Page 14 of Swordheart #1

Halla woke, surprisingly warm, with someone’s arms around her.

She couldn’t remember the last time that happened. Probably because it’s never happened, has it?

Her late husband had not slept in the same bed with her, preferring his own. Her older sister had married first, so she had been sleeping alone for many years.

Maybe when I was very small, and Mother was still alive …

She seemed to be in Sarkis’s lap, with her head resting against his shoulder. He had wrapped his arms around her waist to hold her in place.

It wasn’t unpleasant. He made a much warmer surface to rest on than the ground. She just wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do, if anything.

Respectable widows certainly did not sleep in the arms of their guardsmen, but Sarkis was an enchanted sword, so that didn’t count, did it?

She suspected that someone like Aunt Malva would think it very much counted.

“How did I get here?” she asked finally.

Sarkis snorted. She realized that he had his cheek against her head, which she hadn’t noticed because her hood was drawn. “You wiggled around in the night. I assume you were trying to get warm, because once you found me, you latched on to my legs.”

Halla sighed. “My sister always said I tried to push her out of bed and steal the blankets.”

“I eventually picked you up to make things easier. Do you remember me asking if that was permissible?”

“I remember something or other. Did I say yes?”

“You snored at me. I decided that was close enough.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

She wasn’t sure what to do next. Get up, probably, but Sarkis was really very warm and the air was cold. He hadn’t let go of her, either.

The arms wrapped around her were hard with muscle. So was his chest. It was like lying against a surprisingly comfortable brick wall. Halla might be a respectable widow but she’d have to be dead not to appreciate that.

“Aren’t I heavy?” she asked.

“Both of my legs are asleep. Lady.”

“Oh dear.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it isn’t! You can’t feel your legs!”

“There is a certain point after which they cannot get any more asleep. Now that they have passed that, it’s fine.”

“I’m so sorry!” Halla groaned and rolled off him. He released her immediately. The world seemed much colder outside his embrace, and she had a strong urge to return to it at once before she froze.

Don’t be stupid. He’s your guard, not your pillow. And he’s stuck with you. Don’t assume … well, anything.

She rubbed her hands over her upper arms, then dug through her pack for her hairbrush. Her wretched hair was so thin that it tangled if someone so much as looked at it, and then broke when she tried to tease the tangles out.

Sarkis watched her combing out her hair and scowling furiously at the knots, and hid a smile.

He had not quite told the whole truth about how Halla had ended up in his lap. She had indeed latched on to his legs in her sleep, but it hadn’t stopped there. She had thrown her arm over his thighs and burrowed against his hip.

Sarkis found this amusing at first. Her expression was one of dogged concentration, as if sleep required a great deal of thought. It was… well… cute wasn’t a word that was used often in the Weeping Lands, but there you were. He tucked her cloak up under her chin, shaking his head.

Then she had shifted in her sleep and rolled partly onto his legs, with her head in a rather indelicate position.

This was a problem.

It was certainly not the first time that a woman had had their face in that vicinity, but Sarkis really preferred them to be awake and enthusiastic about it, not snoring.

“Lady?”

More snoring.

“Lady Halla, I’m going to have to move you.”

Definitive snores.

He picked her up and settled her on the ground beside him, whereupon she rolled over and attached herself to his side again.

Sarkis sighed. He’d had plenty of wielders, but this was the first one who had been determined to use him as a mattress.

“All right.”

He lifted her into his lap. She mumbled something, eyebrows drawing down.

“Is this all right?”

Snore.

Sarkis gazed briefly at the sky, or what he could see of it through the tree branches.

He drew her head down against his shoulder and wrapped his arms around her. “I suppose I don’t have much choice.”

She snored agreeably against his neck.

He sighed again, feeling an inexplicable rush of protectiveness. Which is redundant for any wielder. I must protect them no matter how I feel about it. He stroked a finger across her cheek. Her eyelids didn’t so much as twitch, even when he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

The skin along her jaw was very soft. He wondered how far down that softness went.

Well, he certainly wasn’t the sort of man to take advantage of a sleeping woman. He even felt a bit awkward about this much contact, but he was simply going to have to deal with it. Halla was warm and heavy, her body pliant… as long as he didn’t try to move away.

Glancing over at her now, Sarkis thought she looked much less soft.

The severe lines of the habit did not flatter her figure at all.

If he had not held her in his arms—and if he hadn’t had an involuntary look when first summoned—he would have had no idea at the extent of the curves that lay under the dark fabric.

Woman’s built like an hourglass. The sort that measures twelve hours at a stretch.

Had he been younger and not trapped in a peculiar living death inside a hunk of enchanted metal, Sarkis would not have minded checking the time more closely.

… As it were.

Ah, yes, that’s a very useful thought when she’s starving and halffrozen and you’re still waiting for the guards to catch up with you.

Mourning black did not suit her. It showed up the contrast between her skin and her white-blond hair, leaving her pink and blotchy, her nose red with cold.

Jewel tones, he thought absently. Deep red, dark green. Perhaps warm browns.

Yes, thinking about what colors would suit her is an even more useful thought. Has being in the blade addled your wits at last?

Well, something better than black, anyway, he argued with himself. Black is not a good color on her.

Still, that was probably for the best. A woman traveling alone did not want to attract unwanted attention. And while Sarkis would defend her to his last breath, he’d rather not have to do so.

“Are we ready?” he asked, and she nodded.

They walked for an hour or so, keeping to the side of the road. The only traffic was a swineherd leading his charges out of the acorn wood, and he did not seem inclined to make conversation.

“There’s a public house a little way up ahead,” said Halla after a time. She shoved pale strands of hair out of her eyes. “I know we probably shouldn’t stop, but I guess we’ll want to get off the road so nobody spots us.”

Her stomach growled again.

“If they are looking for anyone,” Sarkis said, “it is for two people traveling together. If your aunt has convinced the constables that I have kidnapped you, then they will not be expecting a woman traveling alone. If you sheathe the sword and go in, you should be able to buy some food.”

“Really?”

He’d seen men rescued from certain death with less hope blazing in their eyes. He nodded.

“Real—” he started to say, and then Halla slammed the sword back into the scabbard and the blue fire took him away.