Chapter Ten The Cleary Wood #3
Reya twisted, showing off the deceptively delicate-looking steel pieces that completed the final layer.
The armorer saw what most saw in the patterns she’d hand-drawn for the breastplate, spaulders, and vambraces—lines and whirls far too elegant for any thief.
No one noticed the Etellinian knots she’d so carefully incorporated into the sketches—symbols of valor from a bygone era. Symbols of home.
“I designed these pieces myself.” There was only one symbol she’d left off her armor, a sacred mark she hadn’t yet earned.
She brushed her thumb over the pommel of her father’s sword, tracing the line down its center.
One day, when she finished her apprenticeship, she would ink that rune on her skin instead, in the Etellinian way.
Her father had placed his on his forearm.
She was still deciding where to place hers.
Caelan smirked.
“What?” she demanded, examining the surface for any scratches or dents.
“You give away more than you think, thief,” Caelan said.
He took up her left wrist and carefully angled her vambrace toward the moonslight, illuminating the curves of the design.
He laid a finger directly atop the protection knot she’d etched there.
Heat flared in her cheeks, and that smug, roguish tilt she’d seen on his mouth in the inn returned.
“Between the armor, the sword, and the hair…” His fingers found the end of the complicated braid that fell past her waist and tugged. The pressure was slow and luxuriously rough. She was forced to lift her chin. “I would wager that you’re a daughter of Old Etellina.”
Reya tried for nonchalance, even as the sensation on her scalp made her want to moan. “Maybe I just thought they were pretty.”
Those eyes simmered at her reaction, a barely perceptible crack in his otherwise impenetrable guard. “Nice try, Reyanwyn of the Mountain.”
The heat in her core evaporated, and she shoved him off. Reya didn’t care that he’d guessed her full name. Didn’t care that the sound of it on his lips was like a sting and a balm all at once, reminding her that she still belonged to it. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s not my name,” she said sharply. “Now it’s your turn. And it better be good.”
They stared at each other. Come on. Give me something.
“My armor is Alethian-made,” Caelan said at last.
Reya’s mouth went dry. He couldn’t be serious.
Once the largest Sage stronghold on the continent, Alethia had, in another age, been a global city and the center of world trade.
Thousands of leagues to the south, it was rumored to be the birthplace of magic, home to an ancient pool from which all magic flowed, waters that held all the answers of their world.
But when Rhiterra attacked Alethia in an event that historians would call the Fall, it effectively ended Sage rule.
“You mean to say that you’ve been,” Reya said, hesitating.
“To Alethia, I mean.” Referred to now on maps as the Mists, Alethia was impenetrable even by sea, lost beneath a shroud of fog no one could explain.
Anyone who got too close found themselves adrift or mad, their heading and purpose forgotten.
The most common theory was that the All-Gods had cursed the land so that the Rhiterrans might never claim its secrets for their empire.
“I was a general before the Fall.”
As in, he led Alethian armies? Her next words were slow and measured. “That would make you more than five hundred years old.”
Caelan merely raised a brow.
“Holy Mother above,” she whispered involuntarily. “How old are you?”
He seemed content to leave that question dangling there.
She had figured he was old, just not that old. Caelan was an Alethian, an elite warrior, a figure of legend. He had fought in wars that swords like her father’s had been forged for.
“This armor was designed especially for the select host I commanded. The Shadow Legion.”
Reya pictured a whole host of Sages out there just like Caelan. And he was their leader. The name alone was terrifying. She saw the information for what it was—a name in exchange for the one he’d extracted from her. An even trade.
“How many of you are there?”
Caelan’s face showed no reaction, but his eyes guttered like coals in a dying hearth. “There were once many. Now only a few of us remain. I wear the armor to honor them.”
She understood now the lingering grief in his eyes. The anger. The guilt. Caelan Halcyon had led warriors into battle. And those warriors had died.
“What’s it like to live for that long?”
It was hard to see his age in a body that looked no older than twenty-five years, but she heard the weight of every century in his answer. “Exhausting.”
Reya hummed evenly. “I think I would get bored.” There had never been anyone for her to ask how long a demi-Sage might have to walk this earth.
In her line of work, she was more likely to die before she ever found out anyway.
Reya supposed Caelan might know, but instead she asked softly, despite her better judgement, “Do you ever think about ending it?”
Caelan’s mouth rose on one side, but there was no humor in the movement. “Only every day.”
The raw honesty surprised her. She had a feeling she would need all his centuries to unpuzzle this male.
“Why not just let whatever’s killing you finish the job?” She crossed her arms. “What do you live for, Caelan Halcyon?”
His irises sparked again as he stared into the darkness. “Vengeance.”
There was no point in offering condolences. He’d lived too long. Seen too much. Suffered too many losses. The time for being sorry had long since passed, and her sentiments meant nothing to him. So she simply said, “I hope you get it one day.”
In the silence that followed, Reya assumed their conversation was over. Then he asked, “And you? What do you live for, Reyanwyn of the Mountain?”
She looked away as if to shield against the specter of that name. The answer to his question came to her far quicker than she expected. “The next job.”
A wolf howled in the distance, and Reya went still.
Caelan casually rested his hand on his sword. Another joined in, then another, until the forest was a chorus of cries, close enough to be a problem.
“Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” she said.
Caelan’s reply was dry. “Would you like me to lie?”
“Would it make me feel better?”
“Get your things, thief,” he growled. “We’re leaving.”