Chapter Text
They had been dancing around each other for weeks; ever since Sky’s accidental confession in the spirit’s lair. Sworn stuttered when she touched his elbow, moving past him for a better look at the map. Sky wouldn’t meet his eyes, brushing her white braids into and then out of her face.
Not him, she’d said, with all the desperation of a mortal facing her own death. I need him.
After Sworn finished his report, he took a risk—caught her gaze just as Sky was turning past him to say something to Eursolon, standing quiet and watchful in the corner. He had the impression that Sky allowed herself to be caught—maybe even wanted him to catch her. She looked back at him with her wide, dark eyes, unblinking.
He’s mine, she said, in his memory. She said it with her eyes now, defying spirits and witches to tell her otherwise.
Ame, on the other side of the table, cleared her throat. “Thank you, Sworn, for the information. And for your bravery.”
Ame had a way of making these utterly inane statements that were somehow sincere. Something about her earnest delivery prevented him from growing angry, though if anyone else had thanked him for his bravery he might have thrown up.
Instead, Sworn nodded to her, bowed to Sky, and showed himself out of that room as quickly as he could. Before the door was quite closed he heard Ame hiss excitedly, “What was that about, Sky?”
***
Hours later, Sworn was taking inventory in the basement of their safehouse. He hadn’t gone up for dinner, though Ame had called down helpfully. There was comfort in the simple, repetitive task of sorting dried fish from root vegetables, blocks of salt from waxed cheese wheels. As far as he could tell, all of this had been given as gifts to the Witch of the World’s Heart, although of course she didn’t call herself that here.
Sworn had expected joining a rebellion to involve more furtive movements and desperate thefts to stay alive. But they’d been camped in this nothing of a village for months now, and the worst thing they’d done was vandalize the boatshed to turn it into a ritual space.
His thoughts were interrupted by a clatter as Sky stumbled on the loose board coming down the basement stairs. She caught herself on the rough wall, cradling a bottle and two glasses against her chest. Sworn had to tear his eyes away from both and look back down at the ledger he was writing.
Sky sat down next to him, too close—he could feel the warmth of her arm against his, and her knee knocked against his thigh as she sprawled back on the dirt floor.
He couldn’t read a damn word of the ledger.
Sky sighed and uncorked the bottle—the rough, sharp smell of the rotgut they distilled here wafted out. Sworn swallowed.
"I’m not having that,” he said, too quickly. He smoothed one hand across the page to stop it trembling.
Against his shoulder, Sky shrugged and poured a glass for herself. “Ame reminded me,” she said, her voice steady but hoarse, as if she’d been screaming. “That I have a bad habit of...not letting people make their own choices. So.” She tipped the glass up in a mocking toast. Drank. Sworn pretended not to watch the long line of her throat. The curve of her cheek gleaming in his weir-light.
Without looking at him, Sky lowered the glass. Poured another drink—not drunk, he could tell by how precisely she measured the liquor—but not quite herself either. Sworn felt his stomach drop, and then he read the expression on her face and felt his heart shudder instead. Because she was afraid .
“I failed to ask you, once...” Sky was trying very hard not to let her voice shake. But he could hear how hard she had to try.
She stopped to clear her throat, toying with the glass in her hand. He liked her more for not taking another drink, but forging onward. “I failed to take into account your choice on...the manner in which we conduct ourselves.” More quietly (more real), she added, “I shouldn’t have claimed you like that. You get to make your own choices, and just because you’re here doesn’t mean—”
“Sky.” Sworn took the hand not holding a glass, cradling it carefully in both of his. It was easier, somehow, to look at their hands rather than deal with the uncertainty still on her face. Sky being afraid of him was so wrong he didn’t have words for it. “I am only here because of you,” he said at last. “I want—” damn, he wanted a drink. “I want to be. Yours. Please.” His voice broke (again), his hands tightening convulsively. “That’s why I’m here. Whatever that means to you is what I want it to mean, I just need you—” He stopped. Sky was holding his hands. She’d said not him. She wouldn’t leave him (again, again). “You have me. Sky, you have me in whatever way you want me, you—” and that was when she kissed him.
She’d put down the glass (dropped it? he didn’t know) to bury a hand in his overgrown hair; she’d thrown herself towards him on her knees, so that he could feel the rabbit-fast beat of her heart against his ribs. And her mouth...Sworn had spent far too much time thinking about her soft, full lips, her clever tongue singing with the lingua arcana.
Sky sighed into his mouth, and Sworn shivered, his arms coming up to hold her without thinking. For a few heart-stopping moments, he wasn’t thinking at all—not double- or triple-guessing himself, not calculating the damage he wasn’t yet feeling. Sworn let himself get lost in the moment which, like all moments, was going to end much too soon.
Eventually, Sky pulled away, one hand fallen down to lean on his shoulder, the other wrapped up in his coat. Sworn found that sometime during the kiss he’d closed his eyes. He didn’t particularly feel like opening them again.
“I do want you,” Sky said bluntly, but with a wistful undercurrent that made him uneasy. “I have for...a while. But Sworn, I—the last time I loved someone I got him killed.” Silver’s ghost hung between them, a silence that grew heavier the longer it lasted. “I realized something, though.” Sky took a slow, deep breath. Sworn could feel her exhale brush his cheek. “In that cave. I realized that I already cared about you—that you were already a lever someone could use against me.” When he opened his eyes, drew a breath of his own to retaliate, Sky stopped him with a shake of her head.
“I’ve known ever since I left the Citadel that my love is the most dangerous thing about me.” She smiled, a bitter expression that looked wrong on a face so young. Sworn knew that smile from the inside out. He couldn’t tell if it was a relief to see Sky wear it—or shame.
“It doesn’t matter if I tell you or not. It doesn’t matter if I keep you at arm’s length for the rest of my life, because I’ve already put you in enough danger. And I’ve taken enough choices away from you.”
Sworn held very still, looking at her. It wasn’t his place, and he didn’t deserve it, and there was no way their luck would hold...but he reached a hand out anyway, and cupped her cheek. Sky leaned in to his touch, ever so slightly, still looking at him. Her smile started to soften at the edges.
“Sky...I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we are in active rebellion against the Citadel. And the Empire. Danger doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
“I know, I know—” she murmured, but Sworn wasn’t finished.
“I’m not afraid of dying in your service, Sky. I’m not afraid of others knowing that. But don’t ever do something for my own good, do you hear me? I may not make the right choice, but...thank you. For letting me choose.” Hardly believing his own daring, Sworn leaned in to kiss her again. Sky let him, tilting her face a little to meet him. He was careful, so careful, because part of him still couldn’t believe that this was happening.
“For what it’s worth,” he muttered, drawing back to kiss her cheek. To kiss down the line of her throat, running his thumb along the curve of her spine. “My money’s on you.”
Sky laughed a little breathlessly, nestling herself closer. “Us misfits against the Light of the Tower?”
“And all the Empire too, don’t forget.” Sworn hooked one finger under the neckline of her shirt so he could bite at the edge of her collarbone. Sky gasped and grabbed his arms; retaliated by sinking her teeth into the meat of his shoulder.
“I’m not going to have you on a dirt floor,” she muttered, even while she was pushing up his sleeves to run her palms over his forearms.
Sky was always so practical that sometimes her fastidiousness caught him off guard. “No?” Sworn pulled her up into his lap, his legs spread wide around her and—the damn ledger driving into his belly. Sky hummed like she always did when she was thinking, shifting to avoid the book in ways that were very distracting. She leaned away from him, her smile both more serious and more true. “Give me half an hour,” she said, like someone accustomed to giving orders. “Then come up to my room.”
“Aye, Captain.” He said it quietly, but he couldn’t hide his sincerity, and was equally gratified by the faintest blush rising on Sky’s cheeks.
“We may have to do something with that,” she said, half to herself.
Sworn relinquished her back to her feet, already feeling the time begin to drag. “Anything you say.” He meant it to be more than a simple invitation—and he saw Sky catch the double meaning with a delighted grin.