Chapter 16
“Anything to add?” Desmond asks me as we lean over a long list of supplies. We’ve set up a table in the training room, and the list is so long that it unfurls off the edge.
“Fire starters,” I suggest. “Draugr are only vulnerable to two things: decapitation and fire.”
Desmond dips his quill into the ink pot, then adds it in his enviable cursive. “Do we need to bring more rope?” he asks me.
“No. That length should be plenty.” I’m surprised that he wanted my opinion on the tomb raid’s packing list. I thought he’d be the type of boss to not care what his underlings think.
I suppose I was wrong.
Four days have passed since I arrived at the guild.
It’s been a blur of vigorous training. Every muscle in my body aches.
My palms are blistered from gripping bows and sword hilts.
Bruises bloom on my body from sparring faster than I can count them.
By the time I collapse into bed each night, I can barely lift my arms.
Beneath the exhaustion, a dangerous spark of pride keeps flickering to life. I’m stronger than I was four days ago. Faster. Sharper. If I survive the tomb raid, I’ll finally be worthy of the adventurers’ guild.
Archery with Auri, however, is far from enjoyable. She’s relentlessly scathing with her critiques, barks that my aim is wrong before I even take the shot, and never misses an opportunity to remind me how weak I am. Thank the gods that we’re done for the day.
I wish I could say that I’m progressing enough in the Gift-strengthening sessions. Desmond wants me to lift and suspend two hundred pounds for five full minutes by the end of the week. Not a tremor. Not a slip.
This afternoon, I couldn’t even keep the board lifted for a full minute. Every attempt feels like prying my skull open.
Desmond has to be dismayed at my failure, no matter how quiet he is about it.
He should join the long line of people who think I’m weak.
My parents. The miller’s wife, who offered them her condolences that my magic wouldn’t be useful in the fields.
When Evie manifested, it was a cause for celebration.
Then there were the village patrolmen who laughed about my swordwork when they thought I was out of earshot.
She should be learning faster than this, they said. That boy, Sebastian, he’s a natural.
Maybe that’s why I raided tombs alone. I could prove to myself that I’m strong each time I lit a draugr aflame or severed its neck. I could tell myself I’m clever with every trap I dodged and riddle I deciphered.
Never once did I tell Sebastian my secret, nor Evie until I needed her help. It was my release, my only freedom. I didn’t want anyone to take it away from me or prove that they could do it better with stronger or more useful Gifts.
I read through the list again and sigh. The tension I feel is more suffocating than a noose. I glance at Desmond, biting my lip as I debate whether I should come out and say it. It could feel like ripping a bandage off, painful in the moment, but a welcome relief afterward.
“Yes?” Desmond asks, arching a brow.
Here goes nothing. I swallow. “I know you’re disappointed. I just wish you’d say it.”
Desmond crosses his arms, watching me. “If I did, would that serve to motivate you?”
“I’d feel like you’re being honest with me.”
“What have I lied about?” he asks, but it’s monotone. Emotionless. “You know that I can’t.”
I’m close enough to tap him on the shoulder, push him backward, or slap him in an attempt to startle him.
Anything would be better than his stolid mask.
“Even if you don’t lie, you hide things from me.
I’m the only person here in the dark about that relic you want, aren’t I?
And your Gift! Why won’t you tell me? Would the world end? Would we all explode?”
His expression is unreadable, and he doesn’t say a damn thing.
So this is how it’s going to be. I’m trusted to be the second pair of eyes on a packing list, but not with a modicum of information.
My fisted hands shake, frustration quivering my lips.
“I’m busting my ass off in training. I’ve proven that I’m committed.
If you try to convince me that I don’t deserve to know, then I’ll know why you won’t tell me. ”
It would be wiser if I backed off. I know I shouldn’t want to piss him off. But gods, if I can’t help it. I’m losing my mind with every truth he refuses to give me.
Finally, he glares at me. “Let’s suppose that I refuse to answer. Why do you think I won’t tell you?” His eyes burn with an intense, searing heat. Twin golden flames flare, consuming the viridescent hazel like a forest set ablaze. The otherworldly beauty of it is undeniably fae.
The man scowling down at me is no longer the stranger who once thought his book was more interesting than me. Nor do I see the dry smirk and biting wit he wore when we danced at Norwynhald. No, this is the Prince of Death who warned me not to disobey his every order.
I swallow, resisting the urge to back up. “You don’t trust me.”
He scoffs. “Trust is a luxury I can’t afford. When a kingdom rests on your shoulders, one misstep can spell the death of thousands. I have no issue with keeping you in the dark. In fact, it keeps you safe.”
“If you wanted to keep me safe, you wouldn’t have asked me to come with you!” I argue. “You would’ve left me in Nettlerock with my family.”
“I can’t answer your questions,” he says, his face tight. “You keep demanding answers as though they come without consequences.”
His emotions barrage me, each taut thread of anger and shame and misery twisting around a single thought: If she knew what I am, she’d run. And she’d never look back.
My mouth falls open, but I’m too stunned to speak.
Then he strides out of the training room without a backward glance.
I exhale a breath I didn’t know I had held. The thudding of my heart begins to slow. Damn him. What gives him the right to rattle me?
Angered, I stomp out of the room and into the kitchen, where I find Maeve baking.
“He’s such an asshole!” I seethe, slamming my fists on the center cutting table. The pots and pans hanging from hooks tremble, knocking together with a clamor.
Shit. I take a deep breath and rein my magic in. Everything stills.
“Desmond?” Maeve asks, and then giggles.
“Who else?”
“He’s giving you a hard time in training?”
I sigh. “You could say that. Need any help?”
She hands me the bowl of batter and a whisk. I mix, glad that Mom taught Evie and me that the movement comes from your wrist. Evie’s always had a better knack for baking, being more careful with her measurements than I am. I miss her.
“Desmond is very focused on his goals,” Maeve says. “We’ve never had a client so involved in the planning process before. It’s driving Rune mad.”
“I could tell.” When Rune confessed that he failed to get that map, I could’ve cut the tension in the room with my dagger. “They both want to be in charge, right?”
Maeve nods. She takes the batter from me and pours it into a dozen small pans. “Desmond wanted the map by legal means, but now the heist is the only choice we have.”
That must be the one that Finnian is preparing for. “Who would’ve known that someone called the ‘Prince of Death’ would have such a moral compass.”
Then footsteps sound from the foyer. Auri strides into the kitchen, pulling Desmond’s hand to make him quicken his pace behind her. She’s laughing, her amber eyes unusually bright.
I stare, shocked that she’s capable of making such a happy sound, but Desmond’s smile is what makes my stomach drop. He looks at her with fondness, his cheeks dimpled and gaze warm.
“How could I forget that day? The white stag almost threw you off the hilltop,” Auri says to him like they were in the middle of reminiscing together. “Deitra warned you to stay away from it.”
Then she looks at me, and the humor withers into a sneer. She quickens her strides, leading Desmond by his hand into the hall of bedrooms. A door creaks open. It’s hers.
Desmond says, “Then do you remember the time we—”
The door slams shut.
“They know each other well,” I murmur, staring at my hands. He trusts her. More than he’ll ever trust me.
Maeve shrugs. She slides the pans into the wood-fired oven, its fire crackling. “Finnian said they grew up together. Now she’s a High Court bodyguard, or something along those lines. I get the feeling she’d electrocute entire villages for Desmond.”
Auri has despised me ever since she laid eyes on me. She wants Desmond to know it, too. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be so obvious. There’s only one explanation for her reverent loyalty toward him and her hatred of the vow binding him to me.
She’s in love with him. And they wouldn’t have disappeared into her bedroom if he didn’t feel the same.
Jealousy stabs my gut until I remind myself that I don’t care what the relationship between them is. After the tomb raid, my vow with Desmond will be complete, and I’ll never see either of them again. I shake my head, as if that will banish the knot of confusion in me.
“Why don’t we get your mind off of your training?” Maeve asks. The way she keeps glancing back at me makes me think she’s noticed my turmoil. “Tell me something I don’t know about you yet. Like your family.”
“My family?” Even Maeve’s curiosity isn’t enough to make me forget that I shouldn’t share too much about them.
I shrug, then begin washing the bowl in the kitchen’s water basin.
“We’ve been peasants for more generations than we have records back to.
My parents are hard-working, and they’re probably cursing me right now for leaving them. ”
Maeve chuckles. Her voice grows softer, but she doesn’t meet my gaze. “I left home, too.”
Surprised, I stop washing to watch her. “What was it like?”
“I was born in Vargesh. My father died in a clan dispute, and my mother was only half-orc. She struggled without him, and not only with money. The rigid honor codes, the adamancy against showing vulnerability. . . It was all too much for her.”
I fall still, shocked by her candidness.
Maeve’s voice trembles as she stares into the fire. “One day, she decided fitting in wasn’t worth her family, and she disappeared without a trace. Leaving me with my maternal grandparents.”
“I’m so sorry.” I hesitantly place my hand on her arm, hoping it’s consoling. “Were they kind to you?”
She laughs. It’s quiet, hollow, and dies into a sniffle.
“No. My grandmother may not be an orc, but she still knew how to make her enemies cry. She’s a general, and a feared one at that.
She only married my grandfather because she wanted a lineage with his brawn.
He was his clan’s war champion. When my mother fled them to live in Avedor, she met my father and moved with him to Vargesh.
And then I fled my grandmother, too, and now I’m here.
I love the guild. We’re the ragtag family I’ve always wanted. ”
“Maeve,” I murmur. Words fail me as I squeeze her forearm.
Then I remember what Nikolai said to me about what it means to be here.
They look out for each other. They laugh together and have a camaraderie so strong that nothing could break it.
It’s what I dreamt my life would be like in the adventurers’ guild.
“I’m glad you found your family,” I tell her.
A smile dimples her freckled cheeks as she turns to hug me. “I am, too.”
Laughter echoes from behind Auri’s closed door. The bowl in the sink trembles until I rein my magic in. “I should go,” I tell Maeve. My throat feels too thick to swallow.
She purses her lips. “Alright. Thank you for helping me bake, Cyn. Treat yourself to some honey cakes tomorrow.”
I hold my fist over my heart, then leave for my room.