Chapter 12
Theo
Why did she save me? Again, Theo had been spared from death when he didn’t deserve it. The Goddess of Life laughed at him, as if Kata pulled the imaginary strings of his life. His fate might have been in her hands, but he didn’t want to cheat death anymore.
He wiped the blood leaking from his palm against his trousers and stormed through the halls.
Theo couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He needed to know how he’d survived after being thrown from his horse.
He threw open the training room doors. His eyes fastened on Gris.
Her leather-clad legs were drawn tight to her chest as she ducked behind a rigged barricade of chairs.
Her breath halted, but she didn’t acknowledge his presence until her fingers released her bow, and her arrow landed in the center of the target.
“What happened in the river?”
Gris met Theo’s furious glare with her lips scrunched and a knowing glance in her eyes. She relinquished herself from her hideout and settled on the edge of the archery platform, her feet skimming the ground. “Who brought it up?”
“Amaris.” Theo couldn’t control his anger or whatever else was swirling beneath. He crossed his arms to keep his fingers from drawing more blood.
Gris’s shoulders dropped, and she sighed. “I figured you’d find out sooner or later.”
“What happened?”
What had been so dreadful that Gris kept it from him? He knew he’d gone into the river but hadn’t had time nor the desire to ponder the exact details of the situation. No, he was more concerned with Kedes attempting to drag him into the cracks of the realm.
“Theo, are you sure you want to—”
“Now.”
She hung her head. “After you went over the edge, I… Theo, you know I can’t swim. Amaris didn’t stop to think before she jumped.” Gris spread her fingers over her thighs. “When we found you, your belt was caught around a branch.”
Theo listened, but something was still missing. Something else happened.
“Theo, you weren’t breathing.”
Theo dropped beside Gris, all his thoughts lost to him.
“We pulled you out, but I was delirious. I’m so sorry.
I was useless and stood there like a fool, but Amaris was calm.
I first thought she was crazy when she leaned in to kiss you, but she was trying to breathe for you or something.
Then she began pressing on your chest. I’m not sure what I saw, but it worked.
When I came back with the others, you were alive. ”
Theo couldn’t respond. First, she kissed me?
Second, she saved me? Not only did she jump into a river, but she brought him back to life.
The grim talons of Kedes weren’t a dream.
Her skillset must be extraordinary to be capable of performing such a miracle.
Was that why she was running, to protect herself?
With her skills, she would be worth a fortune, but she’d discounted his initial thought of slavery.
Who was she running from? What else was Amaris hiding?
“What in the crack in the realm was that?”
Sephardi and Esaias charged through the doors and pulled Theo from his daunting thoughts. Sephardi crossed the room with her hands balled into fists and her brown eyes wide.
“Nothing,” he shot back. To prove his health, he stood from the archery platform and crossed the room toward the wall of windows bathing the room in the afternoon sun. The heat was a needed warmth as it wrapped the room in a sauna.
“That wasn’t nothing.” The black swirls inked across Sephardi’s tawny Soyenian skin stretched as she folded her arms across her muscular chest. She was daunting, to say the least, with her tall stature and strong legs. “You passed out in the throne room.”
Gris whirled on him, but he shot her a glare. She had no room to talk after keeping what really happened in the river from him.
“I hadn’t eaten is all,” Theo lied, rubbing at his temples. His headache was growing inconvenient and further persisted with nothing to ease the ache. He was cornered but wouldn’t allow his friends to bully him into revealing what really happened in the throne room.
“If you say you’re fine, then how about a duel?” Esaias grinned.
Sephardi shoved him to the side. “This is not the time for—”
“Fine.” Theo drew his sword, and a smirk crossed Esaias’s face as they both entered the ring set in the center of the training room.
Theo kicked a battle-axe discarded on the floor.
Sephardi stopped its slide with her brown leather boot.
He would deal with her gritting teeth after he proved how fine he was.
A good swing around the training room was precisely what he needed, not to be coddled.
He cracked his neck and readied his stance.
“Are you sure about this?” Esaias asked.
Theo didn’t wait for Esaias to get into position before he lunged at him. His blade was barely a weight in his hand as he wielded it against his cousin. Esaias met his blow, and the clashing of swords rang out through the room.
Each of Theo’s moves was quick and calculated. He allowed his inner soldier to seep through the cracks in his mind and slide around his hand. Where Theo struck, Esaias parried.
“If you wish to move to more pleasing topics than whatever that was, then we can gladly discuss the Conjugation.” Esaias raised his brows as their blades pressed against each other.
Theo grunted and pushed off Esaias’s sword, hurtling his attacks one after the other. The last thing he wanted to discuss was his brother’s Conjugation. He’d avoided his stepmother earlier and her nagging to select an escort.
Esaias laughed and set to his own series of offensive moves. “You’re still planning to seclude yourself up in your room with a book instead of a woman?”
It was easy for Esaias. He won the affection of every woman he passed, with his charismatic smile and bright-green eyes always on the prowl for his next nightly companion. Theo, however, didn’t wish to attend a party with another noble his stepmother would attempt to betroth him to.
“Watch your weak side, Theo,” Sephardi shouted over Esaias’s games.
Theo grumbled, but he drew his dagger and blocked the next blow. Esaias had the uncanny ability to half pay attention in a fight and still win.
“I have an idea.” Esaias smiled.
“Nothing brilliant comes when you say that.”
Theo’s anger began fading away with Esaias’s quick jabs and laughs as he danced around him.
Esaias had always been a skilled fighter, hailing from Mount Juniper.
They were known for crafting legendary warriors.
A smile curled on Esaias’s lips as he guarded Theo’s next blow and the next and the next.
“Hear me out,” Esaias began, stepping back to allow them both a few breaths. He cocked his head and grinned. “Twins.”
Theo rolled his eyes. “No.”
Esaias groaned, dropping to the floor and making to kick Theo’s legs out from under him. Theo jumped over his foot and rolled across the ring. Esaias whirled around, dropping his sword and readying his fists.
“How about you quit toying with each other and actually fight?” Sephardi cut in.
“Come on. You already have a date to the Conjugation.”
“You mean my wife?” She cast her gaze to Gris, who smiled at her and blew a kiss from across the ring.
“How about a go, Sephardi?” Esaias grinned.
Sephardi rolled her eyes but stepped into the ring and popped her knuckles. Before Theo even stood, Sephardi sent a jab straight into Esaias’s nose. Blood sprayed across the floor.
“Fuck off,” Esaias shouted at her.
“Make me,” she taunted.
Esaias lunged for her, but she rolled past him, coming to a crouch behind him while he stumbled forward. She shot up and sent her foot straight into his ass. He toppled out of the ring.
Gris jumped and shouted, “Kick his ass, love!” Her small hooray was extinguished as she caught Theo’s icy glare.
He may have felt a bit of relief from his small tumble with Esaias, but he was still angry she hid the events of the river from him. He had a right to know the truth.
Esaias sank to the floor, grabbing a strip of linen from the wicker basket to dab at his nose. He winced as he stanched the bleeding.
“You could have spared him a broken nose,” Theo shot at Sephardi.
She only shrugged her bare shoulders and unwound the brown wrappings from around her hands.
Gris extended a cloth to her to dry her hands of Esaias’s blood. “How did your supply run go?”
Theo had instructed Sephardi to start stocking up on various supplies.
After they returned from the war, he felt the need to stockpile Ms. Borstad’s pantry and their shelves of herbs.
He needed to be prepared for whatever troubled Duncaster.
During the war, supplies became scarce. It pained him to think he may have been right and a threat could be waiting in the Black Sea.
“I’ve procured the extra herbs Pricilla listed.
The rations were a little harder to come by, but Ms. Borstad is storing them as we speak,” Sephardi said.
“Next time, I’d like to accompany you to Duncaster instead of running around doing your errands.
” She raised a brow, but it wasn’t a demand, only a request. Sephardi was one of the most loyal soldiers Theo had ever known.
If he asked her to follow him to their deaths, she’d pick up a sword and guard his weaker side.
“Gris updated me on the possibility of Deavopan’s slave trade coming to Duncaster.
Do you suspect they may find themselves in our harbor? ”
Luana Bay wasn’t an illustrious port city like Duncaster, but their docks were still crowded with fishing vessels and some merchants. With the chaos of the last few days, Theo hadn’t thought much regarding Luana Bay’s harbor and whether slavers would move along the coast trapping innocents.
“We can’t be sure,” Theo began. “Fortifying our coastal border and adding more patrols to the docks wouldn’t be a terrible idea.”
“I can start on a new sentry duty schedule,” Sephardi suggested. “We’ll run double shifts.”
“Extra shifts won’t be necessary yet.”
“Is a guard rotation needed for Amaris?” Sephardi asked.
All their eyes snapped to Theo, pressing against the weight already threatening to shorten his spine.
He hadn’t stopped to think about what would become of her now.
His father appointed her as the mystique, but she was still under investigation.
It was a precarious situation, and one he’d never dealt with.
“I volunteer.” Esaias grinned. “Does she need a guard in her bedchamber as well? I promise not to fall asleep. There are far too many activities to keep us occupied.”
Theo didn’t bother entertaining him with an eye roll or a remark. Of course, Esaias would be the one to attempt to woo a suspected murderer.
“Exclude Esaias.” He attempted to protest, but Theo raised a hand. “Stay as far away from Amaris as possible and rotate with Alan with his watch by the stables.”
“No fun,” he groaned like a child.
“We’ll start a rotation for Amaris, but I’ll see how my father wishes to proceed.”
Theo wasn’t sure what his father’s intentions were. He expected a decision to be made, but now they’d likely be playing nursemaid while Amaris went about her duties as the new mystique.
Sephardi nodded, watching him as he dragged his thumb along the hilt of his dagger. She wasn’t only strong but also analytical, honing her mind like her own sword. Something wasn’t sitting right with her.
“What is it, Sephardi?” Theo asked.
Esaias had given up on redeeming his pride and retreated to the table by the door, where a basin of water sat for him to wash the blood from his face. Gris again found herself perched on the edge of the platform, but she kept her distance from Theo. A silence sat between them.
“Do you think she did it?”
Theo prodded at his lip that still had a slight puffiness to it. He didn’t know what to think. She’d punched him in the face, held his dagger to his heart, but also saved his life. Would a woman who murdered and butchered a man have risked her life for his?
“Time will tell,” Theo mumbled before picking up his sword and taking a reprieve from her interrogation.
He needed to breathe, to examine everything out before him. His enemy no longer wore a breast plate with a yonedu pressed on the front, with its snarling jaw and color-shifting scales. No, his enemy waited in secret and milled through the same crowds he walked daily.
The high priestess’s warning came to him.
Godwin would rage a war in a heartbeat against Deavopan or even the entire Accords if their slavers crossed into their waters.
If there was to be another war, Theo wasn’t sure if he’d be able to pick up his sword again, to watch as he drained the life from another set of eyes.