Chapter 36 Bahira
Chapter Thirty-Six: Bahira
Sweat slides down my back as I arc my spear from left to right, forcing Haylee to retreat a few steps.
She grips her sword tightly in both hands, her keen gray eyes studying me as she bounces on her toes on the soft grass of the training field.
I had been surprised when she offered to meet me here, but maybe the fury that contorted my expression when I ran into her near the palace entrance had been enough for her to realize I needed to blow off some steam.
What I really need is to wrap my hands around my brother’s neck.
Haylee lunges forward, the tip of her blade aiming towards my middle before I block it. “Stop holding back.”
Her chest heaves, the sunlight shining over her dark blonde hair, the strands braided into a coronet around her head. “Not all of us want to spar to the point of maiming, Bahira.”
I slice an upward motion, metal hitting metal when she lifts her sword to block.
A frown tugs on her lips when she’s forced to retreat as I come at her again.
And again. My anger feeds my movements, making our surroundings disappear until I’m no longer on the training grounds but somewhere new altogether.
I’m no longer fighting Haylee but a faceless entity in the form of everything that threatens to unravel me.
Wood and metal bite into my palms, the reverberation of each of Haylee’s countermoves traveling down my arms and settling between my shoulder blades.
Yes, this. The physical pain of a well-fought match.
In sparring, there is nothing left up to hypotheticals.
Nothing left to the hypotheses of experiments that have yet to yield meaningful results. There is only steel and flesh and will.
I spin my spear and lunge towards her, a growl vibrating deep in my throat.
“Gods above!” she shouts, dodging to the left as she rolls onto the ground, landing on her knees. I’m already there, the tip of my spear beneath her chin, the sun highlighting me from behind. “I surrender.” Her sword falls to the grass, and her hands lift in front of her. “Don’t kill me, please.”
I snort, lowering my spear as I suck in a deep breath and reach a hand down to help her up.
“I wouldn’t kill you without a reason,” I tease, pulling her up and then bending over to pick up her sword.
It’s the same weapon all the guards of our kingdom have, a beautifully crafted silver blade set into a black hilt with a sun and moon carved into the front.
“You had a murderous look in your eyes. One I’ve only ever seen you give to Gosston or, occasionally, Daje,” she says, grabbing the sword. “Speaking of which—”
“No,” I interrupt, twirling my spear until the tip is pointed down and stabbing it into the ground. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
Haylee smirks, grabbing a canteen of water and taking a drink. “I take it you finally gave him an answer.”
My time away had given me clarity I didn’t know I needed in many areas of my life.
I don’t want to question Haylee’s intentions as my friend—considering she has been in my life for nearly as long as Daje—but I can’t deny that there were times I could have used her support, unwavering and in a way that spoke to the ease of the friendship I thought we had, and instead, I had been met with a snarky comment.
A push towards what I so clearly didn’t want.
A lack of the support I so desperately did.
Even now, I turn the intention of her comment over and over in my mind, wondering if there is something hidden there beyond just genuine curiosity. “I did,” I answer simply.
“He isn’t taking it well.” A statement, not a question.
I eye her as I wipe the sweat off my brow with my sleeve, grateful for the gust of autumn-chilled air. “You don’t have to act as if you haven’t spoken with him.”
“I haven’t since the night you told him,” she says, her hands bracing on her dark brown leggings, her white form-fitting shirt soaked with sweat. “But one doesn’t need to engage in conversation with the man to realize he is hurting.”
I clench my jaw and look out to the obstacle course built on the west side of the training field, pops of colorful magic bursting in the air from the mages that navigate it.
“This is the consequence of the terms he set. He demanded something I cannot give him.” My gaze moves back to hers. “And I’m done talking about it.”
She raises her hands in front of her, surrendering to the seriousness in my voice. “Fine. Then tell me how your brother is doing at least.”
I sigh. I don’t want to talk about him either.
Not the way he slipped a note under my fucking door last night nor how his actions will set off a chain of completely avoidable events.
I don’t want to recall the way my parents’ faces fell as I handed them the letter.
Their pity for him was my bitter anger. I know Nox is hurting, that being away from Rhea while she is likely in dire circumstances is eating away at him like a sickness.
I know, but I can’t understand his recklessness.
I can’t forgive it. Not at a time like this.
Our family’s legacy is balanced in the hands of men who seem all too eager to crush it, and Nox has given them all the ammunition they need to squeeze and squeeze.
Because last night, he left on a mission to save Rhea.
Alone. Without magic and still healing from whatever ailment has drained his strength.
He left his family to go on a suicide mission, and he had done it knowing what it would usher in.
When I give Haylee a look that relays I’d rather talk about anything else, she groans and plops down on the ground, leaning back on her hands.
“You have to give me something, Bahira! We have hardly spoken since your return from the Shifter Kingdom! I don’t even know what you did there or how you liked it.
No one else will tell me anything about you or Nox, despite the fact that we’re practically family.
” She shakes her head, a small grin lifting the right corner of her mouth.
“Friends are supposed to share things with each other.”
“Then share something with me,” I counter, taking a seat across from her.
She tilts her head in thought, as if rifling through an imaginary filing cabinet to find the right thing to tell me.
“Well, Arin and I had another fight.” I roll my eyes.
That is nothing new. The two had been linked together for years but were never more than a couple of convenience according to Haylee.
“Beyond that, my uncle forced me to attend more council meetings than ever before. He’s convinced it will help me learn to love the political side of things.
You know how he is with his plans for me. ”
I hum as I nod my head. Haylee’s parents passed away from illness when she was only five years old, and her uncle, Councilman Borris, had taken over her care.
He is an irascible man, one that often causes contention when there is no need for it, but he had done well raising his niece.
Haylee, by any measurement, is strong. Smart.
Cunning in a way that only a woman surrounded by powerful men can be, and while she had never expressed that she wanted a life in politics, neither had she shied away from any of the training her uncle signed her up for.
“I even attended the meeting they held to question Rhea.”
“Really?” While, technically, anyone has the right to sit in on the questioning of a potential partner to a royal, it is unusual to have Haylee attend, considering the council wants her to marry Nox instead.
Something I had been surprised and a little hurt to learn from my family and not from Haylee herself.
My expression must relay my emotions because Haylee leans forward and rests her elbows on her knees.
“It wasn’t that I was keeping their plans a secret from you; it’s just that I hadn’t really expected my uncle, let alone the council, to enforce it like they have.
” Her gaze falls to the soft pillow grass, her fingers tugging on the blades as she continues.
“Nox and I have only ever been friends—”
“I’ve seen you act more like siblings,” I interject, lifting a brow.
Her responding laugh is choked out. “I don’t know about that. He’s your brother, and just because I didn’t want to discuss the intimate details of how I viewed Nox with you, doesn’t mean that I harbored only benign feelings about him.”
Stunned, I sit up a little straighter. “You like Nox?”
“It sounds so silly to put it that way, but what is there not to like? He’s strong. Powerful. Loyal to a fault.” Her eyes finally lift up to mine, light pink staining her cheeks. “I’d have to be without my faculties to not be attracted to that.”
“Does he know? How you feel?”
“No,” she answers quickly, going back to toying with the grass. “He came back already in love with her, so it seemed a lost cause to tell him. What would a childhood crush matter in the face of the love of a woman who held his heart as if she had pulled it from his chest herself?”
I study her and the sincerity of her words. But what can I say as someone entangled in my own mess of relationships and feelings?
“Anyways, enough about me. It’s your turn. Tell me anything about your experience in the Shifter Kingdom,” she says, gesturing with an elegant roll of her wrist.
“My time there was flawed,” I begin, watching as a group of people led by Dilan walk onto the grounds, emerging from the thick forest. “On the way there, the ship was attacked by sirens, and somehow, I was lured into nearly jumping off the deck.”
A line forms between her brows. “From the siren song? They only affect males, though.”
I shrug, unable to explain it myself. “I’m not sure, but I felt the call of it in my mind. It was this undeniable urge to go to the sea. The magic washed over me as if I were caught in a giant wave, and I was only able to surface again when Kai pulled me away from their song.”
“Kai?”
“The shifter king,” I amend. Her eyes widen, her mouth forming a perfect “o” as she smacks my leg with the back of her hand.
“So you and the king…”
“It wasn’t like that. We had a business deal, and me dying while under his care would have nullified that. He was merely protecting his assets.”
“I bet he was doing something with your assets,” she murmurs under her breath, winking as she draws out the beginning half of the word.
I glare at her, but it’s eased by the snort I make.
As much as I want to pretend that the way I feel about Kai is something that can be pushed away, a more prominent part of me simply wants someone else’s advice on the situation.
Selfishly, I also want an ally. Someone to hear everything I have to say about how Kai and I had caught fire with an intensity I had never before experienced, only for us to crash and burn just as brilliantly.
A friend all my own to say, Yes. He was wrong, and you were right to be so wary of letting your guard down.
Even if you lied to him. You aren’t worthless.
The urge is so strong that I open my mouth, prepared to let the entirety of our story come flowing out.
“Oh, look, it’s Arin. And Daje.” Haylee points to where they are standing and like being punched in the stomach, my breath is stolen from me.
Along with anything I might have said. I follow Haylee’s gaze to the edge of the training grounds.
Daje walks with his head down, listening to whatever Arin is saying at his side.
“That’s my cue to leave,” I tell Haylee, standing and brushing the grass from me as I yank my spear out of the ground.
“You owe me more conversation,” she says, wagging her finger in front of my face. “Even if it takes an overly intense sparring session from you to get it all out.”
I give her a smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes, its guardedness going unnoticed before she pats my shoulder and takes off in Daje and Arin’s direction. I turn away, but not before I see the surprised look on Daje’s face when he spots me.
Heading back towards the edge of the forest, intent on dipping into my workshop in hopes I can distract myself with anything before the council inevitably finds out about Nox leaving, a familiar face catches my attention.
Dark skin and short black hair. A body that isn’t quite as big as Kai’s but is large enough to exude the type of dominance that I crave.
Max stands tall as he spars with another mage, his blue magic glowing intensely in one hand while his other is wrapped firmly around a long sword.
His eyes meet mine as he blocks an incoming attack, his parry quick before he holds his hand up and turns in my direction. “Bahira!”
I fight off a smirk at the obvious look on his face, cocking my hip to the side as he jogs over to me.
“It’s been a while,” he says, his chest heaving while sweat rolls down the side of his neck and under his tunic.
“It has,” I drawl, twirling my spear idly at my side. “Looks like you’re just as eager of a fighter as before.”
“Well,” he chuckles, his hand going to the back of his neck, “perhaps I just need the right motivation to win.” The innuendo hangs between us, Max dangling my challenge from the last time we were together.
I click my tongue, faking my sadness. “I told you, I don’t ever repeat.”
“Oh, come on,” he says, stepping nearer until his body blocks out the sun. He drops his voice low, and the hair rises on the back of my neck because of it. “One more time could be fun.”
Undoubtedly, it could. It might just be the thing I need to get myself free of the way a certain male torments my thoughts. “Maybe…”
The rest of the statement fades away as the image of Kai’s hands on me comes rushing in.
The feel of his teeth scraping along my neck, the breathless way he called me princess.
Neither term of endearment nor insult but something in between.
How his body moved on me and in me with the kind of precision that had never made sense.
Because how could a stranger know me so intimately in such a short period of time?
How could he disarm so easily? I shake my head and take a step back from Max, watching as his smile falls and his eyes dim.
“I don’t do repeats,” I say again, walking past him to head back into Galdr.