The Peaks
“Again.”
“I’m going to snap my fucking neck.”
“Not if you do it properly.”
“Gods give me strength!”
Kit eyed me with a sly look. “Are you asking for strength because you have none of your own? Is that why you still haven’t managed to fly?”
Eight days. I’d been putting up with his incessant bullshit and badgering for eight fucking days now, and I was about ready to snap.
Kit had flown us from Kevilla to the Asotines, straight above the tiny town of Teciras, then threatened if I hadn’t flown myself off the peaks by the time we reached the eastern corner, he’d shove me off them himself and see if my high opinions were enough to keep me in the air.
We weren’t even halfway, and I was positive only one of us was going to make it off these peaks alive. Either Kit was going to have me kill myself jumping off cliff edges, or I was going to put my dagger through his skull.
Probably the latter.
He laid on an enormous fallen tree a few feet away, indolent arrogance pouring from his relaxed position. One knee bent and midnight wings arcing loosely to the ground as he tossed and caught a little throwing knife in the air above him on repeat.
I willed the tiny blade to slip between his fingers and lodge between his eyes, but unfortunately the spy was too skilled to ever let that happen. “Fuck you,” I spat, temper flaring at his constant taunting.
“Happy to, Treasure—as soon as you manage to fly,” he quipped, still focused on his weapon. “I’ll even fuck you in the skies if you want. But you’ll get no spectacular inch of me while your feet remain on the ground.”
You fucking—
Before the idea fully formed in my mind, I’d already palmed my dagger and let it fly at his head. But it passed through air and into the copse beyond as Kit sifted before he came under any threat.
His dark voice purred against my ear. “You missed.”
I screamed my irritation and whirled with my palm raised to slap him, but he caught my wrist in his vice grip. Kit lowered his brows in a glare, the most he ever reacted to my outbursts, before turning his scowl into an arrogant smirk.
Without a word, he dropped my wrist, then meandered back to his log, flicking his dagger in the air once again as he strolled.
No—not his dagger.
My fucking dagger. The one I’d launched at his head seconds ago. How he’d managed to intercept the blade and appear behind me was a terrifying testament of his speed and skill that I didn’t want to think about.
I glared at his retreating form. “I see why Killian hates you,” I hissed as he laid back down and sunned himself, resuming his throwing game.
“Yet, there are so many reasons he actually loves me.”
I scoffed. “Can’t be many. I’ve yet to see one.”
Kit paused the cocked blade in his hand and narrowed his eyes at me side-long. He considered me for a long moment, running his dangerous glare up and down my form. I folded my arms under my chest and flexed my wings in defence of his scrutiny.
“Again.”
I pressed my lips together to stop another insult from spilling, rolled my eyes, then stomped back up the twenty-foot incline he’d ordered me to leap off. My legs ached, my knees were covered in dirt and bark from the countless times I’d already slammed to the ground below, and my back ached from the strain of my wings trying to remain airborne.
So far, I’d only managed to keep myself level with the cliff’s edge twice for a few seconds, before my strength gave out and I plummeted the short drop anyway.
This time was no different.
I beat my shimmering wings hard enough to make my body lift as I stepped off. They stretched tight, and I half expected the membranes to tear under the pressure of the air they fought against.
But gravity pulled harder, and my back screamed against the strain too heavy to win against. My wings gave up, and I dropped. My ankles slammed into the dirt before I fell onto my hands and knees, a small stone slashing across my palm.
“Fucking—ow,” I hissed, gripping the cut.
Kit let out an obnoxiously loud, exasperated sigh, and I lifted my head to glare at him.
“That’s enough for now, this is getting hard to watch.”
“Don’t tell me you’re sick of seeing me fall? It might mean you have a heart,” I sassed as I stood, inspecting my palm.
Nothing major.
“No, not at all,” Kit purred as he, too, stood from his log and wandered closer. “It’s just I’ve imagined you on your knees before, Treasure, and you’re ruining the fantasy.”
“Gods, you’re perverted.”
“Guilty,” he intoned as he stepped up to me. He brought his long fingers to cup my injured hand from beneath and tsked his disapproval at the cut. I expected another smart remark, but the spy glided his free hand across my palm, and warm tingles spread along the wound in its wake.
Immediately, the skin pulled itself back together, healing from the inside out, until nothing but a faint red line remained. I raised my head to look at him, and found his eyes already waiting to meet mine, staring intently at the grey iris on my left.
A shiver ran down my arms at his expression, though I couldn’t decipher if the intense way his emerald eyes burned into mine was one of annoyance at my lack of skill, or heated by his train of thoughts of me on my knees.
What I needed to remember was that Kit was a spy and undoubtedly using every tactic in his arsenal against me in whatever game he was playing. Because he was after something. His words in Alziros alone were proof of it.
‘You’ll share everything with me, Treasure.’
I needed to remain unaffected by him. Neutral. Kit was a means to an end for me—my trainer and ticket into Orella’s temple. So I straightened my spine and willed the words thank you to sound.
But before I could speak, Kit’s expression changed in a blink back to the smug provoker. “Wouldn’t want you to use blood loss as an excuse for your inabilities, Treasure.”
I bristled and balled my fist, nails digging in so hard against my palm that it stung.
Kit flicked out my dagger, holding it by the blade so I could take the handle. As I reached out, he flinched it away. I met his eyes once again, and this time his brow was raised in amusement. “Are you going to throw it at me again, Treasure?”
I glared. “Probably.”
“Gods you’re a fucking nightmare,” he said, chuckling. He tipped the handle back down for me. “Don’t miss next time.”
I lifted my lip in a snarl, my finger rising along with it to flip him off, but he brushed past me with that infuriating, unbothered smirk back on his face.
“Be mad at me later, Treasure,” he crooned, looking back over his shoulder. “We have a temple to reach.”
