“That’s the word,” he says, arching his brow in question, like he’s asking for confirmation he already has.
“That’s the word.” My eyes keep scanning the walls. “It’s written well over a hundred times.”
“Creepy. Perhaps the bird wants you to kill me.” He says it lightly, but I can still hear the tension under it. Strange, how well I can hear the subtle shifts in his tones, something a stranger wouldn’t notice.
For a moment, that catches me off guard, and I study his profile. Do I know him? Why can’t I remember? Nothing else from the past ten years is lost to my mind. So why him? Howcould I have forgottenhim?
A face like that isn’t one easily forgotten. A scatter of freckles marks his jawline, and they somehow only accentuate the strong lines.No, not a scatter. I look closer. There are six, forming a pattern like a constellation from before the stars died.
He might have the most perfect face I’ve ever seen.
The thought flashes through my mind before I can stop it. I stiffen and look away, hoping he didn’t notice. I can’t think of him like that. But, as if guided by a will not my own, my eyes shift his way again. He’s looking at me.
My heart jumps, then skips, then hammers at my ribs. He cocks his head, brow furrowing.
“Didn’t you hear my question?”
I clear my throat. “Sorry, no. I was…counting. What was the question?”
His brow wings upward. “I was saying it’s odd this spell appears so many times when so few can wield it. You know no other necromancers, I assume.”
“Don’t call me that,” I say, my hands clenching involuntarily.
“You don’t like Swynwraig. You don’t like necromancer. So, whatdoyou like being called?”
“There is my actual name,” I say, narrowing my eyes, “but I reserve that for people who don’t chain me up and drag me across mountain ridges.”
A muscle tenses in his jaw. “And the alternative was better?”
“The alternative ofnot chaining me?”
“Well, you’re not chained now, are you?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you to try again.”
A slow, wicked smile curls his lips. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Fuck you,” I snap.
He leans closer, his voice dropping into a rough growl. “Fuck you right back,necromancer.”
The sound sends an unexpected shiver down my spine, but I keep my expression flat. He’s only doing this to get a rise out of me.I refuse to give him one.
I turn away, forcing my attention on the firebird. “Instead of threatening me, maybe you should focus on this cave dragged me into. Not that there’s much here beyond a mess of spellwork.”
He actually listens, his gaze sweeping over the cavern. It forms a near-perfect circle around the firebird, who still waits beside the flaming pile of twigs, her eyes fixed on our faces. There’s no tunnel leading deeper into the mountain. Only smooth gray walls scrawled with spells. There’s nothing else. Nothing but that word, written so many times it feels like the walls are shouting it at us.
I cut my gaze toward Taliesin.Isthe firebird telling me to kill him?
He frowns. “You’ve got that look in your eye again.”
“What look?”
“The one you get when you’re deciding whether it’s time to wrap your hands around my throat and sayMarwolaeth.”
I tense. “Don’t speak it. Not in this place.”
The firebird shifts suddenly, moving aside to reveal a rectangular fissure carved into the stone floor. The same word is etched across its surface, though this time, it’s in blood. Taliesin is on it at once. He crouches, slips his fingers into the narrow gaps, and strains, like he can pull the floor apart with his bare hands.
