Chapter 33
FEAR AND TRUST
ICOULD NEVER HATE YOU, Kal. I love you too much.
The rest of what Felíne had been about to say was cut short by Kal kissing her palm.
And thank the gods. She wasn’t ready to say those words out loud.
Nothing good would come of them. Only pain.
Only bitterness. She didn’t want her first confession of love to result in hurt.
So she wrapped them up, those tender words, and tucked them into a corner of her heart.
There, they would remain hidden—unheard, unseen, yet felt with every beat.
They continued to train in the glen near Kal’s house, a steady quiet having settled between them.
Felíne felt her muscles strain with each new exercise, micro tears aching the fibers.
Her whole body hurt. She was too tired to ask all the questions that ceaselessly swam in her mind.
But just because she didn’t ask, didn’t mean she didn’t crave the answers.
Why did her parents kill Kal’s family? What was so threatening that they felt it necessary to end them?
Kal told her it was power, greed, and ego.
He said her father couldn’t stand the thought of another ruling family refusing to submit to the Asterosian Crown.
That the king and queen resented Brightsea’s refusal to accept the Faithful Cursed religion.
Perhaps. But something told her it was more than that.
What happened next? They both knew the Conclave of Meress would come for them. Kal was a mighty warrior, one who commanded respect, but he was still only one man. Beulah had given her warning. Eventually, they would come to exact their punishment.
Felíne couldn’t help but feel like she was spending time she didn’t have waiting for things to happen.
Her entire childhood had been spent waiting.
Preparing, yes, but waiting. Since escaping the rigors of her schedule as the Prima, Felíne realized how much she loathed it.
She needed to do something. Move toward some goal.
As fervently as she wished she could spend eternity in this quiet wood with Kal watching over her, it was an empty appeal.
People depended on her. She didn’t have the luxury of leisure.
Imogen needed her. The Fates needed her.
Divine, the whole race needed her. And she needed answers.
Felíne dragged her arm back, steadied its trembling with a slow breath, and jerked it forward. The axe flew, spinning through the air and embedding itself in the far edge of the target.
“Better.”
Kal watched as she retrieved the third axe, wrenching it out of the wood. Her shoulder screamed.
She met his gaze on the way back to her throwing spot. “What?”
His dark eyes were steady on her face, but she felt them like inky rivulets rolling lazily across her skin. “You’re changing.”
“What, no more weak little pampered princess?”
Kal didn’t smile, but his eyes laughed. “Oh, you’ve been pampered alright.
There’s no changing that.” Then he sobered.
“But you were never weak, Kitty. That’s just something you told yourself because they allowed you to think it.
You have more power, more potential than you give yourself credit for. It’s time you realized it.”
Felíne swallowed, throat suddenly thick. He didn’t say the rest. He didn’t have to. Those obsidian orbs, shot through with a startle of shining gold, spoke the words his mouth did not.
And I will be here to help you, whether you’ll have me or not.
“Kal,” she whispered.
Movement and a colorful curse fractured the moment.
Felíne pivoted at the same time Kal flipped a knife into his palm. He threw his other arm in front of her.
A huge red and silver horse broke from between the trees and galloped into the clearing.
Nostrils flaring, head aloft, Sig skidded to a stop mere paces away, cleaving gouges in the grass that rivaled the ones Felíne’s axe had left.
She smiled and reached around Kal for the dangling lead.
Kal jerked her back just as Sig’s front hoof lashed out viciously.
The stallion spun and danced away to the far side of the meadow, tossing his proud head side to side, tail swishing.
“What happened to him?” she asked, concerned. This wasn’t the same creature that had dutifully carried them through days of rugged terrain, braving desert monsoons, treacherous gulches, and wooded forest.
“Nothing,” Kal said, snorting. His disregard surprised her. “He’s throwing a tantrum.”
“That’s a tantrum? He nearly cleaved me in two!”
“If that horse wanted to harm you, he’d have tried harder than that. Stallions are proud, irascible creatures. Sig’s better behaved than most. I left him in a strange stable and haven’t checked in. He’s having his fit.”
Felíne watched the noble beast pretend to ignore them in the taller grass of the meadow. It appeared that violent outbursts were a common hazard among intact males. The cleaved section of wood came readily to mind.
“I should have him gelded.”
She gasped, refocusing. “You wouldn’t!”
Kal shrugged. “It’d mellow him out.”
“He’s a bloody menace, mate,” a familiar voice called. Felíne’s heart leapt in startled disbelief. “I’ll help you cut him.”
Devereux Santaire strode into the clearing wearing a lazy grin on his handsome, clean-shaven face.
His silver hair had been swept back and tied, several strands falling into his thundercloud eyes.
A leather cuirass hugged the lean torso of Adder’s first form, dark trousers sheathed his long legs, and leather boots protected his feet.
The first time Felíne met him, she’d been in fear for her life and Kal’s.
Ironhide, she’d called him, after his second form’s shaggy, iron-colored coat.
Then he’d saved her from the Trade Master’s scales and what promised to be an unfair weighing of her character by Garren, the Trade Master’s brother.
She had missed Adder’s casual smiles and jovial manner.
It felt ages since she’d last seen him in Cindamar, rather than weeks.
Adder reached them and bowed before her with a formal flourish, a devilish grin playing at the corners of his mouth. “My lady,” he sang, extending a hand. “Your beauty far exceeds my memory’s feeble grasp. Consider me enraptured anew.”
Kal swatted the hand away from her. “Get up, you idiot.”
Adder winked at her as he stood and embraced his friend.
“What are you doing here?”
“Missed you, too, mate,” Adder teased. Then to Felíne, “Kitty, love, I thought you’d keep him out of trouble.”
She cocked a brow. “Have you ever attempted such a thing?”
He grinned wider. “Point made.”
“It would take the gods descending to keep Kalevar Kaine out of trouble,” said a woman Felíne hadn’t noticed and didn’t recognize.
She was shorter than Felíne, and slighter, with a long, thin nose and close brown eyes that reminded her of a field mouse.
But where a mouse was timid, this woman seemed made of cautious defiance.
“And even then, I doubt they’d succeed in tempering their foolhardy creation. ”
Kal’s countenance softened on the woman. “Santhe—”
She held up a slender hand. “No. I’ve got words for you, Kal.
It’s been hell. Divine hell. All of Meress is in an uproar over your recent stupidity.
Saul’s at the end of his rope with the Conclave.
A third of the witnesses want your head, a third of them want hers, and the rest can’t decide what’s what.
The only thing they agree on is that you botched the trial, and someone has to answer for it.
It’s a mess. The only reason the two of you haven’t been dragged off your property is because Saul has the militia’s weight and several members of the Watch to back him, and the man takes an age to make a decision.
” She took a labored breath. “That first night, I was concerned for you, but I thought you’d at least attempt to mend things before they began to fester.
Now, I can see you’ve completely lost your damned mind. ”
Kal allowed Santhe her rant but was not incited by it. “Did you bring my horse because you want me to run?”
The woman tossed up her hands. “No, you dolt. I brought your horse because the poor stablemaster’s had enough of his shitty attitude.
” Santhe stuck a finger into Kal’s chest. “And I’ve had enough of yours.
It’s time you explained yourself, Kalevar Kaine.
Your friends deserve that much if you’ve any plans to keep them. ”
Back at the house, after Sig was settled in the corral behind the cabin and placated with a bucket of grain, Kal left his friends in the kitchen and led Felíne to the bedroom. He shut the door behind them.
“Your friend—Santhe?—is unhappy with you.”
Kal sighed. “She has a right to be.”
Felíne sank onto the edge of the mattress. “Because of me.” This secret she’d kept had ramifications reaching beyond the people in direct contact with her. She’d never met Santhe, had no idea how close a friend Kal considered her, and yet Felíne’s lie affected her, too.
“No,” Kal said. “Because of my decisions. My actions led to this.”
Felíne laughed. It was a humorless sound. “You wouldn’t have done any of what you did if it weren’t for me. If I’d told you the truth.”
Fear was an insidious foe. It disguised itself as caution, undermining trust. It wormed through the foundation of a relationship, riddling it with holes, so that when courage finally arrived, it was too late. The whole thing was already primed to collapse.
Kal fell quiet. His silence served as his reply.
Felíne put her head in her hands. The harder she tried to fix things, the more broken they became. “What do I do?”
Kal squatted before her, forearms braced atop his knees. “We,” he corrected. She peeked up at him and found his gaze level with hers. Even now, he offered to wade through the muck and mire with her, though she deserved to trudge it alone.
We, then, she thought with a blossom of gratitude. “What do we do?”
He was quiet for a moment, contemplating, then tentatively said, “We could offer them the truth.”
The truth. That damnable thing. Felíne couldn’t prevent worry clamping around her chest. Kal was the only person outside the walls of Asteros who knew who she was.
And the sole reason he guarded her secret was because she meant something to him.
Adder was Kal’s closest friend. If he learned the truth, he might safeguard it out of loyalty to Kal.
But Santhe? The woman’s disdain was apparent. Felíne knew nothing about her.
“We could use their help,” he said. “But only with your permission.”
Felíne searched Kal’s face. The serious slash of his brow. The bottomless black sea that roiled in his eyes. The grooves of tension at the corners of his mouth. The shadowed stubble along the line of his jaw. “If I say no?”
His reply was immediate. “I will carry your secret into my grave.”
If fear was an insidious foe, then trust was an unexpected ally.
“You trust them?”
He nodded.
Felíne reached for his hand. Squeezed it. “I trust you. Tell them what you will.”