Page 29 of Bonded By Stone & Blood

I don't have a response to that. I'm not sure one exists.

That's when I hear Velka's boot scrape against stone and look up to find her and Leif standing frozen at the cavern entrance.

Leif stares. Not at me—at him. At eight feet of ancient, obsidian-skinned gargoyle Alpha standing in his own ruined fortress, carefully combing debris from a human woman's hair like it is the most natural thing in the world. I watch my brother's face move through about six different emotions in under four seconds.

"Huh," Velka says.

Leif closes his mouth. Opens it again. "He's not—" He stops. Tries a different angle. "You're not—" He gestures vaguely at the space between us, as if his hands might finish the sentence his brain refuses to complete.

"Leif." My voice is gentle.

"He's tidying you, Sabine."

"I know."

Leif has spent weeks carrying a version of Tovian built entirely from fear and village story and reasonable terror, and watching that version collapse in real time is not comfortable for him. But he doesn't look away. My brother has always been braver than he believes.

"I want to learn to fight," Leif says finally. He squares his shoulders and looks directly at Tovian when he says it, which is either remarkable courage or remarkable foolishness. Probably both.

Tovian regards him in silence for a moment. Then he makes a sound that might, generously, be called approval.

Velka claps Leif on the back with enough force to rock him forward. "Brilliant. Real war is nothing like hammering horseshoes, by the way."

"I know that?—"

"Do you? Because you've got a forge callus on your left thumb and the stance of a man who flinches at loud noises."

"I don't flinch?—"

"You flinched when I said flinch."

They bicker their way toward Vorgrym, who watches their approach with the face of a man who has survived centuries of Stone Sleep only to find two squabbling humans considerably more bewildering than any of it.

The sparring ring Tovian leads me to is a wide, low-ceilinged chamber off the great cavern, its floor worn smooth from centuries of use. Behind us, the unlikely combination of Vorgrym's harsh commands and Velka's running commentary filters through the stone walls, punctuated by Leif's periodic yelps.

Tovian stands across from me. I have the drakestone blade Vorgrym gave me. He has nothing.

"Gargoyle combat is not about speed," he says

"You're enormous. It can't be."

"It's gravity. Body weight. The arc." He moves his arm in a slow, sweeping gesture—not a strike, more like water redirecting itself. "We use what we are. You fight against your size. We fight with ours."

"And how does that help me, exactly? I'm human-sized."

"You're small. Use it. Get inside the arc before it closes."

He comes at me slowly the first time, deliberately telegraphing. I duck under his arm, pivot, bring the flat of my blade against his ribs.

He doesn't react. "Again."

The second time I'm faster. The third time he's faster. By the fifth pass, I'm sweating through my undershirt and my footwork has stopped being embarrassing, and somewhere between the sixth and seventh exchange something clicks into place—I stop watching his hands and start watching his weight.

"There," he says, and there is a low satisfaction in his voice that makes my nape prickle, visceral and unbidden, nothing whatsoever to do with combat.

I press the attack. He lets me get close, genuinely close, and then his leg sweeps mine clean out from under me.

I have exactly half a second of freefall before his arm catches me around the waist, hauling me back against his chest before I hit the floor.