by Kaylin Lee
I advanced on him and held out my hand, letting him see my bare skin as I stretched it toward him. “Who are you? And what do you want from me?”
“You have nothing to fear from me,” he said, holding his hands up and stepping backward as I advanced toward him.
“Oh, is that so?” How much trouble could I get in for harboring an enemy of the Wasps? And yet, who would ever find him? Her lackeys would never dare search my tower. “You appear to be here in my tower without the permission of …” I trailed off. I’d nearly called her the Wasp Queen. “Of my mistress. And I’m to believe that you mean me no harm?”
He held out a hand as though he could stop my approach. “Forgive my intrusion, but it appeared to me that you were no friend of that Wasp lady either. I thought I might find temporary refuge. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as they say.”
I snorted. “That must be a foreign proverb. Here in Draicia, we don’t know the meaning of friend.”
He folded his thick, muscular arms across his chest. “I saw you,” he said. “I saw you at the Wolf compound, I saw what you did. I followed you.”
A witness? Not good. Then I shook my head. Idiot. Why had he told me? “You should have kept that knowledge to yourself, and taken it back to … well, wherever you came from. The Wasps will never allow you to live now.”
He leaned against the wall, apparently unconcerned. “I also saw you try to escape,” he said, his voice even and steady. “And I saw what she did to you.”
I flushed. “So?”
“I can help you. I was sent here from Asylia to investigate the balance of power between the Draician clans and to find out how the Wasp clan is so small, yet so influential.”
In other words, he’d come to find out about me. I fiddled with the end of my braid. It was one thing when only the Wasp Queen and I knew the depths of my crimes. But to have someone else know? An outsider, at that? My stomach roiled.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You don’t have to be scared. Just come with me. I can get you to safety. The King of Asylia is not a … well, not a kind man, but he’s just. Mostly. You’d be far better off as an Asylian mage than a Draician one.”
I snorted. So that was his plan. “You’ve got it all solved. I’ll just go be a slave for your king instead of my mistress, murdering whoever stands in his way.”
He frowned. “I’m offering to help you. Get you to freedom. Or do you like being cooped up in this ridiculous tower every day?”
I spread out my arms. “You know what they say. A girl’s home is her castle.”
His smile finally faded. “I take it there has been some sort of command placed on you so that you may not leave your tower.”
I huffed out a sigh. “Correct.”
He rubbed a hand through his hair and wrinkled his brow. “Well, can I at least hide out here for a while?”
I looked him over slowly, and his mouth turned up a bit at the corners. Why was he smiling this time?
“I…” I found myself torn. I spent the weeks between outings longing for human contact, but the last thing I wanted was to share my tiny space with a strange man. Even worse—a man who knew what I had done last night.
He took a step forward, away from the wall. His face was earnest and pleading. “You can trust me,” he said. “What’s your name?”
I crossed my arms. “You may call me Zel.”
“Zel.”
No one had spoken my name since Master Oliver had left me. It sounded strange and foreign on his lips, but for some reason, I liked it.
“You can trust me, Zel. I promise.” His lips slid into a real smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “My name is Darien Mattas.” He gave a little bow, and it looked almost comical with his tall, broad figure and wild, scruffy hair. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
~
Over the course of the next hour, it became clear to me that he took up far too much space.
After poking around my circular tower room and the small closet-sized bathroom at the edge, he settled his long form into the chair by my bookshelf—my chair—and busied himself picking through my books.
We hadn’t spoken since he introduced himself. The silence in my tower had never bothered me before. If I wanted to fill it, I talked or hummed or sang, or I threw myself into my exercises and forgot about it. But now, the silence was all I could think about.
That, and the fact that he was a witness to my greatest shame and humiliation.
What did he think of me? I ached to know, yet my cheeks burned with heat at the thought of initiating more conversation with him.
I perched primly on my bed, facing the window, my back angled toward him. I couldn’t look at him. Could he read my shame on my face? Could he tell, from the set of my shoulders, how much I hated his presence?
How I regretted letting him stay. I should kick him out. I should send him from my window this very moment. After all, I was under no command save the one to stay in my tower. He would be unable to stop me if I decided to end his refuge here.
But after all the lives I had taken, now I had the chance to save one. Could I live with myself if I cast him out and the Wasps caught him? Surely, I could endure a bit of embarrassment if—
“Oh, this is too much!” He chortled behind me, and I spun around on the bed.
He was shaking with laughter in my chair, holding a book in his hands. He reached up and wiped a tear from his eye.
“Um … what, exactly?”
“This book! It’s— It’s too— Oh, I can’t take it!” He shook his head as the laughter overtook him again.
“What book?”
He held up the book he was reading, and at the sight of the rosedrop bouquet on the cover, I leapt to my feet.
“And just what is so funny?” I screeched.
“Here, let me read it to you. ‘Rosedrop, Goldblossom, and Butterflower loved to wear beautiful dresses and braid their long, dark hair.’ Those names! And that’s only the first sentence. Can you believe this silly novel?”
I clenched my fists. How dare he?
He kept reading. “Here’s the next part. ‘One sunny day, Rosedrop decided to go on an adventure.’ And then her adventure consists of picking berries in the park and getting caught in a bit of rain. Hah! Why on earth do you have this?”
I scowled and strode forward to yank the book from his callused hands, then hid it behind my back.
His smile faded slightly. “What are you doing?”
“This book is mine. Don’t touch it. Or any of the other ones.”
“That’s fine,” he said slowly. “I won’t touch them. Just satisfy my curiosity, will you? Where’d you get that book?”
I clutched it tighter behind my back. “Why does it matter?”
He cocked his head. “Just want to know.”
I stalked to the bookshelf and shoved the book into place, feeling odd when I realized his face was only a few inches away. Even seated, his head nearly reached mine, though I knew I was tall for a girl—far taller than the Wasp Queen.
I stepped back, away from the bookshelf and away from him. “A servant brought them when I was a child. Another servant didn’t want them anymore, and the … my mistress thought I might be more biddable if I had something to occupy my mind between training sessions.” I twisted the pleats on my loose pants. “They’re excellent books,” I ground out. “And they’re mine.”
“They’re not quite excellent,” he said slowly.
My cheeks burned. What was his problem? Here I was, doing him a favor, and he had the nerve to critique my library? “Well, if you’re not happy with your accommodations,” I spat out, gesturing to the tower around us, “why don’t you just get out?”
He didn’t move.
I’d been torn about whether to let him stay, and now I knew it had been a mistake. A terrible mistake. What had I been thinking? This was a disaster. I held my hand out to him threateningly. “I said get out! Now!”
He stood slowly, his hands up, b
ut instead of picking up his pack and leaving, he stepped closer to me. “Zel …”
“What are you doing? I said you’re done here. Just get out. I don’t want you here. The guards who were looking for you have gone, so just go.”
“Let me stay a little while longer.” His eyes creased. “I won’t be a nuisance. I promise. I’ll do whatever you say. Just let me stay until I have a better chance of getting away unseen. Please?”
He ran his hand through his hair again. For all his height and strength, his face held a hint of vulnerability too. He needed shelter. But could I trust him?
I bit my lip. What was the point of trust? A monster like me had no need of it. If he turned on me, I’d just kill him. “Fine. You can stay. For now.”
~
When my stomach growled a few hours later, I went to the larder to search out food from my fresh stash. I pulled out a hunk of cheese, a dull, rusted knife, and a linen pouch filled with savory, oily herb rolls.
I hovered at the larder with the food clutched in my nervous hands for far too long. Should I offer some to him? Rosedrop was always offering cakes and rolls to Butterflower and Goldblossom when they came to visit her seaside villa on the hills of Lerenia. But he’d laughed at the book, so perhaps that wasn’t a widespread custom.
Besides, it wasn’t as though I had a lot of food to spare. What if they didn’t feed me again for another three weeks? I would regret wasting precious food on some strange man.
In the end, my hand made the decision for me, for when I went to reach my plate, I grabbed two. My chest tightened. I’d share, just this once. That was it. After this, he was on his own. Perhaps he had brought food in his pack.
I sat on my bed and set the two plates out before me to portion out the rolls. Normally, I would only eat one each day, to make them last. But I didn’t want him to think me stingy. Ugh, what was wrong with me? What did I care what he thought of—
“Ah, time for the midday meal, is it?” He got up from the chair, where he’d been cleaning some sort of bow contraption, which he set on his pack. “What’s this? Where do you get your food?”
I gestured to the rolls. “My mistress’s maid dropped off a bag of food this morning. They usually feed me more, after … an outing. It’s … um … some kind of herb rolls. And some cheese. You’re welcome to share it, if you’re—”
My bed sagged as he sat down beside me, and I had to restrain myself from leaping off and rushing to the other side of the room.
“I’d love some. I’m famished. Thank you,” he said, his eyes glinting with an odd humor.
“You’re … um … welcome.” I focused on the food. I unwrapped the cheese, then took the dull knife and sawed through it to cut a few slices.
“May I?”
“I suppose.” I couldn’t help flinching when I realized he was holding a sharp, dangerous-looking knife.
He sliced several paper-thin slices for himself, then twice the amount for me. Then he wrapped the cheese back up in the paper. “Is that enough for you?”
Was he holding back on his portion because he’d guessed I didn’t want to share? I shrugged. Not my problem. “It’s fine.”
I scarfed down the food, sensing his eyes on me the whole time. Why was he watching me eat? I didn’t like it one bit. Perhaps I’d have to add that to the rule about my books.
When I finished, his plate was already clear. He took my plate, then went to the little sink in the bathroom and rinsed them off. “Thank you for sharing your food,” he said over his shoulder.
I only grunted in response. Hopefully, it sounded something like “You’re welcome,” though I still wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision.
When the plates were clean, he set them on the narrow wooden shelf by the larder, then went to stand in the center of the room. “I just realized your furniture has all been pushed to the walls. Were you in the middle of doing something when I arrived?”
I stood, rolled my shoulders, and dodged his gaze. “I was just doing my training,” I mumbled.
“Your training?” He came closer and bent comically so he could look into my face. “That sounds interesting. What kind of training, exactly?”
I sighed and shuffled backward, rubbing my hands along my arms. I wasn’t sure I preferred this to our awkward silence from earlier in the day. “My training. You know, so I don’t get caught when I’m out. And, well, you saw what happened last night. If I’m ever to truly escape, I’ve got to be faster than she is. And right now, I’m just not.”
“I see.” Darien glanced around the room with a thoughtful, appraising expression. “Not much space.”
I couldn’t help but scowl. “I do what I can with what I have. Wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
He smiled, and it was almost a smirk. “But I do.”
“What do you mean, you do? How could you understand?” My chest tightened again. How I wished I had never let him stay this morning. I hated having him here. I hated opening my life to him, giving him the opportunity to judge and criticize my pathetic existence. Perhaps I simply hated him.
Darien stretched his arms over his head and clasped them behind his neck. His gaze never left mine. “I’m from Asylia. You’ve heard of it?”
I nodded slowly and flicked a glance at the bookshelf.
“Of course. Your books.” He had the good sense not to chuckle, though I could see the humor in his eyes again. “I’ve trained most of my life to be a Sentinel. Last year, I finally became one. And they sent me here to find out about you.” He paused as though waiting for a reaction.
I raised one eyebrow. “Yes? A … Sentinel, you say?”
“You’ve never heard of us, have you?” He rubbed a hand over his face.
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Well, it’s just that … the Sentinels, you see, we’re the best …” He trailed off and laughed under his breath. Then he shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, I’ve been training for years, and now that I’m a Sentinel, I train every day.”
“Good for you.” I bit my lip when the words came out more sarcastic than I’d meant them, but he only smiled.
“Would you like to know what the Sentinels specialize in?”
“Specialize?” I’d gathered they were Asylian soldiers or guards of some kind. What need had they to specialize?
“We train to fight mages. Powerful mages. And we do it without any magic of our own.”
I snorted. “Fight mages? Without magic? Impossible. And do Asylian mages dare to fight against humans?”
He shook his head. “They’re all controlled by their True Name, same as you. But not every mage on the continent is controlled by humans. Like your mistress, for example. And not every city is friendly with Asylia. Our king recognized the need for such a defense, and the Sentinels were born.”
I turned away. Uncontrolled mages? Humans, training to fight mages without the use of magic? Madness. It was too much for my exhausted brain to comprehend.
I felt a warm presence behind me and whirled around. Darien had moved closer while my back was turned. I tensed. Did he tell me that because he intended to fight against me? Did he not realize that I needed only the slightest brush of skin to end him completely?
He held up his hands and didn’t come any closer. “I’ve told you this,” he said softly, “because I want you to know there is hope. Not everyone lives under the thumb of your mistress. And because I can train you, if you want. I can help you get faster, help you escape.”
I was silent for several long moments, unable to look away from his kind face and crinkling green eyes. Could he possibly be sincere? What if he was only waiting for me to let my guard down, so he could slit my throat with that sharp knife and put an end to the Wasp Queen’s influence?
Besides, why would anyone want to help me escape? I was a nightmare, a creature of the shadows. I’d taken countless lives. Anyone with sense would want me to stay here in my tower, safe and secure, under control. What kind of madma
n would want me to be free?
I searched his face again, hoping for some key to the mystery as I wrestled with my thoughts. “Why?” I finally asked, my voice hoarse. “Why would you help me?”
His hand crept up to the back of his neck again and an unreadable expression came onto his face. “I don’t like to see anyone trapped. Not ever. And I know you don’t want this. You wouldn’t have risked what you did last night, knowing the punishment you’d get, if you were willing to stay here. I’d rather see you free than imprisoned. That’s just who I am. Can that be enough?”
What could I say to that? I could barely make sense of the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions swirling within me. “I suppose so,” I heard my own voice say.
He nodded and stepped back. “Good.” He cleared his throat. “We’ve got today, at least. Show me what you do to train. I’ll see what you can do, and then I’ll know how I might help.”
“Fine. Um … step back, then.”
He walked backward until he hit the curved tower wall and leaned there with his arms crossed over his chest. “Go ahead,” he said, nodding at me.
I fought a flutter of nervous energy that rose up in my stomach. I hadn’t done my exercises with an audience since Master Oliver left me. But the promise of getting faster was worth a bit more humiliation, wasn’t it?
I repeated my warm-up from earlier. I rushed from one side of the room to the other with sprints, tumbles, and leaps. When my body had heated up sufficiently, I stopped to stretch my arms out. Darien still leaned against the wall with his arms folded. “That was what I do to get my body warm. Now, I’ll do the training.”
Darien only nodded, so I continued.
I tried not to think about how silly I must look, dancing around, feinting left and right, leaping up, and throwing myself down. Master Oliver had taught me to be quick in my movements, to dart around to evade capture or to get near a target who was already on guard against me. It was hard to practice without another person to spar with, but I did my best.
