Chapter Thirty-Three
I ’m wringing out my hair besides Draven in a patch of fluffy grass wedged between the hills.
Dozens.
I attempted to cross dozens and dozens of times. And not once could I do it.
Draven attributed it to me relying on my sight too heavily. According to him, it’s not that I’m incapable of balancing, it’s that I’m incapable of doing it without my vision.
I fight the urge to groan with frustration.
The roar of the waterfall is a pleasant hum from this distance, and the grass features sporadic bursts of wildflowers.
Draven is laying casually a few feet from me, his hands interlocked behind his head.
I flick my eyes to him and don’t attempt to mask my dry sarcasm.
“If that was only my first task, I’m brimming with excitement for the next three. ”
Draven’s amused grunt is his only reply.
I bite down on my lip, stealing another glance at him. He looks so peaceful right now. “Any chance I can get a hint?” I push.
“You’ll find out when you find out.”
“Goodie,” I grumble.
My fingers are twisting my damp hair back into a braid when the grass rustles, and Draven sits up, resting his forearm against his propped knee. “I believe I’m entitled to three questions now.”
“And I’m sure I have three answers,” I reply with no small amount of sass. I catch the subtle curve of his brow, and it makes my lips curl with delight.
“We’ll see,” he counters.
I huff a clipped laugh then finish my braid. After, I stretch my hands behind me, propping myself up comfortably.
If I’m going to answer gods-only-know-what, I might as well be comfortable while doing it.
I shoot him a look. “Well? Ask away.”
“So impatient,” he drawls with another arch of his brow.
“Patience is a virtue,” I say through a dramatic sigh. “And one I’ve never claimed to have.”
He hums, watching me for a long moment. I am seconds away from interjecting again, when his lips part, and he asks his first question. “Why didn’t you let yourself feel anything at Meiji’s passing ceremony?”
The question steals the air from my lungs. “I’m sorry?” All hints of sass, sarcasm—any bit of life I was exhibiting has been robbed from my words.
“You watched his life be drained right in front you. You held him while he was bleeding. You listened to his final words and assumed the weight of a dying man’s request. Then, you plunged a blade through his heart.
Even a seasoned Jurafen would struggle with the emotional weight of that, but you?
” His eyes lock onto mine as if he can find the answers resting within them.
They do not let go. “You didn’t let yourself even flinch.
” He does not say it like a compliment. “I’m not saying you needed to shed tears for him or react a certain way, but you just… carried on. As if nothing happened.”
He certainly wastes no time getting to the point.
My gaze is distant. “So your question is what, exactly?
“What in life hardened you to be capable of withstanding the weight of something like that without grieving, if only for a moment?”
In a way, the question threatens to upend my world.
Like when someone is fighting tears, willing their eyes not to betray them and leak, but then someone else asks them if they are alright, and the dam holding everything at bay suddenly crumbles.
Once you’ve brought attention to the thing, it demands to be felt.
It’s like a law of the universe or something.
But I’m not one to follow laws of anything, and I refuse to feel.
I take a minute to lay brick after careful brick around any potential emotions regarding that night. I will not go there; I will not remember. But the wall is not secured fast enough, and a few shadows slip through the jagged cracks.
You do not let this break you.
You do not let them win.
I love you.
My eyes fall, staring at the emerald blades of grass as they bend and sway like a dance to the wind’s song. I exhale a trembling breath. “I am no stranger to death,” I murmur. “Even the devastating ones.”
I feel Draven’s eyes on me for a long, long time. It’s like he wants to say something else, but instead chooses not to. And it’s not that I think Draven is one to offer pity or sympathy, but just in case, I clear my throat, steady my jaw, and lift my eyes. “That’s one. You have two left.”
His head tilts just slightly as he continues watching me, and I may be imagining things, but I swear I can see the lines on his normally rough face soften, if only a little. “You have no desire to actually be a Jurafen, do you?”
I exhale slowly through my nose. “Do you want a pretty lie or an ugly truth?”
“An ugly truth.” His voice softens. “Always the ugly truth.”
“No,” I admit. “I don’t.”
“So why risk death? Why forge on for a life where each breath is considered a lucky one—where Merikh watches you, waiting for you to slip so he can claim you?”
I shrug. “You already know why.”
He watches me for a long time, as if trying to solve something. “Were you truly treated so poorly that this life was the better option?”
My lips twitch with the attempt to smile, but it seems those muscles are just as fatigued as my other ones.
“At least this life comes with honor and respect. With people’s eyes watching you with awe instead of unchecked hunger.
” I tug at the grass. “My life was forever forfeit blood-sworn to King Alastair. And even though it breaks my heart to admit, I resigned myself to that fate. But then a light appeared, and I simply…followed it.” I glance upwards, and my eyes meet Draven’s with surprising ease.
Like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “This is where it led me.”
Our gazes linger, something tightening in my chest as they do. I blow out a breath and shrug. “Plus, I have people counting on me now, and I don’t intend on letting them down.” My fingers toy with the ice necklace at my throat.
“And does that make you happy?”
I huff a wistful laugh—the hollow sound wrapping around my heart with a sad ache. “I’ve already given you four questions,” I point out, my voice a shade above a whisper.
The corner of his lip tugs up. “Might as well make it five, then.”
A ghost of a smile flickers across my face. “Is anyone?” I ask him. “Truly happy, I mean.”
He looks away from me, off into the distance. His voice drops into a low murmur. “I don’t think I’m the most qualified person to answer that.”
“Which makes you entirely qualified to answer.”
His mouth curves up gently. There is a long, passing silence, and I think perhaps the conversation has reached its natural end.
Until, with his eyes still locked on the distant horizon, Draven speaks again in the most tender voice I’ve heard him use.
“Maybe happiness will find us like some phenomenon finding its sky. Maybe when…rocks fly.” He huffs a laugh under his breath, as if amused with himself, and shakes his head.
“Yes, that’s it.” He turns those bright eyes back at me.
“You and I can be happy when rocks fly.”
“Hmm…magic or no magic?”
His lips tug up just a little farther. “No magic.”
I make a show of thinking before mocking defeat. “It appears you and I will be miserable grouches for a while longer, then.”
For the first time, I realize he has a small dimple in his left cheek. “It appears so.”
For the rest of the day—right up until the sun and moon pass like forbidden lovers, forever near but never touching—I attempt all the training tasks Draven has planned.
Strength? Carry two buckets full of water with a stick up a hill and down again. Twist? Do it blindfolded, and do it one hundred times.
Control? Perform a series of slow, deliberate movements utilizing precise muscle control and controlled breathing, focusing on regulating my responses and internal state.
Twist? Do it blindfolded, and stand on one leg half the time, continuing the slow motion movements without falling.
Oh yeah, and try not to get distracted as he lobs pebbles at my head.
Endurance? Well, that one’s pretty straightforward, actually. I just run a shit ton. Until my lungs are spasming and burning like the fiery waters of Illithious Lake. And I get to do it without a blindfold, so that’s nice at least. But the twenty-six mile quota he set for me isn’t exactly friendly.
Now, after a long day of defeat—and questions, seeing as I didn’t successfully complete one task—I am exhausted.
Marcella, thankfully, senses my weary exhaustion, and as I return from the bathing chambers, she doesn’t attempt to pry about my day nor discuss hers.
She just offers some brief, friendly chatter before blowing out the wick and casting the room in darkness.
Every fiber in my body is ridden with fatigue, yet sleep does not lull me away. Instead, my mind—the ever-defiant thing—replays scenes with Draven over and over again.
Thank the Mother he didn’t ask me any more heavy questions after that first round. Instead, the questions became silly, almost childish things.
“ What’s your favorite color?”
“Sage.”
“What’s your favorite food?”
“Pickled cucumbers.”
“If you could be any animal, what would it be? ”
“A wolf.”
Then there was the other line of questions.
“What do you love doing most?”
“The art of Gardning.”
“Oh? How did you learn that?”
“My mother was a Gardner and taught me all that she knew.”
“Well, what’s your favorite flower, then?”
“Nox’s Caelum.”
It’s almost laughable, how juvenile his questions felt.
My mind shifts from his words to the moments where he was so close, I could feel the warmth of him.
The moments where his citrus scent enveloped me.
Where his fingers touched me—whether simply correcting my form or in passing—and seemed to linger just a moment longer than usual.
And then my stomach flutters with this…feeling.
I grit out a scowl and shut both my mind and body down.
Traitors.