Uprooted

“Are you deranged?”
“I thought you were going to throw me in the oven,”

“Marek, forgive me. Marek—your brother is dead. They killed him in the first ambush, when he went to survey the river.”

“Not until I’ve eaten lunch, we won’t,” I said, not pausing: I was chopping carrots.

He muttered something under his breath about recalcitrant idiots.

She’d remembered how to kill and how to hate, and she’d forgotten how to grow.

“Listen, you impossible creature,” he said, “I’m a century and more older than—”
“Oh, be quiet,” I said impatiently; of all the excuses he might have used.

I wanted to rub handprints through his dust.

“No,” Sarkan said, coming to my side. “Stop. I don’t know how you’ve done any of this, and I imagine I’ll be appalled when I learn, but you’ve been too profligate with your magic for one hour.”

They stared at me, and in the silence I heard shouts outside in the courtyard, running feet. The guards were looking in with their hands on their sword-hilts, and I realized I’d just shaken the king’s castle, in the king’s city, and shouted at the highest wizards of the land.

I found myself grateful for the small lift I felt, from the thunder of his name on my tongue.

You intolerable lunatic,” he snarled at me, and then he caught my face between his hands and kissed me.