Chapter 15 #4
“And Eden wants me to train these new recruits, but how could I possibly help mindreaders and soulbinders? Healers . . . I’m not what I was. I know it’s not right for me to feel this way. You, Eden, you’ve lost so much more—”
He scoffed. “It isn’t a contest. You’re allowed to struggle, Nym. You’re allowed to share it with those who care about you. You don’t have to earn our support.”
His admonition brought tears to my eyes. I turned my head, blinking quickly. Not that I could hide anything from him with that golden wire connecting us, no matter how much ethereal rock I plastered over it.
Once I regained some composure, I said, “I just . . . I’m a little lost. But I don’t think anyone else can find me, if that makes sense?”
He nodded, ever patient. Affection tried to burn through the basalt wall, which only shook my precarious resolve. “No one is going to find your purpose for you. You need to wend your own way,” he reiterated on my behalf.
“Yes. Precisely.”
“You will, Nym.” He reached forward and cupped the side of my face; the warmth of his touch felt new, startling, and I had to pull away from him, I had to remember my country and my family’s future in that country, and yet I turned traitor, leaning into his calloused palm.
“Whether you realize it or not, you are extraordinary. You always have been. Nothing will keep you down for long. I truly believe that.”
I stared at him, memorizing and missing him, finding comfort in his touch and masculine scent while the internal wound in the shape of him tore and bled. Steeling myself, I stepped back, breaking our contact, as cold and empty as a newly dug grave.
“Do you think they’ll accept it so easily?” I pressed, searching for new words. Different words.
He lowered his hand. “Which thing?”
I suppose there were many things that might fit with that question. Including Do you think the people will accept your partnering with Antsan? “Craftlock,” I specified. “Many are still closed off to healers. Mindreaders and soulbinders have no direct benefit to common folk.”
“That’s precisely what we’ve argued over.
I think Sesta will make most people more open to it.
When a man has to kill the same enemy three times because of healers, he’ll want a healer.
When his secrets are known, or when his comrade is being cut down because he’s soulbound to a tree, he’ll want a mindreader and soulbinder for himself.
” His eyes widened slightly. “Nym, I didn’t mean to bring up—”
I pretended the image did nothing to me. “No apologizing. Remember?”
He wilted. I sensed the words on the tip of his tongue, saw the grief warping his expression. Sure enough, that thorny guilt began to grow between us, pressing on the wall, determined to break through it. He averted his eyes. “There . . . is something I wanted to talk to you about.”
I held my breath. This was it. He signed the contract. He’d wed Azra Vitsoph and save us all.
It took notable effort to stay upright. “What?”
“Your . . . I don’t know what to call it. How you got away from King Nicosia and the others. Would you . . . ? Is it something you can teach the healers, when they come?”
The relief I felt nearly floored me. My wall betrayed me; I could tell by the way Renn straightened. He’d felt it.
“I severely doubt others will have their sisters tied to their lumis.” A deep ache coursed through me.
“Not that, precisely.” He extended his hands by way of apology. “But healers hurt, too.”
I swallowed. Remembered the dragons in Catalaine I’d attacked. Remembered breaking Whitestone’s leg. Remembered the soldier in Rove Castle, the one with a mathematical lumis, and how I’d killed him.
Steadying myself to ensure my voice would be even, I answered, “Being able to see death lines helps a great deal with that.”
“But you could teach it, if you needed to. Something offensive with lumie.”
I took a moment to think it through, Renn waiting patiently near me. Too near me. We needed distance, yet my feet would not move.
How would I instruct other healers? Some may have worked out their abilities as Ursa and I had; some might not have. There were no schools, no teachers, no books on craftlock to guide us. Magic was something crafters had to sort out for themselves.
But in that train of thought I found the seeds of purpose.
“Likely,” I answered. “But I think there will be much to teach on either side. Though healing has been legal for two decades, I’ve never seen apprenticeships for healers.
The fact I have any skills at all is sheer luck, and Ursa—” My throat closed with the name of my twice-dead sister.
“We discovered a lot of it together. Practiced together. Most people won’t have that.
They wouldn’t be ready to learn . . . hurting.
They need to understand the healing first. The healing is more important.
” Gods keep this war from getting so desperate.
“I understand.” He pinched his mouth to stifle a yawn.
I managed to take a step back; it felt like whiskey on an open wound. “Go to sleep, Renn. Your days are too long, and your mornings too early.”
“There’s more, Nym.”
Gods, I thought I’d evaded it again. I was already on the brink of crying—
“Not that,” he murmured.
I sucked in an unsteady breath and nodded.
He turned from me and began pinching out the candles, his own light replacing theirs. “We’re going to strike Serravia.”
My lungs tightened. Serravia was a port city in southeastern Sesta. A hub for trade between our two countries, as well as Antsan across Salm’s Rest. “When?”
He shifted. “We leave tomorrow.”
My lungs squeezed. “So soon.”
He nodded. “Little time to relax, in war.”
I mulled over the information. “The first time we’ve attacked Sestan soil, right?”
“Yes. Rove . . . Rove is the ultimate goal, but we need to take out the army’s resources. Burn their ships. We strike at the end of the week.”
I turned toward him in the dim. “Will . . . will you take me with you?”
A lick of fear from him, and I wondered how strong it might be without the wall.
“The other healers won’t have arrived in time,” he said.
“I don’t want to endanger you, but I should have a healer there.
However much I want you to stay, to protect you.
” He sighed. “However much I want you there just for me.”
I nodded, my throat dry. “Of course. But . . . Antsan . . .”
“I’m tying them up with amendments,” he answered. “They’ll send their present troops with us as a show of good faith.”
I chewed the inside of my lip. “But will it be enough?”
“For Serravia, yes. We’ll meet with General Cuplend’s troops.
Nicosia shouldn’t be expecting us. I . .
.” A hand back through his hair. A finger caught on a snag, and new pain bloomed through the link, so strong it would have floored me without the wall acting as blockade.
Not from his hair, but something deeper.
“I have some ideas, Nym. If nothing else, Serravia will give me time to sort through them. I’m going to find a way. ”
His hand on Azra’s back, his fingers in her hair. “For me, or for Azra?”
It was unfair of me to say it, but the constant ache had chafed my sensibilities.
He glowered. “I’m doing what is needed. Do you really find me so two-faced?”
My eyes burned. “We can’t have this conversation again—”
“I’m going to find a way,” he promised, his skin glowing brighter.
I shook my head. “You will be the end of me, Renn.” I took a moment to fortify myself.
To drag myself away from the addictive aura of him and to the door.
Yet as I gripped the handle, determined to retire to my own space, fear sluiced through me.
Bone-deep weariness settled in every inch of me .
. . even sitting upright, I knew Nicosia would return to me tonight, in whatever grotesque form my creativity might paint him in.
I pulled the door open about an inch before Renn’s hand grasped my wrist and pushed it closed. “Stay, Nym,” he whispered, breath in my hair.
My throat grew tight. “I can’t—”
“Azra isn’t here. Nothing is signed.” His thumb traced my knuckles. “Stay. Sten won’t let anyone in.”
“Yet,” I weakly protested. Emotion pushed against my skin like too much blood. Like I might burst. “Nothing is signed yet.”
“Nym—”
“My family is Canseren, Renn,” I whispered. “Brien, Lissel, Dan, Colt, Pren, Heath, and Terrence. All of them benefit from Antsan’s aid. I would break my heart a hundred times over to save them.” I swallowed, my throat tight and sore. “And I would break yours, too.”
It was unfair, so wildly unfair, to suffer the ache of those words twofold. To bear my hurt and his as well, even with the wall in place. But Ursa had been the optimist, not me. She’d been the dreamer, I’d been the doer. And Ursa was gone.
Soon, Renn would be, too.
I left before the tears fell. I could spare him from that, at least.
I slept with my back pressed against the hard wall, gathering wisps of sleep shaped like an ancient, awful tree.