Chapter 17
Iopen my bedroom door and am surprised to find Min there in her lynx form. My waking hours are usually at odds with hers. She sleeps as a curled-up lynx during the day, and then ambles outside at night.
Right now, she’s dripping like a wrung-out mop. She shifts back to her goblin self and grabs a towel hung on her bed.
“Did it rain?” I ask her.
“No. I bathed in the river to wash the blood off my claws.” Her black eyes are steady, like she’s telling me the time or what she had for breakfast.
I choke on my own spit. She thumps my back until my throat clears. Then she tilts her head and asks, “Is it not customary to share such details with new friends?”
“You can share whatever you want,” I reply, but I hope she won’t elaborate on what she did tonight. “What do you like to do when you’re frustrated and don’t want to sleep?” I ask her, and then regret it. I’m not sure I want to know.
Min tilts her head in thought as she dresses. “That depends. Is your frustration of an emotional nature or of a sexual one? If it is the latter, I have noticed that several members of the guild are rather promiscuous. Perhaps someone would—”
The memory of shirtless Desmond pouring a trail of water down his body flashes through my mind. My cheeks heat. “I’m not getting better at using my Gift to fight,” I interrupt before she can continue her suggestion. Besides, I’m not the woman he’s laughing with.
“Ah. Then practice is the only answer, is it not?” She sheathes so many daggers to her body that I lose count.
I sigh. “You’re right, but I definitely need a break from the training room.”
“There are many other places to practice bladework,” she replies. “The darkness of the forest at night makes sufficient cover. So do the Mythos sewers. Sound seldom escapes those tunnels.”
Maybe I’m mistaken, but I don’t think practice means the same thing to us. Yet being outside could help clear my head. Whenever I had a rough day at home, I’d retreat into the forest looking for barrows. Not that there were other places to run off to.
“You mind if I follow you outside?” I ask Min.
“Not at all.”
After I strap my throwing knives to my body, we leave our room and head to the foyer. Maeve waits for her cakes in the kitchen, waving as we pass, but otherwise, the rooms are empty. Our steps are eerily loud.
The boulder that seals the entrance rolls back as we approach, and the hearthlight leaks into the inky black of the forest. “Thanks for listening,” I tell Min.
“You are welcome,” she says, expressionless. Then she shrinks into her lynx form. Crickets chirp and leaves sway in the night breeze as Min bounds off through the trees.
Branches crackle to the right, and a large animal sprints away. It’s gone too quickly for me to make out details. Goosebumps prickle my neck, but as I search the tree line, I don’t notice anything amiss. We probably startled a sleeping doe.
Behind me, the boulder rolls back, leaving me in the faint glow of the waning half-moon.
I tromp into the trees for a good place to practice. My shoulders release their tension, every distant call of an owl and scent of dry autumn leaves comforting me in a way I didn’t know I needed. As much as I hate admitting it to myself, the sylvan ambience soothes me because it reminds me of home.
Reaching a clearing between the trees, I untether two knives and will them to float before me. My magic caresses each from hilt to tip. I gauge their weight, their balance, and then aim at the knot in an oak across from me.
Like a taut string released, both knives soar.
Thunk. Thunk.
They strike the tree, one six inches above the other. Neither struck the knot.
Frustrated, I untether a third and throw again.
Thunk.
It misses. Shit. I call all three back to me, wipe the sweat off my forehead, and try again. And again. And again, until dozens of crisscrossing cuts mar the bark, each a sign of my failure. None of them mark the knot.
What would Desmond say if he saw me struggling like this? The frustration burning inside me is even worse than before. Untethering is no good in combat if I can’t aim.
I dig my heels into the ground. My hands shake as I hover all six knives in an arc behind me.
I fling them one after the other, never taking my sight off the tree.
Three strike in a vertical row, the middle one piercing the knot.
One misses the trunk, striking a wayward branch.
The last two land in the bushes, startling a dove that bursts into flight.
Those are not going to be easy to find. Sighing, I trudge into the brush, looking for a glint of metal in the moonlight. Desmond’s voice trickles in and out of my mind, but I’m too busy swearing to process the words. What does it matter? His critiques bother me enough when I toss and turn in bed.
Then his voice ceases. Seconds later, it starts again. I stand, straining to listen. I’m not imagining him. The words are muffled because he’s in the woods nearby. I huff a laugh. And here I was starting to think I’m going mad.
There is only one reason he’d meet with someone outside the guild’s cave. He doesn’t want anyone to know about it.
Looking down at the crescent on my wrist, I press my lips into a firm line. If he doesn’t trust me enough to tell me what he wants from Olin’s tomb, I’ll live with it. If he wants to hide whatever affinity he has for Auri, I’ll live with that too.
What I don’t understand is the vow. Why would the prince of the Hollowlands bind his soul to my own? I don’t believe that it was only so I wouldn’t betray him. There’s something more. Something he doesn’t want me to know.
And if he’s tied his soul to mine, then I have a right to the truth.
My jaw tightens. I’ve failed enough for one day. Floundering with my magic, missing every mark with my knives. I can’t fail again.
If he won’t tell me his secrets, I’ll take them.
I lock onto the sound of Desmond’s voice and follow.