by Mary Weber
“I was brushing down the horses.”
She arches a brow. “I hear Colin is hurt.”
I nod and glance at Breck. She doesn’t turn. Just tucks her auburn hair behind her ear and keeps scrubbing. She looks weak hunched over like that, and the skin above her collar is yellowish. I peek closer. It’s sporting what looks to be a half-hidden gash. There are smaller ones on her arms.
What the—?
“Breck!” Adora snips in a loud whisper.
The servant girl looks up and something’s clearly wrong with her. Her face is puffy and there’s bruising around her eyes. She’s either been beat up or in a fight. She stands. Bows to Adora and mumbles that she’ll be back later to finish.
As soon as she’s gone, Adora’s gaze is back on me. “And Eogan? How was your time with him?”
“Fine. What happened to Breck?”
“Fine how?”
I stare at her straight on. “Like I-despise-him fine. What happened to Breck?”
The first part seems to please her because she instantly smiles and swaggers over to me. For a second she looks as if she’ll brush a hand across my hair, then pulls back and wrinkles her nose, taking in my outfit. “I’m glad to hear it. I trust you’ll keep it that way. It’d be a shame to . . . cause anyone grief.” She walks over to where Breck was cleaning the floor and taps her foot, drawing my gaze to the stained wood.
Wait . . .
My lungs fold.
Even from this distance I can see it’s blood. Dried into two tiny separate pools.
I snap my head up. “What did you do to her?”
She lifts her hand and studies her sharp, green-painted fingernails. “It’s so reassuring to know I have your continued gratitude and commitment to my rules.” The foot tapping ceases. “I trust your skills have almost reached their full potential?”
I clench my teeth. She beat Breck without any idea whether I’d followed her rules or not. And now she wants to talk about my skills?
Of course she does.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Good, because I have a job for you and Colin. A way to . . . alter the disappointing course of this war, if you will. We’ve a small window of opportunity three days from now that I believe to be our chance to save Faelen. I spoke with Eogan before you left, and he agreed. In the meantime, Lady Isobel is visiting the next five days, and you’re to stay out of sight. Except, of course, for tomorrow evening’s party. Understood?”
I stare at the bloodstained floor through my anger and slowly force a nod.
She’s careful to avoid brushing up against me on her way to the door. “Oh, and before you dress for bed, wash the filth off yourself.”
As soon as she’s gone, I walk over to stand beside the blood. A servant being beaten is nothing I’m unaccustomed to, but Breck . . . The smell of the soap stings my nose along with my own sweat. It turns my gut. This was because of me?
My hands ball into fists even as my legs grow shaky and my vision narrows in anger, disgust. I slide to the stained floor before my knees give way. It’s always because of me.
Colin. The little boy’s village. The wolf. And now, Breck.
Five. Ten. Fifteen minutes I sit as the fury inside builds, inflicting pictures of the latest life I’ve destroyed—even if only a wolf. And of the lives I’m on the brink of destroying.
That I’m being conditioned to destroy.
I hate this, hate all of it.
The sky outside begins rumbling the same way my fingers are quaking, and suddenly that twisted thing inside me is aching, churning. I tug one of the knives Eogan made from its sheath and look around for my mugplant jar even as Eogan’s gaze drifts through my head.
I shake it off. How dare he invade my private space. Especially when part of this is his fault.
I press the blade against my skin to add a mark, a branch just beneath the bluebird. But that face, his gaze, won’t stop. And for whatever reason, I can’t shut it out. It comes again, lingering a moment before slipping a path all the way through me. And then abruptly there’s Adora’s face smirking down at Breck.
I stop.
Adora. I raise my shaking chin and glare at the bloodstain on the floor. I clench my jaw. From somewhere the determination emerges that, whether because of me or not, this insanity of Adora’s has to stop. And no mark of guilt is going to do that.
I lower the knife even as everything in me screams to continue—needs to continue.
But I won’t.
I don’t.
My hands are shuddering as I resheath my knife, just before I hurtle a roar of thunder to shake the entire house.
CHAPTER 22
SO AM I TO HAVE THE PLEASURE OF DEALING with your attitude all day?” Eogan watches me dismount from my mare. “Or are you just ignoring me to make a point?”
His tone is overly polite. Same as it’s been ever since we left the High Court’s lengthy shadow this morning to travel east toward a lake I’d never heard of. Two hours of riding with a wall of tension between us, and there’s still nothing I care to say.
“It’s more convenient for both of us, don’t you think?” I mutter, struggling to release Haven from her bridle.
I pat her rear before turning to follow Eogan up a trail covered in traipsy trees leaching honey into the air. Above us, the cerulean sky hovers like an ocean, and I wonder if he’s taking me to look at more warboats. Or wolves.
“You mind at least informing me of why you’re ignoring me?”
My fingers flit to my mouth even as I glare at the back of his head and try not to notice how nicely his broad shoulders taper down to his waist. Or how stupidly gorgeous the rest of him is. I drop my hand and press up the path. “You had no right to do what you did on that mountain.”
“Are we talking about the wolves or the kiss?”
“Both.”
“As your trainer, I do my job in whatever way I see fit. And believe me, both were necessary.” He tosses a glance back, his tone hardening. “Although neither is in danger of happening again, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
I flinch but pretend it’s the sun in my eyes. One moment he’s taking my breath away and the next he’s gouging holes in my insides. Like he’s multiple men rolled into one, and none of them make sense but all make me insane.
“Let’s just do this daft training session and go home,” I mumble, shoving past him.
“This is part of the lesson. Today we’re going to get out all this pent-up anger you have and teach you to let go.”
“In that case I’d rather go back to Adora’s.”
“Annnd that would be the pent-up attitude I’m talking about.”
Is he jesting? “My attitude has to do with the fact that you endangered us, and yet you don’t seem to care.”
He actually laughs. “Believe me, you were not in danger from those wolves.”
“No, but we were in danger from me. I almost destroyed that village because you pushed me into something I couldn’t do.”
“Look, if it makes you feel better, I never would’ve pushed you in so fast if I’d had any idea you’d react like that. Even though whatever resulted from the session, Colin and I would’ve handled it just fine. As we did.”
I stop and turn to stare at him. Is he an idiot? “How could you not know I’d react like that? You’re training me to kill, and people almost died. Does it even occur to you what it does to me? To know that every time I erupt, I see more blood on my hands?”
Something flickers through his expression and his tone frosts over. “You think I don’t know what it does to you? Why do you think I blasted Colin after your little common-house exploit? That’s exactly why I set you up with the wolves. To show that you can do this. To let you prove to yourself how in control you are.”
“Except I’m not in control! The only reason those people survived is because of you and Colin.” The sky shudders and my eyes start to fill. I blink the tears away before a dumb storm hauls in.
His face pale
s. “You were in control, Nym. You could’ve taken out that entire wolf pack and you didn’t.”
“Right, I just almost took out a portion of Faelen instead. And now Adora’s got some brilliant plan to use Colin and me for more destruction.”
He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look. The other day you asked what happened to the others I trained for Adora.”
He runs a hand down his jaw and exhales.
“What happened is I trained them too well. To the point they outgrew their consciences. They became assassins, killing when it was faster rather than finding a better way. You heard me say the other day that killing is a part of war. But it’s not the only part. It should always be a last resort.”
My bitter chuckle slips out. “And yet you and Adora can’t wait to use me. ‘Train harder, Nym.’ ‘Are you ready, Nym?’ ‘Faelen’s going to fall without you, Nym.’ Except I don’t want to be used that way.”
“Which is exactly why I’ve been working with you. Because if it wasn’t me, Adora would’ve found someone else or tried to train you herself. Your power is like none we’ve seen, and they would’ve ruined you, Nym. I’ve known from the beginning you’re capable of learning control—but what I needed to know was, when you achieve control, if you’d have the conviction to reserve death as a last resort rather than an easy solution.”
I open my mouth to argue, but his words spread over me like a blanket soaking into my soul. It brings a flavor of freedom that I’m too numb to taste.
He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “That test proved what I already knew. That you’re not like them. You’re not like me. I’m not training you to be a weapon. I’m training you to hone your abilities so you and you alone will have the choice to protect as far as you’re able. So you can live with your conscience. With those wolves, you made a decision and found a better way.” He hesitates, and I’m abruptly aware of an urgency in his demeanor I’ve not caught before. “Which means we can now finish the lesson.”
Forgiveness for him emerges at his confessed intentions even as my curse rears its head at his ignorance. If only it worked that way. I shake my head. “No matter how much control I learn, it’ll never be enough.”
He peers down at me. “We’ll see.”
Turning, he resumes his lead up the trail until we’ve gone another half terrameter, then veers us off the path toward a wall of hedge and trees.
“Through there.” He pulls a bough back and waits for me to duck the overgrown branches. I keep my gaze straight as I slip past him—acutely aware of how warm his body radiates and how perfectly his eyes match the landscape.
I step through the scraggly opening and out onto a rainwater-tipped field overlooking a vast, glittering valley.
Mother-of-kracken.
I stall.
The air is wet and cold and drippy and enchanted.
And it tastes of magic.
I drink it in along with the magnificent forest spinning around us. It’s one from another era, much older than Faelen, and gracefully woven in and around hillsides of pale meadows meandering all the way down to touch a slumbering gray-jeweled lake. And it’s completely undefiled by hovels or roads or chopped-down trees.
My skin tingles with the concentration of old magic drifting in the air, and I half expect the breeze to carry songs up from the wood folk or the cries of the ancient elfin battles. My lungs fill with its delicate melody as wisps of fog trail along the skyline, like translucent fingertips lacing through the trees, spreading their aura and the scent of the day’s summer storm.
The warm earth reaches up through my boots, as if it’s alive, pulsing. This place is so unlike anything I’ve ever sensed or seen, and yet something within my cracked soul says I’ve been here before. That I know it just as I know the song it’s whispering. It invokes a homesickness I don’t understand, and my heart is threatening to weep, to stay, to live and drink and drown in it, leaving the world and war behind.
“What is this place?” I whisper.
“The Valley of Origin.” Eogan sounds as in awe as I am. “A place used centuries ago to worship the Hidden Lands’ creator. Until the five kingdoms divided and most people forgot about it.”
He stands there allowing me to soak it in until all too soon our silence grows full of self-consciousness. I can feel it—the charge in the air thickening. I search for something to talk about, aware that from a foot away he’s watching me, not the landscape.
“Tell me about your parents, Nym.”
Not the topic I was searching for. I shrug like there’s nothing to say.
“Do you . . . ?” His voice catches. As if he doesn’t even want to ask. “Do you remember how they . . . died?”
Yes. I glance at my hand. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Did they have other children?”
I fake a laugh. “I think their hands were too full with me.”
“I’ll bet they were.”
My sharp glare is met by that breathtaking smirk of his. Oaf.
“They were older. My mum said they tried for years to have babies, and when they finally did . . . they got me. The world’s anomaly.”
“Were they happy toward you?”
“Yes,” I answer slowly, unsure of what his point is. “Well . . .”
“Well?”
Until I murdered them. I shift away from him and kick a pebble in the grass. Can we just get on with the day’s lesson already?
He stares down at the lake. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you were born for such a time as this? And not just because of the war, but for the people who need you?”
I frown. “Has it ever occurred to you that I’m sick of talking about this? Let’s just train.”
His smile turns stubborn. “You don’t have to talk. But you can’t deny that for as long as the war has been going on outside Faelen, her society has waged its own internal war on its lowest-caste citizens. You should know. You’ve been a victim of it.”
My stomach clenches. I’ve no interest in reminiscing about what I’ve been a victim of. I turn away, but his hand grabs mine. “Look, all I’m asking you to consider is that you have the power to change things. What if the reason you were given that power is to defend those without any? Both from external and internal harm. Like a shieldmaiden for your people.”
“A shieldmaiden who’s spent the first half of her life as a monster?”
I tug away, but he won’t release me. Instead he steps closer and looks down with eyes full of pity. “You didn’t know what you were doing.”
I don’t want his blasted pity. “Right, and that makes it better.”
“No, but it’s a far better explanation than simply assuming you’re cursed. And it’s a hulls of a lot better than wasting your life regretting the gift you’ve been given. Right now you’re striving after a redemption you don’t even believe is attainable.”
I doubt “gift” is what my parents were calling it as they burned alive in their beds. “It’s not a gift, and there is no redemption for me.” I jerk my arm until he releases me to walk away.
“And that right there is why you can’t fully control your ability. Because you’re afraid to believe better about yourself.”
“Because I know myself, and I’ll continue to hurt people. I’ll hurt Faelen, and I’ll end up hurting Colin and you. Just like I hurt Breck.”
“Breck?”
I close my eyes. Litches. Why can’t you just shut it, Nym?
“What do you mean? What’d you do to Breck?”
I swallow.
“Nymia.”
Fine.
I don’t look at him. “When I got to my room yesterday . . . Breck was . . . scrubbing blood off the floor. I think it was her own blood, and something was wrong with her—like she’d been beaten. Adora made it clear she’d had something to do with it. Because of me.”
“Adora hurt her? In your room? Why didn’t you tell me? What was she trying to do—threaten you?”
I open my eyes and look miserably at the ground.
“Nym,” he growls, “did Adora threaten you?”
“Everyone threatens everyone.” My voice is a tired wisp.
He catches my chin and tips it up, anger pasted across his features. “Who’s everyone?”
I blink tears away and start to shrug him off, but those emerald eyes filet me one piece at a time until I’m naked and exposed. And it hurts like litches because I’m starving to tell him all of it but terrified of the ramifications. Not just that they’ll be hurt—that he’ll be hurt—but knowing that two hours from now Eogan will be back to his mode of pretending that I don’t exist as anything more than a tool for war.
I clear my throat and force a casualness I don’t feel. “Adora ordered me to stay away from you except when training, or else she’ll hurt Colin. And Lord Myles, he . . .”
Eogan raises an eyebrow. Waiting. His gaze darkening. “Myles what?”
I shake my head.
His fingers slip from my chin as his eyes slit into pure, unadulterated ferocity. “Myles threatened you how, Nym?”
His expression instantly smoothes. He straightens. “Look . . .” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m not going to force it out of you, Nym, but if there’s something I need to know—you have to tell me. I’ve been at this a lot longer than you, and I don’t want you worrying, and I certainly don’t want you doing anything about it. I’ll take care of it.”
I want to argue, but his expression says I’ll only make it worse. So I just nod. But all I see are Breck’s puffy eyes and Eogan’s slit throat.
He leans in until his bangs sweep my forehead. “Promise me.”
I don’t say anything. Because I won’t—I can’t—promise not to try. Because I’ll not have him getting hurt because of me.
He tips his head back and sighs, then studies me. Until that appealing half smile emerges. “So Adora told you to stay away from me, eh?” His gaze slides slowly down my body, then back to my face. “And how’s that working for you?”
