The Horseman shook his head and sighed. I moved closer to him, insisting, daring to place a hand on his shoulder.
“I thought you could trust me,” I said.
He stared at my hand on his shoulder, then looked up at me. “I want to think that I can. The alternative is to have no one I can trust.”
“Why do I think that’s never been a problem for you before?”
“It wasn’t…” he trailed off, leaving the rest unsaid.
“What if I told you I could prove that you can trust me?” I asked.
He frowned. “How?”
I took a deep breath and crossed the vastness of his room, to his weapon rack. There were swords there, hand axes, knives. I picked a dagger up, felt it in my hand, and then turned to look at him.
“There’s an old practice among my kind,” I said, “It’s not done much anymore because we all hate each other almost as much as we hate our enemies. It’s also… kind of intimate.”
“Intimate?”
I came back to him with the dagger in my hand. He didn’t flinch, didn’t stiffen at the sight of it, no internal alarm bells rang out. He was so confident in his own ability to beat me in a physical confrontation, that the sight of me advancing on him with a knife in my hand didn’t faze him in the slightest—but he did question it.
“What are you going to do with it?” he asked.
My heart started racing again as I approached. Gently I slid into the space in front of him and straddled him. The Horseman stared at me with narrow, questioning eyes. “My people call it sendu kami,” I said, taking one of his hands and placing the tip of the blade against his palm. “The blood-bond.”
“Blood bond?”
“Do you trust me?”
“I do…”
I pushed the dagger’s point gently into his skin and drew it across about an inch, enough to let a little blood spill and pool. I wiped the blade against my jumpsuit, and then I made a similar wound in my own left hand, gritting my teeth against the moment of sharp pain that followed.
“You said this was a custom?” he asked.
“It is,” I said, setting the dagger down on the desk. “It’s a… courting ritual.”
His eyes widened. “Courting?”
“Don’t be dramatic. Give me your hand and take mine in yours.”
The Horseman gave me his hand, and I offered mine in return. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“Well, if you were Serakon, you would be pledging your love for me right about now, and then sealing it with your blood. Since you’re neither Serakon nor in love with me, we’ll skip the love part, and get straight to the blood.”
“How is this going to make me trust you more?”
“As the stories go, the blood-bond calls on old magic to seal a pact between the two performing it. My promise to you is that I won’t run away, that I want to help you. If I break that promise, fate itself will come down on me.”
“And how do I know that’s true?”
“You don’t, you just have to trust me. Now, do what I do.”
The Horseman nodded, and while he looked cool and collected on the outside, I could tell his heart had sped up again. It continued to speed up as I took his hand and brought it closer to my lips. I could smell the blood pooling in his palm. It was still warm, and strong, and sweet. Though he looked a little stunned, the Horseman mimicked my movements, bringing my own hand up to his own mouth.
“Now… what?” he asked, his voice a little low, a little breathless.
I lightly licked my lips and moved his bloody palm to the side of my face, letting his fingertips brush my cheek. An electric current shot through me at the feel of his warm skin against mine, and as soon as I felt it, I nuzzled his palm, letting some of his blood smear across my lips and cheek.
Without prompt, or even hesitation, the Horseman did the same, tenderly grazing my bloody palm with his lips and smearing it along his cheek. A tingling sensation suddenly began tingling, and settled in the pit of my stomach. I’m not sure if that was it, if that was the magic, but it didn’t matter.
The Horseman stared at me from across my own palm. He looked hungry, his eyes were narrow, his eyebrows furrowed. I could feel his chest heaving, his body tightening. I pushed up against him, pressing my chest against his and releasing his hand.
“Can you feel it?” I asked, my voice low.
He rested his hand on my hip. “I can,” he said.
I drew a little nearer to him, breathing lowly against his face. “Do you trust me now?”
The Horseman brushed my hair with his hand, then touched the collar, and it snapped off, falling into the space between us. “I do,” he said, keeping his hand around the back of my head. “Is this witchcraft you’ve done on me?”
“Only if you want it to be,” I sighed.
“I do.”
My lips were so close to his, another inch and they’d meet. I could feel his breath on mine, the scent of his mouth, mingled with his blood. I was about to reach for them, close the distance. Instead, I snapped my teeth and twisted into a backwards roll across his desk. I grinned at him.
“Good,” I said. “But I have a job to do now.”
“Do you even know where you’re going?”
“No, but you know magic. You’re going to build a psychic bridge between us, then you’re going to direct me to where I need to go.”
“This sounds risky.”
I headed for the door and threw a playful glance at him around my shoulder. “Since when has the Horseman of Devil Falls cared about risk?”
CHAPTER SIX
As soon as I felt the Horseman’s psychic magic caress my mind, I knew I’d made a mistake.
A psychic link? What the hell was I thinking? My instinct was to resist him, but I knew if I did, he’d wonder why I’d suddenly had a change of heart about the idea. I’d already flirted with telling him, openly, that I’d thought about killing him. But as far as he was concerned, I’d said it in a lighthearted kind of way.
What if he decided to dig into my mind and find some of the secrets I was hiding?
Can you hear me? He asked, his voice echoing inside my head like it was hollow.
“I can hear you,” I thought, casually.
How does a person even think casually?
I was in the corridor adjacent to the Horseman’s quarters. It was empty, and frustratingly well lit. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to sneak around. I hadn’t used my magic in over a month. It’d been suppressed by the collar slapped around the necks of all Harrowgate inmates. Now I was going to have to rely only on that same, unused muscle to keep me hidden from anyone and anyone, even though I’d be moving around in plain sight.
Is something wrong?
“No. Just… warming up.”
Warm up faster.
I cracked my neck, and then I placed each of my hands on the opposite shoulder and shut my eyes.
“Voyda,” I whispered, drawing my own essence inward. Instantly I felt the pull in the pit of my stomach as my magic muscles flexed. I thought it would take a moment for everything to work, but almost right away, the color in most things washed out just a little bit. Enough to show me that the magic was working.