Chapter 6 #2
Between her legs, Khayrivven’s cock formed a hard line against her center, rubbing her in the perfect spot every time he ground his hips into her.
“I’m here now,” she thought at him. “We’re both here. We’re safe.”
As if in affirmation that they both were there indeed, he kissed her mouth once more, sucking on her tongue and playing with it with the tip of his as if to let her know what he was planning to do between her legs.
Lory didn’t need to tell him she was dying a little bit with each moment he let her wait. He picked the thought right from her mind, and with a chuckle, he let go of her tongue, plunging his own into her mouth in a promise of what would follow if she remained patient a little longer.
But they didn’t have any longer.
He’d just set her down onto her feet, fingers pulling on the waistband of her pants, when a flash of bright light shattered the night, and Khayrivven’s eyes snapped up to hers with a hint of panic layered over the lust-addled expression.
“Shit.” He said it out loud, a heartbeat before the sound of an unfamiliar, male voice calling his name broke into the dream.
“Wake up, Falcrest.”
“Sorry,” he mouthed before his dream slipped away, and Lory fell into the darkness of her own, private dreams, where the very familiar, very real fear of what might have happened to him haunted her the way it had for the past few days, returned with a vengeance.
The cold, humid air of the mountains had almost made Lory forget how sharp the bite of the desert sun could be, how the wind whipping through the Brestolyan capital found its path into her sleeves and into her collar, carrying grains of sand into her eyes and nose.
But there was no forgetting the misery that used to be her life, really.
Less than a day back at Ashthorn, she’d sweated more than she had during the entire trial, and she hadn’t done more than sleep off the remains of her injuries and get dressed in her fresh black uniform.
On her shoulder, right above her bicep, a solid brown square replaced her usual blue one.
The insignia of thornlings, those who’d passed initial trials.
With all the bloodshed on her behalf, Lory wasn’t sure she deserved that supposed honor, nor did she know if thornling was something she considered a step up at Ashthorn Ward.
As ashling, at least she hadn’t needed to kill fellow students for being late for breakfast.
The absurdity of that ritual almost made her laugh; then she remembered that the deaths were real, and as a thornling, it was only a matter of time until she’d be called to the dais in the mess hall, forced to pull a weapon on an ashling and stab them in the gut or the chest, or the throat; it didn’t really matter—killing was killing.
And soon she’d have to kill in King Ulder’s name, no matter how she felt about it.
Oh, but it did matter. Lory wasn’t ready to admit that, though.
After Khayrivven had been pulled from the dream, reminding herself of his words that he was supposed to take the three Flame-born to Ashthorn was the only reassurance that the Triad hadn’t killed him, but in the pit of her stomach, a relentless presence of dread had given way to all other sensations.
Now that she was back, it was only a matter of time until she’d find out if he’d told the truth, if he was back here and back to playing the emotionless Veiled Hand who’d supposedly torched her for an attempt at kissing him—which had never happened, but had provided an exceptional alibi for when her fire magic had initially shown itself.
Now that she was back at Ashthorn, the dream felt like a lifetime away; so did the trials, their existence a gruesome nightmare she’d escaped more or less unscathed.
But the grief over the lives lost was real, even for those she’d called her enemies.
Nyla and Ricca, Solen, the thornlings whose names she hadn’t known—all those hearts would never beat again because of her.
None of those losses hurt as inexplicably as that of Aiden Bellmont. The ice wielder who’d become her friend and whose dark-blue eyes would never scrutinize her with a blend of mocking and understanding. The ice wielder who’d confessed a horrible secret on his dying breath.
That night, when they killed your brother—I was there.
How Lory hadn’t realized the tattoo behind his ear was a gargoyle, Lory couldn’t fathom.
Perhaps, because she’d never believed any member of the infamous street gang would ever end up in Ashthorn.
Perhaps she could never have imagined a man who cared that much for his sister would have chosen a life with monsters like them.
Naive. She’d been naive and quick to disregard any thoughts of distrust the moment he’d helped her in the training chamber, when her magic first showed.
I didn’t lift a finger to save him, even though I knew better than to stand by and watch him die. This is me paying for the worst of my crimes.
Lory’s heart pounded with the injustice of losing a friend twice—once to betrayal and once to death—as she made her way from the thornling dormitories, an area on the other end of the building from the ashling quarters.
A little farther down the corridor, Tabi and Thal were waiting for her by the top of the stairs, their uniforms clean and intact and their short swords sheathed at their hips.
The last time she’d seen them, their tattered clothes had stuck to their bloody skin, and exhaustion had nearly dragged them under.
It was practically a miracle they had made it back to the outpost in one piece.
If only that would have made Lory feel better about facing the two of them.
As she walked up to them, she barely dared look at Tabi’s deep umber face, fearing the judgement in the woman’s gold-flecked eyes. If it hadn’t been for Lory, none of them would have been injured in the Amrin Mountains…none of them would have suffered.
So Lory nodded at Thal instead, whom she knew would make a joke and crush her with a hug.
Or so she thought. When she came to a halt in front of them, it was Thal’s chocolate brown eyes overflowing with judgement. His black curls, just long enough to bounce onto his forehead, threw shadows over his golden face as he shook his head at her in the torch-lit corridor.
In this part of the pyramid, the windows were too small to level out the flickering of the foot-long torches spaced out along the black walls, and Lory was grateful that the sun didn’t expose her shame to a full.
“How could you do this to me?” The breaking in Thal’s voice suggested he was working hard to keep his emotions under control as he crushed her into a hug after all.
“How could you disappear in the mountains and let us think for days—days!—that you were dead?” The force of his arms nearly squeezed the breath from Lory’s lungs.
“No one told us what had happened, if our fellow students had gotten you up there in the mountains, or if you ran and fell victim to the elements or a wild animal or rebels or—” A strangled sob worked its way up Thal’s throat, making him cut off his flow of words.
“I’m all right, Thal.” Lory patted his shoulder, surrendering her breath to a new form of guilt.
Not only was she the reason they’d been injured in the mountains in the first place, but they’d also suffered from the insecurity of not knowing if someone important to them was dead or alive. She knew that feeling all too well. “I’m sorry.”
Thal shook his head, curls tickling her cheek.
“I hate you, Lory,” he told her with what sounded like a chuckle trying to take over his sobs.
When he let her go, holding her at arm’s length by the shoulders, a tear was trickling down his cheek, past a pained grin, and down over the edge of his jaw.
“Don’t fucking do anything like that ever again.
” There was no force in his words, not even a scolding, but pure, heartfelt relief.
“I won’t.” A new sort of headache joined the guilt and pain from before—the ache of having disappointed a friend.
A friend. Lory had real friends for the first time in her life, she reminded herself, and it was easy to look at Tabi with that thought in the back of her mind.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Tabi, too, who only shook her head at her.
“Oh shush it, Vednis,” the warrior with the dangerous magic said with a familiar smirk and a brow raised so high it brought forward an awkward laugh in Lory’s throat.
“Now that you’re back, you better kick ass.
You might have done so in the mountains, but everyone who was out there to hunt you and could attest to it is dead, so you’d better show the rest of those suckers.
” A wink followed her words, and when Thal let her go, Tabi folded her into an embrace that made Lory’s heart warm.
“I promise.” The second promise she made thoughtlessly and fully intended to keep, even when Ashthorn might not allow her to do so.
At the end of the hallway, students started pouring from the ashling quarters, heading for the classrooms and training grounds like nothing had changed.
Some of them lifted their heads, acknowledging Lory’s presence with a brief look of horror or curiosity, while the others ignored her completely as they marched past the three of them, down the stairs.
Looping his arm into Lory’s, Thal wiped away the tear and straightened his tunic with his free hand, returning to be the fun, jabbering boy Lory had first met.
“I guess they’ll need to get used to you being back.
” He gestured at a group of yellows. “They had mentally dug your grave and buried you.” Then at two men with purple squares on their uniforms. “As have they.”
Tabi shot him a forbidding glance. “A little louder, Thal. The reds at the other end of the hallway haven’t heard you yet.”