Chapter 9
Harper
Sevrin has his arm wrapped around my back to keep me from hobbling around the academy too badly, no matter how many times I’ve told him I’m fine.
Truly, it was just a twisted ankle. I wouldn’t want to have to fight right now, or jump down from a large distance, but I can walk around on evenly paved ground without any trouble at all.
“Once things are settled here,” Sevrin says, his accent making the ‘here’ sound strangely attractive, “I’ll want to take you to meet my family.”
“What’s your family like?” I ask. “Would they welcome me?”
He grins, which is a strange look with his face paint “They would. They would fall for you as quickly as I did.”
I blush. “I think it’d take my family a little while to adjust to the idea of me being married to a Hollowborn, but once they saw that you treated me well, that’s all that would really matter to them. They just want me to be happy.”
“I’m glad you came from a good home,” he tells me sincerely.
“Oh!” I exclaim, excited. “You’ll get to meet Arthur soon. I’m not sure where he is.”
“I look forward to meeting your best friend. He sounds like a good man.”
“He is.”
We circle a corner, and nearly run into two dragon riders. Their hands go to their swords when they see Sevrin, and his free hand is on his own. All of them are tense and ready, like dogs waiting to attack.
“This is King Sevrin of the Hollowborns,” I say evenly. “Remember, we’re making peace with them. He’s supposed to be here.”
One curls his lip. “No Hollowborn is supposed to be here.”
“So, you’ll fight with him and either have him kill you, or have the king remove your head for treason? That sounds like a really smart decision.”
That seems to change the tension in the air.
The men stand a little straighter, and drop their hands from their swords.
Sevrin’s expression is impossible to read, but I know he’s ready for a fight if he has to have one.
The men walk around us, giving Sevrin a lot of space, and then hurry down the hall.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever get used to each other,” Sevrin says.
I shrug. “When there’s a little princely baby that’s a little of both our people, everyone will have to learn to love each other.”
He smiles at me and touches my belly, which makes an unexpected streak of excitement race through me. “May the gods hear your words.”
We keep going and eventually find our way to the training yard.
Stopping in the entrance, we see that the dragon riders are doing hand-to-hand combat.
It’s not an official one, since half the riders aren’t there, but there are four different circles of riders gathered around men who are fighting.
Lucien and Alaric are nowhere to be seen, but Gareth is currently fighting another man, looking angry as hell.
“Maybe we should keep going…” I suggest lightly, not wanting any trouble.
“Okay,” he says, sounding distracted as he studies their fighting technique.
I’m about to really push for us to keep going when Gareth defeats his opponent and the tight circle around him loosens a bit as the other man stumbles out.
Like something out of my nightmares, Gareth slowly looks up, and his gaze lands on the two of us.
His mouth draws into a thin line, and even from this distance, I can see the way his jaw works.
“Hollowborn!” he shouts.
The fighting in the other rings stop, and all eyes turn toward us. The group of at least twenty riders are all shirtless, sweaty, and on edge. There’s no kindness in their eyes, just pure animosity. This is not a situation that we should willingly step into.
I give a little wave. “I was just giving a tour of the academy, we’ll keep going.”
Grabbing Sevrin’s arm, I start to haul him away, when Gareth shouts, “Why? I think the Hollowborn could use a little exercise. Unless he’s afraid that I’ll embarrass him.”
I stare at Sevrin, silently begging him to keep walking, but any gentleness has left his face. His eyes are sharp, and his jaw is tight.
“You want to fight me, Dravari Prince?” he asks, his accent marking him as different even if everything else about him wasn’t.
Gareth’s gaze moves from where I hold his arm to him. “You bet.”
I want to beg Sevrin not to do this. There’s no winning in a situation like this, even if he wins the fight, but I know this is one of those moments we talked about.
He can’t back down. He has to show them that he’s a strong leader who isn’t afraid of him, so I release his arm, and he strides toward Gareth.
All the dragon riders move like a ripple of water, moving to stand so they can see the fight.
Sevrin undoes the buttons on his leather shirt and removes it to reveal his big muscled arms, rippled abs, and smooth chest. He goes to set it down, but I snatch it, feeling like it’s important that I show the dragon riders that at least I’m on his side.
Even if I’m not against Gareth either. Sevrin moves through the crowd of dragon riders, and I follow through the path he’s cut.
Then I’m standing in the circle that surrounds them, my heart in my throat.
“What are the rules?” Sevrin asks, rolling his neck.
Gareth is already breathing hard. “There are no rules. Not for this fight.”
“Not even avoiding the face? We have a wedding tomorrow,” I argue. There is already a slight bruising to Sevrin’s face from where Lucien hit him, he didn’t need to look even more battered.
“No rules,” Gareth grits out.
Sevrin takes that without protest.
Gareth moves into a warrior’s stance, legs spread, arms poised to grab the other man, but Sevrin remains standing, as if he’s not in the middle of a fight, but rather just casually standing in the street. Gareth dances back and forth, waiting for the other man to strike, but he doesn’t.
I can feel Gareth’s frustration when he finally leaps toward his opponent.
Sevrin moves out of the way with catlike reflexes, then continues to stare at the prince as if he’s no more threatening than a squirrel.
Gareth seems to sense this and strikes again.
This time, they grapple with each other, arms clenched on one another, shifting around in a circle as they stare eye-to-eye.
Sevrin smashes his head forward in an instant, cracking his skull against Gareth’s nose.
Blood splurts out, and the prince breaks their grappling and steps back from his enemy.
The dragon riders boo, and then begin shouting, their energy frantic.
Dangerous. But Gareth lifts a hand, indicating for them to calm, and they do. At least a little.
Gareth seems to dart to one side, but at the last second, strikes out. He hits Sevrin in the face, knocking him back. Sevrin’s eyes go several shades darker, but he doesn’t make a sound.
Around and around they go, fighting like mad men.
Punching. Kicking. Wrestling. But they’re too evenly matched.
Sevrin is a few inches taller than Gareth, and perfectly cut like a statue, but Gareth has bigger muscles and a little more weight.
I don’t know which muscled figure is better for fighting.
Gareth suddenly gets Sevrin on the ground. Sevrin looks like he’s in a vulnerable position. Gareth strikes, but Sevrin grabs ahold of Gareth and tosses him on the ground behind him, before leaping up and getting Gareth around the neck from behind.
The dragon riders aren’t happy. They feel that Gareth was tricked, but nothing about Sevrin’s actions broke any rules. He just made himself look more vulnerable than he really was.
Gareth tries to fight while in a headlock, but nothing he does gets him out of the situation. Sevrin is clearly waiting for him to show that he gives up, but Gareth won’t make any sign of surrender. Sevrin grips him tighter, clearly trying to get him to give up. But still, he won’t.
“Sevrin!” I say. He’s going to really hurt him. But neither man reacts. “Sevrin!” I say, louder this time.
He glances up at me.
“You’re going to hurt him.”
“He needs to surrender,” Sevrin grits out, sweaty and irritated.
“He's never going to.”
Sevrin shakes his head.
“Please,” I beg.
For one second, I think he’ll ignore me, but then he shoves Gareth away, sending him falling on the ground, and walks toward me. He kisses me gently, then takes his shirt.
“This isn't over,” Gareth rasps.
My heart aches.
“It is,” Sevrin tells him simply.
Sevrin leads me away, but Gareth is on his knees, panting on the ground. He looks up at me, and there’s such a look of pain that it makes me sick. He stands and strides away from the training grounds, probably headed for his room.
I know what I have to do, even if I don’t want to do it.
Leading Sevrin to a small garden in the academy grounds, I stop and turn to him. “I have to go check on Gareth.”
“Why?”
I don’t know how to explain it. “I just do.”
His golden eyes watch me carefully. “He’s a man. He can lose and lick his wounds alone.”
“I know he can… I just don’t want him to.”
His expression softens. “You care about him.”
“Of course. And just like I’d never want to leave you alone, upset, I don’t want to do that to him either.”
Sevrin kisses me on top of the head. “Okay, but walk with me for just a little while first. I want to be sure he’s had enough time to calm down.”
I know what he’s implying—that Gareth might hurt me,—but I’m not worried about that.
These princes might be able to break my heart, but they wouldn’t attack me.
That’s just not who they are. Even when Alaric hit me while we were fighting, I was in a fighting ring.
I have to be prepared on some level to get hurt.
“Alright,” I say, and we begin to walk around the stunning garden, even while my heart’s with Gareth.
“You know he’s not actually hurt, right? He’s upset because he wanted to come out on top with me in front of you. He’s jealous of our relationship and wanted to prove he was the better man.”
“Even if he’s just struggling emotionally, I want to be there for him. I want him to know that win or lose I care about him.”
Sevrin smiles. “You’re a good woman, but you seem to baby them a bit.”
I try to put my thoughts into words. “The princes didn’t grow up the way we did. They grew up without the loving comfort of their mothers, and their father was a cruel, harsh man. They don’t understand things like communication and tenderness. All they know how to be are warriors.”
Something softens in Sevrin’s face. “That’s no way for anyone to grow up. Being a warrior is important, but we fight to live, not live to fight.”
We continue for a while longer, and he asks me questions about everything he sees, seeming to try to memorize the names of every flower and plant we come across.
He smells the flowers, is drawn to all the bright, beautiful colors, and truly seems to be enjoying his time with me.
It’s nice that even doing something as simple as this is fun with him.
But I can’t stop thinking about Gareth.
I pull away. “I should go talk to him…”
Sevrin sighs and nods, but then says, “You know, with time they’ll have to get used to the fact that I’m not going anywhere.”
I smirk. “The key word there is ‘time.’ We just need to give them some of it.”
He laughs and kisses me, and I turn away and start hurrying down the hall. Already it feels like too much time has passed. I hate thinking about the look on his face after he lost. The look he gave me.
These boys need to know that whether Sevrin is bigger, stronger, or better at fighting, that’s not what’s going to determine how things go between us. The way they treat me, the relationship we form between us, that’s going to determine our future.
But, somehow, I don’t think that will be an easy thing for them to accept.