Chapter 5 #2
“Seles is where I was born and trained. I don’t think of it as home,” he said. “Nowhere is home.”
A genuine sentiment? Or a bid for sympathy? Did he think her so weak-hearted as to fall for a scheme like that?
She kept still, sword held before her, and he continued, “No. He asked me of women. Of the mating habits of Selesee soldiers.”
“Mating habits?” A startled laugh bubbled in her chest. “You could say ‘romance.’ ‘Taking a tumble.’” She lifted her brows when he frowned, the tiniest downward twitch at the corners of his mouth. “‘Fucking.’”
The frown deepened a fraction. “Whatever you prefer to call it, I explained to him that soldiers like me are not permitted any sort of amorous contact, not with women or men. We were bred for one purpose. Leisure and diversion have no place in the life of a soldier of Seles.”
“That isn’t the custom in Aquitainia.”
“You have amorous intentions toward Prince Leif.” It was an observation, rather than a question, and it halted Amelia’s breath for three damning seconds before she took a measured inhale and walked, unhurried, toward the chest where the maps still lay spread across its lid.
It was an effort to keep her movements slow and measured. She rolled the maps up one-handed, still holding her sword. “What would make you say that? If you’ve lived your whole life without romantic entanglements, what makes you so sure you can recognize finer feelings in those around you?”
There. She felt a reassuring pulse of victory, the initial shakiness of his statement receding.
He spoke while her back was still turned to him. “You look at him differently than you do the other men.”
Her pulse quickened, and she didn’t turn back around until it had slowed. She said, “And your conclusion is that I look at him with amorous intent? Based on what personal experience?”
He studied her a moment, gaze tracking back and forth over her face, but venturing no lower. A respectful gaze. “I mean no offense, my lady. It’s only a guess.”
She pointed at him with the tip of her sword. “Guesses can be dangerous.”
“Yes.”
Just as this conversation could be dangerous if she allowed it to continue. She withdrew the sword, and propped the flat of its blade against her shoulder. Resumed pacing, though unhurried. “I didn’t bring you here to discuss my gazes, amorous or otherwise.”
“I thought not. My apologies.”
She paused, and turned to face him. “You’re very polite.”
There was surprise in the pause between his blinks. He could feel things, did feel them, but the tells were subtle, and she had the sense that displaying any sort of thought or emotion physically was still a novel concept for him. He said, “I am here, alive, at your mercy. Why should I be rude?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “My mother once called me the rudest girl in all of Aquitainia. Polite, profane—manners don’t matter to me. I’m interested in a man’s character. His honesty.”
His throat worked as he swallowed, and she wondered when he’d last been offered water. His voice did sound raspy. “I understand.”
Amelia resumed her back-and-forth across the trampled grass. “When I first questioned you, you said that you were a solider only, and that you possessed no inherent magic, nor possessed any magical artifacts.”
“I did. That’s true.”
“I know, however, that it’s possible to project one’s consciousness to another plane. To have meetings, lengthy conversations, to share vital information with others there.” She glanced over, seeking his gaze. Searched for some tiny flinch, a sign of guilt.
But he stared at her openly, with his big, blue-white eyes. “Only magic users can travel like that.”
“But can a magic user can travel to speak with a non-magic user?”
His lips compressed. “Not on the astral plane. If another kind of meeting is possible, I don’t know how that would work.”
She bit back a sigh, and dropped the formal tone of voice. Came to a halt with hips cocked, fingers drumming on the grip of her sword. “I don’t want to talk in circles, here. You know what I’m asking: are you sure you’re not in communication with any of the Sel commanders? The emperor himself?”
“No. Or, rather, I’m sure that I’m not.”
“But the mark—”
“Magic is something you can feel, even if you have no powers of your own. If someone was spying through me, I would know.”
The thing was, she believed him. She knew that magic of any sort rippled across your nerves, tightened the skin on the back of your neck.
Echoed like a voice in the back of your mind.
She didn’t know what powers the emperor possessed, but she found it unlikely he could reach across distance and ether and leave someone unaware that their consciousness had been touched against their will.
But he was a Sel.
She’d been exhausted all day from travel and worry, but her current predicament—forced to trust the word of a member of the enemy army—spiked her fatigue to staggering levels.
She wanted to maintain a certain facade around Cassius, but when her vision spotted at the edges, she realized that wasn’t possible, and sat down hard on the edge of her sleeping cot.
“I want to believe you.” That was far too candid, but she was past the point of caring.
He nodded. “I understand why you don’t.”
Amelia frowned, and massaged at the tension that sprouted in the center of her forehead.
“Gods…why are you so bloody agreeable all the time? I hate it.” When she gapped her fingers and peered through them, she saw that the slight frown he’d worn the past few minutes had turned the other direction.
His lips formed the barest upward curve, more a neutral expression than a true smile, but something bright had come into his eyes.
“I’ve never actually been part of an argument before,” he said, like a confession.
She snorted. “No free will, no romance, no arguing, hm?”
“None.”
Tired of holding it, arm full of pins and needles, Amelia laid the sword carefully on the ground, within reach should she need it. She rested her elbow on her knee, and cupped her chin in her hand. “I should kill you, you know.”
He nodded, and looked neither surprised nor alarmed. “You’d be within your rights, both as an Aquitainian and the commander of this army.”
“See?” She sat up, and gestured at him with both hands, frustrated, tired, bloody sick of making decisions and then wondering if they were the right decisions.
“Agreeable. Too agreeable. What sort of man says ‘yes, my lady, you’d be within your rights to kill me?’ This is why I don’t trust you. Why you must be spying on us.”
He waited a beat, seeing if she was done, she supposed. Her too-quick, open-mouthed breathing filled the tent, and she clamped her lips shut tight.
When she was quiet, he said, “It’s as I’ve said before: I don’t wish to be a Sel any longer. Not to be a Selesee slave, at any rate. I want to be free. And I believe helping you is the only way I can be.”
A part of Amelia wanted to scream.
A larger part of her wanted to tip over onto the cot, curl up, and sleep for three days.
She did neither, but said, “When was the last time someone offered you water?”
“A…while.”
She stood, needing something practical to do, and went to fetch the canteen she’d left on top of her heaped-up saddlebags. She had cups somewhere, but they were likely still on a wagon, and not worth searching for.
She pulled the cork from the canteen and approached Cassius, where he still sat placid and cross-legged on the floor, hands chained behind him around the tentpole. She stood directly before him before she realized the sword lay on the ground some five paces behind her, out of reach and of no use.
He tipped his head back, hair rustling softly as it slid backward over his shoulders. Without its bright white curtains, his face seemed squarer, more masculine, his complexion warmer. “You have my word that I won’t harm you,” he said, softly.
“What good is your word?” But after a moment, she crouched before him and pressed the neck of the canteen to his mouth.
Helping another person drink was never tidy business. It was tricky to control the tilt of the canteen, to pour enough without drowning him. She tipped her hand carefully, but pearls of water still beaded and trickled down his jaw.
It struck her, in the midst of watching his throat work in desperate pulls, that this was a strangely intimate act. Her palms prickled, and she almost dropped the canteen; gave herself a firm mental shake and ignored the crawling sensation between her shoulder blades.
Cassius drank deep, and when he finally broke away, gasping, she saw and felt that the canteen was empty. No one, she thought, had allowed him a drink all day, and that didn’t make her happy. What good was a useful prisoner if he blacked out from dehydration?
He turned his head, and pressed his damp mouth to the shoulder of his tunic; wiped the spilled water from his chin. Then he glanced up through pale lashes and caught her gaze, voice breathless when he said, “Thank you.”
She was deciding on a response—you’re welcome, of course, I’m sorry—when the tent flap lifted, and Leif entered. This time, he’d brought Ragnar.
Both of them halted just inside the flap, both their gazes riveted. Leif looked startled.
Ragnar smirked. “So, this is what you wanted with the prisoner. Don’t stop on our account.” Aggression flashed in his eyes, nasty satisfaction she didn’t understand.
Amelia stood, too fast and too unsteadily to look composed or casual, but she would challenge anyone to look composed and casual in the face of the look Ragnar was giving her. She wanted to slap it off his face…even if it was an attractive look.
She said, “Ragnar, did you have a flask of water that you carried today? During our long march?”
The smirk remained, but his brows notched together in puzzlement. Silly woman, that groove between them said, asking silly questions. “Of course.”
“Did you offer any to Cassius?”
His expression froze, and then, slowly, the smirk melted away. “I don’t—”