Palace of Silver (The Nissera Chronicles #3) - Hannah West Page 0,121
from its master burns to the touch, but only if the master is alive. It’s a bond that can only be severed by death or willing abandonment. She could have known I was alive with or without your proof. I didn’t tell you that because I wanted you to spare us.”
“I was always going to spare you,” Sev said softly. “Why do you think I waited until you regained consciousness? I just needed one of you to talk me out of my orders.”
Glisette smiled crookedly at him. Sev grinned back, but the smile slipped away when he looked at the commander. “I’ll go now.”
“I’ll go too,” I volunteered. “Glisette can teach me the concealing spell so I can hide us both.”
“You and I should go, then,” Glisette said to me. “There’s no reason for Sev to risk his life for my elicrin stone.”
“You don’t know the palace like I do,” Sev argued. Neither of them seemed to want to admit outright that they were trying their best to protect each other. “Where the guards are stationed, how to navigate the mirrors…”
“And I need you, Glisette,” Navara said. “I could use another lesson before I carry a sword in public.”
“The commander would do a better job—” Glisette started, but Navara held out a finger to shush her.
“And most importantly, there’s a deity you need to ask a favor of.”
THIRTY-FIVE
GLISETTE
AN hour later I walked a distance with Sev down the north tunnel to see him off to the palace. The passage yawned at us, so dark that my mind could imprint whatever fears it wanted onto that stretching abyss.
It was easy to imagine a woman with a crown of knives whispering in the dark, or a creature wrought of teeth and muscle waiting to tear me apart, or even Ambrosine herself, watching me with wicked eyes like newly minted coins.
Sev’s hand brushed mine as we walked. When the armory was far enough away that we could claim some privacy, he stopped. We hadn’t truly spoken since before our kiss—not about the matters that animated my heart, otherwise thriving on only grief and revenge.
He turned, his dark eyes soft but intense. In the faint light from the armory, his face looked wan and tight.
We had only known each other for a few tempestuous days, but I felt attuned to the slightest change in his stolid expression and sensitive to his every gesture, whether meaningful or not.
“You should wait until the bleeding’s stopped,” I said.
He frowned at his bandage. “I’d imagine living without your power feels a bit like being wounded. You suddenly can’t do things that were easier than breathing before.”
I nodded. “I felt so helpless yesterday.”
“So did I. My brothers and sisters are my responsibility. And I thought I had failed them.”
That word, failed, carved a hole in my chest.
But the rough warmth of Sev’s hand settled against my cheek. “Glisette,” he whispered, waiting until I looked up at him. “That kind of love—the love you have for Perennia—reaches across death.”
The levy broke and I fell into his embrace. His arm tightened around me, the other hanging limp at his side. I wept, crushed against soft leather and the scents of the woods. We resided in that moment, wishing we could cure each other’s pain. And the wishing itself was enough to ease it, if only a little.
Wiping tears from my eyes, I stepped back. He dug the iron effigy out of his pocket. “I’m going to find your elicrin stone. And until we meet again, we’ll each have something that belongs to the other.”
His touch lingered as he placed it in my hand.
Twisting torchlight at the mouth of the tunnel diverted our attention. Kadri stared past us at the path before her as though it was the gullet of a monster ready to devour her. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she called out.
Sev’s deep voice boomed back at her. “I have a map of the tunnels and everything we need in case we lose our way,” he said, patting the satchel at his hip. “Commander Larsio said there’s an emergency opening at the midpoint.”
Kadri nodded, determined but not enthused, and limped toward us.
“You’re sure you can do the concealing spell?” I asked her. “Remember, you have to be touching Sev for it to cover him. And it’s seter inoden, with emphasis on the—”
“I know, Glisette. Remind me not to take you on as a tutor when we go home.”