Chapter 4
After filling my bowl with stew from the outdoor kitchen, I set my tray on the dining hall table and sit across from Dezzy, who’s reading something academic. The title – from what I can tell from that summer she tried (and failed) to make me bilingual – is written in her mother tongue, Gergan.
The only other people seated near us are our medic, Grendle, and her farmer husband.
‘Well …’ Dezzy says, stern eyes peering up at me, ‘I see you’re wearing black again. Black, black, always black. I did not know I raised a coal miner.’
I lift an amused brow at my former nanny. ‘This is my militia uniform. What else am I supposed to wear?’
Her disappointed tsks come in rapid fire, flashing me back to my education purgatory with her as my tutor.
‘But now you are not on duty, are you? Or maybe you forgot to remember that? You know it would not hurt you to try some colour in your shirts.’ She plucks the faded yellow fabric of her own blouse, tempting the overwhelmed buttons to burst off her shirt.
‘I always wear this. Why does it matter?’
She balks, jerking forward. ‘Did you know that by the time I was your age, I was already married? You must marry soon, Marian. You and your sister. Nobody lives very long in these times. And then there’s your fa–’ she cuts herself off.
My father. Bold of her to go there. Talking like that could get her exiled. Although, any guard kicking her out would have to go through me first.
‘But you’ – she scoffs – ‘how are you supposed to attract a man wearing that all the time?’
‘How indeed,’ I mutter dryly. I stuff my mouth with stew and briefly regret sitting with the three oldest people in the militia. I guarantee the table of laughing guards across from us is not discussing marriage.
‘I’ve held my tongue too long,’ Dezzy says.
‘You really haven’t,’ I mumble.
‘Time is running out for you.’
‘For me? What about you? What are you – thirty-nine? You’ve practically got one foot in the grave.
’ I smirk so she knows I’m joking, since she has the sense of humour of a canker sore.
But my words aren’t without a kernel of truth.
Dying tragically young is our reality here.
Only the strongest, the best fighters, and those who don’t lose their health to infection or disease are the ones who make it past their fifties.
And even then, it seems to be a lottery – one Atlas somehow keeps winning.
‘So why not spend your limited time left falling in love?’
My lip curls. Because look at my choices.
Half of these guards are starving wolves who would skin me alive for a promotion.
The other half are more like eagles – unassuming, but still capable of dropping their prey on the rocks when it serves them.
No one here can be trusted to know about my after-hours activities.
Not that it matters. Love is a distraction.
Dezzy raises a brow. ‘Why do you think I brought it up? Maybe I want to die in my old age in peace, knowing you and your sister are going to be okay.’
I roll my eyes.
‘Maybe I just need to help you find the right man.’
I pause with the spoon halfway to my mouth. ‘No. Please don’t do that.’
Dezzy hums a beat before casting her gaze around at the tables. ‘Is there someone here who you are attracted to? Tell me, and I will go talk to them.’ She gestures to a table of men. ‘What about … Soren?’
Of course she’d go for the wolfiest guardsman and the one I have a history with. ‘Dezzy,’ I hiss, low and urgent. She lifts a finger, and my heart is dropkicked into my throat. ‘What are you doing? Stop pointing.’
‘With that amount of hair, he’s likely sufficiently virile.’
‘Dezzy!’ I inhale so sharply I choke.
‘And I’ve heard he’s the best archer among the guardsmen. A protector, that’s always good.’
I can protect myself. Too many people are turning to look at us. ‘Dezzy,’ I hiss, louder.
‘But judging by his tall height and large –’
Soren’s gaze lifts to us as she raises her hand higher. ‘Excuse me!’ she calls out.
Before I know it, I’m throwing myself across the table, hand straining to cover Dezzy’s mouth. I miss. There’s a crash of clanging dishes. The dining hall quiets, and I’m pretty sure everyone is looking at us now.
Dezzy gapes at me, stunned at my lack of decorum – this from the woman who once asked our cook if her soggy bread was baked with a heated argument.
I lower myself back into my seat but lean forward so only she can hear when I speak.
‘Dezzy, don’t – and I cannot stress this enough – ever speak to Soren on my behalf.
He’s …’ I allow myself the briefest of glances at the twenty-year-old and find he’s staring at me, a question in his eyes.
Most days, he looks like he’s hoping I’ll forget what he did.
But that’s never going to happen. By the intensity in his gaze, the parting of his lips, I’d guess today is one of those days. I can’t look away fast enough.
Dezzy scooches her chair forward. ‘He’s what?’ She grins conspiratorially. ‘Are we having secrets now?’
No. We’re not having secrets. Dezzy couldn’t keep a secret to save my life.
So I try to think of how to finish my sentence. He’s …
A mistake.
A mistake I made when I was sixteen and so flattered by Soren’s staring that I overlooked the fact that he had the emotional intelligence of a slop bucket.
He didn’t like to talk much, preferred stolen kisses.
It was in those moments I thought I saw his tenderness.
That he had a beating heart. But what he really had was selfish ambition.
He was a life-sucking drought, who thought of himself as the rain.
Our brief, not to mention secret, relationship ended abruptly two years ago, after I found Agatha’s note that she was running away with Felix.
I begged Soren to help me find them, and together we persuaded the two to come home.
But hours later, he sold us out to Atlas for a chance to climb the ranks.
Felix was exiled. Ag was beaten by Coatl.
And I was made to watch it all. I ended things with Soren and decided I was done letting my fear keep me docile.
That was the day that changed everything.
‘Soren is … an arsehole,’ I say, finally. ‘He can’t be trusted.’
Surprisingly, Dezzy seems to accept that. Although, I’m not going to wait around and see. I glance down at the mess of spilled stew on my shirt and stand. ‘I should get changed. Then I’ve got work to do.’
Dezzy’s plump face lifts, eyes serious. I half expect her to tell me to wear red. ‘You be careful, my velora.’
A warmth gathers in my belly. She hasn’t called me my love in a while. ‘Always,’ I lie.