Briar pressed a hand to her shoulder where blood seeped between her fingers, then slumped and fell on her side, bleeding into the dirt.
“You’ve gotten better,” she said, and there was surprise in her voice, maybe even an edge of pride.
“No, I haven’t practiced,” Seraphina said bitterly. “I just got more determined.”
“Because of him?”
Seraphina pursed her lips, thinking better of revealing her feelings to someone who was supposed to be her friend but wasn’t behaving accordingly anymore.
“He’s not who you think he is,” Briar tried one last time, weakly. She was sobbing with pain, and Seraphina was certain there were tears mixing with the blood. “Sera, he looks like... like he was sewn in hell... from the bodies of sinners.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She left Briar where she was lying, calculating that she was bleeding too heavily to try and attack her again. She bent down where she saw the shadows of Briar’s daggers, picked them up and threw them in the lake.
“Fuck you,” Briar wailed.
“Unchristian words from someone who lives at a convent.”
“I’m not a nun, and in these dark times, God will forgive a foul mouth.”
“Keep telling yourself what you need to hear.”Seraphina stomped over to Briar and kicked her in the shin, though not hard. “Leave me and Rune alone. Go back to Saint Vivia’s and tell the Mother Superior you lost my track. Better yet, tell her I threw myself in the Danube and the relic is lost along with my body. Given my past attempts, that’s an easy story to believe.”
Briar gave a laugh that turned into a groan. “Isn’t it enough that I have a foul mouth? You also want me to lie?”
“I want you to let this go. Let me go.”
Briar shook her head, but Seraphina was done with the conversation. She’d spoken her mind, proven that she was ready to defend her choices, if need be, and there was no reason for her to linger. Rune was waiting for her. She’d been gone too long, and she imagined him paralyzed with fear that she wouldn’t return.
Seraphina turned on her heel and started toward the forest.
“You’re following a devil,” Briar yelled after her.
“Maybe I am the devil,” she shot back.
She picked up the pace until she was sprinting, her brain working twice as hard to catch up with the blurry shadows of the trees and bushes the relic showed her to keep her from tripping and breaking something. The closer she got to the inn, the more nervous she felt. Briar wasn’t going to give up that easily. She’d drag herself somewhere, lick her wounds, and buy herself new blades. She’d take a few days to recover, but then she’d be on Seraphina’s and Rune’s tracks once more, which meant that their comfortable time at the White Horse was over. They’d stalled long enough, and it was time to get back on the mission and find a way to cross into enemy territory. They didn’t have to leave tonight, but tomorrow...
She flung herself through the door and felt eyes on her, startled at her sudden appearance, but she cared about a single pair of eyes – blue, intense, filled with hurt at her having left him. She’d imagined countless times what Rune’s eyes looked like. All she knew was that when they bore into her, she felt them like licking flames on her skin.
He stood up when she stopped at their table, and she took his hand, interlaced their fingers, and pulled him toward the stairs, to their room.
“You were gone for hours,” he said in a trembling voice.
Seraphina didn’t know about that. Maybe she’d been gone for an hour or more, but not “hours” like he put it.
“Come here.”
Once the door was locked behind them, she sat on the edge of the bed and pulled him down next to her. She faced him, both hands reaching for him, cupped as if she wanted to place them on his cheeks. As he always did, he quickly grabbed her wrists and stopped her.
“No, no more of that,” she said, breathless from her run, but also from how fast her heart was beating for him. “Let me touch you, Rune. Let me know you.”
“No, Seraphina... Don’t make me.”
“I won’t, if you truly don’t want to. But I know, all right? I know about the stitches, and I don’t care. Tell me you don’t want this... Tell me you don’t want to feel my touch on your skin, your body, and I will let it go. I won’t ask again.”
“I...” His fingers tightened around her wrists. “Of course I want to feel your touch, but I... It wouldn’t be right, because you say you know about the stitches, but that’s only a small part of it, barely what’s on the surface. Skin-deep, flesh-deep... if you knew...” He shook his head.
“Then tell me.”
