Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
ALLERIA
“You’re dropping your shoulder again.”
I adjust my stance, draw, and release. The arrow hits the target two inches left of center.
“That’s better.” Therin is perched on a tree stump, one leg swinging. “But you’re still thinking too much before you draw. By the time you’ve lined up the perfect shot, whatever you’re aiming at has wandered off to find something else to do.”
“But I hit it.”
“You hit the target, yes. But the target isn’t going anywhere.
” He hops down and walks over to me. “In a real situation involving bows and arrows, you’re not going to have time to breathe, center yourself, and find your inner calm or whatever you’re wasting time doing.
You have half a heartbeat to draw and loose before something unpleasant happens to you. ”
“So, what do you want me to do?”
“Stop thinking, and start trusting your instincts.” He takes the bow from my hands, and nocks an arrow. “You know where the target is. Your body already knows how to shoot. You need to get out of your own way.”
He barely even glances at the target before he releases the arrow. It buries itself dead center.
“Show off,” I mutter.
He grins and hands the bow back. “I’ve had a few more centuries of practice than you. You’ll get there, if you listen to what I’m telling you. Now, let’s do this again. And this time, we’ll up the game.”
“Up the game how?”
His answer is to smirk. The target shudders and begins to drift sideways, waving in a slow, unpredictable pattern.
I stare at it. “That’s not fair.”
“Did you wait for Cairn to invite you to shoot him? Is that why it didn’t work out so well for you?
You do know that aiming an arrow at someone or something means following through and not waiting for permission to shoot, right?
Fair is for tournaments. Ask me how many archers I killed who had only performed and never faced an enemy?
” He picks up a handful of pebbles from the ground.
“Now then, try not to flinch. I’m going to be throwing things at you. ”
“At me?”
“Well, near you mostly.” His eyes are bright with amusement. “Don’t worry, I have excellent aim. You’ll be fine … probably.”
I roll my eyes, and turn back to the target making its slow way around the clearing, and draw, trying to target the moving target, while bracing myself for incoming projectiles. A pebble whistles past my ear and I jerk, the arrow going wide.
“What did I say about not flinching?”
“You threw a rock at me!”
“I threw a pebble near you. You flinched before it even got close, which means you’re anticipating what I’m doing instead of focusing on what you’re doing.
” He tosses a pebble into the air and catches it.
“Try again. This time don’t think about what I might be doing, think about the target, and ideally, hitting it. ”
“How am I supposed to ignore rocks flying at my head?”
“How are you supposed to avoid arrows flying at your heart when you’re on a battlefield?
By killing the thing that’s attacking you, that’s how.
” He settles back on his tree stump. “The world is full of distractions, Alleria. Loud noises, movements, people trying to kill you, sexy fae males you want to strip out of their clothes and ride—”
“Stop!” I drop my bow and clamp my hands over my ears, face burning.
Therin laughs. The bow floats off the ground back to my hands.
“You have to learn to focus through all of it. So, if you could hit that target, it’d be great.”
I huff out a sigh, and lift the bow, focusing on the target and not the fae at my back with a handful of stones. The target dips. I adjust, release—
A pebble clips my shoulder and I mutter a curse word I’d heard him say beneath my breath. He laughs, but the arrow flies true, and hits the outer ring of the target. It’s not the center, but I didn’t miss either.
“There you go!” Therin sounds genuinely pleased. “See? You can do it. You just have to stop being so precious about the conditions.”
This is how my days have been since Therin returned from the camp.
Out in this clearing at the edge of the village, working through lessons in archery, how to balance, and some hand-to-hand fighting when he’s bored, that leave my body aching.
He’s nothing like Cairn was during that one brutal session.
Where Cairn put me on the ground over and over, Therin teaches with a kind of easy patience that makes me want to do better.
He just treats me like someone worth training.
Most of my morning sessions are with Therin, but sometimes Sorel will come and join in, teaching me basic blade work. He’s less talkative than Therin, quieter and more intense.
I aim for the target again … and again … and again … until my shoulders burn and my fingers are numb. But I don’t stop until the arrow lands where I want it to, despite the moving targets and the pebbles Therin keeps throwing at me.
“There!” He grins. “You’re getting it.”
He takes the bow from me, and both it and the arrows disappear. “That’s enough for this morning. Go eat something, and give your arms a rest. Vessara wants you after midday.”
I nod, wiping my head with the back of my hand, and turn to where Nella has been sitting watching.
She comes to all my morning sessions. It was one of the first things I asked Therin about when I discovered that her room is warded the same way mine used to be.
She can leave it, but only to the common areas of the inn.
She can’t leave the building itself unless someone is with her.
When I asked why, Therin said she wasn’t a prisoner, but she isn’t trusted yet.
I’m not trusted either, I don’t think. Not really. But my leash now has far more slack than it did.
Nella stands up and falls into step beside me as we walk back into the village proper.
At the palace, she’d have been talking by now, commenting on Therin’s behavior, asking if I was sore, making some comment that would make me laugh.
But now she keeps her eyes forward and her hands clasped at her waist, and doesn’t say a word.
We’re almost to the inn when she breaks the silence. “You’re getting better with the bow.”
“Therin would say I’m adequate.”
She doesn’t smile, just nods and keeps walking.
“Nella.” I touch her arm, forcing her to stop. “Talk to me. Please.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, my lady.”
My lady.
At the palace, it was always Alleria, unless others were listening. Now it’s my lady, even when we’re alone.
“You’ve barely said ten words to me since Therin brought you here. You won’t eat with me, you won’t talk to me. Did anything happen while I—”
“I’m tired, my lady. That’s all. And being surrounded by these ani—by these fae makes me nervous. I’m not sleeping well, that’s all.” She dips into a curtsey. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to return to my room and take a nap.”
I want to grab her arm and force her to look at me, make her tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it.
“Of course,” I say instead. “I’ll see you later.”
She walks away without looking back.
I don’t go inside, and walk over to the well, where I perch on the edge and watch people come and go while I wait for Vessara. She finds me there a short while later, and sits beside me.
“What do you see?”
I study two young boys play-fighting with wooden swords. One is taller, with a longer reach, but the other is faster, dancing just out of range. “The shorter one is going to win.”
“Why?”
“Because the tall one is getting frustrated. He keeps overextending, trying to land a hit. The other one is waiting for him to make a mistake.”
Vessara nods. “And what would you do if you were fighting the tall one?”
“Stay out of range and let him tire himself out.”
“But what if you couldn’t stay out of his range?”
I think about it. “Then I’d try to get inside his reach. He’s strongest at mid-distance. Too close and he can’t use that advantage.”
“Very good.” She sounds pleased.
That evening, I stop outside Nella’s room.
“Will you come and eat with me?” I ask when she opens the door.
“I think I’ll stay here tonight. I’m not very hungry.”
I want to argue, tell her she needs to eat, and that hiding in her room won’t make things any easier. But the look on her face stops me.
“I could bring something up for you?”
“That’s very kind, Princess. But I’m fine.”
She closes the door before I can say anything else, and my steps are heavy as I walk downstairs to the common room.
The inn’s main room is full when I step off the last stair.
Fae and humans are scattered around tables, the fire crackling in the hearth, and the smell of food and drink fills the air.
Therin, Vessara, Sorel and Serath have claimed a table near the fire.
Kaelith joins them while I watch. Cairn isn’t here, and nor is Vel and Caelum.
I’m looking around, trying to find a table when Serath’s voice calls my name. I turn and she smiles, gesturing to an empty chair at their table.
“Come and eat with us.” The invitation catches me off guard.
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“You’re not intruding, I’m inviting you to join us.” Serath taps the back of the chair.
I sit down, and Therin waves for one of the servers to bring more ale and food for me. “She finally joins us. I was starting to think you’d sworn some kind of oath against company.”
“Therin.” Vessara shakes her head.
“What? I’m just saying.”
A serving girl brings food, and another pitcher of ale.
“You did well today,” Therin says. “Another few weeks and you might actually start looking dangerous to trees.”
Sorel snorts.
“High praise.” I roll my eyes at him.
“Be thankful I only threw stones at you. Cairn used to shoot arrows at my head while I was practicing. Real arrows. He said if we couldn’t focus through fear, we’d be useless in a real fight.”
“That’s horrifying.”
“That’s Cairn.” Therin grins. “He once made me run from one end of Silvermoon Bay to the other because I complained about being tired.”
“Silvermoon Bay?”
“Where we lived in Underhill.”
“You were being dramatic,” Serath says before I can ask any more.
“We’d just come back from dealing with Methusalan. I had a broken rib.”
“You had a bruised rib.”
They bicker with an easy familiarity that makes me smile, and I eat and drink, soaking up the warmth of their friendship as they talk about something involving Sorel, a stolen chicken, and an angry farmer. Vessara disputes the details, while Serath laughs until she cries.
“What was it like?” I ask during a lull in the conversation. “Before. When you were—” I gesture vaguely, not really sure how to phrase it. “Where you lived, I mean.”
The table goes quiet.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“Underhill is beautiful and terrible. Wild in ways your world doesn’t understand.” It’s Serath who answers me. “There are places where the land itself sings.”
I think about the stories I grew up on. The Wild Hunt riding through the darkness, fae bargains that never worked out for the human involved.
“The stories always make you sound like monsters. Especially the Wild Hunt. They’re always linked with death.”
Kaelith smiles. “We are death, sometimes. When it is warranted.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your stories always have some truth to them, enough to twist anyway.”
“The human stories talk about the Wild Hunt and the hundreds of fae who ride. But the Nightwild Guard only has twelve of us, bound by oath and blood.”
I look around the table. “You five, Vel, Caelum and Cairn make eight.”
“Cairn isn’t counted. He’s the Eldráfn. Twelve plus him.”
“That still leaves five. Where are they?”
The silence that follows is answer enough. They don’t know.
“What is the difference between the Wild Hunt stories we’re told, and the Nightwild Guard?”
“The Wild Hunt is when the Courts ride for sport. We keep order between those courts. When disputes couldn’t be settled by other means, we settled them. If something threatened the borders—fae who’d broken oaths, creatures that crawled up from the deep places—we were the ones sent to deal with it.”
“We are hunters,” Sorel says. “But not the way humans make us out to be. We hunt what needs hunting. And we protect what needs protecting.”
“And Cairn leads you.”
“Cairn built us.” Therin’s eyes flick toward the stairs. “The Guard itself existed before him, but he shaped it into what it became. We are his, and he is ours.”