught him squarely in the mouth. He spun back, still grabbing her arm, twisting it as she was yanked off her feet, scrambling to her knees then as Kessligh wrenched that arm behind her, trying to immobilise the other arm now.
Sasha's left hand had found the knife in her belt before she could think, pulling it free…but Kessligh abandoned her right arm to take the left instead. She tried to slash clear, but a sudden twist and pressure on her elbow threw her face down on the grass and rolling onto her back, the left arm now painfully beneath her and Kessligh's own knife at her chest in lightning, dangerous reflex. Sasha stopped struggling, her uman's knee in her stomach, knife blade hovering with a clear, obvious line to her throat. There was blood on his lower lip, which was cut and appearing to swell. His eyes were dark and dangerous in the cold, windswept gloom.
“Go on and do it!” Sasha yelled at his face. “Go on and waste the last twelve years of your life! Serve you bloody well right, that would!”
Kessligh blinked at her, shock rapidly replacing deadly instinct. He threw the knife away, as if suddenly discovering it were a poisonous snake. Took a deep, gasping breath, and another. It was a look Sasha had never seen before. Fear. The sight of it gave her a surge of vicious satisfaction. Kessligh released her and moved back, still kneeling.
“Some uman you turned out to be!” Sasha snarled at him, retrieving her arm from behind and struggling to a seat. Still the knife was in her hand. “The first one gets killed when you're not looking and then you nearly do the second yourself!”
Anger blazed in Kessligh's eyes. “Sasha…you stupid, contemptible idiot!” He was really angry now. She liked this much better. “Never draw a blade on me! I've warned you many times, never surprise me like that! I have no safe reflexes, Sasha! They're all dangerous! All of them!”
“You're never to blame for anything, are you?” Sasha retorted, far, far beyond any semblance of self-control. “Godsdamn it, you're always accusing me of immaturity. I have twenty summers and I know I'm not perfect! When's it going to dawn on you, Master Swordsman?”
Kessligh stared at her, incredulously. “What in the nine hells are you…?”
“You've never thought about anyone but yourself in your whole blasted life, have you? You didn't ride out from Petrodor all those years ago to save the poor, suffering Lenay