Chapter 10 #4
After bowls of stew, Kendall grumbling all the while that he’d never be warm again and Jonathan threatening to toss him in all over again if he didn’t stop complaining, I have my collar removed by another of Blackheart’s men and take a walk through the camp.
The others wanted to visit with some of their injured comrades and pay respects to those lost, and that didn’t feel like something I should be trespassing upon, so I said my goodbyes for the evening.
“And where in the hells did you get those?” the voice I’m now all too familiar with asks from behind me as I near my tent, low and…
gruff? No, surely not. Then I remember that his voice may very well be hoarse—I can only imagine how much yelling is done during a battle, though to be quite honest, I’m having trouble envisioning what a true battle even looks like.
I don’t think I really want to see it, even in my head.
I turn and find Blackheart not far behind me, looking tired but no worse for the wear.
I tilt my head, realizing that though exhaustion is clearly weighing on him, his body is tense and alert, his eyes blazing.
Is he angry about the trousers? I narrow my eyes.
Does he think that I stole them? I shift my shoulders back and barely stop myself from planting my hands on my hips before I start my tirade.
“I won these fair and square playing quills, I’ll have you know, and if you don’t believe me, I have several witnesses from your own soldiers who can attest and—”
“They...suit you,” he interrupts, eyes drifting downward over my body in a way that makes my pulse race. He clears his throat and pulls his gaze up to meet mine again. “Are you truly not cold?” he asks, dark brows arching.
“I’m fine.”
“So, it’s true that you run hot then,” he muses, studying me and slowly closing the distance between us.
It’s true that while the cold doesn’t bother me, Tesni is always warm, so it doesn’t really bother her either.
Both of us can survive equally well in the freezing north or the blazing south.
I wonder then, if Tesni would be more at peace in Helios, the way I am here.
I can’t believe I’ve never thought of that before now.
“The cold doesn’t touch me,” I answer truthfully without actually confirming his assumption.
He nods and we stand in silence for a few moments.
It isn’t uncomfortable, exactly, but it starts to feel heavy as his eyes bore into mine and I find my gaze drifting from those stormy depths to his lips, wondering what would happen if I just…
I shake myself and take a step backwards before my body stops taking instructions from my mind. It’s been known to happen a time or two.
“Was it awful?” I ask, willing my voice not to come out breathless. I halfway succeed.
“Hmm?” he asks, sounding as if his thoughts are a thousand miles away.
“The battle,” I clarify. “Was it awful?”
“Oh,” he frowns. “I never really think about it in terms of awful or not. It was a small contingent from Nocadia, nothing we couldn’t handle easily.”
“Do you always fight with them? Even in battles that can be handled easily?”
“I try to, yes. It seems wrong for me to send my men to fight, possibly fall, while I stay safe and warm in my tent.”
I study him. “That’s only part of the reason,” I finally say.
His lips curl at the corners. “Oh really?”
“You get a rush from it. A thrill that you can’t seem to find anywhere else.” I can’t even explain how I know it, but I do, sure as I know my own name. He hikes a big shoulder and winces the tiniest bit, covering it quickly enough but I catch it all the same. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” he says, brushing the question away, but I’m already in front of him, reaching up to pull the edge of his coat and tunic away without thinking.
There’s a bloody gash across his shoulder, leading down over the top of his chest. I glance up to scold him, only to find that he seems to have stopped breathing completely, his eyes wide and staring.
Now I realize what I’ve done, touching him so casually, our bodies so close that I can feel his heat warming me, smell the snow and dirt and blood, and his own wild, wintery scent beneath that.
I clear my throat quietly. “Why didn’t you have this healed? It would have been easy work for Copeland.”
“He should focus on the worst of the injuries. This is a scratch and will heal fine in a week or so.” He puts his men first, their healing above his own.
I feel something inside my chest start to shift and I force it to stop in its tracks.
No. I fucking refuse. I cannot and will not do what I fear I might be doing. No, no, fucking NO.
“Idiot,” I mutter, and I honestly don’t know if I’m talking about him or me, but he laughs lightly.
“I have never claimed to be otherwise.”
“Let me help you bandage it at least. I can fetch some supplies—”
“I have some in my tent, but you don’t need to—”
“Come on then.”
We both fight smiles at our interrupting conversation, and I charge towards his tent before I can fully realize how stupid this is.
He follows behind and when I step through I find that it is set up much the same as it was at the very first camp.
I don’t know why I was expecting anything different, really.
I eye the bed, but quickly discard that idea.
It isn’t that I don’t trust myself not to ravage him if we were near a bed, but…
well, maybe it is a bit that I don’t trust myself not to ravage him if we were near a bed.
I’ll examine my traitorous body’s thoughts on this matter later when I am alone and away from the walking temptation that is Blackheart.
I point to the chair in front of his desk.
“Sit. Supplies?”
To my surprise, he obeys, tossing his coat onto the desk and sliding into the chair with a heavy sigh. He points to the weapons trunk.
“There’s a pouch of bandages and salves in there somewhere.” I rummage through it, mindful of the many, many sharp points within.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll swipe a dagger, slit your throat in your sleep?”
“I never pictured the Flame of Lyanna as having such a wonderful sense of humor,” he says, and I glance back to find his head tilted back, eyes closed. He really must be exhausted. I find the pouch and hurry back over to him.
“Erm…this will be easier if...well…”
“I’m naked?” he says, lowering his head and seeming to force his eyes open, but smirking in a way that should be a crime.
I somehow manage to give him a dry look despite the wave of heat that crashes through me at that look, and he chuckles, low and rumbling.
I like the sound. Oh, fuck me, I sound like those girls in the tavern, fawning over the sailors who stole their hearts away—without realizing that those same soldiers had a ship full of hearts they’d taken from nearly every young girl in the damn port.
“Do you want help or not?” I snap.
“No, I don’t. It was you who insisted—ow!” His mouth pops open and he stares at me in shock tinged with amusement when I yank his shirt aside and slap a bit of cloth soaked with the cleansing tonic onto his wound. I happen to know it burns like fire. Serves him right.
“Apologies,” I say without sounding apologetic in the least. He laughs again and tugs his tunic over his head, making me shift away, taking the cloth with me.
My mouth goes dry. My blood turns to fire.
My eyes take no orders from my mind and rove as they please, drinking in every inch of his bare torso.
I got a glimpse at the outpost, but great Makers I somehow forgot how magnificent his body is.
More tattoos spread across his chest and down the right side of his ribs, disappearing into the waistband of his pants.
I realize now that they aren’t just swirls of ink, they’re symbols of some kind.
Ones I don’t recognize or understand, but I know that they have some sort of meaning.
I don’t dwell on them too long, my eyes still drinking him in.
His stomach is taut and rigid, line after line of muscle, clenching tightly as I watch.
I swallow hard, staring for one more eternal heartbeat before I finally manage to get my hands to cooperate once more, reaching out to wipe the wound with the cleansing tonic again, taking dried blood with it and causing fresh blood to well.
“What happened?”
“Walked into the pointy end of a blade.” I meet his eyes, wondering if he somehow overheard me say something similar to Copeland that night or if we’re simply very alike in our senses of humor. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say, forcing myself not to smile.
I continue to clean the wound and try not to think about the fact that I can feel him watching me.
I peek up at him from beneath my lashes and find those blue-gray eyes staring between wayward strands of midnight hair that have fallen over his forehead.
“Will you show me?” he asks quietly and I frown. “Your Gift,” he clarifies. My entire body shoots through with tension. I keep working on his wound, adding a salve that will ward off any infection and help the skin heal.
“I’m not a dog performing tricks,” I say through gritted teeth, hoping it comes off as anger and not fear. What if he demands that I show him? What will I do then?
“Has your power grown weaker over the years? Is that why Barony was giving you away? I’ve heard Gifts like yours can wane.”
“My power is just fine,” I say, and while I mean for it to come out biting, it’s only a soft whisper.
“We could use you, you know. In the army, in this fight. Hells, even just on this journey your Gift would make things far easier.” It was true that they have the telekinetic Gifted and another who has heat, but not fire—she can only do so much to melt the snow before she grows too tired.
Fire, on the other hand, would make quick work of it all.
“You could fight back against the very person who tossed you aside.”
I finish securing the bandage over his wound, telling my fingertips not to linger, though they don’t quite obey, and finally sigh, meeting his eyes.
“I’m not to be trusted,” I tell him. “I’m not a good person, Blackheart.
The second you stopped blocking my Gift, I would use it against you, against this camp.
” His eyes narrow a fraction. “I might be playing nice with the others, but the only thing I care about is myself. I would betray anyone, hurt anyone, even my own blood, to get what I want. You could never rely on me in this fight.” My heart aches that it’s the truth—not about me, but of Tesni.
How could such awful things be true about my own sister, my twin, the other half of myself?
How did we turn out so, so differently? He seems to see the sadness welling up in me, and out of the corner of my eye I see his hand lift from his lap, as if he’s going to reach for me, but he quickly drops it again and clenches his fingers into a fist.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Lie and tell the truth at the same time? I can see it in your eyes. All of that is both deceit and truth. How can that be?”
I inhale sharply, wondering how this man can possibly read me better than anyone else in this world after only knowing me for such a short while.
That old familiar pang echoes through my chest, seeming to reverberate down to my bones, threatening to shatter them.
No one can ever truly care about me because they can never truly know me.
And as ridiculously stupid as it is, in this moment, I want Blackheart to care about me.
I want him to know me. I want to tell him things I’ve never told anyone, even Math and Cece.
I want to tell him the truth of who I am and why I’m here.
But no.
No matter what wild strangeness is passing between us tonight, he is still the leader of Duskthorne’s army. He still serves King Dorian. He will still deliver me to that monster. I clear my throat.
“All done,” I say softly, stepping away and only now realizing how close we’d been, how I’d been standing in the cradle of his thighs, my hands on his body. My cheeks heat.
“Thank you.”
I nod and ball up the bloody rags. I look around for a bin to place them in but shrug and just toss them over my shoulder. He huffs out a laugh and despite myself, my lips curl upwards, just the smallest smile, but he notices.
“Alright, I’m going to go now.” Before I do something very fucking stupid.
“Goodnight, Tess,” he calls softly.
I freeze mid-step, my entire body tightening. I inhale softly but quickly exit his tent and flee to mine.
That was the first time he’s ever used my (false) name. Not Red. Not Princess. Not Highness.
And fuck all the Makers—I liked it.