Chapter 10 #3
“He’s too important to risk being hurt or killed out there.
So, we have to do our best to hold everyone together until we can get them back to him,” Lucinda says, wincing as Odessa braids her white-blonde hair.
“Ow! You’re pulling on purpose,” she spits with a scowl. “I swear I’ll gut you, Graveryn...”
Odessa snorts. “I’d like to see you try, Luce.”
Jonathan clears his throat, bringing the conversation back to the original point.
“Any that don’t make it back to the camp belonged to Noxum already anyway—His will be done.
” He and Kendall both touch their foreheads with two fingers, the sign of respect for the Maker of death.
I’ve found that most soldiers have a very healthy respect for Noxum, which I suppose is understandable.
When you might meet him at any given moment, it’s probably best to be on good terms with him.
“So…since they’ve returned mostly intact, does that mean you won?” How is a winner even decided in a battle? Do they just tally up who lost the most soldiers at the end of the day and the side with the fewer casualties is crowned victor?
“We always win,” Kendall says, grinning.
“I can’t tell if you’re serious.”
“Well, in your defense, he rarely is,” Jonathan says, and Kendall shoves him in the shoulder. “But in this case, yes. Blackheart does not lose. He does not retreat. He would die on the battlefield before running away.”
I mull that over, watching the procession of the soldiers back through the camp.
When I see Blackheart, I exhale in…relief?
Oh fucking Makers. No. No, no, no. I grit my teeth.
I don’t care if he dies, not really. Except…
he’s been kind to me when he didn’t have to be.
He protected me, no matter the motives behind it.
He’s a good leader who fights with his men, men who seem to genuinely respect and admire him.
No, damn it! He took me prisoner. He plans to deliver me into the hands of a monster known throughout Hypathia for his horrific treatment of Gifteds, a monster who will do Makers know what with me once the ransom goes missing or he learns the truth.
So, no, I am not feeling any kind of way towards Blackheart. End of story.
Even still, my eyes track him as he dismounts his horse and strides toward the medical tent. Is he hurt? There are no obvious signs of it, no bloody bandages or missing limbs, but that doesn’t necessarily mean no injuries.
“He likes to be near for the ones who are too far gone for Copeland and the others to save,” Odessa says quietly, watching me watch Blackheart and reading the question in my mind.
I shake my head. I don’t understand a damn thing about this man.
Could he really be a decent person? It did seem like he hated the king when we spoke after the incident with Turner, so again I wonder if perhaps he doesn’t serve the monster king freely.
Maybe he’s being forced, a loved one being held hostage to ensure compliance?
“So was it all just rumors then? About the level of your cuntness—” Kendall frowns.
“Cuntitude?” I choke on a laugh and Jonathan looks as if he’s praying to the Makers for patience.
Odessa and Lucinda both laugh, shaking their heads and mumbling insults under their breath.
“You seem pretty normal to me.” He shrugs magnanimously.
I freeze for a moment, knowing that I shouldn’t be here laughing and joking with them, that I should keep the damn walls up, but then decide I just don’t fucking care anymore.
I’m so tired of being awful to everyone.
They have no reason not to believe I’m Tesni, even if I’m not as much of a raging bitch as they’d initially thought, so I let it go.
I remind myself that I’m the only one who knows she has a twin.
Of course they’ll believe I’m her regardless of how I act.
So, I let myself keep the wall down, at least here with this small group.
“Nah, I think she’d just never been properly socialized,” Odessa says, grinning at me. “What can you expect of a spoiled princess who’s only ever been surrounded by butlers and maids and the royal ass-wiper? ‘Course she was a cunt before.”
I give her a dry look. “Royal ass wiper? Really?” She only smiles widely in return, finishing with Lucinda’s braids. I’m tempted to ask her to do something with my own hair, but decide that’s entirely stupid.
“What’s it feel like, then? Your Gift?” Kendall asks and this time Jonathan smacks him in the back of the head. “Oy! What was that for?”
“You can’t ask people that,” Jonathan insists through clenched teeth, and I laugh as Kendall rubs the spot mournfully, ruffling his sandy blonde hair and making it stand on end.
“Idiot,” Tristan mutters, but he casts his friend a warm smile.
“It’s alright,” I tell them, perfectly fine steering the conversation away from why I’m not being a heartless bitch.
“It’s kind of like this…energy within me, I guess.
I can feel it like a part of me deep inside my chest. It starts there and radiates outward through the rest of my body.
My palms are where it gets the strongest and where I can…
push it out I guess it is the right term.
Wield it.” I want to explain how I can radiate the cold over my skin, turn it to solid ice, make it snow—but of course I can’t say any of that.
I assume Tesni can do something similar with her fire, but I’m not sure.
“Does it hurt?” Lucinda asks.
“Not at all.”
“And you aren’t afraid that you’ll ever, you know…blow yourself up or something?” Odessa asks, surprising me. Her cheeks heat when I quirk a brow at her but then she rolls her eyes.
“A Gifted can push too hard. We call it the Brink. There’s a point where your power can become too much for your body to handle and it gives out—or goes up in flames,” I add.
“That’s terrifying,” Lucinda says, shuddering.
“But you can feel that coming? So you know when to stop?” Tristan asks.
I nod. “I’ve never really gotten close before, but I’ve heard that you know when you’re at your limit, so you choose to keep pushing. No one hits the Brink by surprise.”
One of our regulars at the tavern was married to a Gifted who hit the Brink in an attempt to save him and their children from a cyclone.
He was the only one who made it, and he drowned his memories in ale on good days, in hard liquor on bad ones.
But he said he could see it in her eyes the moment she made the choice, the moment she knew what she was doing but decided it was worth it to try to save those she loved.
I can’t imagine having to make that choice, knowing you were going to die but pushing on anyway.
“And does that hurt?” Lucinda asks, nodding toward the collar at my throat. I run my fingertips along the cool metal chain at my throat.
I shake my head. “It isn’t painful it just feels…
strange. It’s the same when Blackheart is here blocking.
I can still feel my Gift inside me, it’s just that I can’t call it all the way out or wield it.
Think of it as being locked inside a glass box.
I can see it. I know it’s there. I simply can’t touch it. ”
“Huh,” Jonathan says, sounding thoughtful. “I never really thought much about it.”
“Your father helped create the collars, how do you know nothing about them or how they work?” Odessa asks.
Jonathan’s father must be an alchemist then.
I don’t understand how they work either, honestly—something about the specific mix of metals blocking the energy somehow—but I know that there must be alchemy involved.
“And when he starts to talk about them, my brain begins to hurt. It’s all far too complicated for me. I barely know the difference between iron and steel. Da is a genius. I just poke things with pointy sticks.” He winks at me and though I’m surprised, I smile back.
Kendall looks wistful. “I wish I was a Gifted.”
“I, too, wish you were blessed with the Gift of silence,” Jonathan says solemnly.
“Alright, that’s it,” Kendall says, lunging for the other man. The next thing I know, the two are play fighting in the middle of the path, pushing and shoving and landing mostly harmless blows until Jonathan lifts Kendall over his shoulder as if he weighs nothing and walks behind the row of tents.
“Hey! Knock it off!” we hear him call and Odessa, Lucinda, Tristan and I exchange confused glances before all running to follow.
We get past the line of tents in time to see Kendall tossed unceremoniously into a giant snowbank.
Odessa laughs so hard she snorts, and I can’t help but feel lighter than I have in weeks.
Here, in this moment, I’m able to forget the danger I’m in, the razor’s edge that I’m walking with this ruse.
I can forget that I’m supposed to be Tesni and just be me, just a girl having a laugh with her friends.
Or as close to friends as I can have here, anyway.
“Come on, let's get some food,” Tristan suggests, wrapping an arm around Odessa’s neck and kissing her temple.
She leans into him with a smile, resting her hand on his forearm.
I quirk a brow. So…maybe Odessa is sleeping with Blackheart and Tristan?
I take in Tristan with his golden tan skin, deep brown hair hanging to his shoulders, and cheekbones that could cut glass, combined with that leanly muscled frame and just the right amount of swagger.
I give an inward approving nod. Good for her.