Chapter 48 #2
“He’s armed, ” Vanth hisses, refusing to accept my belongings.
I glance sideways to see him white-knuckling his wooden spear, blue eyes narrowed on Baze.
“You’ll be fine.” I push my basket at his chest again. “Just take this.”
He snatches my things and thrusts them at Kavan. “No, I’m worried about you. ”
Oh .
“Well ... that’s sweet.” I sweep my hand around and weave it under my shirt, retrieving the Ebonwood sword I’d stashed there.
Baze’s eyes narrow, and he begins to stalk forward.
My grip tightens.
“But with all due respect,” I say, low and steady, “you’ll both just get in the wa—”
Vanth charges, spear at the ready, kicking up sand with his booted feet. I snarl and dart forward, dropping low and sweeping my leg out, knocking Vanth’s feet out from under him.
He drops like a boulder, flat on his back, mouth working like a fish out of water. His wide eyes draw wounded gulps of me looming over him, as though he can’t quite work out how he ended up down there, in the sand, with my sword kissing his carotid.
“ What the fu— ”
“ You don’t touch him, ” I hiss through clenched teeth, digging the sword a little deeper. “And if you insist on getting between us, that spear has to work its way through me first. And then you’ll have to explain to your High Master why you impaled his promised. Do I make myself clear?”
He squirms a little. “Crystal.”
The word itches so much my upper lip peels back.
I release him from the nip of my blade, leaving a bead of blood dribbling down his neck. He leaps to his feet, wipes at the wound, and studies the red smear on his palm with an insulting amount of shock in his eyes.
“Go,” I tell a round-eyed Kavan who’s regarding me as if this is the first time he’s laid eyes on me. “Prompt the captain to prepare the ship. I won’t be long.”
He looks me up and down. “Cainon’s getting much more than he bargained for.”
It’s far from a compliment.
He stalks off toward the jetty with a narrow-eyed Vanth in tow, tossing cursory looks over his shoulder every few steps.
“I hope you’re ready to watch that ship sail away without you,” Baze volleys, snagging my full attention.
So this is how it’s going to go, then.
“I’m leaving of my own free will,” I counter, moving the majority of weight onto my strong leg and widening my stance, sharpening my focus. Assessing his every breath, every blink for signs of what to expect next.
If Baze is going to try and stop me from leaving this stretch of sand, I’ll have no choice but to fight.
“Only because you haven’t been fully informed,” he snaps back, mimicking my motions, readying himself for a battle I doubt either of us wants. His shoulders flex as he passes his sword from one hand to the other, the gems on his ring glinting in the low light, catching my gaze.
Catching my interest ...
I slide my foot back half an inch, anchoring to the sand. “I’m afraid it’s you who is uninformed, Baze.”
His lips curl up in a half sneer. “I doubt that.”
We leap forward at the same time, black swords crossing with a sharp, wooden clang that seems to echo down the beach and almost makes me gag.
Fucking Ebonwood.
We hold—stares as locked as our swords. Our muscles. Our warring resolve. Though where I’m sure and steady, I swear his hold is a little less stable than it usually is.
Than it always is.
“Don’t do this,” he grates out, his hot breath fogging the air.
I can see the torment in the depths of his eyes. Can see that he hates this just as much as I do—what this turn of events has done to everything we’ve built.
“It’s already done, ” I snip, referring to the cupla cinched around my wrist.
My life began to unravel the moment I accepted it, but I can’t bring myself to regret it. Not when so much is hinging on this union.
There’s suddenly a well of sentiment in his stare. “You don’t know what it’s like out there, Orlaith. You have no idea what you’re up against.”
“And whose fault is that? Who kept me in the dark for nineteen fucking years? ”
I shove away, then stab forward.
His blade sweeps in and knocks my strike to the side with another jarring clang, taking a large bite from my composure. I snarl, letting that discomforting sound fuel me as I whirl, coming down at him from another angle.
He dodges.
This may be a wooden sword but when it whips through the flutter of his shirt, it’s just as merciless as steel—leaving a gaping hole that exposes smooth slabs of muscle contained in a flawless wrap of porcelain skin.
For a moment, I think he let me get so close to gutting him. But when my gaze flicks to his face, I see twin seeds of shock in his tawny eyes ...
Seems this new sword isn’t so bad after all.
Tossing it from one hand to the other, I root my feet in the sand, keeping as much weight off my right foot as possible.
His attention darts to my wrist, and a darkness falls over his face. “Did they hurt you?”
I roll my eyes. “You mustn’t have very much confidence in your training abiliti—”
His sword whips out, the flat side landing a blow to my right thigh, sending a lick of pain shooting down my injured leg.
I yowl as it buckles beneath my weight, and he whirls around, taking my armed hand with him, pinning it behind my back between the press of our bodies.
“I thought I taught you to always shield your weakness,” he seethes, immobilizing my other arm and shredding the bandage with a smooth flick of his blade.
The dark blue tourniquet flutters to the sand.
A laugh bubbles out as he studies the deep, crescent wound punched through my wrist. “What did you do, leave him a doggy dish full of blood?”
The fact that he worked that out so fast is a little concerning.
“Yes ... actually, I did.” I stomp his bare foot with my solid boot—something he’s not used to me wearing.
He howls, pulling away just enough for me to slip my arm free. I twist out of his hold and dip low, the hilt of my sword clouting the back of his knees.
He drops like a rock, a dense oomph pushing from parted lips as my knee collides with his chest. All my weight is pressed into the one point of contact, the sharp tip of my sword poised atop his heart.
There’s a war in my chest, and I take a moment to check our surroundings—to ensure we’re hidden behind the shark-teeth stones and that my two guards are well and truly out of sight.
It’s just us on the beach; nobody bearing witness to my victory aside from Baze’s wounded pride.
I zero in on his hand that’s holding my knee, as if he’s considering an attempt to shove me off. Gripping his ring, I watch his eyes widen while all the blood drains from his cheeks. “Always shield your weakness, huh?”
“ Orlai— ”
I pull.
The shift is instantaneous, the utter vision of him so shocking I whip away from the safety of the rocks, leaving him in the maw of their protection while I marinate in the open air.
I can barely bring myself to draw breath, because I don’t recognize that man.
Not one bit.
His hair is so white it appears to harbor its own light source, his ears pointed at the tips, the outer shell lined with the same crystalline thorns that decorate my own. And his eyes ... they’re big and round.
They remind me of his.
But it’s like they’ve been dipped in dirty water, dulling their shine. And those black smudges beneath his eyes are now darkened dents in his face.
My gaze roves down, breath catching.
Heart stilling.
Every visible inch of Baze’s pearly skin—aside from his unfamiliar, statuesque face—is scarred.
Riddled with bite marks big and small. Some are perfectly mirrored crescents, as though teeth were simply stamped upon his flesh.
The rest are so messy, I can’t imagine how long they would’ve taken to heal.
But his neck ...
The skin there is puckered and bunched in places, gouged in others, as though it was wrapped in a barbed wire collar years ago. Like he fought against it, shredding himself beyond repair.
My insides gutter, stare shifting from the man I thought I knew to the castle casting us in its big, boastful shadow.
Did Rhordyn have anything to do with this ... this torture Baze has sustained over the years?
I blink, feeling a warm wetness dart down my cheeks. “And you had the nerve to call me a liar,” I rasp, and the voice is not my own.
It’s fragile.
It’s the voice of a girl who just realized how lonely she’s been for the past nineteen years.
I regard the dazzling pits of his eyes. “How very hypocritical, when you know exactly how it feels to be living in a skin that doesn’t belong to you.”
He’s crestfallen, trying to cover his torso with the scraps of his shirt.
Part of me feels guilty for stripping his mask without his consent, but the feeling swiftly disintegrates the moment he opens his mouth.
“He won’t let you go, Orlaith.”
I retreat another step, eyes hardening. Trying, and failing, to picture this beautiful, broken man as the Baze I’ve come to know and love.
The Baze I thought was unbreakable.
“He’s already lost me,” I respond in a voice too soft and vulnerable. I lift my chin to counter the weakness. “At least this way I’m securing those ships for the people who really matter.”
“So na?ve, ” he spits, shaking his head, top lip peeling back—blue from the cold. “You get on that ship, and he will hunt you. You have no idea what he’s capable of.”
An oily blackness spilling out in vicious, torrential spears.
Burning.
Silencing.
“Yeah, well, I think that sentiment works both ways,” I rasp past a smear of bile, pushing the probing image deep into that chasm of death and destruction and heart-impaling regret.
I look at the ring sitting in my palm; the perfect mask to hide his pain. Just like my necklace, it feels too light to be heavy with so many secrets.
Right now, it’s my only guarantee he won’t chase me to the boat.
I swallow, waving the piece of jewelry at him. “I’ll leave this on the jetty, and if you want to keep your ... your secret, ” I push out past the lump in my throat, “I suggest waiting until we’re gone to collect it.”