Page 107 of Close Quarter
Silas screamed at the glass ceiling. Twice.
The fire of Rhys's subsequent healing left him racked with sobs, and he curled up on the bench.
Not one of his most glorious moments. The worst bit was the horror writ on Rhys's face and the litany of "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" over and over again, like some damn priest of an apology god.
Still quite a bit of young human in Rhys. What power would this man possess in ten years? In one hundred?
Silas grabbed him by the hair and kissed him, tasting his own tears--and Rhys's--in the process.
"It's your turn to shut the fuck up," he said.
"Sometimes pain is good."
Rhys's green eyes were rimmed with red.
"Not this kind of pain."
"I'm alive. I would not be without you."
Rhys wiped a hand over his mouth before answering. "And yet you keep asking me to leave."
Silas stilled. Orange and red clouds glowed in the sky. "Anaxandros is coming for me. I am in no condition to fight him. I can't win."
"I can." Rhys's bravado both warmed and chilled Silas, because Rhys believed what he said.
"No, you can't." He shifted to sitting and held up a hand to stifle Rhys's retort. "You can wound him, yes. But in a long, drawn-out battle?"
That belief wavered. Rhys set his jaw, but fear lingered in his eyes, in his shuddering breaths.
"They wouldn't have sent you if there was no hope."
The Messengers. The truth of Rhys's words dislodged the ghost of an idea. Silas exhaled. Then he pulled in a lungful of air that smelled of earth, leaves, and Rhys and said a single word. "Bait."
The retort he expected did not come. From the tight pull of muscles in his face, across his shoulders, Rhys did not like the idea. Rhys stretched out one long leg. "So, what? I chop off its head when it comes to take you?"
"Something like that."
Rhys let out a strangled laugh. "That's the shittiest idea I've ever heard."
As plans went, itwasthe most pathetic he'd ever concocted. "Have you a better idea?" He said it without sarcasm.
Rhys rubbed his face. "No." He dropped his hands into his lap. "Do we wait here?"
There was a certain advantage to the garden.
"This seems as good a place as any. Better, perhaps."
"Anaxandros will know. I mean, he'll see the trap. Every other time I hit him, he hadn't been expecting it."
"Not true."
That caused Rhys to turn.
"You managed to catch him with your sword.
He knew you had it, should have expected you'd use it."
"I don't even know how to use the thing. I just swung."
