46
The canyon deepened like we were diving into the very heart of the earth itself. High, striated walls looked like an endless wave, reaching as far as the eye could see into the distance. Footsteps echoed between the two, absorbed more during the long stretches where grassy fronds clung to the sides, out of the harsh sun and near tiny streams of water cracking through the rocks.
Swaying on Blaeze’s back, I scanned the distance for one of two black dots. Blood thrummed in my veins, and I held my breath as if that would sharpen my eyesight.
“The trick is to let your gaze be soft and to open your awareness. If you focus too much on one spot, you’ll miss the possibilities on the edge of your vision,”
Rokath said, the gravel in his voice distracting me.
“Mmm,”
I replied, keeping my attention firmly ahead. As the red dirt dipped into a lazy pool, something moved. My heart skipped a beat. I narrowed my eyes, waiting for another whip of the swaying bushes. A breeze ghosted across them, flattening one momentarily.
“There!”
I exclaimed, pointing in Grem’s direction. A wide grin spread across my face as pride bloomed in my chest.
“Good,”
Rokath rumbled, and something about the way the word rolled off his tongue sent heat straight to my core. “Now where is Zeec?”
Rokath had sent both of the hounds racing off at different times to pick their hiding spots. Surely they wouldn’t have rejoined…
But then, a flash of ruby in the shadows of the canyon wall caught my attention, only a dozen leaping bounds from Grem. Zeec flicked his ears as his gaze locked on us. The hounds were loyal and highly intelligent, which was why they were so useful, Rokath had explained. With the way Zeec regarded me, I knew it was true.
“Where one forward scout is, another is likely close by,”
Rokath growled. “It is foolish to creep about alone, especially when your target is an army of people who want to kill you. If at least one can survive in return, they can still relay what they’ve seen.”
A shiver wracked my spine. “And Grem and Zeec know that?”
“Aye,”
he replied. “They’ve taken many out for us. The pair of them working together can outrun any Angel and easily tear out their throats.”
The picture he painted made my stomach flip. That these sweet, cuddly dogs who wanted hourly belly scratches and curled up with me when I was sad could be such lethal killers when asked was a bit unnerving.
“Where did you learn all of this?”
I asked Rokath after he whistled from them to return.
“The military academy in Fured.”
His attention slid toward me. “Xannirin, Rapp, and I all attended together.”
That much I knew from conversations with the Hadvezér. I recalled Rokath’s previous words about what he had to do to become the Halálhívó.
Was whatever haunted him because of that place?
“Is that where your bag is from?”
I asked, gently treading into this dangerous territory. Whether Rokath would lose his temper or reveal his secrets to me was as predictable as flipping a coin.
“Aye,”
he growled, a hint of a warning threaded through his tone.
I glanced over my shoulder at the massive army trailing us. Even Rapp was some distance away. So, I pressed forward, my curiosity piqued. “And your father, Xannirin’s father, their brother, did they force you to…do things there?”
Rokath’s fingers tightened over his reins. “They did.”
He was not being as forthcoming with the information as I wanted, yet he continued to entertain my line of questioning. “I know what it’s like to be forced to do things against my will.”
A flare of rage swept down our bond. Rokath knew I meant Vagach. I quickly added, “What I mean is that if you want to talk about what happened, I will understand.”
A long moment passed with Rokath staring out into the distance. A muscle feathered in his jaw. He seemed to grapple with what he wanted to say next, and I allowed him the space to come to me.
“I know you have suffered too, little imposter. But this is different. Nor is it something that I ever talk about. I’d rather not remember.”
His tone was so soft, so sad, that my heart twisted for him. Underneath his gruff exterior was a male who’d hurt, who’d had to fight for his own survival too.
His hardened attitude, the distance he put between others, was all beginning to make sense to me. Even without the knowledge of what he’d had to do, I could see why he’d act as if he didn’t care about anyone or anything outside of his goals.
I squared my shoulders and stared at him, forcing him to look at me and hold my gaze. “As much as neither of us like it, we are mated. Our pain is shared now.”
Something flashed in Rokath’s burgundy eyes, so fast I almost swore I didn’t see anything at all. If it weren’t for the hint of hope—or was that relief?—that whispered down our bond, I would have shaken the incident off.
“Something else I learned at the academy was that females have no place in the army,”
Rokath said, shattering our moment. Because despite the changes in our relationship, neither of us were comfortable with fully opening up to the other. Trust was something we still hadn’t managed, despite our bond.
“Yet here I am,”
I pointed out, sweeping my arms wide. Frustration nipped at my nerves.
“And you are not in the army,”
he retorted, rolling his shoulders.
“But you’re teaching me to scout,”
I snapped. “And when I was pretending to be Vagach, I led an entire unit!”
Why is he being like this again?
“Aye, and I’ll admit that you are taking to it faster and better than I anticipated,”
he grumbled, breaking our staredown.
“Just like your dick,”
I quipped, unable to stop the words from leaving my mouth. Then, I kicked myself for saying them at all. Overhearing the crass words of the soldiers for months now had certainly given me a new vocabulary to struggle silencing.
He pierced me with a heated stare.
“So maybe females can help in other ways,”
I pressed, redirecting our conversation back to what was important. His reluctance to see the truth would not deter me. “That way we’re not relegated to our homes and told we’re only useful as broodmares.”
“The Kral needs more bodies to populate the continent once we’ve conquered the Angel Realm. One does not simply win a war and then return home. The invaders must root themselves there to hold it,”
Rokath growled, gritting his teeth.
“Notice you said, ‘the Kral needs,’”
I snapped. “There’s nothing in there about you needing us to remain at home.”
“The Kral is the only person I take orders from,”
Rokath snarled, a flash of coldness in his eyes. The way he pressed his lips together made me think there was more he wanted to say. Namely, that I wasn’t someone who had influence over him. “If that is what Xannirin requires, then that is what will happen.”
“But you have sway over him too,”
I protested. I’d seen as much with my own eyes. “If you told him you need females to, I don’t know, act as scouts or messengers or even cooks, he could grant that request. And if he’s so concerned about more offspring, the males could bring their wives.”
Rokath’s glare was hot enough to burn. “Do you think you know better than the Halálhívó and the Kral, little imposter?”
I clenched my jaw, trying to keep the biting words from snapping out. Heat crept across my cheeks as I tried and failed to arrive at another answer than the one I had to give. I dropped my head, hating the sense of defeat washing over me. “No,”
I sighed. “I only wish that I could give others the option I was not. I’m lucky to have escaped the way I did. Even if I hate my situation currently, it’s better than what so many others currently have.”
The last words were barely more than a whisper, and yet they snapped the tense string wrapped around us.
Rokath exhaled, long and slow. “I am sorry you suffered, Assyria.”
Angling his horse closer to mine, he reached out and brought his fingers under my chin. With a tenderness that surprised me even more than his apology, he lifted it up and toward him. “Truly. I can feel your sorrow and your anguish. You are right. Our pain is shared now.”
A small smile softened my expression as he brushed his knuckles across my cheek. “The Halálhívó apologizing and admitting I am right about something? Are you certain you aren’t ill?”
Rokath rolled his eyes. “I am not ill. I can admit when I am wrong.”
A laugh burst from me before I could smother it. “Sure you can, Halálhívó.”
Grem and Zeec finally returned to us, tongues lolling out of their mouths. “Good boys,”
Rokath praised, turning his focus to them. Their tails wagged as they trotted alongside us. As we arrived upon the pool where I’d spotted the hounds earlier, Rokath called for a break.
Males worked in tandem to refill our water barrels, while others passed waterskins back and forth in an efficient line to provide as many as they could the opportunity to quench their thirst. Seated on the hanging lip of one wagon, I sipped from one Rokath gave me.
The hounds framed me, and I poured the remaining drops across each of their tongues. Zeec sat up and licked me across the face. “Ew!”
I laughed, shoving him playfully away. That only served to encourage him to do it again.
Rapp approached, fiddling with the studs in his eyebrow. “Hey, Assyria, how’s your scouting training going?”
I snorted, playing with the end of my braid. “About how you would think with the Halálhívó.”
Rapp grinned and rubbed Zeec’s soft fur. “So he offers you a morsel of praise along with a list of everything you’re doing wrong?”
“Exactly like that,”
I sighed, though a smile twisted my lips. “He did admit I’m taking to it better than he expected.”
“From him, that is the highest compliment you’ll ever receive.”
Rapp wedged himself on the wood beside me, forcing Grem over. He scratched those furry black ears.
“Rapp, what happened to Rokath at the academy?”
I asked at scarcely louder than a whisper since I was uttering my mate’s name. Most of the males had since moved on, leaving us alone.
Instead of responding, he froze, hand poised an inch above Grem. “Rokath should be the one to tell you that,”
he eventually said, continuing to shower the dog with attention.
Annoyance fluttered through me, and I was even more curious than I had been before. With their caginess, my mind scattered in a million different directions, playing out a thousand terrible scenarios.
What had happened to Rokath that was horrible enough to warrant utter silence on the topic?