CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
In Deckard and Evylin’s absence, the troop ate dinner and relaxed around the camp.
Thom found the additional company of the Alliance members to be highly welcome.
He’d not expected to like them so much. Though he supposed that after months of travel with Auden and Ilain, he ought to have anticipated enjoying the company of their older brother as well.
The newcomers fit in easily with the troop.
Vayden and Auden sat to the side, talking about Alliance happenings over the last two months.
Isla spoke comfortably with Ilain and Ethenn as the couple sat awkwardly next to one another.
Ilain pressed so close to the young man’s side that her leg regularly brushed against his, and his jaw kept flexing as though he were fighting the urge to run into the woods, which was one of the subjects that Thom, Rafferty, and Brea discussed with great mirth on their side of the fire.
“I have to tell you, my lovely lieutenant,” Rafferty said, leaning against his saddle, which was propped behind him on the ground, “I hadn’t expected you to be quite so companionable.”
“No?” Brea said.
“No,” Rafferty confirmed. “What with your logical speech the other night, I thought you’d be a right stick in the mud like Audy over there.”
At the nickname, Auden paused mid-sentence to glare in Rafferty’s direction before returning to his conversation.
Brea twirled her fork between her fingers. “When it comes to the craft of war, I am a stick in the mud,” she said. “But I’m a Warrior as well. Life gets boring when I’m not working, so that means I have to make my own entertainment.”
Thom expected Rafferty to make a lewd comment about the sorts of entertainment she might enjoy, but the weasel was already distracted by something else.
“Oy,” he called, gaze directed to the far side of the camp.
Everyone looked up at his exclamation, but his focus was wholly on where Ethenn had rested his arm behind Ilain’s back.
The posture wasn’t exactly affectionate, but it was certainly more familiar than the young man had been in the past.
“Getting rather cozy, aren’t we?” Rafferty teased.
Ethenn’s neck began to flush red, while Ilain showed no signs of discomfort. “It behooves a husband and wife to get comfortable with one another,” she said, amused.
“This is Loxley we’re discussing, my fine lady,” Rafferty noted. “Women are a frightening mystery to his fragile sensibilities.”
“Clearly,” Ilain said with haughty indifference, “you don’t know him very well.”
The insinuation caused Thom to smirk while Rafferty sniggered and Ethenn blushed a deeper shade.
“She didn’t mean it like that,” the young man asserted.
“How did she mean it?” Rafferty asked.
Thom shoved the man’s shoulder. “Leave them alone,” he said. “It’s bad enough we have to watch them snuggle. I don’t want to hear about Loxley’s conquests.”
Rafferty rolled his eyes but turned back to Brea, content to find a new distraction.
Ethenn held Thom’s stare for an extended second, an understanding passing between them. Perhaps Thom had progress to make, but their friendship was on its way to being mended.
Turning back to the fire, Thom smiled to himself. After all this time, he was finally improving. Becoming a better man was hard. Forgiving himself for his mistakes was even harder. But he thought he was getting the hang of it at last.
A few moments later, Deckard and Evylin returned to camp with Hewitt’s ghost in tow.
Deckard explained his plan to keep the ghost around in the evenings.
Thom was grateful for that. Between their months in the Ephrian Army and traveling with the Calders, he’d come to see Hewitt as a mentor, just as they all had.
The ex-general’s gruff demeanor and blunt conversation were often abrasive, but Thom found his manner strangely reassuring.
He had never questioned where he stood with Hewitt.
From the start, he’d always known that they were soldiers, not equals but like-minded men all the same.
And that made Thom feel understood in a way he rarely had in life.
After introducing Hewitt to Vayden, Isla, and Brea, the ghost proceeded to accost their new Warrior with questions. He wanted to ensure she was fit for training his niece and his men. Brea answered with confidence, unfazed by the intensity of Hewitt’s gaze.
Thom hadn’t realized how much he missed Hewitt until that moment. Even when he’d been tough on Thom, even when he’d said things Thom hadn’t wanted to hear, Hewitt had made him a better man. And in his desperation to prove himself, Thom felt he needed his mentor all the more.
When Deckard announced he was going to release Hewitt for the night, Thom quickly spoke up. “Wait. Could I—?” He hesitated as everyone looked at him. “Sorry, I was just wondering,” he met Deckard’s gaze with a pleading expression, “if I could speak with Hewitt alone for a moment?”
Deckard and Hewitt exchanged a look. “I don’t see why not,” the ghost said.
“I can only send you so far away from me with my power’s strength,” Deckard warned.
“You can accompany us,” Thom offered.
Deckard shook his head. “That’s not necessary.” He pointed to the trees where he and Evylin had walked earlier. “I’ll send him just behind that oak tree.”
With that, Hewitt disappeared from sight, and Thom rose. “Thank you,” he muttered as he hurried past Deckard.
Ducking into the trees, Thom found Hewitt exactly where Deckard had said he’d be. The burly man stood in the shadows, looking the same as he always had. It made Thom’s heart swell and break all at once.
“Well?” Hewitt said impatiently. “What did you need?”
Thom smirked. “You never change, do you?”
“Not if I can help it.”
He laughed, then sobered immediately. “I wanted to apologize,” he said. “You were right the other day. I betrayed your trust—and Evie’s and Deckard’s. I was foolish and arrogant, and if I could take it all back . . .”
Hewitt watched him coldly, his eyes like steel. “You always were too conceited to see past your own nose.” He sighed then. “Just like I was.”
Thom looked up at him, confused.
“I’m the second son, too, remember?” Hewitt said. “I spent my life as the lesser. All you lot like me now, but you didn’t know me back then. It’s a wonder I ever convinced Irena to give me a chance. I was foolhardy, arrogant, and violent. And I made even more mistakes than you in my day.”
Thom shifted on his feet, wondering how that was possible.
Since the day he joined the army, all he’d ever heard about General Hewitt Glaas was that he was a military master, a veritable legend.
And then he was gone, leaving a gaping hole in the army’s command.
Imagining such a man to be a screwup like him. . . .
“What changed?” Thom asked. “If you were really as bad as all that, how did you become . . . this? How did you stop making mistakes and become a legend?”
Hewitt frowned as though he’d never considered it. “There was a draft,” he said. “I was conscripted, and for once in my life, I had a purpose, somewhere I could put the aggression I felt and turn it into something good.”
Nodding, Thom took in his words. A purpose.
He couldn’t say he’d ever felt he had a purpose either.
He’d always just lived, never thinking of how he might do more.
Deckard had a purpose. Since birth, it seemed that Deckard sought out ways to serve, to be of use to the world around him.
All the while, Thom looked for ways that others could serve him.
Perhaps that was the key. If Thom could discover a purpose and a means to impact those around him, he might finally have a chance to become a man of value.
“Could you help me?” Thom asked the ghost. “I want to do that—find my purpose and do something good in this world. But the army didn’t do that for me. Even this mission hasn’t done that for me. And if saving our country isn’t enough to give me that . . . I don’t know what will.”
Hewitt tugged at his beard. “I can try to help you,” he said. “But in the end, you’re the only one who can answer that question. What is more and what is less to you? That’s the answer you’ll have to find. Because it’s different for us all.”
The charge was weighty. It felt impossible. If almost twenty-eight years hadn’t given Thom a direction, how was he supposed to suddenly figure it out for himself?
“Can’t you just . . . tell me what I should do?” Thom asked, knowing the answer.
Hewitt didn’t bother to reply, raising a bushy eyebrow instead.
Thom sighed. “Yeah, I get it.” He gave a sour smile. “Thanks. It’s nice having you around again.”
“I’d say the same, but then I’d be a liar.”
A deep laugh burst from Thom’s core. “You always were a blighter. Don’t know why anyone likes you.”
The smallest grin tugged at the corner of Hewitt’s mouth. “Me neither.”
“All right, old man,” Thom said. “I’ll leave you alone.”
“Thom.”
He stopped in his tracks, turning back.
Hewitt stared at him, something like pride in his gaze. “She chose you too,” he said. “And so did I.”
The comment warmed Thom from the inside out.
And he knew it was true. Perhaps Evylin had chosen Deckard as a husband, but she’d chosen Thom as a brother.
Perhaps Hewitt had chosen Deckard to care for his girl, but he’d chosen Thom as well, albeit in a different way.
The truth was that he’d never been rejected.
He’d simply failed to see the value in the role he’d been offered.
Walking back into the camp, Thom’s eyes immediately found Deckard and Evylin sitting together by the fire.
They were eating their dinner, lukewarm from their late arrival, both of them smiling as though they weren’t fighting to end a war.
Deckard kept putting his slice of bread in Evylin’s bowl, and she kept returning it to him in some secret battle of goodwill.