“I’m sorry Katelyn… you were right.”
“Saying sorry doesn’t change a damned… I was what?” I asked, taken aback when I actually stopped to process to what he was saying.
“You were right. It is my fault you’re here. I never should have blamed you… it was childish of me,” he admitted.
Now I was the one who felt childish. He was standing here apologizing for what I was doing at that very moment: blaming. I stopped pacing, but kept my arms wrapped around my middle. A little bit of my anger had been unwillingly extinguished.
“I’ve thought about it a lot. I was being selfish when I told you to take responsibility for your actions. You saved my life. I owe you more than I can ever repay. Thank you,” he said genuinely, but the words seemed difficult for him to say.
I sighed, conflicted. My first impulse was to toss it behind me, forgive and forget, but I couldn’t be the normal me. I couldn’t let it go. I was in a life and death situation and, as a prisoner, the worst was far from over.
“What does that matter now?” I said shaking my head. “I appreciate the gratitude, finally, but it’s a little late. Look around! I asked you for help at Breakwater Keep when I had enough freedom to walk around on my own and you turned me away. You treated me like a stranger. I know, okay? I know it’s how you’re supposed to act, but I hate it! Do you have any idea how alone I’ve felt? How scared?”
As the criticisms came tumbling from me, so did all of my torrential emotions. I wanted to say more, but bit back my words before they could make me cry. As it was, I rubbed my face with a trembling hand and hoped he wouldn’t notice the mist in my eyes.
“I’m a prisoner too, Katelyn. Most of us are,” he said levelly, taking a single, tentative step towards me.
“You’re not a prisoner, you’re a Dragoon. You carry a sword… and a gun!” I countered in exasperation. “Lina, your own sister, came here and told the Commanders to let me go.”
“It was Lina?” he asked, his face stricken with shock and fear.
“I told you, I talked to her. She and Dylan are the only two people who seem to care about what happens to me.” Saying his name reignited my concern for him and amplified resentment for the way Rune had treated me this entire time.
“I care,” his words were barely audible.
I let out one short, cynical laugh, completely devoid of humor. “How? Detach yourself from all of this for a second, look back on each thing that’s happened and think about it. How could you possibly care, with the way you’ve treated me?”
“I,” he cleared his throat, at a loss for words. In the moment, my triumph was bitter. I was right, he didn’t care and I could hate him for it. But then he found the words and answered. “I hoped that you weren’t really a Lodestone. If you took their tests and showed no Abilities, you’d be in Lord Axton’s custody and have a much higher chance of escape. That hope failed and I came here as soon as I could.
“I lied and told everyone in the meeting that I didn’t remember a single detail about the region where we met. I don’t remember much that I could really bet on, but I’m pretty sure I can recall the general area. I told no one.
“I brought you my meal when I could get away with it. I checked on you in secret to make sure you weren’t being mistreated. I’ve slept on the stone floor since I gave you the only bedding that they issue us. I had to destroy four other blankets so they didn’t know who did it. We all pleaded innocent.
“I had to bring you here, whether I wanted to or not. I couldn’t let you escape because an entire force of Dragoons and both of our Commanders were watching. You wouldn’t have been able to get away and they would hurt you if it meant stopping you. I didn’t want to have to be the one to escort you here. I knew you’d hate me for it.
“At Breakwater Keep, while I was recovering, I was miserable. I couldn’t stop thinking about you and when I slept… you were there too. I hated being the reason you were taken captive. I wrote anonymous letters to Dylan Axton warning him that if he hurt you in any way, I’d throw him into the ocean. Seeing the two of you racing down the beach made me…jealous. Your visits to the recovery room forced me to walk a very thin line. The only way I could help you was by pushing you away. The fact that you are a Lodestone is temporarily protecting you now. At that point though, I didn’t even consider that you could be a Lodestone. If you weren’t one, they’d have no use for you. You’d be given to the Axtons, but if we were caught together… for any kind of friendship, we both would have been tortured by Stakes and killed by Fallux. He’d drain me first.”
I stood just a pace away from him, feeling a million miles away from myself as he spoke. How could I have known all these things? I hadn’t the slightest clue that there was a very dangerous battle going on within Rune. He had put himself on the line for me. He was even doing it at that very moment, just by being in the room with me. All of my anger was blasted out of me, like the gusts of the storm outside had simply carried it off.
“There were some who kept an eye on me at first, wondering about the nature of the relationship between a Dragoon near death, aided by a beautiful girl. I wanted to see you,” he said, his brows pinching together. He looked tormented. I stopped breathing.
He looked away and laughed dryly. “If they heard everything I’m telling you now, they’d execute me a thousand times. It wasn’t easy for me… to have to push you away. I figured it was idiotic, foolish, to care so much about a person I hardly knew. It’s against everything I’ve been taught, but when I’m with you, I feel, and it’s the most amazing thing!”
His slight, half smile was both unsure and brilliantly honest. I felt my heart thump its last beat. First my lungs gave up on me, and now my heart. At this rate I’d be dead before he finished talking.
I didn’t know what to say. I opened my mouth but a completely incoherent sound was all that made it out. He got a determined look on his face and held up a hand to signal that he wasn’t finished saying what he needed to.
“I wanted to protect you, and if pushing you away from me was what I needed to do, then I vowed it’d be my course of action,” he nodded resolutely and took a step closer, bridging the space between us.
A personal-space warning flag shot up within my mind but I was so preoccupied being dumbfounded that I didn’t react.
“Katelyn, the ghost in the cave. My dying wish was not to feel alone and there you were. It meant the world to me. It means the world to me. When I met you, I know I wasn’t exactly in a stable state of mind, but I didn’t feel like a Dragoon. I didn’t feel like a soldier trained to be emotionless, to be marched into war as a tool, killed, drained or turned into an inhuman Commander. I felt free. I felt like a normal person. I could care, and I did. I cared about you.
“It was stupid to think that after one delusional conversation in a cave somewhere, you could care about me. But you came back,” he said, looking down at me with warmth behind his blue eyes. He held a hand out tentatively, as if to touch me and I didn’t move away. His hand brushed the side of my face and a lock of my hair so softly that I could hardly feel it. “You came down and you helped me. It would be just as naive to hope that you had the same feelings for me, that I had for you… but you kissed me back.”
I was snapped out of my trance to a state of complete confusion. So far everything he said had paralleled a true event, but the last part hadn’t happened at all.
“Rune, we never…” I began to tell him.
He gently framed my face with his hands, stooped, and pressed his lips to mine. Rune’s eyelids fluttered shut and he nudged my face ever so slightly to coax our lips apart. The thrill and surprise of the moment was indescribable. My knees went weak, almost buckling beneath me.
I pulled carefully away to find my hands holding his biceps. Emotions swirled through me, making me feel dizzy. If you would have asked me a minute ago, I would have told you it wouldn’t happen, but he had been right: I’d kissed him back.
As we disengaged, he let
go of me with a slight jump. A smile more saturated with the meaning of the moment than any I’d ever seen, was lighting his face.
“You just shocked me,” he said.
Chapter 27: Shadow Chasers
That was my first real bit of proof to myself that I did have The Spark. I accidentally zapped Rune after he kissed me. Now that I looked back on it, I’d frequently feel a little snap of electricity when I changed clothes or touched a doorknob. Maybe it was more often than the average person but I always figured it was the usual static.
At any rate, Rune clearly found the little jolt I gave him charming. I should have figured that a Dragoon wouldn’t be frightened off by random displays of elemental influence. Still, I felt strangely shy about the incident, kiss included.
“You can’t just do things like that you know,” I complained, feeling awkwardly good. The blush that crept to my face must have been monstrous. What my friends would say if they could see me now: bold Kat, reduced to jittery embarrassment.
“Do what?” Rune asked. He was obviously very happy.
“Rune!” I said completely flustered. “You just kissed me- without any warning!”
“You kissed me back,” he pointed out.
“I know, but- you can’t just do that. You need to ask my permission first. It’s only fair,” I said shifting away from him and bumping into a table in the process. The zingy, alive feeling I had wasn’t helping my resistance. Neither was the fact that I couldn’t tear my eyes off of him.
He nodded his head once, looking down to regard me. His posture shifted and his face grew very serious again. “Are you saying that it didn’t feel good?”
“Well,” I fidgeted. “No. But- I mean, I don’t know.”
The second I said, “no”, his face brightened and he took a step toward me again.
“May I kiss you again, Katelyn Kestrel?” he asked formally, on his best behavior.
“No,” I said, oddly abashed. Part of me wished he would anyway, but he passed the gentlemen test and kept to himself. “Rune, there’s too much going on. Dangerous things are happening.”
“Welcome to my world,” he said and couldn’t have known how right he was to choose that phrase. He leaned against the sturdy table beside me. “Dangerous things are always happening.”
Just feeling his presence so casually beside me made me feel safe. But there was no such thing as safety, not here. Any sense of it was an illusion. Dread swirled up within me.
“Rune, you have to stay away from me,” I said turning to him urgently.
“I know that,” he said with a little smile.
“No,” I shook my head. “You don’t. Stakes, he choked me twice: once with his hands and once with a Command. He said that he’d find all my friends and make them bleed. He threatened me too. He said he’d get rid of Fallux and then drain me.”
“Katelyn,” he said calmly. “That’s impossible.”
“You don’t believe me!” I accused.
“No, I believe you think there’s something to be worried about.” His tone told me that he didn’t agree.
“Rune, he hurt me,” I said with feeling, allowing myself to be honest about the fear bottled up within me. Just thinking about him suffocating me brought up strong emotions. The threat of tears made my eyes glassy. I cursed myself inwardly and battled them off. I didn’t want to look like a weakling.
He clenched his jaw and I saw a flash of darkness pass his features.
“Stakes has a history of violence,” Rune admitted. “Even before he became a Dragoon… he used to kill animals. Some people say he killed his own brothers. I wouldn’t know for sure. He’s not from Breakwater. But Katelyn, I know this is hard to trust or believe, but he can’t do anything to you. He can’t drain you. You’re too valuable to Fallux.”
“He said he’d get rid of Fallux,” I insisted stubbornly.
“That’s the impossible part. Fallux is much, much stronger.”
“He can control metal. What’s to stop him from tearing Fallux apart with the metal in his own body before he can react?” I wondered aloud.
Rune shook his head. “The metal inside them isn’t... well it isn’t precisely metal. It’s a different substance. Stakes can’t manipulate it.” His tone was reassuring, but he didn’t understand. Stakes had a plan. I just didn’t know how he intended to execute it.
“He threatened my friends,” I insisted. “Even Lina, but I don’t think he knew who she was.”
“Good. We’ll have to make sure it stays that way.”
“But Dylan. He could be in trouble. He’s been trying to help me.”
“You’re worried about him,” it was a statement, not a question.
“Of course I am,” I said, flushing at the look he gave me. “He’s my friend.”
“Lucky him,” he said looking subtly dejected.
“You are too!” I assured him. It was easy to forget what friendship meant to a Dragoon. It was dangerous, illegal, and very rare. “You both are. Listen, I’m stuck in here, but you can go out. Can you check on him for me? Can you tell him to stay away from me? It’s the only way to protect him from Stakes.”
“I’d be happy to tell him to stay away from you,” he said. “But that would be proof that I have a connection to you. That on its own would be enough to seal my execution.”
“Oh,” I said, slumping back against the table. “Please don’t do that.”
He held out his hand and barely touched my arm. When he saw that I didn’t recoil, a look of contentment settled upon him. More confidently, he put his hands on my shoulders.
“Don’t look so worried. What I can do, is deliver a note. Carefully,” he assured me. I wondered whether his intentions rested more in keeping Dylan away from me than helping me protect my friend.
He produced a pen for me and I tore a water-stained sheet of paper from the back of a plant growth journal. My handwriting was sloppy but legible. It read:
Dylan,
Stay away from me or Stakes will kill you. This is serious. Dead wouldn’t look good on you. For the record, I liked your tower better, the view here is terrible.
PS. Love the night goggles.
~Katelyn
I folded up the note and handed it to Rune, hoping it was enough to warn Dylan away. It was my intention to sound like I was okay. Showing distress would only have encouraged him. As an afterthought, I wondered if Dylan would react to my untidy hand writing the same way he had when I’d eaten without a fork.
“You have to stay away from me too,” I told Rune, meeting and holding his eyes.
“Of course I do,” he agreed, slipping the scrap of paper into a pocket.
“Rune, I’m serious,” I complained. “They weren’t empty threats. They’re real!”
“And if they were real, how would they change anything?” he asked and I was baffled to see him looking amused. “If you’re right about Stakes, I’ll be executed. If anyone found out that I was here with you today, I’d be executed.”
I blanched, suddenly feeling sick to my stomach. What the hell was I doing, letting him be anywhere near me?
“Rune, you have to get out of here!” I said, trying not to panic.
“Can I kiss you again?” he asked shifting towards me.
For some reason, the question took me off guard again. “No,” I breathed.
“You’re worried about me,” he said appearing enormously pleased.
“Of course I am,” I admitted quietly, crossing my arms.
“Then that will be enough for me,” he said contentedly. “I won’t be caught. I can be here a little while longer.”
“How are you even getting away with this?” I asked, fearing for him. He was a much better person than I thought he was… and he was enamored with me.
“I’m the guard on tower duty,” he said. “But only for the time being. We should be safe for forty minutes. Beyond that time, we’ll risk discovery.”
“Risk discovery? You have to get out of here!” I told him
, completely unnerved.
“You finally understand my perspective,” he said bemusedly.
“That, and I don’t want you to die,” I frowned.
“When I arranged this… to come here today… I never thought this would happen. I didn’t plan to tell you how I felt, or that kiss. I came here to tell you not to be afraid anymore.”
I found myself listening to him again with rapt attention. The funny thing was I couldn’t be afraid for myself. Not with him two steps away from me. If I was afraid for anyone, it was him.
“Once word reaches the Margrave and then the Prince, they’re going to plant you into the war. They’ll use you to whatever end they decide. I won’t let that happen. I came here today to tell you that I’m going to get you free. Not just from the Installment or Breakwater, but from this entire damned kingdom. You’re going to go home.”
I didn’t know what to say. In fact, I couldn’t have said anything if I tried. It was all that I’d ever wanted to hear.
“It’s the least I can do. You saved my life,” he said, brushing a strand of hair away from my face.
He was going to give my freedom back! I’d be home, finally. I could see my family, Ruby and Kyle again. I could sleep easy at night in my bed and imagine that all of this had been a bad dream.
Before inhibition could kick in, I threw myself into his arms and hugged him with all my might.
“Thank you,” I whispered, finding myself in another battle to keep the tears from my eyes.
He didn’t ruin the moment with words or break his promise by kissing me. He just held me, and it felt good. It lasted a little longer than normal and there wasn’t anything wrong with that. I was grateful and so was he. I wondered how long it had been since someone hugged him. It probably hadn’t happened since before he was a Dragoon. He didn’t let go until I did. It was a staggering contrast to imagine someone as strong as Rune being so vulnerable, even though it wasn’t the first time I’d seen him that way.
Haven (War of the Princes) Page 20
