Chapter 3 #2
I looked over at Nana, mute plea in my eyes, but she shook her head. “That’s your problem to solve.”
I sighed. She wasn’t wrong. But why had he picked now of all times to show up?
I pushed off the table to stand, catching a glimpse of Griffin’s face. There was something dangerous lurking in his eyes. I faced Tanner in the doorway. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you I’d see you later.” He scrubbed a hand over his close-cropped brown hair, seeming to realize for the first time that maybe he was unwelcome here.
I rubbed in between my eyes. “Tanner, I told you. It’s over.”
“Is there a problem?”
A hulking presence was at my back. The man, Griffin, stood behind me, looming over me to glare at Tanner.
He was so close that if I took a single step back, I’d tuck my head right under his chin.
His heat seared into me, and I had to fight the urge to take that backward step.
The difference in builds between the two men was startling.
I had never noticed just how slight and short Tanner was, standing only an inch or two taller than me.
“Back off, Champion,” I fired over my shoulder, making a shooing motion toward the brute in my doorway. I took Tanner’s arm, solid under his filthy shirt, and then instantly regretted it as delight lit up his face. I dragged him outside, away from any listening ears.
“You need to leave.”
“Who is that, Lexa? Are you in danger? I can help—”
I cut him off. “I’m fine, but you need to leave. I don’t want you here.”
“How can you say that?” He looked at me in outrage. “After all we shared?”
I sighed. I didn’t want to hurt him—more than I already had—but for Erde’s sake, could he not just take a hint? And I certainly didn’t have the energy to deal with a tantrum from him. Not with the mess that awaited me in my kitchen.
He stared at me with wounded eyes, like a little puppy. Instead of softening me as it had in the past, it hardened my resolve.
“Find someone else, Tanner. I’m not your girl.” I hated the harshness in my voice, hated causing anyone pain, but my life was complicated enough at the moment.
He opened his mouth to say something else, but I shook my head.
Perhaps he finally had a clue that right now was not the time to mess with me.
He gave me another one of those puppy dog expressions before turning away.
I watched him walk down the path to be sure he left, then took another moment to rub my pounding temples before heading back inside.
Griffin had returned to his seat at the table, but from how his eyes followed me, I was sure he had tracked the entire exchange. “What was that?”
“Tanner.” The only explanation I could give.
Nana pursed her lips, clearly resisting saying whatever was on her mind.
“Is he a friend of yours?” Griffin’s face was unreadable, but his tone was pointed.
“No. He’s just… Tanner.” I dropped heavily into my chair, ready for whatever came next.
“Time is running short. I don’t want to rush you, but we need to return.” He said it gently, but my heart dropped and settled somewhere in the vicinity of my stomach. He was serious about taking me back. About me being the lost princess or whatever.
“I haven’t agreed to go with you,” I snapped, before looking at Nana.
Even though she gave me her usual fond smile, her eyes were full of aching sadness. “You’re needed there, little one. I wish we had more time to talk through this all, but he’s right. You need to go before the end of the High Day. Before the barriers between our lands are strengthened again.”
I looked at Griffin, to see if he had any further information, but he had stepped outside to give us privacy. Oddly considerate of him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I tried to keep my tone even, but she knew me well enough to hear the anger.
Maybe if she had mentioned anything about this to me while I was growing up, it wouldn’t be such a massive surprise right now.
And my head wouldn’t be hurting with all the new information I had learned, on the brink of departing from the only life I had known.
The fact that Nana hadn’t contradicted him about anything told me all I needed to know.
I could fight it as much as I wanted, but somehow, some way, I was leaving with that man and going through the Veil—whatever that was—even if he had to throw me over his shoulder to do it.
And deep down, there was that pull to go with him.
To find the adventure, just as the call had promised.
She just kept looking at me with that sad smile.
“I made an oath to your parents I would care for you, best that I could. I had hopes, when we left, that we could leave it all behind. Forever. That I could raise you here, let you live your life unburdened by what could happen. I’d seen it destroy our family and I never wanted that for you.
But I should have known the universe had a different plan for you. And the universe gets what it wants.”
“So now I’m going into someplace completely unprepared, completely ignorant of anything beyond this little village, because you had hopes?”
She smoothed my braid, and flakes of mud landed on the floor.
“You’ll adjust, little one. Even in that nest of vipers.
I have all the confidence in the world that you will do what must be done.
And despite my hopes, I always knew deep down you’d be taken from me.
You never would have been content to live your life in this little village.
You have so much more to give than you can find here. ”
She went over to her desk and pulled out a small, leather-bound book. Pushing it into my hands, she said, “Take this. I think you’ll have need of it.”
I stared at it, unseeing, as she gathered up my traveling coat. This was not happening.
“Nana, please—”
She held up a hand. “You’ll learn, little one. There are forces at play bigger than any of us. And the more we fight it, the stronger they keep us in their grasp.” She shook out my coat and held it up for me, but not before I saw the tears glistening in her warm brown eyes.
I slipped my arms through it, sticking the small book into a pocket, and took a long look at her. “Come with me.” I heard the plea in my voice. I was begging her to not force me to do this. Begging her not to leave me. Begging her for any scrap of comfort she could give.
Nana sadly shook her head. “That is not my life anymore. When I left, I knew it was for good.” She rested her hands on my shoulders, looking me straight in the eye.
“But Lexa, never doubt that I would have made the same choice every time. Everything that has happened, everything that will happen, was worth it to save you.”
“Will I ever see you again?” I asked in a small voice, once again the little girl who ran into her arms with a skinned knee.
“No one knows what your path holds. There are many forks in your road. But if you find yourself in need of me, you know where I’ll be.”
“That wasn’t much of an answer, Nana.” My joke fell flat beneath my tears.
She let out a watery laugh, before brushing her eyes. She opened her arms, and for one last moment, I could be that little girl who needed her grandmother. We clung to each other, a lifetime of memories in the embrace.
Releasing me, her hands came to my slim shoulders as she took a long look, smoothing my braid one last time, before she gave me a gentle push toward Griffin.
“Take care of her,” Nana told him.
He nodded solemnly. “I will.”
As we walked past Nana’s garden where I had spent countless hours tending it at her side, I paused for one last look.
Nana stood in the doorway of the only home I’d known.
She touched her forehead, kissed her fingertips, clenched her hand into a fist, and then pressed it to her heart.
She’d taught me enough of the old ways that I recognized it for what it was—a blessing for a warrior going off to war.
As we passed the wheat fields stretching out endlessly, their honey stalks swaying in the breeze, my new companion was silent. I was by no means talkative, but there I was, walking off into the unknown with a stranger and I had to know something, anything about him.
“Do you make a habit of finding strange women and taking them back to your kingdom, Griffin?”
“You’re the first. And most people call me Griff.”
Griff. The name fit him. The broad shoulders, the way he carried himself as if it was he who was the weapon not the swords strapped to his back, the stubble on his chin adding a ruggedness to an otherwise put-together appearance.
“Lexa,” I said, before wincing internally. Of course he knew my name.
“Nice to meet you.” He managed to say it with perfect sincerity.
We lapsed into silence again, walking the roads I’d walked my whole life. Except that wasn’t going to work for me.
“What exactly is the Champion?”
“Someone who fights on your behalf.”
“I fight my own battles.”
“That does not surprise me.”
“Are you always this verbose?”
“Actually, I’m usually quite the chatterbox.”
I stopped dead. “Really?”
“No.”
He walked on as I let out a growl of frustration. “You’re really not going to tell me what the Champion is?”
He looked at me sideways. “I did. But to elaborate, and get semantics straight, it’s not ‘the Champion’ but ‘your Champion.’” The corner of his mouth twitched at my confusion.
“You’re the princess, heir apparent to the reigning power.
Your grandfather, Zachariah, may be regent, but he’s just a placeholder until the crown chooses someone, presumably you.
The proper title is King’s Champion or Queen’s Champion—or, in this case”—he made a little motion in my direction—“the Princess’s Champion. ”
“What exactly does that entail? Explain in detail. Use multiple words.”
He slowed his steps and appeared to be thinking over the best way to answer. “It used to mostly be for times of war. Since we’re not officially at war, these days, it means I handle problems that arise.”
“And that’s you?”
“Why the note of confusion?”
“You’re what, twenty-five?”