Free Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin

smiling. ‘He will be a tasty bite for you.’
    Ryam hoisted himself out of the pool. A river of water streamed from him, dripping onto the bank. ‘Don’t you dare throw him back,’ he warned. ‘That’s all we’re getting today. I’m out of practice.’
    ‘You’re not going to catch me one?’
    Her words caught in her throat as he tugged the soaked tunic off. Sunlight gleamed off the broad expanse of masculine skin and muscle. The thatch of golden hair on his chest tapered over the hard planes of his stomach. A plume of heat rushed up her neck until her face burned with it.
    He wrung the water from the cloth. ‘Seemed like a good idea at the time,’ he muttered. ‘I haven’t tried that in years.’
    She barely heard him as she stared. Her pulse pounded hard in her ears. ‘You—you are going to catch cold,’ she stammered.
    He looked up then and grew quiet. ‘It’s a warm day.’
    An endless expanse of burnished skin hovered before her. When she tried to look at his face, it was even worse. Sky-blue eyes held her gaze as he tugged the damp tunic back down over his shoulders.
    Deliberately, he turned away. The gesture did nothing to banish this dawning awareness that had invaded her and seized control. The sleek muscles of his back moved beneath the damp cloth as he pulled a knife from his belt and started cleaning the catch, his gaze fixed upon his task. She retreated against the trunk of a cedar tree and tried to look anywhere but at him, wishing she had something useful to do at the moment.
    The gaping silence begged to be filled with anything, some sound to string one moment with the next. She hooked her arms over her knees as he sparked a pile of kindling and nursed the ember into flames.
    ‘You should teach me how to do that.’ She was babbling. ‘How to start a fire, find food.’
    He speared a sharpened stick through the fish and held it over the flames. ‘You won’t need it. You’ll be home soon enough.’
    She fell silent. This would all go away. This swordsman with blue eyes and the storm of emotions that came with him. She had to remember that these moments, no matter how wondrous, would die away like the fire. She needed to think, think and not feel. But how could she when he brought out so much that was hidden within her?
    Ryam turned the fish over and over, the skin growing crisp and black over the flames.
    ‘What is it like where you are from?’ she asked.
    ‘Our men are encamped in the Gansu corridor just beyond your western border.’
    His wary tone took her by surprise. Were his men in hiding? Was he fearful that she would reveal their location? She pushed away that disturbing thought.
    ‘I mean your homeland. Where you came from.’
    ‘Very different from here,’ he said, holding the skewered fish out to her.
    She plucked a morsel from the bone with two fingers and lifted it to her lips. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was until that moment.
    ‘You must have more to say than that.’
    ‘If you keep travelling west, around the abandoned desert, you’ll reach a sea. Cross that and keep on going. If you haven’t been killed by hostile armies or bandits, you’ll arrive in a valley bordered by two great rivers.’
    She tried to imagine the world beyond the great desert. It must be a tapestry of wild and exotic tribes, where pale-skinned warriors roamed the forests.
    ‘Grandfather would tell us stories of how his armies marched to faraway kingdoms,’ she said.
    He pulled off a chunk of the fish and popped it into his mouth. ‘I doubt your grandfather made it anywhere near our land. The journey is not an easy one.’
    ‘Were you a soldier over there?’ she asked.
    He let out a short, cutting laugh. ‘Not a very good one.’
    The fish was reduced to a spiny comb. He tossed the bones into the fire and lay back, resting his head on his arms to watch the trees. Sunlight filtered in pockets through the leaves, dappling his face in light and shadow. His sword was laid out