Chapter 11 #2
Quiet fury simmered beneath my skin while bile rose in my throat.
I knew they would talk about my death. I knew hatred was too weak a word for how they felt about the Butcher.
But I hadn’t predicted the rage hearing it would spark inside me, nor had I prepared myself for how ardently I wished to defend the man I knew he really was.
Barely composed and appetite no longer existent, I set my fork down and forcefully swallowed my last bite.
“They’re vile, aren’t they?” grumbled my red-haired neighbor. “What a foul thing to discuss at the dinner table.”
Her light, flowery voice grounded me enough to keep me from doing or saying something regrettable. When I turned to face her, pale green eyes stared back at me.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you before.” She smiled. “My name is?—”
“Pardon me.” A young man with freckles, red hair, and green eyes squeezed between us. They had to be siblings, if not twins. “Mina, you won’t believe what I found…” His interest piqued when he saw me, mischief sparkling in his eyes and tugging at his lips. “Well, hello there.”
The girl groaned and covered her face with her hands.
“Don’t mind her,” he went on. “My sister has little patience for my antics. I’m Mavic.” He offered me his hand. “Mav, if you know me well, which I hope you will.”
“Gods, do you ever stop?” His sister shoved her hand in front of Mavic. “Mina Reed. I apologize in advance for everything my twin brother says.”
I was speechless as I shook their hands. I hadn’t exactly expected kindness toward an outsider from anyone so soon.
“My name is Fera.” I forced a smile through my nerves. “Just… Fera.”
“Fera,” Mavic considered the name like a melody he was trying to remember. “Fera… oh!” He snapped his fingers. “You’re the one they told us about? The one they caught sneaking outside the grounds that took out Otis Stoll and the Sharpe brothers? The hellion .”
“Mavic!” Mina warned.
But I was flattered that he recognized me as a fighter. “Yes, that’s me.”
“Impressive. I’m glad someone gave those guys a tough time for a change, though I doubt they’ll take kindly to it. Especially Alec Gerard, when he hears.” He jerked his head in Mina’s direction. “Though if you try to hurt my sister, I will have to kill you.”
I shrugged. “Not sure I’d respect anyone who valued their family any less.”
“Hmm.” Mavic nodded in approval. “I think I like you.”
Mina leaned in front of her brother again. “They said you’re from Brinnea?”
“It’s where I grew up.” Not a lie.
“I’ve never been, but I’ve heard it’s beautiful.”
“You haven’t been anywhere other than home and here, Mina.”
“Neither have you!” she snapped back at Mavic. It was an effort to repress a snort.
Conversation passed easily between us. Their affectionate bickering drowned out the noise. Hopefully I wasn’t getting ahead of myself thinking they could be the first friends I’d earn here.
“Commander Winterton keeps looking over here.” Mina looked past me to the front of the room while finishing a bite of dessert. “At you, Fera.”
I stole a quick glance behind me. Mina was right. He was staring, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of lingering attention.
“He and I didn’t start off on the best terms.” I savored a bite of berry pie. After I swallowed, Mavic and Mina were still staring at me. Waiting. “I… questioned his treatment of the queen.”
Both pairs of pale green eyes widened.
“That was… bold of you,” whispered Mina.
“Yes, Commander Winterton gets a little testy when you mention the queen,” said Mavic. “It’s ill-advised.”
“You don’t say,” I mumbled, lightly touching the bruise on my cheekbone.
“Speaking of the queen?—”
“No!” Mina held up a finger to silence her brother. “Mavic?—”
“—we aren’t supposed to mention it, but?—”
“Then don’t !” She hissed through her teeth.
“—our brother-in-law knew her.”
I almost forgot how to breathe. “What?”
“I know .” Mavic’s eyes widened, enthused by my surprise. “He was with her before the Butcher stole her. Got his leg blown off in an explosion.”
I exhaled sharply. Caz.
“ Yes ,” sighed Mavic, encouraged by my shock. “Very tragic. Thankfully, Caz is fine. Only has one leg now, but he’s quite a positive fellow. My point is… you could say I knew her.”
“You said your last name is Reed?” I rushed out. Not Sinclair.
“Yes.” Mavic shared a confused look with Mina.
The red hair. Marin . Of course, Marin’s siblings wouldn’t share the same surname as Finn and Caz.
I tried to look only as relieved as any stranger would. “I’m glad to hear he’s all right.” Internally, Mavic’s words ignited hot sparks of joy blazing in my chest.
“Thankfully, he’s fine now.”
I knew Caz was all right, but witnessing Mavic’s lack of anger helped assuage any fears that his loved ones blamed me for what happened in Tovick.
“Anyway, the queen,” Mavic went on. “Our brother-in-law said she was stunning. Kind and sweet, too.” His face turned grim, and he lowered his voice. “But he also met the Butcher.”
“ Mavic! ” hissed Mina. “That. Is. Enough! ”
“What did your brother-in-law say about the Butcher?” The question I shouldn’t ask escaped my lips. I had to know.
“Not much,” Mavic answered. “He was a brutish asshole, and he was obsessed with the queen.”
Relief seeped into my bones, and my thrumming pulse slowed. Caz hadn’t lied, but he hadn’t revealed the full truth, either.
“Thank the gods you’re not in charge, Mav.” Mina massaged the bridge of her freckled nose. “With your big mouth, all of Molochai’s army would know exactly where we are within days.”
“She’s right,” I confirmed. “Your secret’s safe with me, but you probably shouldn’t have told a stranger any of that.”
Mavic winked. “I have good intuition.”
Even Elias Winterton, scowling at me from the head table, couldn’t diminish my joy.
They dismissed us immediately after dinner.
Trainees were allowed to pick their own cabins, and I was grateful when Mavic and Mina, along with some others, followed me to mine.
No one chose the bed below me, but it was comforting enough that the twins took the bunks next to mine despite judgmental glares from our peers.
Restless whispers kept me awake. I tried but failed to make out what they said. My muscles ached from that cot in my cell, but after the whispers died down and the cabin slept, all I could think about was the cold.
“ Are you awake? ” I called to Shera.
I felt a stir down our connected mental pathway. Even with fortress walls separating us, her company was soothing in the dark night.
“ I am now ,” she answered groggily.
“Are you all right?”
“I miss you. And I know you… miss him.”
My cheeks heated. Resisting the truth of her words was futile, but I felt defensive all the same.
“ I shouldn’t have woken you. Go back to sleep ,” I told her.
She obeyed, but I remained restless. I sat up in bed and reached for my bag by my feet, knowing what hid at the bottom. His black sweater. The one he gave me in Tovick.
I pressed the soft fabric to my nose and inhaled, then held back a grateful cry when I breathed in a faint scent of cedar and leather.
It had been in the bottom of my bag for so long, I didn’t think it would still smell like him. I lifted it over my head and clung to it. Let it cloak me in impenetrable warmth.
Only then was I able to fall asleep.
I woke up with a start, fresh off images of the poison vial dangling around his neck.
That was all it was. Swinging in ominous silence, taunting me while I stood stuck in place, unable to speak, move, or breathe. I’d strained against the binds of unconsciousness, but I couldn’t do a damn thing.
“ Ary? ” Shera called out to me, her tired voice worried. “ I just felt you wake… Are you all right? ”
“Nightmare.”
“ Of what? Was it him? ” The unwelcome image of the poison around his neck flashed back through my memory. I shoved it away.
“I’m trying not to think about what happens if Molochai gives him my name.”
“He won’t hurt you. You know he won’t let it get that far.”
“ I know. ” I threw my blankets off my legs. “ That’s what I’m afraid of. ”
Shera was silent. She worried, too, though she’d known Gavin for only a short time.
“ I don’t even know where to begin. A library, maybe.
There must be some place here I can look.
” I reluctantly shrugged out of his black sweater, tucked it safely beneath my pillow, and quietly climbed down the ladder of my bunk.
The sun was barely rising, the rest of the cabin still asleep.
“ But I have to find a way to help him. ”