TWENTY-SEVEN #3
The oscen soars overhead as if trying to determine why we have visitors again. It lands on a nearby branch, its beady eyes trained on Taliesin like it doesn’t trust him.
He stares back at it. “I think your pet hates me.”
“It’s not my pet.” I’m just the one who let it out of that cage. I guess that’s why we’re bonded. “It’s … my companion.”
“A familiar?” He laughs, shaking his head. “That doesn’t make you sound like a witch at all.”
I freeze at the words, and a second later, Taliesin yelps. “What the fuck, Vess?”
He turns, twisting in an attempt to look over his own shoulder—where Vessica’s dagger is planted about an inch deep. He glares at her as he pulls it out.
She swipes it from him, not an ounce of concern on her face. “Why don’t you hit the infirmary?”
His eyes narrow before he waves a hand at her. Looking down at me, he grins. “If you change your mind …”
I nod, trying to keep laughter from bubbling out of me. “Sure. I’ll just follow the trail of blood.”
Taliesin grumbles under his breath as he leaves, one hand pressed over the fresh wound.
“Thanks,” I say lightly to Vessica.
But she doesn’t look up from cleaning the tip of her blade. “He wouldn’t try anything.”
“I doubt that.” I snort.
“He wouldn’t dare.” She lifts an eyebrow in disbelief.
I don’t ask her why.
She doesn’t offer.
“Is this the part where you say you’ll go with me?” This is getting nearly as tiring as my actual training.
But she shakes her head. “You don’t need a chaperone.”
Exactly. I’m about to say so when she hits me with, “You need to get over that fucking mark on your chest.”
My mouth hangs open, the sharpness of her response stealing my own.
“We all have scars,” she explains, tipping her head in the direction Taliesin just went. “All of us.”
I swallow, the dirt under my knees suddenly very cold. “It’s not a scar.”
“I know that,” she says, and for the first time ever, she smiles at me. It’s fucking terrifying. “The question is: do you?”
I miss him again.
My grip fails for a second, just long enough that I almost drop my sword.
Every muscle in my arm burns, and I grab the handle with my left hand, too.
But it’s not enough. I can’t summon the strength, even with two hands on the hilt, and my next slice is weaker.
It’s aimed so low that I nearly take off Bishop’s most important appendage, but he leaps back and easily knocks my sword away.
“Maybe … we should call it a day.” He draws a heavy breath, giving me a look that sends my very limited confidence crashing.
We’ve only been here for an hour. That’s barely worth the time it took to reach the astrolatory. I clamp my mouth shut like if I keep the pain in, I can leverage it to raise the sword again.
But Bishop slides his own in the sheath strapped to his back. A few weeks in, and I’ve learned this is his signal that the lesson is over. “You’re shaking. You can barely lift your sword.”
“I’m fine.” But my blade tips down, wobbling in my trembling fingers before my hold on it slips again and it sticks in a patch of grass growing between the loose stones.
His gaze narrows on it.
“I know. Bad form. Proper weapons handling,” I grumble, refraining from reciting one of his many lectures back at him. “I’ll do better next time. I’m ready now.”
“You’re lying.” He waits like he’s daring me to deny it.
I lift my chin, trying to make a weapon out of pride. Because he’s right, damn him. I can’t lift the fucking sword another minute. “Train me anyway.”
“No.” He doesn’t soften, doesn’t show a single ounce of pity. For some reason that makes it sting less when he adds, “We’re through here.”
Not that I’m about to accept defeat. “If you won’t train me, I’ll find someone else.” I turn to make good on the threat.
I’ve shown up every day for weeks. No matter how hard it rained or how cold the wind got. Even the day the mountain dropped snow on us like it was testing my resolve, too.
I’m not stopping now.
But Bishop’s lips curl into a smile, the one that makes my heart skip a beat for all the wrong reasons. The one that makes me wish he would take me inside and give me a very different kind of lesson …
“Try it,” he says like he’s crossing names off a list, “and I’ll personally come down to explain their options to them.”
That snaps me right out of my temporary daze.
“Their options?” My voice rises. How does he find new and unique ways to piss me off every day? “Do you really think Taliesin or Vessica will—”
“Yes, I do,” he cuts me off.
“You didn’t even let me finish the question.” I grit my teeth, trying to find the energy to pick the sword back up, to prove him wrong.
“Because you didn’t have to,” he says, his jaw clenching like it does when he’s frustrated.
Specifically, frustrated with me.
But when he finally continues, his tone is gentler. “You can’t go like this every day. Take a few days off—”
“Days?” The word explodes out of me. I can’t take that much time, not when I should have started this months ago, not when every breath I take is a reminder that I didn’t.
“Days,” he repeats firmly. “Rest. Hit the baths.”
“Absolutely fucking not.” Something trembles in my voice, something that wants to crack. Break.
“No one will care,” he murmurs, taking a step closer. He reaches for my sword, but I lock my grip, refusing to release it. His hand covers mine, and this time, he’s the one who won’t let go. Not that I try to pull away. “They won’t say anything about the raven-mark.”
“They don’t have to say anything.” The truth chokes out of me, working its way around the lump in my throat. I blink against the watery heat that follows. I will not cry in front of him. He already thinks I’m broken. “It’s how they’ll look at me.”
“So?” He lifts a brow. Another step closer.
One more and there won’t be any space left between us at all.
“Why don’t you go to the baths?” I ask, unable to look away from him despite everything.
“That’s different.” A muscle flexes in his jaw, and my gaze travels to it—to the slight stubble shadowing the strong line it carves. He didn’t shave today. That usually means he didn’t sleep.
“Not for me.” It’s little more than a whisper. Part of me is still ashamed that I care. That I haven’t learned to live with my birthright. I haven’t even tried. “The last time someone saw the mark … it didn’t end well.”
He winces slightly, as if the words hit and stuck like the tip of my sword that’s still planted in the grass. “Arden …”
But I shake my head, a single tear escaping down my cheek. So fucking weak. “When they … That night …” I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to keep the rest from falling. “I see their faces when I close my eyes. I can’t … Not yet.”
Maybe someday I won’t hide. I have to believe that. I have to believe my entire life won’t drain down to the fickle actions of the Stars. Because if I stop, I don’t think I’ll ever believe in anything again.
Bishop’s fingers close over mine, his body shifting just enough that my breath catches.
He goes still, and I open my eyes to find him locked in a silent war with himself.
The kind that leaves no ground untouched.
The battle waging in his eyes makes my core tighten with something I refuse to name.
He opens his mouth, and a ragged breath slips free, his full lips parting like he’s already losing an argument with himself.
And I can’t look away … even if I should.
Because he’s looking at me like he cares. Not like I’m his responsibility. Or his duty. But someone who matters to him. Heat curls somewhere low and treacherous, and I hate myself more for how badly I want to lean into his grip, to see what would happen if one of us gave in.
If I gave in.
Temptation. That was his word for it. I didn’t understand it that night. But now? I get it. Get wanting something even though every part of me knows it’s wrong. Fighting to hold back when my fingers long to lace through his.
His free hand reaches for my hip, but he hesitates.
It ghosts there, close enough that I’m sure I can almost feel him touching me.
Far enough that I want to beg him to prove that he’s real again.
Like that night he walked into my room and put some small piece of me back together.
Even if I couldn’t admit it to him then.
Even if I won’t admit it to him now.
And somehow, I know that we’ll keep doing this. Keep tiptoeing up to this line. Keep waiting for the other one to cross it. Both of us stuck in an endless cycle of want and self-denial. Unable to control this thing drawing us together.
But I have to control something in my life before everything I was before him slips away.
So I pull back first, releasing the sword to his grasp.
Bishop sucks down a deep breath, nostrils flaring, and a slight wildness flashes in his blue eyes. But he takes my weapon and nods once, like he understands.
And I hate him for it—just a little. Just enough to maintain this new space I’ve put between us. Because he’ll never break. Never give in. Never step over that line.
And fuck, I want him to. After the weeks spent training, every day. His body pressing against mine to fix my form but reminding me that I’m alive in all the right ways. His gruff brand of friendship making me glad that I am.
“I need to go.” His voice is quiet, strained like this is costing him something, too. “I have business.”
Sadness curves my mouth into the barest smile. “Of course you do,” I say softly, adding a silent again. It’s not escaped my notice that there’s a crisis every time we get too close. “When will you be back?”
“I don’t know.” He turns when I frown at this and picks up the coat he abandoned on one of the stone wolves guarding the entrance. “There’s been another one.”
I freeze. “Another what?”
But even at this angle, something in his face tells me before he speaks. “Another murder.”
The news hits me like a cold splash of water, dousing the embers smoldering at my core. “Where?”
Not Damalis again. Please not Damalis.
His chest heaves as he sighs. “In Ardermare.”