Chapter 12 #2
“Just expressing that my intentions are pure,” I say dryly. It’s true, and yet, I’m not sure my words to the woman came across that way.
“Purity,” Ronan says lightly, tapping his chin. Then, with a sly glance at the door, he chuckles. “I’ve been told men with a sworn eye for one woman and one woman only are the ones with the most impure thoughts.”
I blink at him. “I—” I clear my throat, unsure of what to say. My mouth works itself for a few seconds before words finally spill out, defensive. “I’ve no woman to have such thoughts about, Ronan. Do not target my ego so.”
He rolls his eyes, then immediately bows, caught in his insubordination. His arm swooshes with a flourish. “Shall we continue, sire ?”
“Enough with the formalities, Ronan. I think we’d both like to keep things casual. I am not used to such treatment. Not from my servants. Not from soldiers. I don’t expect it from you.”
“Casual,” he echoes thoughtfully.
We continue walking, eventually reaching the servants’ quarters. Bernadette rushes out to greet me, taking my large hands in her bony ones. Her eyes shift to Ronan and her smile warms.
“It’s so good to see you two together,” she says softly. I try to ignore the tears budding as she holds his gaze. “I didn’t get the chance to say so earlier, but my, have you grown!”
“It’s great to not be fighting for my life out there,” Ronan says with a playfulness that earns him a lighthearted laugh from the head maid.
He grins. “I’d much rather stay here, eating the castle’s delicious cooking and appreciating the cleanliness of the guest bedchambers you always keep ready for me, Miss Bernadette. ”
“Oh, pish.” She laughs, flattered. “You always know what to say. Do tell me, how long do you plan to stay this time? It’s been so long since you roomed here at the castle.”
Ronan checks with me, waits for my nod, then responds to Bernadette’s worries with a wink. “We are to leave when the occasion calls for it.”
Now Bernadette smiles at me, the crinkles around her eyes worn and soft.
“Rami, what brings you to my quarters this morning?” Her eyes alight immediately after asking the question, so I let her continue.
“Oh! You’re meant to meet with the girl.
I’m afraid you’ve just missed her. She’s gone to the castle’s training grounds. You’ll find her?—”
I turn before she can finish speaking, and Ronan pivots to follow. Our paces quicken as dread covers me in a thin layer of sweat. I holler a quick “thank you” over my shoulder before we make our way to the end of the hall and into the spiral stairwell that leads to the training grounds.
Hopefully she hasn’t revealed herself to any soldier or servant minding the grounds.
Ether’s midnight hair is woven atop her head, and strands curl around her ears. She’s outfitted in all black, from the corset top and the tunic squashed beneath it to the form-fitting trousers that shift down her legs and disappear beneath the tightly laced ribbon wrapping around her calves.
At first, she doesn’t seem to notice us, and I find my knack for being invisible a relief for perhaps the first time in my life. I can focus fully on her without being judged.
Well, Ronan’s nagging stare doesn’t count. Nor does the disapproving nudge he gives me with his elbow.
“Shh,” I whisper, widening my eyes to communicate my desire to remain anonymous for a second longer. When he tongues the inside of his cheek, I know he understands me.
My focus returns to the elf. The color of her irises is impossible to discern from our distance, but she squints her eyes in intense concentration.
A curved knife glistens under the heat of the sun, and she holds it at her thigh as she crouches.
Her fingers seem to dance along the hilt, discontent to remain stationary.
I follow her line of sight to the edge of trees retreating into the castle’s grove.
One oak stands out from the rest, its trunk eaten away from target practice.
Pieces of bark litter the ground around it in a nest of yellow and brown.
She’s a good distance away from the tree, nowhere close to the lines suggesting where marksmen ought to take their aim much closer.
My heart drums in my ears.
Ether moves almost too fast for me to follow—her waist twists and she tosses her knife high into the air, the blade keen on returning to the earth.
With a leg extended in front of her, she flips backward, her hands catching her weight in the short grass.
With impeccable timing, the heel of her shoe makes contact with the butt of the knife, and, with great force, sends the blade spiraling straight for the tree.
It buries itself deep into the sandy flesh.
The thud of the impact is dull, but rings across the silence of the grounds.
To say I’m impressed would be a grand understatement.
So when she turns to me, eyes blazing with determination and confidence, I know it isn’t the sun’s rays trying to melt me.
I clear my throat as she moves away to retrieve her knife. Ronan wobbles ahead, and I shuffle behind him, trying to appear much less flabbergasted than I feel.
It takes great effort.
We reach Ether as she finishes plucking the blade from the core of the tree. Her arms are thin but tethered with muscle. My mouth goes dry when she sheathes the blade tight against her thigh.
She raises a brow at me, questioning why I’m here.
I can’t help but feel small, even next to someone much shorter than I. There is a clear skill difference between us. I am a child, and she is a trained assassin.
My fist goes to my chest, and I offer her the most humble bow I can without stooping below my station. “Truly immaculate skill,” I offer.
She purses her lips when I straighten to my normal height. Her eyes are a lighter shade of pink, swimming with orange.
“Thanks to years of practice,” she says coolly, holding a hand to the many jagged dents carved into the tree. Her fingers caress the divots, and her expression darkens as though she feels the tree’s pain. “What experience do you have with knives? Swords? Hand-to-hand combat?”
“Very little,” I admit.
She turns, her hand flinching from the trunk. Her irises burn the shade of copper now.
“I appreciate your honesty,” she says thoughtfully. Then, I swear her attention flicks to Ronan, who has busied himself with a dying bush, plucking off the dead leaves.
She fixes her gaze on me, then sighs. “Promise me again that once I help, I’ll earn my freedom, be able to return to my village, and those I love will remain safe.”
I can’t promise her that. But admitting it might drive a wedge between us, so I offer the only vow I can in good conscience, hoping it’s enough. If I were in her position, I’d want the same.
“I will do everything I can to ensure you return safe and sound, and that no one is harmed.”
She nods, then drops to a knee. “If we are to remain on castle grounds for your training, I require a source of magic to replenish my own. You cannot learn magic without my demonstration.” Her smile is disarming.
“Well, you could, but it would take much longer than a few months, and you don’t seem to have that much time. ”
Her words are cruelly convincing. I find my chest tightening at the reason for her diminishing magic.
Not only have I enchanted her to have zero access to it, but our kingdom, extending to the edges of Bellmane and other castle towns, has long since been stripped of its magical integrity.
In other words, the well of magical energy is dry.
I can’t imagine how suffocating it must be for her to lose something she’s had unlimited access to since birth.
“Tell me what you need, and I shall retrieve it for you,” I reply guiltily, keeping my tone even.
She smirks, then tosses another glance to Ronan, who has returned to my side. A sweet smile pinches her cheeks, and she wets her bottom lip with her tongue.
“A tallup, if you’d be so kind.”