i am the mace, the map, the fall and the high
“I assume very little,” he replies, his bright eyes decidedly devilish as he peers at her, grinning. Where she lay open before him like the pages of a book, it seems she could read little of him in return. It’s an intriguing prospect, knowing she doesn’t truly know him and yet finds him fascinating regardless. And strokes his ego perhaps a little too much, but he is still too young yet to acknowledge such a thing.
Where he can see the way her memories shift and falter - the fear and heart-pounding anticipation of her flight from her home, the love she had borne for those she left behind (even if she refused to admit it), the way she now hides behind her wit and irreverence - she can see only that which he leaves for her. Would she see Brazen’s death in his bones? Lilliana’s continued absence in the raging of the river? The sacrifices he had made for them both in the absence of teeth from the shadows? Or would she find none of it?
Either way, just as he could see her past written in her memories, so too could see the way the future winds before her on so many paths. So many paths that stumble upon his own. Perhaps she would disappear, would run away home, choose one of the invariably few that did not lead to their next meeting. But he doubts it.
As the shadows weave around his bones, knitting skin and fading bruises, he watches her. Listens. There is something about hearing her story from her lips rather than seeing the way it stumbles so haphazardly around her. He finds he rather likes it. “Are monks not celibate?” he asks on a laugh, briefly interrupting. “It’s a wonder you were fathered at all if that’s the case.”
Then she asks about his own family, the shadow creatures of his birth-home. He tilts his head curiously, wondering at her interest in their secrets. “If they did, they would be far more interesting,” he muses, blue eyes fixed on her with a speculative air. “But if you must know, it is merely that my great-uncle is sickeningly in love with his mate and has produced a passel of shadow-children.”
When she has finished her work, he shifts away, suddenly restless. Rune stirs from the tree in which he had been waiting with the silent patience of a predator. Reave glances at the bird for a brief moment before returning his attention to Elliana with open consideration. “Come with me,” he finally invites. It is an invitation he rarely extends. Would she be honored by such a thing? “I don’t think we are nearly finished with one another,” he continues before a wicked smile begins to grow and he adds, “and I might even show you what I was running from.”
reave
@[Elliana]