CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #3
He hesitated, grimaced, and forced himself to ask what he wanted to know. “I don’t know the Schonese culture, but I’m aware that Wauld is less . . . conservative when it comes to . . . intimate relations.”
Brea lifted her chin and scoffed. “You want to know if I’ve been with a man?”
“You make it sound as though I’m a deviant.” Thom ran a hand over his face. “It’s just—I can’t fathom going fifty-five years without . . .”
“How old are you, Thom? Thirty?” Brea asked, her soft smile taunting.
“Twenty-eight,” he said, not bothering to inform her he was technically still a day shy of the age.
She scowled as though disappointed in the truth. “Then you and I are on roughly equal terms in our lifespans,” she said. “I am only a quarter Ephrian. This means that, at most, magic will take me to one hundred fifty years. If I’m lucky, I’ll only have another sixty.”
Thom frowned. “You don’t want to live as long as you can?”
“Why should I?” Brea asked and moved on before he could answer. “No, I’ve not been with a man. Because fifty-five years is nothing when I’m faced with likely a hundred more.”
Though it was hard to fathom, Thom thought he understood.
Brea was just now in the prime of her life.
Perhaps she was lonely, perhaps she wished for love, but she wasn’t running out of time, and neither was Thom.
They both had at least another decade before the dream of a family was out of the picture.
Which brought up another question . . .
“Can you still have children?” Thom asked.
Brea chuckled. “Magic keeps us young, mi’caro. That means I can have children likely into my eighties or nineties.”
“Wow.” Thom blew a raspberry. “This magic stuff is weird.”
“Mm-hm.” Brea slipped under the blankets atop her bedroll. “By your previous question, I take it you have been with a woman?”
Thom blanched. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
Her laugh was soft and far more feminine than he would have expected from such a direct woman. “Very well.” She leaned back, resting on an elbow as he stretched out a few feet away from her. “Then you can answer a different question for me.”
“With pleasure.” Thom kept his eyes on the canvas above their heads, unwilling to look at her while they lay so near one another—even if their bedrolls were on opposite sides of the tent.
No matter her assertions and comfort, the idea of sleeping next to a woman with whom he wasn’t romantically involved made his insides squirm.
“How did you betray your brother and his wife?”
Thom blanched. His gaze darted in her direction, but he remained facing the tent overhead. “What do you—?”
“I listened to your conversation with the ghost,” she confessed.
Thom didn’t need to ask how. “You Warriors and your eavesdropping,” he grumbled.
“It is a fault of mine,” she said. “I have this compulsion—this need to know the facts so that I can ensure no one in my company is in danger or a danger. And magic gives me excellent hearing.”
“That’s a poor excuse for bad behavior.”
“Yes. But I don’t apologize for it as it’s saved my life three times now.”
Thom grunted in acceptance. “I told you from the start: I’m known for being a shit. I grew up feeling inferior to my brother, and I let it control my actions many times over. It led me to make a mistake I regret wholeheartedly. Now, I’m trying to make up for it.”
“By finding your purpose?”
She really had listened to the whole conversation.
Thom’s lips twisted in a self-derisive grin. “Yeah.”
Brea was quiet for several seconds, and Thom shifted under the blankets.
The dark canvas stretched to blot out most of the sky.
Only a sliver of the silver-shot deep purple night was revealed to his gaze.
The stars twinkled like beacons of hope, and Thom tried to believe this newfound goal of his wouldn’t fail him.
“Purpose can be delusive,” Brea finally whispered.
Without meaning to, Thom found himself turning to frown at her. She lay on her side, facing him, with one arm tucked under her head. The barest glow of the fire reached to cast dark brown shadows on her face.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked.
Brea studied his face, her expression flat and unreadable.
“Auden has a purpose,” she said. “One that drives him wholly and has twisted him into a lonely wretch. If he could let go of Maura, he could find true love and perhaps still save her. Ilain has a purpose as well. She is solely focused on Bonding and becoming the Highlady Chancellor of Doorstunds Reach.”
Thom’s brows drew together at the term, but he didn’t interrupt as she continued, “It has filled her with selfish ambition, and now she is betrothed to a man she does not love.”
Though Thom knew Ilain did have feelings for Ethenn, he also knew that Brea was right: She didn’t love him. She only hoped to love him.
“I have a purpose,” Brea said coldly. “I have dedicated my life to the Alliance and the cause of Allund because I believe it to be righteous and just. And because of that purpose, I will eventually marry whichever man they tell me to—I will Bond with whichever Mage they choose for me, be it Auden or another I’ve yet to meet.
Because I am dedicated to the Alliance, I will become what I have no desire to be.
I will live for extended centuries. I will be a commander, a ruler.
And one day, I will come to love the Mage despite myself. All because I have a purpose.”
The emotionless manner in which Brea spoke confused Thom.
He was so used to hearing Ilain and Auden speak of Bonding with reverence and, as they’d grown closer, so used to seeing Deckard and Evylin together—a perfect depiction of what Mages and Warriors should be—that he couldn’t comprehend this distaste for the institution.
But that’s when Thom realized the truth.
Brea wasn’t against Bonding in general. She’d readily supported Deckard and Evylin’s Bond.
She believed in the Alliance’s plans to place Bonded couples into positions of authority—of whatever level that might be.
She wasn’t opposed to it as a matter of principle.
She was against it for herself.
“You’re already in love,” Thom realized, and she blinked in surprise. “There’s someone else you want to be with, but because you’re a Warrior—because of your dedication to the Alliance—you can’t be.”
Brea didn’t answer, but the truth was clear enough in the set of her jaw.
Thom sighed, rolling onto his back to rest an arm over his eyes. “This is shit,” he mumbled.
A humorless laugh puffed out of her. “It is.”
He looked back at her. “Why don’t you just tell them you want to be with someone else?”
“It’s what we do in the Alliance,” she said, repeating Isla’s words in Mouroc. “We sacrifice everything for the sake of a better future.”
The sentiment was profoundly heartbreaking. But having Deckard as his brother, Thom understood. Altruism, nobility, sacrifice—those were honorable things. And in war, they were necessary.
“I’m sorry, Brea.”
She watched him in her steady, impassive way. “Thank you,” she whispered, then added, “Don’t tell anyone.”
“They don’t know?”
“Only Isla and Vayden. And they wouldn’t dare betray me.”
Thom frowned. “Would you be in trouble if they found out? Would the Alliance retaliate?”
She immediately shook her head. “No, they would never punish love. I simply don’t care to have my heart inspected. This is personal, not political. I wish to keep it that way.”
“I understand,” Thom said. “And I wouldn’t betray you either.”
“Good,” Brea said softly, though a cunning smile came to her lips. “Because if you do, I’ll gut you with my dullest knife.”
An amused snort burst out of Thom. “Dearest Lieutenant Lohen, you and your dullest knife will haunt my dreams for eternity.”