Chapter 22 #3
“I’m sorry.” Jarek gave her the sort of tight-lipped smile that meant he didn’t know what else to say.
“It’s all right. I have all of you now.” She hadn’t meant to say it, but Jarek’s mouth pulled into a broad smile, a full-hearted one, and he reached for her with one long, muscled arm—“Come here, Fire Bug.”—and he hugged her so hard she almost fell out of her chair.
Lory couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Hey, did you coordinate with Anees and Hadrian?”
Jarek’s responding chuckle made her wonder if the thornling actually knew more than he was letting on.
“You mean Frier and Bleek? Guardians, no. They are terrifying as Eroth’s Veil. Both of them.” But his tone was too light to be convincing.
Just as Lory wanted to ask how he knew they called her Fire Bug, someone cleared their throat at the threshold, and Jarek let go of her, his grin spreading even wider.
When Lory turned to the source of the sound, she found Maes Grivor leaning on the door frame, her long reddish-brown hair tied at the nape of her neck and her hazel eyes sparking with mischief.
“Am I interrupting something?”
“Not what you think, but definitely something.” Jarek opened his arms wide, and Maes closed the distance between them with a few rushed strides, throwing her own arms around her brother’s neck.
“Next time you give me a heart attack by almost dying, I’ll actually kill you,” she said as they pulled apart after a minute, but the tears in her eyes gave away she might actually kill whoever was responsible for Jarek almost plunging to his death.
Maes turned to Lory. “Thanks for saving him.”
Lory merely inclined her head. “I wouldn’t wish losing a brother on anyone, no matter how annoying said brother is.”
That earned her a laugh from the Grivor siblings.
“In case you haven’t noticed, being annoying is my signature trait.
” Jarek slid back on the cot to make room for Maes, who climbed in beside him and rested her head on his shoulder.
“How did it happen? By the time I got word of the incident, there were already a hundred theories circulating among the ashlings.”
“Thornlings,” Jarek corrected. “And I’d like to know that, too. All I know is that someone slipped above me and hit me on their way down. I lost my grip on the wall, and that’s it.”
“Tabi and Thal caught you, or you’d be mush right now,” Lory amended, but her joking tone was only for show. Inside her, the terror of seeing him fall still made her heart almost stop.
“So mush,” Jarek agreed, his grin as half-hearted as Lory felt.
Sitting up straighter, Maes grabbed Lory’s hand, her hair flying with the swift motion. “You were in the audience, Lory. Did you see what really happened? Did someone fall, or was someone sabotaged? I’ve heard that’s pretty common during the ashlings’ final trials.”
Lory tried to remember the exact scene, but no matter how many times she searched her memories for a new detail, Brycon knocking that ashling down remained the inciting incident.
“I don’t know what happened before Brycon kicked that ashling in the face, but he definitely was the one to start the human avalanche.”
This time, no one chuckled, despite her humorous choice of words.
“Brycon Seine?” Maes wanted to know. “He doesn’t strike me as the violent type.”
That made a dark chuckle bubble up in Lory’s throat. “Are we talking about the same Brycon?”
“If you mean the knowledgist, then yes. He’s very helpful most of the time.”
Jarek tensed beside his sister. “Don’t tell me you hang out with that asshole.”
Maes shrugged. “He’s the best study partner, and since Ricca is gone, he’s become really nice, actually.”
All Lory wanted to do was warn Maes about the man who had told Lory to her face multiple times that she should be dead, but Jarek was already in full-on big brother mode, gesticulating wildly as he explained to Maes that she needed to be more careful who she spent time with, especially after Narica had been executed in front of the school, and after her shouts of defiance, Andromeda, who had associated with Narica.
If Lenya was already grooming Brycon for his Whispers Division, he might already be spying on her during those study sessions, trying to extract information and figure out who shared Narica’s ideology.
Perhaps thornlings weren’t stabbed at breakfast, but the Triad had other ways of making people disappear for sure. The three Flames in the dungeons were only one example.
“All right, all right.” Maes lifted her hands in defeat after what felt like an hour-long lecture from her brother.
“I solemnly swear that I’ll stay away from the knowledgist. No matter how convenient his dictionary-type of knowledge is.
” Her words died on her tongue as yet another visitor crossed the threshold, stopping in his tracks at the sight of Lory next to Jarek and Maes.
“I can come back later,” he mumbled, already turning on his heels, but Maes hopped up from the bed, jogging the five paces to the door, and looped her arm around Brycon’s.
“We were just talking about you,” she announced in a cheery voice that Lory was only used to from Anees.
That made Brycon hesitate even more.
Jarek wasn’t as happy to see the knowledgist as his sister was, though. His usually friendly expression turned into a dangerous glare that would have sent lesser men running. “Whatever you have to say, Seine, you can say in front of my sister and my friend.”
“Friend,” Brycon huffed. “I see that now.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe he’d just spoken those words, and a few dragged steps later, he was standing at the foot end of Jarek’s cot, wringing his hands like a little boy.
“If you’ve come to gloat, you might as well turn around and leave,” Lory snapped at him, her hand casually resting on the hilt of her dagger. The new scratches in its blade she’d need to smooth out later, and sharpen it, as Jarek had suggested.
Brycon merely shook his head. “I’ve actually come to…” Once more, his words dried up.
“Come to do what?” Self-righteousness fueled Lory’s open hostility, and judging by the expression on Jarek’s face, he wouldn’t have minded if Brycon disappeared and never returned.
“A…pologize,” Brycon stammered. “To apologize.”
“For killing three ashlings?” Lory prompted, her temper rising and her magic boiling.
She willed it to stay put. “You don’t need to apologize to him for that”—she gestured at Jarek—“but perhaps those three ashlings’ parents would feel better knowing who’s responsible for their children’s deaths.
Unless, of course, it was intentional and you really aren’t apologizing out of courtesy, but to make yourself feel better.
Honestly, Seine, whichever it is, we don’t want to hear it.
You made a choice, and you killed three people with it, almost four. Now live with your decision.”
Shoulders sagged and head slightly bowed as he glanced at Lory, Brycon looked like a beaten dog, but she wasn’t done with him.
“I don’t care if you hate me, Brycon, but lay a finger on one of my friends again, and I won’t care that I’m not supposed to use my magic to stipulate an example.
I’ll put you on a pyre, light it up with my fire, and watch you burn. ”
A wisp of smoke rose from her open palm, a promise that her threats weren’t empty.
No one spoke for a strenuous few moments, which Lory used to count her heartbeats and breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth the way Anees had taught her. Her magic stayed put.
When Brycon finally spoke again, his voice was trembling, and so were his placating hands.
“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone but the woman who kept pulling on my leg. I don’t know why she was trying to kill me, but had I not kicked her, she would have succeeded.”
“What?” To Lory’s surprise, Maes was the one prompting for an explanation.
“She kept grabbing my ankle and pulling me down. I had to do something, or it would have been me who broke his neck.”
Lory wasn’t sure what she should think, whether she would have preferred it to have been Brycon instead of those three others—because a part of her did. One life instead of three.
Then, there weren’t any guarantees Brycon wouldn’t have torn down other ashlings had he lost his hold on the wall. It was really three lives versus an unknown number that might have included Jarek, or Thal, or Tabi, or any combination of the three.
“I’m sorry,” Brycon repeated, in a stronger voice this time. “I’m sorry you got hurt in the process.” He meant it, too. Lory could tell by the way his expression turned devastated. “I would never actually try to kill one of my fellow students.”
“Sounded a lot different when you supported Ricca’s vision for my timely death.” Lory couldn’t help but seethe at the knowledgist, and Brycon actually flinched. “Or have you changed your mind?”
Brycon laced his fingers together, as if needing to keep them from shaking.
“It’s not a secret that criminals present a danger to the stability of any community,” he said with less conviction than he’d used the day before, when he’d called her illiterate scum.
“On top, you have illegal magic—one that would have gotten anyone else killed.” He glanced at Maes, who dipped her chin in encouragement.
“I came from a stable past, pre-trained by the common military. My magic is unique and perhaps the most useful of all in this Guardians-cursed place, and you are the one being fast-tracked? How is that fair?” He threw his hands in the air, no longer seeking to control himself, but nearly shouting his opinions at her.
“How is it fair that you are the first of us to become a thornling when Ricca’s magic was just as unique and her skills in almost any other discipline you choose so much more advanced.
How is it fair she had to die when it should have been you? ”
Holy Guardians. It clicked in Lory’s head a heartbeat before Jarek said it out loud.
“You were in love with her?”