That was all we often ever saw—the obvious light or dark.
Her eyes widened as she stepped toward me, then stopped.
Looking down, I could see why, with the blood splattered on the back of my hands, caked on my sleeves enough to be obvious despite the blackness of the fabric.
“You . . .” Her eyes were neither upset nor accusing, just asking.
“No . . . he is somewhat . . . scored. At least one broken wrist, some cracked ribs, and probably a broken jaw. That doesn’t include the severely punctured ego.”
My lady nodded slowly. “Now you know, and Odin Thor knows.”
I shrugged. My shoulders ached, and my skull throbbed with the still-remembered agonies I had forced through myself to our would-have-been tyrant. “I suppose so. I suppose so.”
It wasn’t a question of supposing. Odin Thor knew. Knew that I had held him in the palm of my hand and judged him. Knew that I could visit death—or even worse—upon him. Knew that I understood death better than death itself, something that had taken me a long time to accept. But after feeling, individually, hundreds of deaths, I knew that death was not to be feared. Dying was another question, and I could leave Odin Thor dying endlessly.
I dropped the morbid thoughts and half-smiled at the sandy-haired woman who had trusted me more than I trusted myself.
Her hands took mine, those slender and strong fingers intertwining with mine, and I understood also why she had let the decision be mine.
“There’s a lot to do . . .”
She shook her head. “Tomorrow will come. You’ve made sure of that—“
It was my turn to disagree. “We made sure of that.”
“Then, hadn’t we better make sure of us?” Her eyes sparkled like the sky over a rainbow, and her fingers tightened around mine.
She was right, of course.
Timediver's Dawn Page 33
