Chapter 68
It was infuriating that he’d not immediately gone to her when he arrived, and thus only fitting he suffer the consequences of this slight. Maryam kicked his ankle: boot tip right on the bone, and not skimping on the swing either.
“Ow, ow ow Maryam what in the Manes-”
The second thing she did was hug Tristan’s scrawny frame until his ribs were nigh creaking. The Sacromontan went stiff as a board, for a moment, then unwound like a breath released. Enough to rest his chin on her head while she buried her face into his shoulders. He smelled liked grapes, for some inexplicable reason, but that was not enough to ruin this.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“I’m not sure how I’m meant to reply to ‘mwah wah bwah’,” the prick informed her. “Is this some foreign cant?”
Maryam took her face off his coat long enough to glare and kept it there when asking her question this time.
“Where have you been?” she repeated.
“Broadening my horizons,” Tristan replied. “I learned a thing or two of cannonry.”
“I don’t see why you’d want to,” she said. “They’re too heavy for you to throw.”