Chapter Thirty One #2
She never remembered any of their names. Just their faces. Each and every one of them, seven years worth of kills. Countless faces. ‘I… used to be a fighter,’ she began, trying to ignore the surge of excitement deep in her soul as the monster purred, as if remembering how each kill had felt.
Kyra swallowed her revulsion at its sickening jubilance at the mention of death. She took a big swig of ale. ‘The reason I am alive is because I never lost a fight.’
After a stunned moment, Jak murmured, ‘How many?’
‘Does it matter?’ she retorted defensively, a little harsher than she intended. ‘Avaldale isn’t kind to the fae… I did what I had to do to survive.’
‘We’re not judging you, Kyra,’ Kawai said sincerely, but then his mouth twitched. ‘I am a little more scared of you now, though.’
‘You should be,’ Kyra said. ‘You can hold your own when we spar, but if we were fighting to kill, you’d be dead quicker than you last in bed.’
Boony snorted and ale shot out of his nose. Jak howled with laughter as Boony hastily wiped it away, and the tension significantly lifted.
Kawai frowned at her, though a little smirk was playing on his lips. After three tankards of ale, Kyra had to force her lustful, wandering eyes not to linger on his mouth. ‘And how would you know about that?’
‘Lucky guess,’ Kyra said lightly. Playfully.
‘A pretty accurate guess, I’m sure,’ Boony muttered under his breath, now fully recovered, and Jak cackled even harder next to him.
‘Okay, my turn,’ Kyra said, sitting up a little straighter and welcoming the slight, tipsy sway in her body. ‘I’ve never been with a woman. Or female.’
Laughing, Kawai clinked his tankard against Boony’s then Jak’s. ‘You’re missing out, Kyra.’
‘Am I?’
‘Would you try it?’
Kyra’s smile grew under Kawai’s burning gaze. ‘Of course. Why would I limit myself to just half of the population?’
Boony stuck his reddening face in his tankard. For a man in his mid-thirties, he was particularly prudish.
‘You know, I’ve always thought that,’ Jak chimed thoughtfully, his speech now a little slurred.
‘My father believed a man should be with a woman and a woman should be with a man. But he didn’t know that the first person I ever kissed was the fishmonger’s son that lived next door.
’ He gave a mischievous chuckle, hiccoughed, then took a long sip of ale.
‘I don’t think my old man would like that if he knew. But I sure enjoyed it.’
The game continued in that manner, the confessions becoming dirtier and far more exciting. Rosary would have been extremely drunk had she been playing; there wasn’t much she hadn’t seen or done.
Some time later, the group dispersed, leaving behind four empty tankards on the barrel, and Kyra found herself at the bow of the ship again, silently squinting up at the infinite stars that peppered the night sky, though tonight they were a little blurry.
Or was that her eyes?
She snorted. Of course it was her eyes. Stars didn’t blur.
Kawai came up behind her. ‘I haven’t seen Jak that drunk before.’ He pulled a face. ‘Seeing ale after it's been in someone’s stomach isn’t a pleasant sight.’
Kyra grimaced. ‘Do you think we should have stopped him?’
‘Ah, he’ll be alright. It’s a rite of passage on this ship,’ Kawai said, leaning his elbows on the rail next to her.
There was about a millimetre between their arms.
She may have been drunk, but this she noticed absolutely. ‘You never told us who it was you killed,’ she prompted gently.
He gave a grim smile. ‘That’s because it’s not a nice story.’
‘Is death ever a nice story?’
‘Fair point. But… it’s not something I like to talk about.’
Shifting ever so slightly, Kyra closed the miniscule gap between them, letting her arm touch his. ‘You didn’t judge me. I won’t judge you.’
He smiled at that, but it was tinged with sadness. So unlike the brash grins she was used to. ‘I know you won’t. But I judge myself for it, daily. Something like that doesn’t just go away.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Kyra said quietly.
‘I see their faces sometimes. Even though I know they would have killed me given the chance, I still see them. They never fade. I don’t even remember their names.
’ Kawai was quiet. ‘Sorry,’ she said quickly, berating her drunk mouth for not knowing when to shut the fuck up. ‘We don’t have to talk about it.’
‘Maybe… maybe it’s time I did,’ Kawai said. ‘I’ve never spoken to anyone about it. Kano is the only one who knows and that’s just because he was there when it happened.’
Kyra waited. He took a deep breath. ‘When I got Kano out of the city, for the most part, it was easy. Like I told you before, I’m a salir.
I leapt us from home right to the rocks you clambered over to get to the ship.
I’d known Damar for a while. I’d been thinking of leaving the capital to join the raiders anyway, and he agreed to help.
Despite being a grumpy bastard, he’s surprisingly compassionate.
Anyway, that’s not-’ He cleared his throat.
‘I hadn’t told anyone but Damar what I planned to do.
Not even Kano knew. He was sort of tranced when we salired out, but as we climbed over the rocks, he began to wake up.
‘He started screaming. Screaming and screaming in terror, like he was afraid of me. I don’t think he even knew who I was at that moment.
’ Kawai stared right ahead, his eyes glassed over as though he were right there in the memory.
‘I had to knock him out to stop him from screaming. I knew the kingsguard patrolled the beach at night, and though we hadn’t encountered one yet, the noise was bound to draw attention.
‘I thought we’d gotten away with it. I had Kano hauled over my shoulder and I was getting closer to the ship by the second.
But then a kingsguard showed up behind us, sword drawn.
I knew I’d never outrun him, not over the rocks with Kano on my back.
So I put Kano down and drew my own sword.
I knew as soon as the guard charged at me that he was bewitched, probably in the same way Kano was.
He… he was relentless. And so fucking strong.
During the fight, he cut my leg open. But I knew that if I died, Kano would go back to being the king’s slave.
I couldn’t… wouldn’t let that happen. One of us was going to die.
And though the odds were stacked against me, I knew it couldn’t be me.
‘I was on the rocks by Kano when he came at me again, and with whatever strength I had left, I managed to kick his sword out of his hand with my good leg, then plunged my own into his chest.’ His eyes squeezed shut.
‘I remember him looking at me then, as though he’d just realised who I was and what he was doing.
But it was too late. I laid him onto his back, his blood coating the both of us and… he was dead within a minute.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Kyra whispered. ‘He would have killed you.’
‘His name was Garin. We’d known each other since we were boys. Grew up together. I think the king used our friendship as a way to spy on me. As though he knew all along that I would try to break Kano out.’
Kyra said darkly, ‘The king is a cunt.’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘You have a wonderful way with words, did you know that?’
‘It’s been mentioned before.’
They fell quiet, and Kyra listened to the soft crashing waves as the Thilene sliced through the water. His arm was still pressed against hers, the warmth of him seeping into her own skin.
After a moment, Kawai straightened and turned to her. A slow moving hand rose to gently brush the flyaway curls from her face, tucking them behind her ear. ‘I didn’t expect this,’ Kawai muttered.
Pulse fluttering in a way it had never done before, Kyra whispered, ‘Expect what?’
‘That I would end up liking you.’
His heartbeat had spiked too. A steady rhythm in the off-beats of her own. The combined thumping sent her mind dizzying. ‘That’s the ale talking,’ she said a little breathlessly.
‘No,’ he murmured. ‘You caught my eye the first time you came on board, Kyra. Then you were a pain in the ass for a bit. Still are.’ She scowled. He smirked. ‘But now… well, let’s just say I’m not eager for you to leave.’
Any reservations she had about him melted then, with the way he was looking at her. Not like the men she’d let have her in Avaldale. Like she was a conquest they were proud to have conquered.
But like… like there was nowhere else in the world he would rather be.
‘You’re a pain in the ass too, you know,’ she retorted in a near-whisper. ‘But… I didn’t expect this either.’
Self-made walls came crashing down, allowing her to be vulnerable, to be open to a magic that could only be felt and not seen. A magic that no one else had ever evoked within her.
Closing the gap between their bodies, Kyra moved toward him, relishing the way his eyes were boring into hers. His hand found a home in the small of her back, and he tenderly pulled her even closer.
It was the simplest of touches, and yet it somehow upset her breathing.
His breath mingled with hers as Kyra looked up at him, watched his lips part as his gaze tracked down her face to her mouth.
The warm fingers at her back contracted, feeling her, and her pulse quickened again with anticipation in the pause, the pause that felt like a lifetime as his face drew closer, closer, closer, closer…
Kyra’s eyelids fluttered shut.
As Kawai gently, ever so gently, pressed his lips to hers.