Chapter 23 #2
“Not if they’re any good. A battle can get ugly fast.” A massacre even more so. “It works best if you also have an archer’s ring, but my Fangloop is gathering dust in my room as we speak.”
If my bedroom hadn’t been ransacked and all my possessions either burned or tossed in the sea, while Silas cackled on the sidelines.
“And even if they stay in one place–” I raised my bow and aimed my arrow straight at Nadya’s frowning face. “–they have another trick they can use.”
I inhaled long and hard. I hadn’t practiced this shot in ages, but it always shut people up when I needed to.
My hand pulled back the arrow to the point where the string almost snapped.
Nadya took a step back.
“Don’t move,” I said with a grin, pointed the arrow just shy of her shoulder, and released it.
The string snapped with a satisfying sting.
The arrow raced through the air right in front of Nadya’s suddenly terrified eyes.
But instead of slashing her forehead, it curved around her, before embedding itself straight in the middle of the target.
The thump wasn’t as powerful, but the effect was strong.
“Wicked,” Geryll breathed out.
Nadya’s gaze slashed from the arrow to me. “You used your weird Protectorate magic! That’s an impossible shot.”
Gods, doing what others thought impossible had been one of my biggest pleasures back when the world hadn’t tilted on its axis.
“I did not and it isn’t impossible. It’s just fucking hard. Same as this .” Caught in the moment, I pulled out another arrow and rushed forward.
I jumped and propelled myself against the nearest tree, kicking it just like I had back in the alley. With rehearsed movements, I vaulted into the air, my bow and arrow not moving an inch in my hands.
I landed right behind Nadya, the tip of my arrow aimed straight at the underside of her chin. She yelped and I fought to keep my breathing in check. I didn’t know if the tremor in my hand came from strain or a flicker of excitement at moving my body like it used to.
But this whole display had exhausted body too much. My lungs shuddered, but I refused to let them gulp in the air they desperately wanted.
If I showed how much this had cost me, it would undo everything I was trying to instill in them.
“Never let someone use your pride against you,” I muttered, for Nadya and me both. “That’s how you end up with a blade at your neck.”
Maybe, just maybe, I’d believe all these words myself.
I was a very hypocritical teacher.
“She got you.” Geryll hollered, the loudest sound I’d ever heard from him. “She got you good.”
Nadya crossed her arms again. “I didn’t know she could do that .”
“Now you do,” I said.
“That was bloody glorious!” Geryll hollered.
Glorious .
That wretched word my former fucking fiance used.
Chills constricted my chest.
“Don’t use that word around me ever again,” I bit out. When Geryll’s smile fell, I sighed. “Please.”
He nodded, looking confused.
Goddamn it. I’d been doing so well, too. But the ghosts didn’t care–they wanted to wreck my present like they’d wrecked my past.
Just as I began to retract my arrow, a rustle from the hill up ahead caught my attention.
My entire body seized as a haggard breath finally loosed from me.
I stared at the snowy bank as if an entire army was about to descend upon us.
“It’s not him,” Nadya said lowly, only for my ears. “He left the city this morning, The Dragon called him to the Capital.”
He’d left ?
It wasn’t like I was giving the Commander details about my days or whereabouts–I’d escaped his crater, after all–so it shouldn’t have surprised me that he’d seen to his business, like he usually did.
But it did surprise me, for some forsaken reason.
“I–” Godsdamn it, I’d been obvious. Like a lovestruck youngling fretting over her first crush. I’d never stressed over seeing someone in my life. “All the way to the Capital?”
From the little Evie had told me of that blasted place, it sounded like the Blood Brotherhood stronghold had been built on the other side of the continent, where soft ocean breezes ruled.
That meant the Commander would be gone a long time.
Which was fine.
Great, even.
Gave me some space to breathe and think after I’d felt his lips against mine.
So why did I feel a sudden drop in my stomach?
Maybe it was better this way. No awkward glances in the hallways, no trying to ignore him rustling in his bed through the door separating our rooms, no risking ending up in the same room alone. Again.
Just silence and emptiness.
Cold and safe.
“He’s been called there a bunch of times lately,” she said, finally turning her head toward me now that the arrow’s tip wasn’t threatening her jugular. “Something’s brewing.”
What other wretched thing could happen now?
Mrs. Thornbrew rushed to the top of the hill, holding the sides of her skirts up like a shield. Her face was reddened, she’d obviously been running, but her voice was clear and calm as she called out, “You need to come this instant! A package just arrived. From your cousin.”