Chapter Thirteen My Star
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MY STAR
Ashes fell like rain.
You are a wonder, said a voice that was ancient as the stars.
Reya stood on a smoking battlefield of fallen soldiers, the dead piled around her like swells in a violent storm. Magic-born and human alike.
“This isn’t real,” Reya whispered.
A rotting hand grabbed her ankle. Another curled around her knee, the plated steel fingers of its gauntlet cutting into the leather as the dead beneath her feet began to rise.
It will be, the numen said. Unless you do what is necessary.
The corpses clambered over one another, latching onto her blue cloak, her wrists, her legs, moaning in one haunted melody, as if she could somehow save them from this eternity of fate.
“Please!” Reya screamed, wrenching in death’s grip. Too close. Too tight. Hands clawed at her armor, her throat, her face. “Let me go!”
The numen’s voice was soothing: Accept the help that is offered, mo réal.
“Reya,” said a different voice. It cut through the darkness and flame.
“Let me go!”
You will need all your gifts for what is to come.
“Reyanwyn,” the voice said again, louder this time.
“Get them off me!” she screamed. “Get them off!”
“There’s nothing there, thief.” The voice was firm and unyielding.
Reya thrashed in her bedroll, and a body pressed firmly against hers, compressing her lungs and drawing a scream that tore open her throat.
“Nothing is going to touch you,” the voice growled.
She woke to find a pair of stormy golden eyes staring down at her, her wrists pinned to the ground on either side of her head.
“They would have to get past me first.”
The inside of her cheek throbbed, and coppery blood wet her tongue. She had the sudden urge to bolt, but Caelan’s grip was firm.
“Get off me,” she said as she thrashed, wanting nothing more than to get away. It was still dark, which meant she couldn’t have been asleep long. He lifted enough to let her breathe, but didn’t let go of her wrists.
Caelan’s face was grave. “You’re bleeding.”
Saltwater tears trickled into scratches on her cheeks, and she winced at the burn. She must have scratched herself in her sleep.
“Just—let me heal you. Please.” He said the last word like it cost him something.
Reya tensed, wondering how many times he was going to have to heal her in a day, but she nodded.
“Words, thief,” he said roughly. “I need to know if I let go you’re not going to claw at your face again.”
Her reply was tight, breathy. “Yes.”
The word had barely left her lips before he let go of one of her wrists to cup her face.
Warm light flared, and within moments, the burning stopped altogether.
Reya watched a bit of the fire die in Caelan’s eyes, his irises now like the last ember of a candle that had burned too long.
As if he couldn’t stop himself, he slid his thumb over the tears on the curve of her cheekbone. “You won’t have a scar.”
Throat raw, she nodded. The second her muscles finally relaxed, he rolled off her, and she sat up, fighting the urge to scratch her exposed skin where she could still feel a thousand dead hands.
Instead she massaged her aching shoulder, wondering if she was ever going to have a good night’s sleep again.
Twice the numen had visited her. The first time it had come to warn her about the Dread Wolves, a threat that had come to pass within a day. Now it had come to warn her again.
Accept the help that is offered, mo réal.
My star, it had called her. She remembered now. The endearment was not uncommon among the mountain folk even now, a relic of a beautiful language that was spoken less and less each day.
You will need all your gifts for what is to come.
She had a feeling she knew exactly what the numen meant by “gifts.”
They were quiet while they packed the saddlebags. Reya chewed on some dried fruit, sneaking glances at Caelan while she tightened Ash’s girth, waiting for the right opportunity that she didn’t think would ever come.
“We’re not far from where I wanted to take you,” he said, the first to break the silence. “Can you eat while we ride?”
“I’ll do it,” Reya blurted before she could talk herself out of it.
Caelan glanced up. “You’ll eat?”
“I’ll train with you.” He took on the kind of animal stillness to which she was still becoming accustomed. When he said nothing, she added, “I’ll commit to learning the basics and nothing more.”
His cocked brow needed no translation: We’ll do this my way. “May I ask what changed your mind, Reyanwyn?”
Reya sighed and ran a hand through the strands that had fallen from her braid. “How many times must I ask you not to call me that?”
He didn’t answer.
She was so tired. Tired of hurting. Of being afraid of herself. Of waiting to see who else might pay for her lack of control. “I’m damned either way. At least if I train, I have a chance of not taking anyone else down with me.”
Judging by the look on his face, that was not the right answer, but he let it go. “I’ll agree to train you,” Caelan said, placing a hand atop Ash’s saddle horn, “on several conditions.”
“There are conditions?” she sputtered. “Since when?”
“Since now. You gave me several, so it seems only fair.” Caelan took a step closer so she was forced to tip her head back.
“First, you will keep me apprised of your plans going forward—even if it’s just to take a bath in a pond.
And when you move on St. Lucius, you will tell me first.” When she opened her mouth to argue, he added, “I will keep my distance. I won’t interfere unless you signal me. ”
Truth.
“Fine. Is that all, general?” she asked dryly.
He looked at her like he knew a thousand ways to punish her for that sarcasm, and she had a feeling there were a few she might not enjoy.
“When I told you these woods were crawling with Blood Watchers, you didn’t look worried.
You looked almost relieved.” Reya kept her expression flat, but it was a near miss.
“You know who they’re hunting. You’re glad that they haven’t been captured. And you’re going to tell me who it is.”
Well, damn.
She probably should have lied. The fewer people that knew about Stellene and where she was headed, the better off she was. But a selfish part of Reya wanted Caelan to know it had cost her. If only so he might look at her like she was worth something more than what she could steal for him.
“The Sage they’re hunting is the reason I owe Lennox one hundred thousand golds.
” Her emerald eyes glazed with emotions she couldn’t and wouldn’t name.
“It was supposed to be my last job for him. But when I realized Lennox hired me to steal a Sage female from the Silver Guard…” She shook her head.
“She had silver eyes and green Ire. Like yours, only darker.” Reya forced herself to hold his stare.
“I gave her a fighting chance, same as I had. And now I’m paying for it. Because that’s what honor gets you.”
“Why did your employer want her?”
Reya swallowed. “Because of the bounty. The king thinks he’s found the next Guardian.”
Clarity. Hope. Awe. Confusion. Too many things flew too quickly across his features to read.
Reya wasn’t sure what she expected Caelan to do upon hearing the God Power had returned.
Storm off through the trees to find the female?
A part of him must have wanted to, she could see it. Reya didn’t want that to bother her.
Caelan was a leader of armies. Dying or not, he would be honor bound to go after this Guardian, wouldn’t he? He was probably one of the few people alive who knew what the God Power truly looked like.
“Did you see it?”
Reya knew what he meant and shook her head. “No. But I felt it.” The air around Stellene had hummed. Reya had felt the God Power in the same way she felt Caelan’s power. And Mother help anyone who crossed her path.
The skin between his brows wrinkled, the most human reaction she’d seen from him.
“Final condition,” he said, and she blinked, surprised he would drop the issue.
He tipped her chin up with his thumb and forefinger.
Reya gritted her teeth. Smug bastard. She did not enjoy the propriety in that touch.
At all. If she repeated that in her mind enough, she might start to believe it.
“When we are training, you will do exactly as I say. You will listen for your protection and mine.”
She jerked her chin, thinking they were done, but he didn’t let go. The pressure was just enough to hold her attention, but not enough to keep her from getting away if she really wanted to. And he knew it.
“And,” he lowered his mouth to her ear, the heat of his breath making every inch of her stiffen. “Pull anything like you did yesterday again, and I’ll tie you up and throw you over that creature you call a horse.”
Truth.
Right on cue, Ash stamped in outrage.
“You settle down,” Caelan warned him. She might have laughed if the situation weren’t so absurd. “Do we understand each other, thief?”
Reya took a deep breath. She could learn to do this. Just like she’d learned to throw a knife or mix poisons.
“I don’t know,” she said, pressing the dagger she’d freed while he’d been whispering in her ear to his inner thigh, directly above the artery that pulsed there. “Do we?”
Reya was no artist, but she would have loved to paint the look on his face, if only to savor the memory.
She wondered how many people had successfully pulled a dagger on Caelan Halcyon.
She’d done it twice now. This time, she was under no delusions about how outmatched she was.
But he wouldn’t hurt her; she knew it with a bone-deep certainty.
And given that he hadn’t finished putting on his armor, she was willing to gamble that she could draw blood before he disarmed her.
Just to drive her point home, she slid the dagger higher. Caelan let out a hiss of breath, but didn’t let go of her chin. The mask of indifference he wore so religiously cracked, revealing a mix of humor and annoyance and… hunger.