I didn't know how to answer. I stood on the ridge with the cold pressing in from all sides and the column's warmth still fading from my palm, and I looked at Nicco, with absolutely no idea what to say.
“Yes,” I answered finally. “I think so.” I looked at Seryn, who was still down in his crouch, but now I saw he wasn’t in a crouch. He was slumped to the side. “Seryn!” I moved forward in alarm, but a hand caught my wrist.
“He's fine.” Nicco pulled me back to his side with a grip that left no room for argument.
“You killed him?” The disbelief in my voice was genuine.
“No, don’t be stupid.”
I looked between Seryn’s unmoving shape and the man who still held my wrist with the grip of a vise. “He isn’t moving, Nicco.”
He held my gaze for a moment longer than was comfortable, then his attention moved past me. “He’s sleeping.”
I stared at him. “He's sleeping?”
“Yes.”
“You knocked him out?”
“I didn't want an audience.” He said it plainly, as if the logic were self-evident and the problem was mine for not seeing it immediately. His grip on my wrist hadn't loosened.
I looked at Seryn again. I saw it now, his chest was rising and falling, slow and even. Sleeping, not dead.Fine, as Nicco had said.
“He's going to wake up,” I said it more to myself than Nicco.
“Eventually.”
He held my stare, waiting for me to put it together. “And then he's going to tell Vorn.”
“Eventually.”
I looked around, my eyes searching. “And Vorn is going to?—”
“Amarya.” His voice was quiet. Not sharp, just quiet, but I heard the authority in it. “If you want me to leave him sleeping, we leave. Now. Before he wakes up and it becomes a problem we don’t need.”
I looked at him. His eyes were steady on mine, uncompromising. He still had my wrist. Not roughly, just there.
“Is Larana okay?”
His lips twitched. “She’s pissed as fuck, but she’s fine.”
I nodded. “I’m glad.” I looked back at Seryn. “Why didn’t you kill him?”
“Because I didn’t want to hear you complaining about it for the journey back.”
I watched him the way he watched everyone, with suspicion. “Is that true?”
“Do you want it to be?”
I answered immediately. “Yes.”
“Then it’s true.”
Neither of us moved.
“You came,” I said. It came out smaller than I intended.
Something flickered in his eyes. Too fast, as always. Gone before I could name it. “You went into the tunnel again,” he said. “Alone.”
