“Why would Bloodburster want you?”

  Runa had spent the night with the answer to that question drilling holes in her head. But she didn’t want Severine to know that.

  Not now, she told herself, to cover for the fact that she really meant not ever.

  She cocked one eyebrow. “Other than the fact I sleep on a stone slab? I figured it got confused and thought I was the dead guy.”

  “I’m serious. Being the priestess of the blades is the only thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I’ve been doing it for years. I’ve seen how it works. It’s always a good match somehow, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first. Like with—um. But you and Bloodburster? The sword that turned the Blood War into the Skeleton War, because it didn’t leave enough of anyone’s army left alive for them to keep fighting without raising the dead?”

  Runa shrugged. “Maybe I’m just the closest troll. Or part-troll, anyway.”

  She hadn’t missed that um, and the way Severine had cut herself off from giving another example of a blade and wielder who were so perfectly matched. But she put it away for later. Right next to finding out more about whatever Severine and Junilla’s history was.

  … come to think of it, they were probably closely connected.

  All right. Great. She could get two dragons with one song, soon as she got around to dealing with that.

  Because she was so good at dealing with things, and not just ignoring them until they turned into the sort of problem she could hit with a stick.

  “That isn’t how it works.” Severine looked worried. “It’s not about looks, or what species you are, it’s—”

  She broke off again.

  “About the dark depths of your soul?” Runa suggested.

  It was meant to be a joke, but Severine blanched.

  Okay. Shit. Sure, she already knew it was actually about the dark depths of her soul, but that didn’t mean she wanted it confirmed.

  “Blop!”

  Severine jumped slightly as Nobody in Particular waddled out from the fireplace. “Blop-blop,” it insisted.

  “Good point,” Runa drawled, glad of the interruption. “I’m not allowed to have dark depths. I have a job already.”

  And it was time she got into it.

  It was good to have something to do with her hands. And good to feel how familiar she’d become with the motions and textures of this stage of baking. She didn’t need Nobody’s reminders not to flatten the dough too much as she sliced chunks off and shaped them into pillowy loaves ready for their second rise. She folded and tucked in edges with hardly any judgmental clicking from the oven.

  And all the while, Bloodburster watched from the corner.

  She’d left it propped up there the night before. If she was going to pretend like she was coming around to the idea of picking up her destiny, she had to keep it where she could keep an eye on it. For the look of the thing, and also so she didn’t accidentally pull a load of rubbish out of a cupboard or pick up an armful of washing and find a pointy surprise lying in wait.

  That felt like the sort of thing an enchanted blade that wanted to be picked up would do.

  “Do you really think it will work?” Severine asked. “Just… spinning it out as long as possible?”

  She must have noticed Runa trying not to look at the sword.

  “No idea,” Runa admitted. “How does it normally work?”

  “Quickly.” Severine’s voice was flat. “I mean, there’s a fair bit of waiting around in ponds or misty ditches beforehand—”

  “Huh?”

  “—but once the sword’s in the target’s hand, I disappear as quickly as possible.” A muscle in her cheek twitched. “Too many people think that’s a good opportunity to test the merchandise, you know? Or they think, ooh, if she’s got one magical sword, I bet there’s more where that came from.”

  She winced slightly and hesitated, as though she was listening to something. “I know,” she continued, exhaustion dragging on her shoulders. “It’s no one’s fault, and we all do our best, but—you have to admit we’ve had some narrow escapes. And none of you are going to end up with any of your fated wielders if I’m face down in a ditch somewhere.”

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  She paused again, listening. This time, her eyes narrowed.

  “Yes, thank you, of course you’d only be waiting until someone else picked you up and took on my holy duty, I am so appreciative of you reminding me.”

  Runa’s brow furrowed. It was obvious Severine was talking to the swords—she’d seen that before. And they talked back. Sure. People started talking to all sorts of things when they’d been alone long enough, and it sounded like Severine had been traveling solo for a long time. At least the swords probably were actually speaking to her, from her experience with magical objects.

  It was what they were talking about that troubled her.

  “Can you give it up?” she asked abruptly.

  “Hm? Give what up? Talking to a flock of swords all tucked up like babies in my pack?”

  “Give up being the priestess.” Runa slid the last of the shaped loaves into the round bowls that helped them keep their shape as they rose again.

  Which left her with nothing to do with her hands.

  Shit.

  “Uh, last night Corvin said there’s no cure for what you’ve got, but if the whole problem is running after what the swords want all the time…” She waved her hands vaguely. “Isn’t there a way you could just… stop?”

  “Oh, there is,” Severina announced off-handedly. “But I have the wrong sort of morals for it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Unlike the last asshole who had the job.” Severine kept talking as though Runa hadn’t spoken. “The old bloke who passed the duty down to me. I mention him so you don’t think I’m secretly hundreds of years old. Though I suppose there must have been another woman priest before him. You hear lots of stories about silver maidens, very few about silver grandpops with knobbly knees and half their teeth gone.”

  Okay. That made sense. The previous priest must have died, Runa figured. And handed down the duty to the nearest person. She’d encountered spells like that before. Some people passed enchantments down families like old treasures, or sticky-out ears.

  Unless…

  She pulled out the ingredients for another batch of dough. As she measured and mixed, something tugged at her memory. Something else Severine had said.

  Under her hands, the dough’s texture changed, becoming pliant and smooth.

  “When I thought you were a trader, and I asked what brought you into the business, you said it was that or die horribly,” she said at last. “Was that true?”

  “Er, yes, actually.” Severine looked surprised, and then abashed.

  Well, that settled it. She couldn’t blame her for wanting to live.

  “Then we stick with the current plan. Delay me picking up Bloodburster as long as we can, until we figure out another way out. Do they fight?”

  “Do who what?”

  “Do the swords fight? If one of them sniffs out their person, do they fight out who gets to tell you where to go first, or do you choose?”

  “I, uh… it depends? They sometimes—” She paused, listening, and a strange expression passed over her face. “They’ll try,” she said, and swallowed hard. “To want their fates more than Bloodburster wants its.”

  They’ll try? What will Bloodburster have to say about that? Runa kept her thoughts to herself. The sword in the corner loomed large in her attention, even with the soothing distraction of the bread, and the less-soothing distraction of Severine.

  “Let’s give that a go,” then, she said, and as the sun rose above the Cauldron and the village outside woke up, they came up with something that might be a plan, if they didn’t look at it too closely. How did you find the sort of person who had a fate hanging over them? You found them seeking it, or you knocked on the door of someone who absolutely didn’t want it. That second option was no good: even the kindly morning light, filtered through the bakery’s thin curtains, didn’t hide Severine’s bone-deep exhaustion. Whatever plans they made had to contend with the fact that she needed time to recover from her past decade of service.

  “Which, ah, brings me to the other thing we should probably talk about today…” Severine said with the carefulness of someone stepping on broken glass.

  Runa looked up. She was elbow-deep in flour, and wrist-deep in kneading a glossy lump of dough. It had made talking easier. It had made everything easier. It might even taste good, later.

  And it made her ripe for ambush.

  Severine knew this. Runa knew she knew it, because of the apologetic undertones to the brash grin on her face.

  “Hm?” she grunted.

  “At some point today, we’re going to have to tell my ex-mother-in-law that you’ve still invited me to stay, despite that being a terrible idea.”

  “I’m aware.” Runa kneaded the dough some more. She glanced at Severine, who was a bit nervous now, she realised, under the cocky grin and the casual way she was leaning against the bench. “You think we need to strategise our plan of attack?”

  “I was thinking more like retreating to a defensive position.” Severine grimaced.

  “Isn’t that where we are now?”

  “Ah, well, this building has both windows and doors, and a chimney, so no.”

  “Who was she back then?” Runa hesitated. “Who were you?”

  Severine looked miserable. “Will you hate me if I’d rather not say?”

  Runa folded her arms.

  “Oh, fine,” Severine deflated, as though Runa had said something out loud, and not folded her embarrassed awkwardness tightly against her chest where it couldn’t get out. “Can we walk, though? I might feel a sudden need to run like the wind, and if I do that in here I’ll smash straight into a wall.”

  Outside, the air smelled like woodsmoke and fresh green things. The Sweetmeadow sent its scent over the Rim, and this close, the perfume of its cursed flowers mixed with the scents of unmagical rosemary and garden blossoms on the hillside.

  Runa picked a path heading along the Rim, instead of taking the road further into the village. Whatever Severine needed to stretch her legs to say, she probably didn’t want to say it any closer to Junilla than she had to.

  It was so different to the first time she’d walked this way, back when the entire mountainside had been covered in snow and ice. The noises of the village had faded behind them by the time Severine took a deep breath.

  Runa cocked an eyebrow at her, but didn’t see anything. Severine saw her not say anything, and let out her breath in a huff.

  “She’s the Butcher Queen, all right?”

  She fell silent, letting the pronouncement hang in the air.

  “Uh,” Runa broke the silence after it had hung spinning in the air for long enough. “Should I know who that is?”