CHAPTER FOUR #2
“I have no recollection of that occurring,” I said with performative innocence. “You must be thinking of someone else.”
“I must be,” she mused. Dark eyes once again on my mouth, her own lips quirking in response to my small, reluctant smile.
She seemed frustrated, and I couldn’t help but find that endearing.
After all, Captains were used to having considerable power over their Sentinels.
She did her best to exert control, and even to threaten me when it was appropriate, but we both knew her options for reprimand were limited.
Still, her presence commanded a certain amount of respect, and I eagerly succumbed to the role reversal—for the most part.
“You’re a little too used to getting your way, you know that?” I clicked my tongue disapprovingly, gaze drifting to the forest floor as heat seared my cheeks.
“So I’ve been told.” Anise’s rage seemed to evaporate as she adjusted the hood of my cloak, double-checking that my coif remained secure.
Her posture softened, the hard lines of her face eased, and the whisper of something more vulnerable hovered in her gaze.
“If anything were to happen to you…” And then, as if she could hear my heartbeat still at the tender implication of her words, she casually added: “I’ve never lost a recruit.
I’d be destined for the depths if you were my first.”
I cursed myself for briefly hoping, all thoughts of tenderness now awash with the sobering truth of our dynamic.
From the moment Father had entrusted Anise with my training, she had been an overwhelming force in my life.
She trained me daily, without fail, as though I were any other recruit—even despite my shortcomings.
When I was ill, she checked in on me, and when I was injured, I would inevitably hear her voice echoing through the halls of the castle, questioning the physician’s competence.
She cared for me as she would any of her charges, and there I was, allowing my mind to wander unsavorily. Absolutely pathetic.
“I was planning an ambush when I saw them,” I admitted, quite ready to discuss anything else. I leaned against the tree more calmly now, her boots crunching newly fallen leaves as she stepped away to assess our path back to Lunamor.
“An ambush?” Anise questioned with mock insult. I could hear the smile pulling at her lips. “What was your plan?”
“I… well… I climbed a tree.”
Anise regarded me now with a quirked brow. It seemed she was both doubting my sanity and impressed that I had attempted to overcome my fear of heights to best her.
“That’s not a plan.”
“I was going to strike you from the place you’d least expect it,” I said with the air of someone who very much believed it would have worked, despite the plethora of failed ambush attempts I had under my belt.
“Were you now?”
“Indeed. I’m convinced it would have been a success, had I not abandoned my post.” I crossed my arms, pleased that my growing composure melted away the heat dusting my cheeks.
“Getting up the tree has never been your weakness,” she reminded. “It’s the getting down part that usually leaves you a blubbering mess.”
I opened my mouth with every intention of arguing, but all I could muster was a taut, “Fair enough.”
“From what I just saw, you’re improving.” Anise nodded to the tree I had descended.
“I was distracted,” I admitted. “I had just seen…” But the words died in my throat. My attention flitted from Anise to the Threshold, and I hovered in that in-between, trying to quickly determine what was safe to share and what I was better off omitting.
“Seen what?” Anise pressed. The way her eyes locked on my face only served to solidify my hesitation.
“The Sentinels,” I said casually, gesturing with my hand in the direction they’d come from. “They had a prisoner. I imagine he was trying to cross, but they caught him.” I could feel her searching my features, even as I assessed the Threshold warily.
“Lucky for him,” I added to fill the growing silence.
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, they saved him from himself. Can’t imagine what might’ve happened had he…” I cast another glance at the thick, whirling fog, steeling myself against the shiver crawling down my spine.
Anise nodded in agreement, but her eyes seemed faraway as she asked, “Did you recognize him?”
“Who?” I replied without hesitation, already reaching for my next response.
“The man they found. Did you know who he was?” Dark eyes were back on my face, searching each indentation in a barely curious manner.
“No,” I offered with a shrug. My chest began to thump rhythmically, sending my pulse into my throat. I was a nervous liar, and I prayed to the stars that she found my passive expression believable. “I couldn’t risk pulling out my spyglass, and he had his hood up. Could’ve been anyone.”
“Right then,” Anise said with a deep inhale that seemed a little too relieved. “It’s time to get back before someone notices we’ve gone.” Something in her demeanor shifted as she peeled away from the trail, gesturing for me to follow.
I took one last look at the Threshold, its undulating tendrils forming shapes and figures that retreated into the gloom the moment my eyes found focus.
It’s time… Alyssum…
The whispers echoed in my mind, prompting the tingling of gooseflesh along my arms. I could feel the Threshold’s beckoning hum calling to me, the ever-present fear I’d nurtured throughout my life simmering the longer I stared.
“Lyssa,” Anise snapped.
“Coming!”
But even as we returned to Lunamor in silence, my mind could not dismiss that captivating, roiling fog. I followed obediently in Anise’s steps, yet all I could see was the Threshold’s writhing gloom, its luring energy traveling on the warm wind to prick at my dulled senses.
The tapestries certainly hadn’t captured that.
The morning had filled my head with more questions than answers, but of one thing I was absolutely certain: they were keeping things from us. Not just my father and the Council, but even the Sentinels, and—worst of all—Anise.
“All Lunamorians should fear the Threshold.”
“I’d never be stupid enough to cross in the first place.”
“A fate worse than death…”
Then why not leave the man to his own devices out in the harrowing fog? Why risk stationing Sentinels beyond the wall, and why go through the trouble of fitting them with metals outside of wartime? And why not disprove the non-believers once and for all by revealing the existence of Vacants?
I wanted the truth. I deserved the truth. And now, with that mystifying barrier overwhelming my mind, I knew I would do everything in my power to obtain it.