Silent Warrior by Lindsey Piper Page B

Real, spoken words.
    “Hark? What’s my name?”
    He blinked.
    “I gave it to you, remember? I trusted you with it. What’s my name?”
    The gun wavered. Blue eyes made murky by shadows blinked again.
    “I can’t understand why I told you. Maybe because I finally wanted someone else to know. To know I existed. The real me. Do you hear me talking to you? I’ve never said so many words to anyone except you, and I don’t know why.” She swallowed a ragged cry. “Don’t end my life now. I have more to say. I promise. Just . . . Hark, tell me my name.”
    “Can’t.” He shuddered. He seemed to shove his shoulders against a brick wall, although there was no wall and he didn’t move. “He’ll hear.”
    “Then put that Dragon-damned thing down and come tell me.”
    He flipped on the safety and dropped the pistol. A heartbeat later, he enveloped her in his arms. They shook. Shook together. Hark nestled his roughened lips against the dip behind her earlobe. “Orla of Sath.”
    “Yes, you maddening son of a bitch.”
    “Sweet talker,” he said, smiling against her skin. “Now I get to kill him.”
    Silence grabbed his wrist as he stood. “No, you can’t. He was my mission in coming here. I’ll be punished if he dies.”
    Jawahar laughed again, but with less arrogance. His golden skin had taken on a sickly sheen.
    Hark lifted his brows at Silence. He’d nearly returned to his joker self. She wanted more and more—anything but the pulsing ice-fear of staring Hark’s shadow self in the face. “What about maiming? My nighnor ’s around here somewhere. Out of the question, too?”
    “He was bought and paid for because of his skill in the Cages.”
    Rather than hurt the Indranan beast, Hark thrust a boot against the man’s collarbone and bent him toward the ground. The chain binding one wrist pulled taut. “What’s the code? I don’t want him in my head anymore. He’s one sick fucker.”
    Silence recited the combination for reactivating Jawahar’s temporary collar. She sagged back against the concrete. The whoosh of losing another Dragon King’s gift was disorienting. She always experienced moments of suffering when she relinquished what was briefly hers.
    With Jawahar contained, Hark returned to her side. He took her head in his lap. “You seriously need a shower.”
    Said the pot to the kettle.
    “Say that again.”
    You heard me.
    “Yeah, but how?”
    “I don’t know,” she whispered. “This hasn’t happened to me before. Connection severed. Powers gone. That’s the way of it.”
    Something about sharing with each other?
    She gripped his hands, both of them sticky and smelling of copper. “I don’t care the reasons. You’ve seen why I run. Your turn. Show me the darkness. You’ll never need to say it aloud if you show me.”
    Hark closed his eyes. The jester was replaced by what appeared to be a man half his age. She couldn’t tell if her eyes were playing tricks or if it was the fading telepathy.
    My brother. Rian. He’d stolen from the wrong people. Again. Dragon Kings, this time. Somewhere in Budapest. Damn us Sath and our obsession with trinkets. He had a useless sack of them. Kept adding to it. Three Pendray wanted them back.
    He threw me the sack, hid me in a half-dug grave. Told me to stay still and quiet.
    “How old were you?”
    Ten. He was twice my age. My only family. He was a powerful Sath, but he couldn’t fend off all three when they went full berserker. I hid in that shallow pit. Wanted to be small. Eyes closed. Buried in the black. I swallowed mud rather than scream. How many days do you stay still before you know they’re gone for good? In the dark. Stay quiet. In the dark . . .
    “Hark. Hark, come back. Don’t stay there. Show me somewhere else.”
    They were touching. Past or present or future. They didn’t have much of a past—just that fuck against the wall of a hotel in barely better condition than the warren. The present was a living nightmare.
    The