CHAPTER 28 #2
A door swings open at the end of the hall and shadows move in the night as a fresh rotation of guards filters into the corridors. I curse under my breath, retreating to the bed before I’m seen, settling in below the duvet just as the door’s hinges creak and the latch clicks shut.
I don’t have to look to know it’s the general. I’ve memorized the sound of his stride, his scent, the way that he moves. I can practically see the scowl plastered on his face with my eyes closed.
The bed dips next to me and the male collects me in his arms, pulling my back against his chest. Taking in a deep lungful of my scent, he nuzzles my hair. I roll over to face him, his form nothing more than a simple silhouette in the dark, and I capture his mouth with my own in tender greeting.
Placing a hand over his heart, he sucks in a gasp when I release his power into him. There is nothing of the whirling storm it summoned before. This transfer is quiet, subtle, the gift gladly departing to its true home.
“Fates,” he gasps, wrapping his arms around my neck and tucking me against his chest. “How?” he mumbles into my hair.
“I made a bargain,” I say, and his arms tense around me.
I expect a scolding, about venturing into the forest, about confronting the naiad who tried to kill me, about the sure idiocy of striking a bargain with a fea, but he only asks, “What did you give up?”
And now I understand the depth of what he said to me when I asked that very question when he first held me in the cabin. So, I answer in kind, meaning every word, still not entirely sure what it is I’ve bargained.
“Nothing I wouldn’t give up a hundred times over.”
He pulls my body against his until there isn’t room for air between us and rests his cheek against my head as he falls asleep.
Dawn breaks the horizon and deep voices murmur in the war room. I splay my hand across the empty sheets beside me longingly. Just once, before I’m forced to leave this place, I’d like to wake with the male by my side. I’m not sure why. Just like the rest of it, it won’t change a thing.
I prepare for training and can’t help but worry about my friend. The painful sight of her crouched beside Kishek, her mate, plagues me. It was my fault, somehow. She blamed me for what happened to him and told the general to send me away.
I’m troubled by the relief I feel at the idea of the male boarding me onto a ship and sending me south before I have a chance to end his king. I would never see him again, but at least then, he would never grow to hate me.
He told her he would wait until after the masque, but by then it will be too late. The king is meant to return to attend his party, and if Awri is pushing the general to send me away for some reason, I can’t afford to hesitate in my task.
There is no way I will come to be anything but a bitter regret in the general’s past by the time this is over. The male might even follow me to La’tari, searching for a vengeance he should rightly obtain. I smile dryly at that. I won’t blame him if he does.
‘Tell her.’ The simple demand Awri leveled at the general is more than intriguing, it’s maddening.
I’d never known the female to withhold information from me, though a part of me knows there is only so much she is willing to share.
How much of that information I can trust is another matter entirely.
I debate asking the general what she meant by it, what he’s supposedly protecting me from. Of course, then he would know I’d been eavesdropping. If the male doesn’t want to discuss it, my questions will only risk creating a rift between us—right before I need the leverage of his goodwill.
A knock at the door. I answer it as I finish tying off the long braid I’ve woven into my hair.
“Good morning.” Riah smiles warmly.
“Where is Awri?” I ask, my brow dipping. When Riah looks offended by my inquiry I quickly add, “Not that I’m not happy to see you.”
She shrugs off my social blunder and motions for me to follow her.
“I believe she is spending the day with Kishek,” she says.
Of course she is. I feel like an idiot for asking.
“Do you know if he’s all right?” I ask.
“I’m sure we would both know if he wasn’t.”
I can tell she really feels that way, but I’m not so easily convinced. After what I overheard last night, it is clear just how outside their inner circle I really am.
“Don’t worry.” She eyes me, mistaking my troubling thoughts for worry. “The king would never let anything happen to one of his own. Not if there was something he could do to avoid it.”
“That might make Awri feel better, if in fact the king were here to help her mate,” I say dryly.
“I understand that things are different where you are from, but my king has the unquestioned loyalty of every soul serving under him. That loyalty extends to everyone he chooses to protect, fea and mortal alike,” she says.
I eye her cautiously, unsure of the point she is trying to make.
She continues, “Kishek is under that protection, and there isn’t a single feyn under the king’s command that won’t treat his life as if it were their own.”
I breathe a little easier. She’s right, things are very different in La’tari. There is no room for weakness of any kind in my homeland, and my king’s favor extends to those with the strength to help him in his cause. He has always favored the Drakai for that very reason.
Lives like mine, that come with the promise of a full belly and four walls to keep out the cold, are highly prized. A vast contrast to the comfort of the A’kori. But then, I’ve really only seen the palace.
“Where are your barracks?” My sudden change of subject causes Riah to stumble on the stony path leading to the stables.
“To the east.” She points into the distance. “Why do you ask?”
Her eyes narrow on me, and for good reason. If I were a La’tari spy, there is much I could learn from a tour of the barracks. But I’m not a spy. I’m worse. Still. Not a spy. And thanks to the general I hold the key to entry.
“Remember when I told you the general sent Siserie to the barracks?” I ask.
She snorts a laugh. “I’m not likely to forget that tale anytime soon.”
“The general also put me in charge of the duration of her sentence.”
She stumbles again, and I seriously begin to wonder how she is so graceful in the ring when she can’t keep her feet under her while she’s walking.
“And you want to pay her a visit?” she asks, a wicked curve kicking up the edges of her lips.
“I do,” I say, no hesitation in the lie.
But I realize the moment the words pass my lips it is in fact not a lie. Perhaps not the true reason I intend to see the barracks, but I can’t deny that I really would enjoy seeing the female in a cell.
“I only have one question.” Her face grows serious and I have to force myself not to hold my breath. “Why didn’t we do this sooner?” she asks, cracking a toothy grin that I happily return.
The barracks are less than an hour by horse, nestled onto a high hill with a view of the sea.
It’s close enough to the eastern shore to have the advantage of time if an enemy ship were spotted along the coast and brilliantly disguised as a small village.
The tall beacon in the center of town, the only thing that might give away its strategic position.
A mixture of feyn and mortals bustle around us as we hand our mounts over to the stable hand.
The lieutenant receives a number of salutes in the feyn fashion, a fist crossing over the chest to cover the heart.
Her face takes on a deadly glower the moment her feet touch the ground, every soldier’s back stiffening as we pass.
Even knowing the female, the deep crease in her brow and the half snarl she wears on her lips is enough to keep me wary of her intentions as we make our way below ground.
The barracks are carved into a long hillside.
Its windows are etched into the stone of the western wall, letting natural light filter into the halls and shared spaces where the soldiers break for lunch, games of cards, and the like.
The small space echoes with the screech of wooden chairs as we pass, every soul standing to salute the female at my side. Save one.
“Toren.” Riah greets the male with a stiff salute of her own.
The last time I saw him he had just sent a contingent to retrieve the general and Awri’s clumsy human guest from the forest. Just as before, deep lines are etched into his face and the male looks like he’s never smiled a day in his life.
He has a full head of long white hair plaited in a series of twists and braids that combine at the nape of his neck into a thick tail, falling to his midback.
His hands are heavily scarred, as is what little flesh I can see exposed around the collar at his neck.
The scars are unnatural, not born of war, at least not in the way one usually obtains a war wound.
These are evidence of the male’s torture.
Toren’s eyes follow my own across the marred flesh of his hands. He holds them out and turns them over slowly, the silver-white lines catching the light coming in from the windows.
“A gift from the La’tari,” he says and my back becomes rigid. “What? You don’t approve?”
“Of torture?” I balk.
“Of the actions of your king.”
There is no safe way for me to answer him.
As a La’tari subject, the king’s actions are far above my reproach, and fates know I have no idea what he did to end up in a La’tari prison.
Still, there are very few crimes I personally deem worthy of torture, and it seems unlikely Toren committed any of those and still ended up in the general’s ranks.
“Nothing to say in defense of your sovereign?” The male quirks an eyebrow as he looms over me.
“I’m not here for a lesson in politics,” I say, forcing myself to rise to my full height, even if the male still towers over me. “Or to hear your sad war stories.”
Riah clears her throat, shifting nervously beside me.