Chapter 11 #2
She continued. “I can summon trees, and thorns, and stinging rain. And I can make powerful zephyrs that wash over my enemies and poison them from the inside …” She stopped.
Why was she telling him this? He could never love her, knowing the wretched things she had done.
“How could I tell you the truth? I loved you so, Vander. How could I risk losing you?"
Evander found a roll of white cotton, stood, and drew her to the bed where he sat beside her, lifting her arm again and carefully wrapping it in the cotton.
She didn’t deserve his pity; she didn’t want it.
He’d wrecked her life. She should be angry at him, cursing his name.
And he should be furious with her. A sane couple would be screaming at one another, swearing they’d never speak again, flinging accusations.
So why were they sitting quietly, a spring breeze whispering through the curtains as he bound her wounds with heartbreaking tenderness?
Evander was the ballast to her ship, and she had drifted far since she lost him.
“So your father made you do what you did?” he asked.
“Yes. No. I don’t know!” She felt muddled and queasy. “I was a child. I was doing what I was told. Cruel as my father was, he was also wise and devious. He told me I was a gift from the goddess of cunning.” She gazed at the floor and added bitterly, “His special, secret weapon.
“He told me that he would give me rest if I went out to battle for him one more time. And then one more time. One more, one more, one more …” her voice trailed off.
“My father got it into his paranoid, delusional head that my half-sister Olivette had designs on his throne, so he exiled her. I had managed as long as she was with me, but I couldn’t face my father alone, so I planned to make him tell me where she was and then run.
Then, to put it bluntly, the Ashkendoric prince sliced me open with a sword. ”
Evander wasn’t as shocked by this as she expected him to be. He didn’t even look up. His lukewarm reaction irritated her. Thinking he didn’t believe her, she stood, pulled apart a tear in her bodice, and lifted the fabric so he could see the long scar across her stomach.
A visible shudder ran through him.
“My father told me he would reveal my sister’s location if I killed the prince.”
“And did you?” Evander asked without raising his eyes.
“I tried, but in the end, I couldn’t do it.”
“You mean you weren’t able to, or you didn’t want to?”
Valenna couldn’t answer this question. She had wondered for years why she hadn’t killed Evandaine.
It kept her awake in the night, and when she was at her worst, loathing herself and repeating the cruel words her father had hissed at her when she was a child, she clung to that strange, mysterious decision.
There was a glimmer of the Only’s goodness in it.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said heavily. “He died anyway, a few days later.”
She didn’t mention how the prince, his hands clumsy from her terrible beating, bound her wound, or how she rested her head on his shoulder and felt him press her against his body. She left out how she’d been mucking a stall when she heard he died, and she had vomited on the dirt floor.
Valenna continued. “I waited until the battlefield cleared, then I slipped away in the darkness. I stole a dragon and flew over the mountains, and somehow, by the grace of the Only, I happened upon a farmer in Allagesh who took me in for a few weeks until I was well enough to travel to Largotia. I mucked stalls at the dracorium there before I rose to trainer. And then I was assigned to work with this devastatingly handsome man who ruined my life.”
“Who?” Evander asked.
Valenna stared at him, trying to determine if he was serious. “You, Vander!”
“Oh.” He let out an abashed laugh. “Devastatingly handsome?”
She pressed on, refusing to be distracted.
“I had this perfect plan to find my sister and see her on the throne. I would use my magic to overthrow our father, then Olivette could take the crown, and I was so, so close to finding her when I met you and got distracted. I tried again after you left, but the trail went cold. I’d hoped to find some sign of her here. Obviously, there was no sign.”
“I’m sorry, Val.” He finished bandaging her arm and stood, his shoulders rigid.
“No one can know about my magic or my parents, Vander. Please. I’m not ready to return yet. I need more time.”
“Of course I’m not going to tell anyone,” Evander said, with an edge of irritation. He shook his head, like he was trying to clear it as he paced the room, running his hands through his hair.
“I wish you would be angry,” she said. “I wish you would shout at me.”
“Do you want me to shout at you?”
“A little, maybe.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “I don’t like shouting.”
“Blast you, Vander! Tell me what you’re thinking! Do you hate me? Are you disgusted with me? What?”
“I think that I need to think.” He walked to the window and opened the curtains.
“What are you doing?” Valenna asked.
“Thomasina’s downstairs. I don’t want her to get the wrong idea.” He looked down, then studied the tree outside. “I think I’d better go this way.”
“You’re going to fall and kill yourself,” she hissed, but he was already halfway out the window. Below, the festival wheeled over the dracorium grounds, glimmering gold under the magical light of the pixie bugs. Evander swung out onto a tree branch.
“If you fall and crack your head again, I’ll kill you,” Valenna said.
He started to climb nimbly down the tree.
“Vander,” she called after him. He sprang up, standing on a lower branch, his arms resting on another parallel to the window. “Does this change things between us?”
“You mean, are we still cold and antagonistic toward one another? We can be if you want us to be.”
She rolled her eyes.
He looked grave—and something else. Evasive? Guilty? “I’m glad you told me, and I’m not angry. But let’s talk about it after I return from the plains.”
She started back. “Why are you going to the plains?”
“That’s why I came to your room,” he said. “The group coming with the yearlings from Cobblepine lost a dragon on the way, of course, and they want me to take time out of my entirely free schedule to go find it.”
Valenna was surprised at how devastated this news left her. “How long will you be gone?” she asked, her voice faltering.
“A few days,” he said. “I assume you’ll be gone when I return.”
“No … I’ll wait until you get back.”
“Alright then.” And with that, he slipped down the tree and into the shadows.
Valenna sank onto the floor and hugged her knees. She wished she could remember how to cry.