Chapter 25 #2
He didn’t acknowledge my reassurance. “As I grew older, I knew I could be a leader who was different, one who put an end to the suffering and helped people instead of hurting them, and it didn’t seem like anyone else would be taking that role.
When I split from my father and created my own mercenary group, I built the power necessary to take that leadership.
I killed my father, I killed Tamen, and then I became Princeps.
” The words were fiercely unapologetic. Clearly, there was no love lost between him and his father.
“Had someone better than me been striving for the same, I wouldn’t have taken the throne. ”
A lesser man, one who was selfish or weak, wouldn’t have been willing to hold the weight of responsibility on their shoulders. Harthon had chosen to bear it, and he didn’t give himself nearly enough credit. I swallowed my awe, knowing he wouldn’t appreciate it.
“You’re a good man, Harthon.” The sentence felt inadequate.
His jaw only tightened. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You’ve only known me for a few weeks, Etarla. Don’t be so na?ve.”
Okay, then. I retreated, clamping my mouth shut and staring straight ahead again.
There was only the rhythmic clopping from our horses, and then he sighed beside me. “That was harsher than intended.”
“It’s fine.”
His comment upset me, but we were speaking about an emotional topic. If I was actually na?ve, I would think his anger was due to me and not our conversation.
We reached the base of a hill, a tangled web of bare trees and boulders marking the steep incline. It was similar in size to the one we’d scaled when we first left on our trip to see Josenne, but the vegetation was denser.
“Do you still have the feeling?”
I nodded, worrying about how I’d navigate the landscape. This was terrain for a more advanced rider.
“We’ll leave her here, and you can ride up with me.” He gracefully dismounted and reached for the reins still in my hands.
Despite my worry, I tightened my grip on the leather. “I won’t get better at riding if I avoid the situation.”
“That’s why you’ll be riding with me, but steering the horse. This way you can get better without us staying out here until sundown.”
I frowned, even as my body perked up at the thought of sharing a horse with him. His stallion was massive, and I had no desire to be thrown from his back again. “What if your horse doesn’t like me?”
“You’ve been on him enough that he knows you.”
“But I’ve never steered him before,” I argued.
“I’ll be on him with you. He’ll be fine.”
I eyed the muscled animal, noting the power held in its body with another frisson of apprehension. “What if there are wolves here, and we’re leaving my horse as a meal?”
He ran his hand down the column of his throat, reaching for patience. “There are no wolves here, and you’ll have to trust me on that. Anything else?”
He would have an answer for any other excuses I found. It wasn’t as if Harthon would let me die on his horse, anyway. I gave in and dropped to the ground, waiting while he secured the mare to a tree and only mounting the beast when he’d returned.
I gingerly grasped the reins as Harthon settled in behind me, and then nearly jumped out of my skin when his big hands came to the crease of my hips. They rested there comfortably, like they belonged there. Sensation flared to life beneath his touch, zipping straight to my stomach.
“Keeping my hands here will help me reach the reins quicker, if needed.” He offered the explanation with a tinge of amusement.
Get a grip.
I sent gentle pressure into the stallion’s side, and he jolted, shaking his head. My stomach vaulted directly into my throat.
Harthon closed the space between us, leaning in. “Easy. He’s just adjusting.” His whiskers brushed my cheek as he spoke.
Suddenly, a different kind of nerves were causing my belly to flip. “So am I.”
Why did I sound so breathless?
I squeezed my legs once more, and the horse loped forward.
We delved into the trees, and he was surprisingly responsive to each light tug on the reins and shift of my hips.
Harthon murmured instructions and the occasional approval in my ear as we went, settling my doubts.
I halted when we came to a short but steep decline, figuring it best to slightly backtrack and skirt the section.
Harthon’s fingers pressed at my hips. “Don’t go around. He can make that drop.”
“I’m sure he can make that drop. I just don’t know if I can.”
In a calm voice, he said, “You can. Cue him to walk, but keep your hands low on the reins. Lean slightly forward. He’s smart enough to pick his path.”
I did as told, and the stallion easily made it down the decline as if it were no challenge at all.
“You made that look easy,” he praised, and I smiled, feeling like I had when I was seven years old and successfully skinned my first squirrel in front of Merelda.
Slowly but steadily, we weaved our way up the hill, the tugging in my chest constant until we climbed onto the summit.
The shock of seeing the Domus was nearly the same as the last time, those monstrous, ethereal walls reaching high into the gray sky behind the hills and valleys that sprawled before us.
In my awe, I almost didn’t feel the sensation beneath my ribs vanish.
Frowning, I searched for it, frustration rising when I realized it truly disappeared, just as it had every time I scaled the tower.
It would take me no further today. We’d made progress today, but there was so much land before us—so many places where the entrance to the Domus could be—and if I kept going at this pace, it’d be weeks until we found it.
More, if the entrance was in a Territory on the other side of the Domus.
“Dammit.”
“I take it the feeling’s gone?”
I swallowed against my disappointment and nodded.
“If you tell me what Josenne said, I can help you.” When my back stiffened, he added, “Whatever it is, I won’t judge you for it.”
While I was happy to chase the magvis’ knowledge now, it was still shameful to admit that, in my selfishness, I simply hadn’t wanted it before.
It’s only shameful because you care what he thinks of you.
I did care. He’d once called me resilient and strong, and I wanted him to keep seeing me that way. But if we were to ever get to Centralis in this century, I needed help.
“She told me I’m not worthy of that knowledge.
That to know it, I have to want it, heart and soul.
At that time, I didn’t, but I do want it now, Harthon.
Genuinely. I need you to believe that. I think that’s the only reason why I’ve felt tugged in this direction,” I finished, turning to meet his eyes, needing to see for myself if there was any accusation in them.
There was none. His body hadn’t even tensed. There was only an analytical look on his face as he considered my story.
“You keep saying that you’ve been pulled or tugged to go a certain way, as if the knowledge is leading you around.
Controlling you.” His fingers drew small circles on my right thigh as he thought.
“You want it, but you’re not making that clear enough.
You’re waiting for the knowledge to come to you, rather than summoning it yourself.
The magvis gave that power to you, Etarla, but you haven’t owned it. ”
“Not everything can be taken by force.”
“If you’re strong enough, it can.”
Spoken like a man who always found success through violent domination. “That’s easy for you to say.”
“Only because I’ve made it so. A person isn’t strong or weak. They make themselves strong, or they allow themselves to be weak. It’s a choice.”
I shook my head. “Josenne said I’m not even worthy of that knowledge. How could I own it? I don’t even know where it comes from in me, never mind how to summon it.”
I’d embraced my duty, but skies, was I inadequate. Someone else, someone like Ana, would be better equipped for this responsibility, able to find the path far more easily than me.
“You doubt yourself, and you shouldn’t.”
“I’m not doubting. I’m being realistic.”
Those roaming fingers left my thigh and grasped my chin, firm but careful in their grip.
He lifted until I was trapped in his implacable gaze.
“You’re not being realistic at all. If you were being realistic, you’d know you’re worthy of that knowledge and able to own it. Now try it,” he demanded, releasing me.
His belief in me shook me to the core.
I swallowed and turned back around, heaving in a breath as I stared out at the reflective walls. I would try.
Show me the path.
Nothing happened when I spoke the words inside my head. I closed my eyes and tried again, more forcefully this time. I was met only with emptiness.
Come on. Turning my awareness to my body, to the parts that pulled me to the south, I willed the feeling to return. Show it to me, I demanded, muscles tensing as I sought the tug.
Still, there was nothing.
“You need to push.” Harthon’s voice was a steely command in my ear.
I gritted my teeth, staying in my body, but picturing the young woman’s face from the justice hearing—the one whose life had gone to horseshit because the world was this way. Dismay rolled in, followed by determination, and I demanded again that the feeling appear.
A tickling feeling washed over me, the sensation unpleasant, and my lungs paused as I fought a squirm.
Then as suddenly as it came, it vanished.
My eyelids slammed open as I panted, feeling as if I’d just finished a round of fighting drills. I’d been close. There’d been a feeling there. Maybe. But it hadn’t been enough. My shoulders slumped as I bit my lip.
“Make the choice to be strong, and you’ll get there.”
It could never be so simple. “I’ll keep trying.”
“I know you will. Now why don’t you take us down this mountain so we can see what parts of your mare were left by the wolves.”
“That’s not funny.”