Chapter Nine #2
Unfortunately, they couldn’t leave the same way they came in, not with the blood splashed on her cloak.
Instead, they darted from shadow to shadow, keeping to the silent parts of the city while boots rushed in the opposite direction.
They were long gone before anyone even found the poor kid’s body, even further away by the time they found the blood stains of the drunkards.
Callum was dragging Avelina into one of the many barns along the western wall of the Stronghold by the time the alarms went off.
Rat and Jed were further along, they knew better than to make a peep. He would find them once the dust settled in an hour or two. It was only Callum and Avelina in that hay. He shoved her down into the heaps of dusty yellow, extinguishing the lantern over their stall overhead.
“I didn’t—”
“Enough,” he snapped again, finding her struggling in the dark. Callum smacked her hands out of the way till he had her wrists pinned in the dark. She seethed under him as he blocked out any light over her. “When are ya gonna wake up and accept what ya are?”
“Fuck you,” she spat, feet kicking at his sides, but he could feel how weak the blows were.
Avelina cried harder, her suffering sniffles echoing off the wood.
Thankfully, hay muffled a lot of noise. She grunted, huffed, and even whined as she tried to free herself, only to finally give in with a heavy drop.
He could feel her muscles relax all at once.
If it wasn’t for his dark vision, he’d think she’d fallen asleep with how sharply she changed.
But he could see her eyes focused on the far away wall, the tears flowing down her cheeks.
Callum snatched her up by those soft, round cheeks and forced her to look at him again.
“Yer a warlock,” he hissed, pressing into her plush cheeks. “Best start actin’ like one.”
Pushing off her, he left her to wallow in her self-pity and slid to the stall door.
The sound of her sniffling slowly faded, and he craned his ears for evidence of rushed boots or barked orders.
If they thought the killers were in the farming district, they didn’t act on it, because the barn was practically abandoned, save for the horses.
He saw a few of them posted throughout the barn, all chewing lazily or sleeping. Clearly unbothered by our presence.
“You didn’t have to kill him.” Her raspy croak reeled his attention in from the world beyond the barn, back to the bundled mess behind him.
“Yes I did,” Callum sighed in frustration. “If they knew it was you in here causin’ a stir, they’d lose their minds.”
“Pfft, no they wouldn’t.”
“Oh yeah?” He turned back to face her.
“SunBringer’s followers are incapable of going mad,” she breathed and suddenly, Callum realized what part of his statement she took offense to, and it wasn’t what he expected. “Me, however, I feel like I’m walking in a lucid dream.”
“Like I said, about time ya wake up and smell the roses, or whatever.” Callum slithered closer to her and settled down into the heap of hay lining the back wall of their stall.
“I knew him,” she whimpered, arms wrapped around her legs. Her fingers fiddled with the laces of her boots. “I remember seeing him as a kid. Every time Everest made us come back here with him for a visit, I’d run into him around the halls. He was a good kid.”
Callum furrowed his brows, squinting at her. “Who is Everest?”
“My father,” she snorted. “Everest Dalethorn the Third, Knight Commander of the Order of The Last Pheonix. Lord of Parandor.”
The tone with which she listed his titles told Callum that she loathed all of them.
Like they were concrete bricks fastened to her ankles, dragging her deeper into a lake of misery; he could only imagine their weight.
With a snort, he shook his head in disbelief.
“I can’t believe ya call yer daddy by his first name. ”
Avelina choked on a laugh, “Well, I would rather eat hot coals than call him daddy.”
“Fair, save that kind of name-callin’ for some pirate captain that steals ya away from yer castle in the clouds.”
“What?” she wheezed, glancing at him despite the fact he was plunged in shadow.
By the time they hit the barn, the sun was gone but the moon wasn’t up high in the sky.
The stars glittered in the night sky, and there were lanterns, but much of the Stronghold was engulfed in darkness.
Once he snuffed the lantern dangling over the front of their stall, there wasn’t enough light for her to see him.
And yet, he could tell she shot him the most baffled, humored look.
“Isn’t that what happens in those bodice rippers yer such a fan of?” he teased.
“Pfft, yeah, okay.” Her shoulders trembled as she put her face back down into her knees. “And I guess you call your father ‘daddy’?”
“Nah, I don’t call him nothin’ on account that I have no idea who he is.”
“Lucky,” she grumbled.
“Yeah? Wanna switch?” He grinned to himself, laying back against the scratchy straws.
“No, thank you.”
“Always so polite.”
“It costs you nothing to be kind.”
“It’ll cost you everything,” he countered as he lulled his head to the side to watch her.
“Bein’ kind is the fastest death sentence.
My ma taught me that. You’d probably like her; she wasn’t mean or nothin’.
Just wasn’t nice. Raised me and four other hatchlings, some of them turned out alright I suppose. ”
Callum wasn’t sure why the words kept flowing from his mouth.
He wasn’t nervously trying to fill the air, nor was he trying to win anything from her—he didn’t need her to actually like him or care about him for this to work.
There was some other reason, a weird tingle in the center of his chest that said he wanted her to know.
Just evening the playing field, I guess?
It was strange, he never used to care about talking to others. With Avelina it was…fun?
She sputtered again, a weak laugh escaping her. “You? Had siblings?”
“That so hard to imagine?” he teased.
“I just always figured that outlaws were single children.” The laughter was soft. A delicate thing, fragile like the moment between them, easily burned or scared or ruined.
For the first time in a long time, Callum didn’t want to ruin something. He arched an inquisitive brow out of reflex and smirked, “And why’s that?”
“Most children learn how to share through their siblings. And if you know how to share, why would you ever be an outlaw?” She sighed dreamily, laying back in the hay to stare at him.
Even though, to her, he was probably a vague figure, no more tangible than smoke with all the darkness around her…
she looked right in his eyes, and he felt a tug somewhere in his stomach.
It wasn’t lust, it wasn’t desire, it wasn’t in his heart.
The feeling was strange and elusive as he rolled onto his side, propping his head up onto his arm.
“Darlin’, if you think I don’t know how to share—” He let her cut him off with another snort and stronger, happier giggles.
“Puh-lease,” she exaggerated the sound. Avelina narrowed her eyes on him but there was no venom in it, not like before. “You’re probably the most selfish person in all of existence.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe, sweetness.” He reached out and tucked a loose tendril of her hair out of her face. His fingertips brushed along her cheek. Skin hot as coals, he wanted to tug her in close, soak in her, keep all that toasty feeling for himself. Selfish? He could show her selfish.
Only the sound of boots clanking through the district caused them to tense.
They’re close. He sat up slowly, keeping a finger against her lips.
If they timed it perfectly, they could slip out across the cattle bridge into the night.
With a jerk and a tug, he hoisted her back up onto her feet and they crept through the barn, following the clink, clank, clunk of heavy armor boots charging right up for the bridge.
“They’ll see us,” she hissed softly under her breath, the pair escaping the barn and following the wall toward the drawbridge.
“Not if we’re clever.”