15. Harlow #2
I can’t tell if he’s trying to confuse me, to get me to stop asking questions, or because this is the actual way to the armory.
“So all of those men—” I glance back down the path at the distant figures of the guards who were patrolling. “They’ve all survived a week out?—”
An orange aura swells up in my peripheral vision.
I spin, throwing a hand up just in time to catch a man’s wrist and stop his dagger from plunging into my chest. A lightning bolt of pain shoots through my freshly healed but still tender shoulder.
The man’s eyes go wide as I bring my other hand up and sweep his blade out to the side.
His magic slams into me—manipulation magic from the Divine of Malice. I don’t wait to find out how he’s trying to influence me. I spin under his arm and wrench his hand back. Blazing hot pain shoots through my left wrist, and though I watched Henry heal me, the ache of the injury remains.
But pain is just a focal point. I can push through it.
The man squeezes his hand tighter around the blade, and I put more pressure on the joint. Fear spreads through my blood like a fever. He’s not going to release the blade. I’m going to die. I’m too weak to hold him off.
The manipulation is so strong, I taste bile in my throat.
My hands shake, my whole body trembling under the weight of his magic. I hold fast, pressing so hard the bone creaks under my grip.
The man is yanked away so suddenly that I almost fall over. Henry pins him against the wall by his throat.
“Really, Seth?” Henry’s voice is a low growl. “Attacking my wife?”
“She’s not your wife yet,” Seth chokes out. “She’s one of them .”
“She’s one of us now. And she’s harmless.”
I bristle. I’ll show him harmless when I smother him in his sleep.
“Then why is she trained?” Seth asks.
“Because when you’re at the top, everyone wants to take a swing to prove they can,” I say.
Both men’s heads snap to look at me as if they forgot I was here .
“You were in Lunameade less than a day and someone tried to kill you. It’s only fair that I should get the full experience,” I say.
Henry grins at me and slices Seth’s throat without looking. I can only imagine that the shock on my face matches Seth’s.
I blink rapidly, trying to figure out if I imagined it, but Seth slumps against the wall, blood pouring from the wound in his neck. Henry sniffs and his nose wrinkles as he lets Seth fall to the ground, ignoring the gurgling death rattle of his breathing.
My knees tremble so badly I can barely stand, but if there is one thing I am accustomed to, it’s fear. I’ve felt its icy grip on me every day since my magic showed up at six years old and I learned what it truly meant to be afraid.
Henry frowns at the blood on his hand, bends down, and uses the edge of Seth’s coat to wipe it off. He walks toward me, and I take a step back.
“It’s okay,” he says softly. “It’s just fear magic.”
“Yes, that’s quite clear.”
“It didn’t bother you.” It’s an accusation.
“Didn’t it?” I gesture to my body with trembling hands. “For someone who judged me for killing so casually, you certainly didn’t hesitate. Why?”
“Because he attacked you.”
“Shouldn’t he have a trial or something?” I ask.
“Is that how you do things in the city?”
“It’s supposed to be, but—” I hesitate.
Henry arches a brow. “But?”
“But when justice is dealt out by the powerful, is it ever really justice?”
Henry whistles low. “That was honest. Shocked we’ve found something we agree on.”
My hands finally cease trembling as the magic leaves my body. “Then why slit his throat?”
Henry presses me back. The rough stone wall catches my cloak as his intense gaze meets mine.
“This is what survival looks like, Harlow. You have to be brutal and decisive. It’s ugly. It’s that scar in the wall of the fortress. It’s necessary violence of culling the weak and disloyal. ”
Everything I learn about Henry contradicts what I thought I knew. I’d expected him to have a reverence toward his people, but now I’m not so sure. If it’s all about the strong surviving, is Mountain Haven any different from Lunameade?
“Shall we continue, or do you need a rest? Your wrist must be sore.”
I scowl at him, pushing him back so I can duck around him. “My wrist is fine. Continue showing off.”
I should be ruffled—or at least wary that I’m not—but I’m more confused than anything else. I loop my arm through his, and he leads me down the trail toward the armory.
“I also killed him because he saw you defend yourself. I’d rather no one know that you can defend yourself for now, or how your magic works,” Henry whispers.
“Would you have preferred I let him murder me?”
Henry scoffs. “I would have stopped him.”
I gesture to my shoulder and wrist. “Forgive me for not holding my breath for that.”
“I need you to trust me.”
I laugh. “You can’t possibly expect that. Especially now.” I glance meaningfully at Seth’s body.
His arm tenses. “That won’t happen again.”
The sound of clashing steel fills the air as we round the tall, ivy-covered garden walls and a large building comes into view.
Several fighting rings bracket the entrance of the building.
Several men spar, some with swords, others with wrapped knuckles.
Their fighting style isn’t showy. It’s brutal, efficient, much like the way Henry fought in the Drained Wood.
Still, there’s an elegance to their violence, even if it’s not the same form taught in Lunameade.
“Don’t look so interested or they’ll read into it. You’re supposed to be a vapid city girl,” Henry whispers.
“No reason I can’t be interested in watching some handsome men spar.”
His arm flexes. Henry is an enigma. One moment, he’s taunting me. The next, he’s slitting a man’s throat for touching me. I know he doesn’t like me, but he certainly seems to think he needs me—for now at least.
I note the lack of guards stationed at the armory doors. At least I’ll be able to get access to more weapons if I need to .
“Shouldn’t you have someone stationed there for security?”
Henry pulls the door open and waves me inside. “We don’t have enough guards for that. We have other means of protection.”
I freeze inside the doors, the glow of magical booby traps cluttering the entryway.
The one to my left is made of glowing orange light that shoots up and down in jagged bursts of lightning.
The one on the right is a swirling red vortex.
In the distance, I can see more of them, in almost every kind of magic.
There must be at least a dozen in the corridor alone.
Henry’s hand on my lower back startles me. “What do they look like?”
“A deadly rainbow. How do we get in?”
He walks to an ornate stone plaque on the wall. “Come here.”
He presses his fingers to the sharp white stone, then draws away, letting a drop of his blood dribble on the stone below it. Then, he pulls a flask and a handkerchief from his pocket and pours some alcohol into the fabric. He wipes the stone point.
“This marker is enchanted. Once we are married, you’ll be able to press your finger here alone and get in. But for now, you’ll need my blood too.”
He grabs my wrist and presses my finger to the point. I hiss as it pricks my finger and he squeezes a drop onto the stone.
“Strength above all,” he whispers.
Our blood sizzles as the stone lights up. I turn and watch the magical traps disappear one by one and a heavy door at the end of the long corridor grinds open.
Henry snatches my wrist as my blood begins to drip onto the floor.
I gasp as he takes my finger in his mouth and sucks gently.
The heat and pressure soothe the sting. I should be disgusted, but the intensity in his gaze warms my blood.
His pupils dilate as he pulls my finger free, the wound healed by his magic.
“Neat trick.” I mean for it to be a taunt, but I sound too breathless to pull it off.
He smirks and feeds my hand through his arm.
We continue down the hall and through the stone doorway.
It opens to a large storeroom with an arched wooden ceiling.
Racks and racks of broadswords, short swords, crossbows, and longbows cover the walls down the entire length of the building.
Mountain Haven might have been caught unprepared once, but they clearly won’t let that happen again.
It’s impossible to tell what Henry’s game is. I thought he’d be cautious about showing me where I can avail myself of more weapons, but he didn’t even hesitate to bring me here and show me how to get in. He must be trying to lull me into a false sense of security so I’ll let my guard down.
The few men in the room nod at Henry, then go back to their work sharpening blades and stocking arrows in quivers.
On the far side of the room, a man dumps water from a small jar down the length of a blade.
The runoff drips into a bucket below him.
He holds the blade in place until it’s finished dripping, then hangs it on a hook on the wall.
Finally, he puts a funnel in the jar, dumps the water inside, and restarts the sequence with a new blade.
“It’s well water,” Henry says. “As you probably noticed in the forest, it burns the Drained down to nothing.”
The wells hold sacred water, so it makes sense that it would burn the abomination of the Drained, but I’m shocked that we have never used it as a defense for the city.
We’ve only ever thought of its healing properties.
It never would have occurred to me to wield it like a weapon, but now I’m eager to get back and share.
This could be the solution to protecting the city walls.
“I didn’t know until I saw you use it,” I whisper.
There’s judgment in Henry’s gaze.
“The well is only part of sacred ceremonies in Lunameade.”
He waves a hand to the wall. “We keep all the blades forged here dipped in well water so they’re ready for any attack.”
“How do you have access to well water?”
“You’re quite curious about that.” He continues to stroll down the central walkway.