Chapter 33
Iwake in pitch-black darkness the next morning, Loch’s indistinct muttering resonating through the room. Trying my hardest not to wake anyone, I rummage around for my clothes. My choices are limited after half my wardrobe was sent up in flames by the Rowell Rettlings.
I hope Zelle will be ready to train me today. The fiasco yesterday with Holden only served to underline that, at the very least, I need to improve my proficiency with weapons.
Still bleary-eyed, I head into the battle yard, but as I approach the weapons cache, it’s not Zelle who waits for me, but Kyor.
‘What are you doing here?’ The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.
‘I said I’d train you. Zelle’s out, so I’m in. Have you eaten?’
‘At this time of morning? No.’
‘You need energy to spar. Eat before you come next time. Something light, but something. Now.’ His eyes glitter in the darkness. ‘Let’s see if that footwork of yours has got any better.’
I don’t even try to stop my groan. I’m truly beginning to despise footwork. Though somehow my body seems to be recalling the training from my youth, my conscious thoughts and memories of them are hazy, like a veil has been drawn over the forms.
‘Your stance is too narrow.’ He glares at me as I crouch into position. ‘And you need to be more side-on.’
I shift myself slightly, and he sniffs.
‘Better. Now come for me.’ He swings a seax, the small fighting dagger whirling casually in his hand.
‘Without a weapon?’ I question.
‘Until you can show me your feet know what they’re doing, yes.’
I lunge towards him, which feels insane without a weapon.
Not that I think it would help me. It feels like every other move I make, he’s correcting something, from the position of my shoulders to the angle of my back foot.
I know it’s needed, but by the Gods, why does it always have to be footwork?
After ten minutes he tells me to grab a seax blade of my own, though I don’t know whether my footwork actually got better or if he’s just bored and wants to change it up.
‘You know the aim is to hit me?’ He smirks as he sidesteps another of my strikes. A couple have landed close to his body, though he blocked them easily using the short length of his blade. If he had a shield, too, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
By the time Kyor calls an end to our session, I’m sweating profusely. With my muscles burning, I go to replace the sword in the cabinet, only for his hand to grab hold of my wrist.
‘It doesn’t go there.’
As I turn, I find myself only inches away from him. My chest is heaving and sweat beads on my skin as his eyes hold mine with unwavering ease. We’re too damned close. Our fingers brush as he takes the sword from me, and a spark of something sizzles between us. I catch my breath.
His eyes miss nothing. ‘You might well hate me, Thorn,’ he murmurs, closing the already minimal distance between us, ‘but you want me too.’
He’s not wrong, but I’ll deny it to my dying breath.
I swallow hard. ‘Gods, you’re an asshole. Has anyone ever told you that you’re ridiculously arrogant?’
He smiles at that, and I hate that I like the curve of his lips and the way my gaze involuntarily traces it. Gods forgive me, but it’s hard to deny they look so damned kissable.
‘Many times,’ he says easily, ‘but that doesn’t mean I’m not right.
’ He leans in so that there’s barely a hair’s breadth between us.
My lungs seize. If he kisses me now, I don’t know what I’ll do.
Hit him, that’s for sure, but maybe not until I check whether he tastes as good as I imagine he does.
My eyes fall closed as I try to push the ridiculous thought from my head, and I notice the sudden lightness in my hand.
When I open my eyes again, Kyor has the sword that I held only moments ago firmly in his grasp and a smirk on his lips.
‘It goes here.’ As he slides the seax into position in the cabinet, his eyes don’t move off mine. ‘You look a little flustered, Thorn. Perhaps you could do with a shower to cool off. I could always help scrub your back, if you’d like?’
‘You know I hate you, right?’ I whisper.
‘That’s what would make it feel so good.’
His laughter follows me out of the battle yard as I all but sprint away, and I hate him a tiny bit more.
‘I know we all hate him,’ Kestria says, ‘but we can admit that what he did yesterday was incredibly hot, right?’ A bond was forged in yesterday’s battle, and Kestria and Seiren have moved over to our table for meals.
Seiren is sitting at the far end with Loch, and though it would be unfair to call it the weird end of the table, the way they both stare off into the ether, only occasionally dropping in a comment, doesn’t exactly scream normal.
Still, I can’t imagine what it was like for Loch.
What it must have been like to be able to hear everything on the beach – every scream, every gargling, blood-filled last breath, every pained cry from the dying as crystal clear to him as the chiming of a bell.
‘Why do you hate him?’ I ask. I’m happy to expand the club of people who detest Kyor, but I’d like to know their reasons.
Other than Estel, I assumed I was the only one with a direct cause to hate him personally, as I’m pretty sure that Llinos and Benny just hate him out of loyalty, and Jonas is too much of a sycophant to actually say anything outright against the future monarch.
‘Other than his arrogance?’ Kestria questions. ‘I’ve heard stuff about some of the battles he led up by Agoyd. So many people died, and the statements given out by him and the palace about what happened just don’t match up with what people on the ground said.’
‘You mean he lied to cover his own back?’ A dry laugh crackles from my throat. ‘Sounds like Kyor.’
‘To be honest, I’m wondering why Etta bothered letting anyone else into the trials,’ she says. ‘I can’t imagine there’s any way to defeat him. That man has no weaknesses. Physically, anyway.’
I’d love to say I hadn’t noticed, but that just wouldn’t be true.
He is a damn fine specimen of a human, and though I try not to think about it while I’m awake, sleep’s a different matter.
It’s embarrassing the number of times he’s slipped into my dreams, though what’s more embarrassing are the things I’ve let him do to me in them.
It’s just a trauma response, I’m sure. Trauma and sexual frustration.
Across the table, Llinos lets out a yawn. Immediately, Benny shoots her a look.
‘Please don’t tell us you’re tired. You wouldn’t be if you and Caz had stopped talking before three o’clock in the morning. How the hell you can still have stuff to catch up on is beyond me.’
‘Caz? I don’t think I know them,’ Kestria remarks.
‘Yeah, might be best to forget you heard the name,’ Benny replies, a hint of a threat there.
Silence swells around us, and though I don’t know why, I could swear there’s a tension undulating between Llinos and Benny that’s about more than a lack of sleep.
‘Why are you guys even still sharing?’ Kestria evidently senses it too and breaks the moment. I haven’t spent much time with the Dorainian, but the more I do, the more I like her. ‘There are plenty of dorms free now. Couldn’t you split? Boys and girls or something?’
‘There’s safety in numbers,’ Benny replies without pausing for so much as a beat. ‘I prefer that we all stay together.’
‘And what does everyone else think about that?’
‘They’re happy to go with whatever I think is best.’
Kestria tilts her head to the side, and I know she’s thinking the same as I am.
It’s easy to see why the Rettlings from Rowell follow Zara.
She’s the most vicious by a long way, and her powers have an unpredictability to them that makes her just as dangerous as someone like Mattieu.
But Benny? Sure, he’s a brilliant fighter, and I get that the islanders are down to only three of them now, but it was the same even when Jai was around.
And in a one-on-one fight between the two, I’m not sure I’d have placed my wager on Benny.
‘Well, I just hope we’ve got Zelle back in charge today.’ Benny makes a clear attempt to shift the conversation.
‘No,’ I sigh. ‘He’s not back, or at least he wasn’t this morning.’
Kestria looks at me wide-eyed. ‘You were up early.’
‘I have a lot to learn.’
Benny’s frowning. ‘That’s two days he’s been gone now. Where do you think he went?’
Despite the assertion they gave us at the ceremony of inauguration that either Holden or Zelle would be in the battle yard at all times when we’re training, it’s Commander Zelle who’s been most consistently there.
Thank the Gods, considering it’s been his siphon powers that have protected me from incidents like yesterday.
Not to mention Holden himself. In fact, now that I think of it, I can’t remember a single day when I’ve not seen Zelle there at some point or another.
Two whole days off feels unheard of, though undoubtedly deserved.
‘Maybe he went to see his family,’ Seiren remarks. ‘I mean, he has got a family, hasn’t he?’
‘No idea.’ The rest of us look at each other with equally blank expressions.
‘The prince is the only son Zelle considers himself to have.’
Our eyes swivel to the end of the table, where Loch is pushing food around his plate as he stares at nothing.
‘What was that, buddy?’ Benny says. His tone with Loch is growing more and more childlike despite their ages. Though this time, when Loch looks back at us, it’s with perfect clarity in his eyes.
‘Zelle thinks of the prince as his son. He knows about the prince’s marks. The marks. The marks. He knows about the marks.’
And just like that, we’ve lost him again. Tension swirls around us. Easy, laughter-filled meals feel like a thing of the past.
‘Any chance some of you could grab me some food from dinner this evening?’ Llinos’s perky tone does little to hide the strain beneath. ‘Caroline isn’t working, so we thought we’d spend some time together.’