2. Two
Two
Callan surveyed the enemy line stretched out before him, his fist tight around the hilt of his sword. Looking to his left, he met the eyes of his friend Arik and gave a quick nod.
“Attack!” Arik bellowed, his breath a billow of steam rising in the frigid air.
All at once the enemy surged forward: a dozen younglings armed to the teeth with wooden swords and axes.
Callan fought valiantly, guarding against their strikes with his own wooden blade, swatting the small warriors away like flies, a tap between the shoulder blades indicating a death blow.
One by one, the younglings dropped out of the fray until only one remained, large and swift enough that the boy had gotten in a few lucky hits.
The child made a final charge for Callan, running straight at him with his weapon held above his head. Callan dodged the attack at the last moment, spinning out of the youngling’s path and delivering a light slap to the back of the child’s thighs with the flat of his blade.
“I am the victor!” Callan crowed, raising a fist in the air. “No child can defeat me.”
The horde of younglings dropped their weapons and rushed him again, all working together and trying with all their might to wrestle him to the ground. Mercifully, Arik interfered on Callan’s behalf before they could achieve their aim.
“Enough, enough.” Arik wrangled the young folk and escorted them to the edge of the training field, waving them home with instructions to practice their strikes before the next lesson.
The excitable, high-pitched voices faded along with the low rumble of Arik’s as the first flakes of a snowstorm tumbled from the late-afternoon sky.
Callan set the training weapon on the nearby table and drew his own sword from its sheath, dragging the tip of the blade along the packed earth as he walked to the center of the training field.
He inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his mouth before launching into the strike sequence he and Arik had taught the younglings.
Callan lost himself in the movements, blissfully unaware of the world around him as he focused on his breathing. The weight of his sword in his hand.
The calm and clarity training brought him had never been more welcome than over the handful of months he’d remained in Nivali.
His separation from Nova left an ever-present ache in his chest. A pain eased only by training so intensely he collapsed into bed each night, too spent to mourn the absence of her beside him.
When Thorn prevented him from traveling north to visit Nova, invoking the terms of their bargain—Callan’s promise to remain in Nivali—Callan had been furious.
He hadn’t confirmed his uncle’s speculation about a mating bond.
Hadn’t wanted to give the bastard the satisfaction of knowing he’d seen something Callan had not.
Perhaps, in restricting Callan’s movements, Thorn had hoped to test his theory.
To judge whether Callan was truly bonded to Nova by the misery he felt at being kept from her.
And Callan was miserable. He longed for her terribly.
They wrote one another, but it almost made the separation more painful.
He found he wanted to tell her everything.
Every thought that entered his mind. Every insufferable tall tale his uncle shared in the Great Hall at the dinner hour.
He could have filled that linking book a hundred times over, and it still wouldn’t have been enough.
And so, he’d written her less often, hoping that would dull the ache.
Completing the sequence, Callan stood in the center of the training field, panting as he wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist.
“You don’t look like a coward to me,” a small voice said from behind him.
Surprised to find he wasn’t alone, Callan spun to face a young female with hair the golden color of ripe wheat, the top of her head no higher than his waist.
“I beg your pardon,” he replied, still out of breath.
“My father, he says you’re a coward,” she repeated with neither understanding nor regard for what the word did to him. “He says you abandoned Nivali when the folk needed you most. But you’re deadly with your blade, and you don’t seem like a coward to me.”
Callan flinched as though pierced through the heart.
His deepest shame laid bare by a child. He cleared the emotion from his throat and shook out his sword arm before lowering himself into a crouch before her.
She bit back a smile as she looked down on him, as if to say he didn’t look so deadly any longer.
“I’m sure your father is very wise,” Callan began. “But, as you can plainly see, I’m here. And you, miss, are very brave. Perhaps I could learn a thing or two from you. Now get yourself home before you get caught out in the storm.”
She nodded and scampered off the training field, her boots thumping on the frozen ground as she ran. Callan sheathed his sword at his back and made his way to the Estate.
The Great Hall was already full with folk, the tables laden with an evening meal of roasted pheasant and root vegetables.
Thorn sat on his simple wooden throne upon the dais, gnawing meat from the bone.
He straightened in his seat when he saw Callan enter the hall, motioning for his nephew to approach.
Thorn’s consort, Liv, sat to his right, surveying the crowd.
In the time Callan had remained at the Estate, she had become an ever-present fixture, rarely leaving his uncle’s side.
As Callan crossed the room, he noted Liv’s gown and its many layers of fine fabric.
Her face full and flushed when it had once been sharp and pallid.
She appeared to have grown accustomed to the luxuries of the nobility.
Callan halted at the base of the platform and bowed his head to his uncle.
“Join me, nephew.” Thorn grinned, already jovial with drink, and gestured to the empty seat to his left.
Callan had taken to eating with Arik and his squadron of warriors over dining at the regent’s table. While his relationship with his uncle had always been fraught to some degree, Callan had built a wall between them the moment Thorn refused to let him leave the Winter Court.
It was Thorn who first planted the seed in Callan’s mind that he might have a mating bond.
If his uncle had even the slightest suspicion that a bond existed between Callan and Nova, his demand that Callan remain was a selfish one.
Prolonged distance from one’s mate could make one heartsick, a malady of both body and mind.
The one saving grace was that neither of them had yet claimed the bond.
Though the separation was uncomfortable, it was manageable.
“Your invitation is appreciated, my Lord,” Callan replied. “But I plan to take my meal in my chamber tonight.”
Thorn’s face fell for an instant before his lips twitched back into a smile that failed to reach his eyes. “Sit.” He enunciated the word, lacing it with command.
Callan glanced at Liv, the unnerving weight of her all-seeing eyes upon him. She laid her hand atop Thorn’s, which gripped the arm of his throne. Thorn turned to the female briefly, his posture relaxing a degree.
“I insist,” he added with more congeniality than Callan was accustomed to receiving from his uncle.
Reluctantly, Callan nodded once and climbed the steps to join his uncle’s table.
Thorn hastily filled two mugs with honeyed wine, then nudged one across the table to Callan.
He turned to Liv and lifted the pitcher in offer, but she declined with a demure shake of her head.
Thorn set the pitcher down and scooped up his mug, draining it in one go before slamming it on the tabletop.
Out of respect, Callan raised his own cup to his lips and swallowed a mouthful.
“Our bargain is drawing to a close,” Thorn said, before wiping the drink from his beard with his shirt sleeve. “I expect you’ll waste no time running off to the Lunar Court again.”
He wiggled his fingers in the air, miming a pair of miniature legs.
Callan tensed at his uncle’s choice of words; he’d accused Callan of running away before. Callan flexed his left hand beneath the table, clenching it into a tight fist.
“I am eager to see Nova,” Callan replied. “I’ve made no secret of that.”
Thorn nodded slowly. “Rather curious how she’d apparently never set foot in Silvergard before, but now, only a short time later, serves as the Emissary of the Lunar Court.”
Callan considered his response for a beat, uncomfortable with the notion of Thorn watching Nova too closely. Few folk knew the truth about Nova’s paternity, and Callan intended to keep it that way.
“She made an impression on the Noble Lord.”
“Did she now?” Thorn widened his eyes and raised his brows in an exaggerated expression of surprise.
Callan knew his uncle well enough to see he was making mental calculations beneath the mask.
“I believe they share a love of plants,” Callan offered.
For a moment, Thorn was silent beside him, observing Callan intently, as if trying to decipher whether it was a jest. His bark of laughter cut above the lively hum of the hall, but there was little humor in it.
“I’ve never heard such nonsense,” Thorn said once his laughter dried up. He refilled his mug and swallowed a gulp of wine. “But if you say so, nephew. I’d be wary if I were you. Perhaps the Noble Lord has taken a liking to Miss Nova, if you catch my meaning.”
Callan despised when his uncle called Nova that. Thorn’s condescending tone roiled something primal in Callan’s gut. Though he knew of two substantial reasons why Nox was decidedly not interested in Nova, Callan bit his tongue.
He looked out over the crowd to the stairs leading to the upper level, where the quiet of his chamber beckoned to him. He wondered how best to extricate himself from the uncomfortable conversation which felt more like a veiled interrogation.
His uncle sighed and set his drink down noisily. “I trust she has shared the dreadful news with you.”
Callan snapped his head toward his uncle. “What dreadful news?”
“The Shadowbringer,” Thorn began, taking Liv’s hand in his. “He’s struck again.”
“Where?” Callan demanded, fearing the worst. He readied himself to stand and rush to depart if Nova was again in harm’s way, bargain be damned.
Thorn was slow to answer, seemingly amused by Callan’s distress. “Pyralis,” he said finally. “A score of guards taken.” Thorn held up a hand with his pointer finger extended. “And one heiress.”
“Fawn?” Callan tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry. He raised his cup and drained the rest of his wine. “How did this happen?”
“A breach of the shield around the Pyralis Estate.” Thorn turned away and joined his eyes with Liv’s as he spoke, his speech distracted. “She must’ve gotten caught up in the mess, poor pet. Estrid and Rowan are beside themselves, of course.”
Rage surged in Callan’s chest at his uncle’s disinterest. He rose to his feet, his chair scraping loudly across the platform.
“Did I not warn you that the attack in Whitepeak was Omen’s doing?” An entire settlement had been obliterated only a handful of months prior. “What must happen for you to take the threat seriously? Another attack in Nivali? An attack on your own Estate?”
His uncle was a tactician, not a warrior.
While Callan burned to ride out and face his foes, Thorn’s preferred strategy appeared to be isolation.
Barricading himself against the threat of his enemies behind a fog of drink and music within the walls of his own shielded Estate.
Callan forced a breath in and out through his nose, gripping the back of his chair with one hand.
“How can you be so glib?” he asked, words measured. “They’re practically blood.”
“My blood is here at this table,” Thorn spat, pounding a fist on the tabletop. The folk gathered in the hall briefly took notice of the regent’s outburst before returning to their meals.
Liv placed a hand on Thorn’s shoulder, and he rolled his neck, regaining his composure.
“I mean to tend my hearth. Let others tend their own.” He flicked a hand dismissively at Callan.
“Best of luck to you, uncle.” Callan turned to leave. “Though I fear you won’t realize danger has arrived at your doorstep until it’s too late.”