37. Chapter 37
Chapter thirty-seven
Ispent the next few days training. I had finally managed to complete a movement set of blocks and attacks without complaining.
And I didn’t land on my ass … too often.
My muscles ached less the more I honed them, but the lessons didn’t get easier; I just got faster, stronger and more balanced.
I would have thought my climbing muscles would have helped me, but it turns out that they were a whole other set than what I needed.
Tending to my bruises was a better use of my time than thinking about Kaed anyway. I was not in the mood to think about him. Or his bedroom. Or how his body had felt under my hands.
It helped that I hadn’t actually seen him since that night in his room.
Seemingly, the council was no longer prepared to leave him to his own devices and had scheduled meetings and strategy reviews to broker deals with Hayden.
I only knew all of this because Denora had baited me more than once to try harder in lessons. If I landed a blow, she’d tell me something about what was going on. If I failed to defend myself, she’d knock me to my ass.
So I tried harder.
I didn’t like being motivated by knowing more about Kaed. It was really for my own preservation to know more.
That’s what I told myself.
I quashed the seeds of budding heat that rose up when I thought of him and his expansive bed.
Mostly.
Denora had me working on defensive movements, relenting and deciding not to waste her time on my aim. She’d seen my aim one of the first days we’d tried anything at all, and I actually saw a grimace cross her lovely face.
“That”—she had pointed with a segment of clementine—“I’m not sure I can help with.” My mark had been a target ring not ten feet away, and the knife had hit a potted plant another five feet to its left.
So long as my attackers didn’t require single and precise shots to take them down, I might stand a chance.
“That’s encouraging.” I had laughed at my own underdeveloped sense of aim, and we quickly moved on.
Today, I would have bruises on my shins and forearms by the time we were done. Side blocks, overhead blocks. Blocking with my legs, my ankles. Over and over again. Learning to endure the pain of a blunt attack. Not every threat was a weapon glinting in the sunlight.
My bones stung, and my skin smarted.
“He’s avoiding me, isn’t he?” I finally asked when we took a break, both of us slumped against the wall of the training ground.
Denora didn’t deny it as she sat, eating another clementine segment in silence.
“Why, though?”
“I’m not sure I’m the person to explain why Kaedian does anything. He’s—”
“A stubborn ass?”
Denora nearly choked on her lunch. “Yes. Stubborn for sure. Unconventional. Definitely. But underneath that, there’s more.”
I chewed some crusty bread, waiting.
“Why do you think he hasn’t just left the city? He could have gone any time he wanted when things started going wrong before he was taken by the council at all. Why do you think he didn’t just kill those men at the docks? You’ve seen him kill before.”
“Because Gavrin stopped him,” I supplied.
Denora nodded. “And do you think Gav could really have stopped him if he wanted to do something?”
A bubble of laughter came to my lips. I realised then that she was waiting for a genuine answer. “Diplomacy?” I tried.
Denora snorted. “He’s never been good at that. But he does try.”
“What, then? Protecting his investment?” A little too much venom coated my words.
But Denora just frowned. “Losing … people … is difficult for him. He will do almost anything to avoid it.” She hid her eyes from me.
Cold ripples shifted inside of me until unease was the tide I waded through.
“I can’t give him the faebane location.” I couldn’t look at Denora.
Instead, I ripped the bread in my hand until it was in pieces.
“I’m not running away. But I can’t give it to him.
Not while I have another option. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.
And I’ve seen what it can do to fae.” Kaed in the Cage flashed brightly in my mind.
I could feel when his magic was coming to the surface, when it was testing its own bounds.
And when he’d been in that cage, I could feel it being beaten back by the metal that held him.
Feeling it, whatever it was, through the lens of Kaed’s pain had been something harrowing and hollowing.
I couldn’t imagine having something so integral taken away.
Losing a part of yourself, even briefly, sounded like torture.
Not having magic of my own, at least I would never feel that loss in the moment.
I had only a faint memory of the same pain from the Cage bar that I’d grasped. He’d worn those faebane manacles for hours. Been inside the Cage for hours. Unable to escape the pain, forced to breathe barren air.
They had tortured him. Needlessly.
“I think he knows you won’t give up the faebane location. Not to him.” Denora’s olive eyes levelled at me. “I think he’s worried about who you might give it up to. Whether you want to or not.”
“Hart,” I breathed.
Denora gave a tight nod.
I’d heard so much and so little about his brother, about his family.
By all accounts, they were morally bereft.
Eryk had spilled the details of their past, their conquests.
And if Kaed and Hart truly despised each other as much as Eryk insinuated, I couldn’t understand how they’d fought together on the battlefield.
I couldn’t understand what had brought them to this future where they no longer recognised each other as brothers.
“Kaedian has lost a lot. And he’s learned to be stronger so that doesn’t happen again.” Denora fell silent as we sat for a moment. “He will do anything in his power to protect those he cares about.”
I tilted my head to Denora, a sardonic look on my face that I couldn’t wipe off. “He abducted me. I’m a complication he didn’t plan on.”
There was a long pause that hung in the air.
I heard my words echoed over and over. And they stung. Wanting to be more to someone was something buried deep inside me. It felt like a normal thing, to want to belong? Everyone wanted that.
“There is more to him than shadows and death,” Denora finally said.
I waited for more, but Denora seemed disinclined to offer anything further. But I needed more.
“What happened?”
Denora sighed in contemplation. She rested her elbows on her knees and laced her fingers together.
“When Kaedian lost his mother and sister, he also lost his father and brother in a way. They turned him into something else … I’d only just met him then …
” A muscle flexed in her jaw, and she dipped her head until I couldn’t read her eyes.
“He … Kaed found me.” Her laced fingers twitched at the memory.
It was so disarming to see Denora fracture.
“I don’t know how many hours I was there …
How many times they healed me only to start again …
” Denora lifted her head, eyes glassy with unshed tears of a memory she’d rather forget.
“Kaed offered me a place in Hayden after he …” She didn’t need to say it.
Whoever had hurt Denora would never have been able to again.
“I have never been able to repay him for that.”
A lump formed in my throat that I couldn’t dislodge.
“I trained with Kaedian for years before he introduced me to his father.”
An involuntary spasm gripped me at the mention of the king. What he’d demanded of his sons in the war still clung to me.
“I hadn’t known he was going to suggest I join the Haydinian forces.” She smiled at the memory.
“You didn’t want to?” I looked to the lawn where Denora had dropped our training blades. I couldn’t imagine her not built for this life. She breathed the movements with a sword the same way others breathed air.
A cocky brow was raised to me as she dipped her head.
“I had always wanted to. I just didn’t think the king would ever allow someone like me into his ranks …
” Her gaze grew wistful, and I wasn’t sure what drew her thoughts like that.
But it didn’t seem like disdain coloured her memory of the king’s actions that day.
“He has been more to me than just my king in a way. But that day, he offered me a place in a family I thought I would never have.”
“You became Hayden’s Head Sentinel then?”
“Gods! No. Not right away. I trained. I worked for my rank. But having the king’s favour and training with Kaedian was certainly an advantage through the years.”
Before I could ask more, she stood and dusted off her tunic.
“Is the king—Kaed’s father—” It sounded strange to say still. “Is he … is he as bad as all that?”
Denora’s face slackened and then pinched. “I’m not sure I’m the person to answer that. But …” She paused and kicked at the grasses under her boot. “For years, Kaedian hid the extent of what was done to him from me.”
So Audrie was right. The king had punished him. My gut wobbled at the thought. Something worse than the Cage and faebane?
“By then, I’d already ingratiated myself with the king.
We’d gotten closer. He trusted me. He became—” She swallowed and kicked once more at the grass.
“He wasn’t my father. But he became something like that to me.
And I know that’s wrong to say that when he stopped being that for Kaed …
” Emotions Denora didn’t seem ready to let out were pushing to the surface as she stared at the divot she’d made on the manicured training lawn.
“Before, when he found me at the rock pool,” I started, and Denora regarded me.
“Kaed didn’t give me an option. And it didn’t feel like it was because I am his prisoner.
” I paused, thinking about that. “Well, he did threaten to—” I stopped before I said he’d tie me to him or his bed.
Those thoughts were … not pertinent. I should have been terrified, but some devious part of me wanted to know if he was bluffing or not.
I cleared my throat a little, suddenly dry.
Denora squinted against the sun as she looked down at me. “He has endured a lot. And he lives by his actions, even if they seem harsh.”
She clasped my hand and hauled me up without saying more.
I let out an “oomph” as I lost my balance on her.
“Maybe your footwork isn’t as good as we thought.” She laughed as I tripped on my own feet, my thoughts tangled.