108. Jia
“Marras save me, Piers, it was a good shot, but it would have been sad if you’d missed it,” Kaiya said, also signing with her fingers.
Jia tried to cover her smile as she tossed the rabbit bone of the leg she’d been eating into the fire.
“Horseshit, Whitethorn, that shot was incredible,” Piers insisted, also using his fingers to speak, his eyes so wide and earnest it almost made him seem like a little kid, not like the six-hundred-year-old immortal that he was.
“Yeah, you’re a goddamned prodigy with a bow and arrow,” Kaiya deadpanned, rolling her eyes. She threw her bone into the fire, too, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “If you take six hundred shots, hopefully you’ll make at least one.”
“I thought it was cool, Piers,” Jia smirked. “Just not cooler than my shot.”
“When you put an arrow right through her eye socket? Gods that was perfection.” Piers laughed, his golden eyes flashing in the fire as he smiled contagiously at Jia.
No, perfection was when Kaiya slapped the tall male with the blunt side of her ax, and he fell into the fire,Cannon signed enthusiastically. A horrible way to die, but he would have been a pain in the ass to cross swords with. He was even taller than Kaiya and by six inches.
Piers laughed, and Jia’s smile grew. It really had been perfect timing.
Jia smiled across the fire at Cannon, and Kaiya pulled the blanket around her even more tightly.
Jia was just close enough to the fire to feel its warmth against her skin, but for the first time in a long time, she felt warm inside, too. Both her heart and soul felt content, happy even. She wasn’t whole or complete by any means, but maybe for now that was okay.
It was all thanks to these people, these random Death-Born guards who made her feel like she was part of them. She might have lost her old family, her favorite family with Volla and Rorax and Sahana. But here, they had made a new family, somehow. Through the pain and destruction House of Ice had caused them, they had become close. Jia felt the beginnings of belonging. Even though the love of her life was dead, she had found new love. A different sort of love. One that didn”t set her on fire, but one that warmed her bones and soothed her soul. For now, that was enough, and Jia knew she would do anything to protect it through the coming storm.
Maybe even kill Enna Mistvalley.