Chapter 44 #2
My warm face reddens further. Nothing like airing your dirty laundry for all and sundry to see.
‘Seems to have forgotten that you nearly killed yourself riding through the night on a dire wolf to save his sorry arse,’ Ruben mutters.
He’s not wrong, but I get why Kyor is mad.
I do. He told me he loved me, then found me with the man responsible for killing Zelle.
For threatening his entire kingdom. After what he went through with Thea, believing she loved him only to realise it was all a farce, I get why this pain cuts deep, but is it any deeper than the ways he’s cut me?
The way he refused to clear my mother’s name?
I sigh. We both hold anger and hurt, though I seem to be the only one who’s trying to keep it together given there’s more at stake right now than broken hearts.
I pick up one of the peaches and take a large bite. Might as well build my strength while the food lasts. It’ll spoil if we don’t.
Everyone remains awkwardly silent after the exchange, but a moment later Benny stands up and takes a seat next to me.
‘Look, I’ve been thinking about this, and I know it’s not great for you personally right now, but maybe it’s an opportunity.’
‘An opportunity?’ I question. ‘How?’
He nods and leans forward, eager. ‘Rose, you know better than anyone what it’s like for people out there. Common people. Folk in the slums. And now Kyor knows a little more about the rebellion, we can be more open. With you on our side, more people will listen.’
I’m both impressed and irritated by his tenacity. ‘Benny, are you seriously trying to recruit me right now?’
Benny’s face hardens. ‘There is never an easy time to do what’s right. But I’ll do anything to stop his father from destroying our lands.’
I’m reminded of all the Eastern Isles lives lost in the Retterheld because they valued their community above their own lives. Every risk Benny takes is for them, yet he is here, riding to the Issen with me – not looking out for his people, but looking out for his friend.
I close my eyes against the sudden scratch in them. Against the guilt that roils within me. Every action I have taken has been selfish and to protect my family alone. Sure, I won the Retterheld, but the thought of sacrificing them, the way Benny did, requires a strength I know I don’t possess.
Nor do I want to.
But my selfishness runs deeper still. How many times did I promise myself I would help the slums, help my former neighbours, and what have I actually done? Given them a few supplies. Enough to last a couple of families a day, if that. It’s not enough. And I do want to do more.
‘Look, truthfully, I don’t know if Kyor’s even going to speak to me again,’ I admit to Benny, quashing thoughts of the slums and my family. ‘Let alone listen to me about something like that. I’m not saying I won’t try, but now isn’t the time. We both need time to process.’
‘Yeah, okay. I see that,’ he says, but I can see he’s disappointed.
As the others set up their mats in a circle around the fire and lie down for bed, I take the first watch.
Kyor’s still not back, and my previous thoughts of how he needs physical pain to dull the mental ones resurface. His injured shoulder has to be hurting him. Is that enough to keep him on the straight and narrow, or will he seek out more danger to feel alive?
A thousand images flit through my head, all of them involving him staggering through the forest, blood-soaked, alone, and close to death.
Knowing I won’t be able to sleep until Elska and Kyor return, I take the second watch as well. There’s no point in Ruben losing sleep too.
When the glowering eyes of the prince finally appear, everyone else is fast asleep. For a moment, we remain frozen, totally silent as we look at one another – me with pleading eyes, him with frosty ones.
Kyor drops down off Elska, sets out his mat, and lies down. His wolf immediately follows suit without giving me so much as a second glance. Still, he can’t stop me from hearing the hiss escaping his lips.
Knowing I have some Robbard’s tincture left, I tiptoe to my bag to retrieve it. I pull it out and pad over quietly to offer it to him.
‘You know it helps,’ I whisper, holding the bottle out to him.
The muscle in his jaw feathers as he hesitates, but finally he grunts and takes it from me without so much as a thank you. Not that I expected one.
‘Two drops,’ I tell him.
Last time, I gave him six or seven, and as good as it was at relieving the pain, I don’t think he wants a repeat of the drug-induced confessions.
After taking the two drops, he sits up and holds the bottle out to me, but I shake my head. He may as well keep it. With a nod that might be gratitude but is probably just acceptance, he twists around and flinches again. Instinctively I move towards him, only to back away again.
‘It’ll stop hurting soon,’ I assure him softly.
He scoffs in response. ‘The shoulder, maybe. What you’ve done … I doubt it.’
The words strike exactly where they’re meant to, stinging sharper than any blades of ice I could produce.
My mouth opens, ready to beg for forgiveness, when a groan breaks through the silence.
‘Rose? Why didn’t you wake me?’ Ruben moans as he rolls over. ‘Go to sleep. I’ll take over.’
I don’t respond. Instead, my eyes lock on Kyor’s, begging him to say something. Anything that shows he understands I didn’t want to hurt him. That I would never deliberately hurt him. But instead, he rolls over so he’s no longer facing me.
For a moment longer I wait, my heart pounding in my throat as I pray that he’ll look back. But it’s not going to happen. I know it’s not. And so I leave Ruben to his watch, surprised when I slam straight into sleep.
The next morning we continue on in much the same way, only I pass Stide over to Ruben. It’s nothing against her; I’m just hoping I might be able to slip ahead and talk to Kyor in private.
But as the morning passes, every time I try, he either slows down so that we’re too close to the group for a private conversation or slips off the path and into the forest.
When we stop for lunch, he disappears entirely, presumably to hunt. As we eat the already softening fruit, Caz presses us to make some decisions on directions. ‘Benny was saying that the Vypash port can close when the weather’s bad. I didn’t realise Vypash closes.’
I hadn’t either. ‘What does that mean for us?’ I ask.
‘We can only get north of the lake by crossing it at the port,’ Benny explains. ‘I mean, it might be fine. Most of the time it’s fine. But we might have to wait a couple of days.’