by Rachel Aaron
“It’s brilliant,” Willow said proudly. “Working here gets us gear, lodging, food, and an excuse to practice our maneuvering. And we get paid. It ain’t much, but it’s better than the nothing you get in the Training Corps.” She smiled at Emmett. “We’re hoping to get our skills up enough to put in for a transfer next summer.”
Rosalie was gaping in horror now. “It’s a clever plan,” she admitted, voice shaking. “But…why? Maybe you haven’t heard, but the Survey Corps is a death sentence! They’re the smallest branch of the military, but they have a higher casualty rate than all the others put together. I don’t think they’ve ever had a mission where someone didn’t die. Why would you ever want to join—”
“Because they’re the ones who go beyond the walls,” Emmett said without missing a beat. “And that’s where we want to go, too.”
“That’s where the answers are,” Willow said, scowling at her. “Haven’t you ever wondered where the titans come from? Why they’re here? How they’re able to regrow a head after it gets shot off by a cannon?”
“It is mysterious,” Emmett said. “But everyone’s too caught up in killing them to wonder about it. The Survey Corps are the only ones who try to find out.”
“They’re the ones who explore,” Willow said excitedly, her face breaking into the most earnest smile Rosalie had ever seen from her. “Don’t you want to know what’s beyond the walls? There’s a whole world out there! Haven’t you ever wondered what it looks like?”
“All my life,” Rosalie said, remembering the view from her roof.
“Exactly!” Willow said with a grin. “So can we borrow your gear or not?”
Rosalie grinned back. “Let me get it from my bunk.”
* * *
As promised, Rosalie brought her books to her early-morning training session the next day. Jax looked them over while she killed herself doing pushups; he settled on a historical novel for his first read. It was one of Rosalie’s favorites, a sordid, bloody drama about a wronged nobleman who destroys his family, his fortune, and his future in the reckless pursuit of revenge.
Rosalie expected Jax to rip right through it, but by the end of their first week, he’d barely made it past the first few pages. When she offered to loan him a new book since he clearly didn’t like this one, he’d snapped at her that he liked it fine. He was just taking his time. When he still hadn’t finished chapter one by the next week, though, Rosalie grew suspicious.
“Are you sure you like it?” she asked for the tenth time when he’d called a halt to her exercises (lunges, this time—hundreds of them) “I promise I won’t be insulted if you don’t.”
“You think I care about insulting you?” he snapped. “I like it fine.”
“Then why are you taking so long?” she pressed. “Really, it’s okay. I can loan you another—”
“I’m not a good reader, all right?”
Rosalie’s lips pressed into an O, and Jax dropped his head with an angry sigh. “I don’t care if you judge me,” he said sullenly. “I know I’m not up to your standards, but I’m damn good by mine. Most Garrison soldiers can barely read at all. Your book has a lot of words I don’t know, so it’s going slow. But I like it fine and I’m going to finish it. Just stop rushing me.”
“I’ll stop,” Rosalie promised, looking down at the paper-wrapped breakfast he brought her every morning. “But…isn’t it frustrating?”
“Of course it’s frustrating,” he said. “But I’ll get there. Always do.”
Rosalie nodded, rolling her apple thoughtfully between her fingers. “What if I helped you?”
He looked away with a snort. “I don’t want your help.”
“Why not?” she asked. “You’re helping me get stronger. Why shouldn’t I help you in return? That way we’ll both get something we want and be better for it.”
“You and your bloody trades,” he muttered, glancing at the barely started book in his hands. Then, quietly, he asked, “You won’t tell anyone?”
“I swear I will not,” Rosalie replied, crossing her heart. “We can meet up here in the evenings. No one goes on the wall at night, and it probably won’t be for long. Once I get you through the rough bits, I’m sure you’ll have no problem reading the rest yourself.”
Jax was silent for a long time after that, and then he nodded. “All right,” he said. “Meet me here tonight after dinner, and if you tell anyone about this, I’ll push you off the wall.”
Rosalie swore up and down that she would not, which was how, starting that night after supper, Jax took over her evenings as well, waiting for her between the cannons with her book clutched in his hands.
* * *
After that, they fell into a pattern. Every morning before sunrise, they’d meet on top of the gate for training, and every evening they met there again to read. Rosalie wasn’t sure if it was the power of a good novel or if she’d just worn him down through sheer exposure, but over the next few weeks, Jax became considerably more pleasant to her.
Not nice. He was never that. In fact, their morning training sessions became more brutal since Jax had started paying attention, adding maneuvering gear challenges and sword practice on top of exercising her to death. He corrected her form ruthlessly, smacking her limbs every time she moved out of position, and he still refused to call her by her proper name. It was always “princess” or “rich girl” or “hey, you.”
Jax’s training was harder than anything she’d endured at the academy. For weeks, Rosalie could do nothing right. Then, slowly, his corrections became smaller. Her limbs got stronger, which made the exercises feel less brutal. Her sword work improved as well, and her balance in maneuvering gear improved enormously, to the point where the rest of the squad started to notice.
When Jax let them off work late one evening after a long patrol, Willow and Emmett cornered Rosalie in the doorway to the tower stairs, demanding to know whom she was practicing with. Rosalie dodged their questions as best she could, but they were dogged, and soon enough, the truth came out.
“Jax?” Willow cried. “You’ve been training with Jax?”
“Not so loud!” Rosalie hissed, looking over her shoulder at Jax, who was talking with another sergeant just a few meters down the wall.
“Isn’t he trying to get you kicked out?” Emmett said, only slightly quieter. “I thought he hated you.”
“Why didn’t you invite us?” Willow asked at the same time. “You know how bad we need help!”
“Because I barely got him to train me,” Rosalie said. “He wouldn’t even think about it until I’d promised to do everything he said and that I’d quit the Garrison if I didn’t live up to his expectations.”
Willow looked horrified. “You gave him that much power over you?” She shook her head. “You like to live dangerously.”
“He was trying to get rid of me anyway,” Rosalie argued. “This way gives him a guaranteed out, which means he can stop sabotaging me during patrol. Plus, I get training. You’ve seen how good he is.”
“He’s good at killing titans,” Willow agreed. “But you’re an idiot for handing him your career. Even if the rumors about him being a murderer are mostly bollocks, we’ve seen his crazy with our own eyes, and he hates nobles.”
“He’ll work you to death for the fun of it,” Emmett agreed. “Then flog your corpse for good measure before he kicks you out.”
“He’s not that bad,” Rosalie said, chuckling.
“Not that bad?!” Emmett cried. “He just made us push a cannon all the way to the junction with the main wall!”
It had been a long walk. Thanks to Rosalie’s new muscles, though, she hadn’t noticed the distance like she used to. A fact that didn’t escape Willow.
“Do you think he’d train us, too?” the medic asked.
“Willow!” Emmett cried, horrified. “You just said he was crazy!”
“He is,” Willow said. “But
you can’t argue with his results.” She pointed at Rosalie. “If he can turn this spoiled creampuff—”
“Hey!” Rosalie said.
“—into a hardened wall veteran, imagine what he could do for us!” She considered what she’d just said. “This could be our chance.”
“Our chance to die,” Emmett muttered.
Willow crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you want to get into Survey Corps or not?”
Emmett slumped in defeat, and Willow’s smile softened. “There’s my Emmett,” she said, giving him a soft punch on the shoulder before turning to Rosalie. “We’re in.”
At that, Rosalie felt panic. Inviting other people into the delicate truce she’d formed with Jax was starting to feel…wrong.
“It’s no fun,” she warned them. “You have to be on the wall an hour before the bell, and the exercises are brutal. Terrible, really. And who knows if he’ll agree to teach you.”
“Oh, he’ll say yes,” Willow assured her. “Lieutenant Brigitte herself praised Emmett and me for training on our own just last week, and Jax never goes against the gate lieutenant. She’s the only person on this wall he actually listens to.”
“And he is always yelling at us to stop being terrible,” Emmett added, his face grim, like he couldn’t believe he was arguing for this.
“Good point,” Willow said excitedly. “We’ve got him cornered. He has to train us.”
“Right,” Rosalie said, stomach sinking. She wanted to remind them that, just a few minutes ago, they’d been horrified at the very thought of Jax training anybody, but Willow was already jogging toward the sergeant, waving her arms over her head to get his attention. Rosalie was too far away to hear what she said, but Jax’s face turned murderous a few moments later, and Rosalie ducked into the stairwell before he could look for her.
“I’m going to dinner,” she said as she ran down the stairs. “Let me know what he says, Emmett!”
“If we survive,” Emmett called nervously after her.
* * *
When Rosalie climbed back up the wall that evening for their regular reading time, she could feel the waves of anger coming off of Jax.
“I’m sorry,” she said as soon as she saw him. “I know I shouldn’t have told Willow and Emmett about our training sessions without talking to you first, but they put me on the spot. I didn’t want to hurt their feelings.”
“I’m not mad about that,” Jax said, dragging his hands through his thick black hair, which was getting longer as the winter dragged on. “I would’ve included them from the start if I’d been thinking. They need the work more than you do. It’s just…”
He trailed off with a frustrated huff that Rosalie wasn’t sure how to interpret. “Just what?”
“Nothing,” he said, sitting down between the cannons. “Let’s just read.”
Relieved, Rosalie dropped down on the stone beside him, thumbing her book open to where they’d left off the night before. Since it would be taken the wrong way if her books were found in Jax’s possession, they’d agreed Rosalie should keep track of them. This meant Jax could only read when they were together, but that was for the best since his reading needed a lot more work than Rosalie had realized. He was fine with small words, but the larger ones tripped him up, which made for very rough going on a book as complicated as the one he’d chosen.
But frustrating as it was watching someone stumble their way through a story she’d read a hundred times, Rosalie was keenly aware that this was her best chance to worm her way into Jax’s good graces. She was patient as a saint: following silently as he read aloud, correcting him gently when he got stuck, never making fun. And it worked.
In the few weeks since they’d started, Jax had gone from half a page per night to whole chapters. Now they were almost at the end, and even though Rosalie knew the story by heart, seeing Jax experience it for the first time was almost better than reading it herself. He tried to downplay his excitement, but no one could read about the fiendish cleverness and self-destructive drive of the Count of Monte Cristo’s quest for revenge without getting caught up in it.
By the time they reached the final chapter, Jax was plowing through the text without even a sideways glare at Rosalie when she corrected him, which she was having to do less and less. It didn’t hurt that when he wasn’t snapping at her Jax had a lovely voice, deep and rich and full of emotion. It was the sort of voice you could fall into, which she must have, because when the bell rang for lights out an hour later, Rosalie was surprised to find she’d scooted from her spot a respectful distance away to sitting practically in his lap, pressed up against his arm in her eagerness to see the page.
She darted away the moment she realized her mistake, face burning. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” he replied, his own face oddly dark in the torchlight. “Damn that bell, though. We were just getting to the good part.”
“It’s really good,” she promised with a smile. “Something to look forward to tomorrow.”
She could hardly see in the dark, but Rosalie would have sworn he smiled back at her. Actually smiled, not a smirk or an evil grin. She was about to call him on it when Jax suddenly reached into his pocket.
“Wait,” he said, pulling out a folded envelope. “I almost forgot. You got a letter today.”
His words instantly killed Rosalie’s good mood. “Really?” she said at last. “I was wondering”—dreading—“when one would come.”
She took the elegant envelope and tore it open with shaking fingers, holding the parchment up to the light. To her enormous surprise, it wasn’t a scathing note from her father demanding she come home. “It’s from my mother,” she said, squinting at Lady Dumarque’s cursive, which, as always, was so elegant it was nearly impossible to read. “She wants me to come home for our Longest Night party.”
“Sounds like fun,” Jax said, leaning over in a subtle—but not nearly subtle enough now that Rosalie knew his habits—attempt to read over her shoulder. “I’d forgotten Longest Night was coming up.”
So had Rosalie. It didn’t seem possible that she’d been in Trost that long, but when she added up the weeks in her head, they were only three days away from the winter solstice.
“Getting leave won’t be a problem,” Jax went on. “The whole Garrison gets off for Longest Night. Command throws a big party every year with a bonfire and free drinks and everything. Supposed to be good for morale, but the whole thing usually ends in a brawl.” He wrinkled his nose. “Probably a good thing you’re missing it.”
“Trust me, I’d much rather be in a brawl here than at one of my mother’s parties,” Rosalie groaned. “They’re so boring. I’m not allowed to talk about anything except the weather, my dress, shops my mother approves of, and how eligible my youngest brother is.”
“At least the food will be good,” Jax said. “I’ve heard stories about noble parties. Don’t you have whole roast pigs with apples in their mouths?”
“Not at our house,” Rosalie said, slightly scandalized. A dead pig on a table? Her mother would faint. “But the food is very good, I’m just not allowed to eat any of it. Have you ever tried to eat while wearing a corset?”
“Can’t say that I have,” Jax replied, arching an eyebrow. “How do you manage to make being rich sound so terrible?”
“Everyone has problems, I suppose,” she said with a shrug. “But at least I won’t have to make the journey home alone. Mother’s enlisted Ferdinand to escort me.”
“Who’s that?” he asked. “Your butler?”
Rosalie shook her head, folding the letter back into the envelope. “He’s my fiancé.”
Jax jerked away so fast she jumped. “You have a fiancé?”
“Well, yes,” Rosalie said, utterly caught off guard. “Of course I do. Why do you think I was allowed to come down here?”
“You said you wanted to fight titans!”
“That’s wha
t I wanted,” she said. “And I had to fight hard to get that much. But my father would never have allowed me to enroll in mixed company if I was single. That’s just ridiculous.”
“The Garrison’s full of single girls!” Jax cried, staring at her like she’d betrayed him. “You’re the one being ridiculous, having a fiancé you never even mentioned!”
“I wasn’t trying to keep it secret,” Rosalie said defensively. “It just never seemed important.”
“How is getting married not important?” Jax demanded, crossing his arms. “Do you like him?”
Rosalie had to stop and think about that one. “He’s fine, I suppose,” she said at last. “Honestly, I don’t know him very well. We’ve been engaged since I was eleven, but I’ve only met him a handful of times.”
This seemed to mollify Jax somewhat. “So he’s a stranger,” he said, and then his scowl darkened. “What kind of father engages his eleven-year-old daughter to someone she doesn’t know?”
“I was a bit young,” Rosalie admitted. “But that’s not unheard of. All noble marriages are arranged, and this one’s a good connection for both of our families. The Smythes have been extremely obliging. They could have made me get married the moment I turned sixteen, but they gave me a whole year to do what I liked. Once I graduated from the academy, I chose to spend it here.” She smiled wistfully. “Really, I’ve had far more freedom than any of my sisters. I’m grateful to the Smythe family for being so understanding.”
“You’re grateful to them for not forcing you into marriage the moment they could?” Jax said angrily. “Can you not hear how messed up that is?”
“It’s not messed up!” she cried. “I’m doing this for my family! I’m a Dumarque. I have a duty to my house and my—”
