Chapter 35 #2
He smirks. He thinks it’s his sexy body that has me gawping at him, and usually he’d be right, but today my stare is panic-filled. What if I did the infusion wrong? If that’s the case, I may well have just poisoned the heir to the throne!
I try my best to appear calm, fighting to keep all the panic concealed inside. Oh this is bad.
‘You fancy a lie-in today?’ Kyor says lightly as he moves from the end table towards me.
Once he’s close enough to have a perfectly civil conversation, he continues even further, encroaching on my personal space.
It’s enough to draw the air from my lungs.
‘I can picture you, Thorn, tangled up in your sheets.’
‘I … I just don’t normally see you at breakfast, that’s all,’ I stutter out. Smooth, Rose. So smooth.
‘Perhaps I just don’t like being seen,’ he says.
He turns around and strides back to the Rowell table, where he picks up his empty glass, ready to pour himself some more water. Shit. I can’t let him drink more.
‘The second trial,’ I blurt out hastily.
‘What of it?’ His hand moves away from the jug and I try to hide the relief I feel.
‘Are you doing it?’ I ask. ‘Benny told me the priestess gave you a choice in whether you wanted to participate. You’re going to, aren’t you?’
His eyes glint. ‘Why? Worried about facing me out there?’
‘No. Just wondering why you need to prove yourself so much. Daddy issues, I guess, right?’
Amusement flashes in his eyes, and his lips twitch into a smirk. I realise that this time I’ve moved closer to him. And he didn’t miss it.
He’s so close I can smell the fresh sweat and vanilla musk rising from his hot skin.
‘You lack common sense, you know that? Maybe I should find a way to pound some into you.’
My throat instantly dries as I open my mouth, wishing I could think of some sort of witty retort, but literally nothing comes.
That’s part of the problem, I guess. Sharing a dorm has made my sexual frustration way worse, and I swear that’s the only reason why this encounter is making me so unfeasibly wet.
Kyor reaches out and traces a finger around the outside of my lips. ‘That’s a good look for you,’ he says huskily. ‘An open mouth.’
I snap my mouth closed sharply, and he chuckles.
Our moment comes to a close as a voice interrupts us. ‘Great workout this morning, Your Royal Highness.’
My eyes swivel away from Kyor to find Holden standing behind him.
Unlike Kyor, who’s glistening with sweat, Holden is dripping.
His face is bright pink and from the way his chest is heaving I struggle to believe he was ever an active knight.
His wolf must be embarrassed by him. ‘You’ve got excellent technique. And power.’
‘It was a good warm-up for me, too,’ Kyor replies drily.
Holden’s lips purse as he shifts his attention to me. ‘Kultavaris,’ he snarls. ‘Your family always did have a cockroach-like tenacity. Well, they got what they deserved in the end, as I’m sure you shall too.’
Anger flashes through me, which surges even hotter as he shoots an oily, sycophantic grin to Kyor.
‘You look hot, Commander,’ I say, taking a glass and filling it to the brim with the laced water. ‘You should drink. I’d hate for it to appear that you weren’t able to keep up with one of the Rettlings so early in the morning. What was it the prince called it? A warm-up?’
His nostrils twitch, and his sneer exposes the slightest sliver of yellow teeth.
I don’t wait to see if he drinks the glass.
I can’t. I’m too afraid my expression will give away what I’ve done.
So I turn and stride casually back to my normal table.
When I finally muster the courage to look back, both Kyor and Holden are gone, and both glasses are empty.
Seconds later, I look up to see Llinos coming down the stairs. She gives me a questioning look, and I nod, implying I got the job done.
‘It was getting weird, just standing at the top of the stairs,’ she explains.
‘Thanks for that. We’ve already got our first victim. Maybe two.’ I wince a little.
Her eyes bug. ‘You have?’ She looks up but frowns when she sees Zara’s group are only now walking down the stairs. ‘Who?’
‘Kyor,’ I say. ‘He grabbed himself a drink after training. Picked the wrong jug.’
Llinos’s mouth forms an ‘O’ of shock. ‘You just poisoned the prince and heir to the throne of Morathka?’
‘I did.’ I try to suppress my slightly hysterical laughter, but it’s impossible, and what leaves my lips is the closest thing to a giggle I’ve ever made. ‘And it gets even better.’
‘How?’ she says. Her look of disbelief borders on comical.
‘The other person? It was Holden.’
Llinos bursts into laughter. When she gets a hold of herself, her face is an expression of pure elation. ‘You know, if I wasn’t spoken for, I’d kiss you right now.’
‘I think that would draw a little unwanted attention. But thanks.’ I grin back, helping myself to a large pastry from the plate in front of me. ‘Now all we have to do is wait.’
After watching Zara and her Rettlings fill and drink their glasses, I go straight to the battle yard.
Zelle is already waiting, and judging by the rivulets of sweat rolling down his forehead, Holden isn’t the only person Kyor was sparring with this morning.
For now though, he and I are the only people here.
‘Morning, Kultavaris,’ he says as he strides over to me. ‘Sleep well?’
I wonder briefly if that’s a dig at my purported lie-in, but his face is open, genuine. He really does hope I’ve slept well.
‘Not bad, thank you.’
‘Excellent …’ He picks up a sword from the rack beside him. ‘What do you say we have a bit of practice?’
‘Now that you’ve been thoroughly tired out by a proper warrior, you mean?’ I sass. I expect him to laugh, but instead, his cheeks pull in slightly.
‘He’s not had it easy.’ The solemn air has returned to his voice tenfold.
‘The prince. He doesn’t have many good people around him.
Never has. And I know that doesn’t excuse what he did to your family.
The lie he told.’ Zelle drops his voice low.
‘But whatever the prince said, I fear the outcome would have been the same. Kyor was a boy – a child, as I’ve said before.
His word wasn’t the deciding factor in your punishment.
The king was. And I think you know that. ’
Some part of me did, but right now I can’t verbalise that, can’t speak it aloud and make it real. I’ve clung to my hatred of Kyor for over a decade, and without it I’m not quite sure who I am anymore.
‘He’s been helping you, too. Training you with me. He didn’t have to do that.’
‘Other than your bet, you mean?’ I fire back.
A curl of amusement twists the commander’s lips. ‘Is that what he told you? That we have a bet going?’ He shakes his head. ‘Sorry to disappoint, but as I already told you, he’s helping you purely because he wants to atone.’
I stare at him, eyes wide in disbelief. No bet?
Zelle isn’t done yet. ‘Your father would be so proud of you, Rose.’ His voice is almost a whisper. ‘He was the most formidable fighter I’d ever encountered. Should have had my job – would have if it wasn’t for politics.’
Politics. I scoff at the word. He means how my father was a bastard.
In my shell-shocked silence, Zelle continues, ‘He was one of the best men I knew. Loved with his whole heart. You remind me a lot of him. A lot of your mother, too.’
I don’t know when the tears started falling, but when I lift my fingers to my cheeks, I find them soaked. Hastily I scrub the tears away.
‘That’s enough gassing.’ Zelle pushes back his shoulders with a smile, as though we’ve been happily chatting away about the weather this whole time.
He reaches over to the weapons bench, selects a sword, and throws it to me.
I catch it without a second’s thought. ‘Let’s put those reflexes to use in a fight. ’
An hour later, I’ve had the best spar of my life.
That’s not an exaggeration. It’s the first time I can remember being truly pushed to fight, and I’ve actually risen to the challenge.
My training with Kyor and Zelle has really started to sharpen me into the fighter I should always have been.
Every strike Zelle aimed at me, I blocked. And I even got in a few of my own.
When we stop, we are both dripping in sweat.
‘You’re not the weakest here, Lady Kultavaris,’ he says with an approving nod. ‘Not by a wide margin. Don’t let your lack of magic make you believe otherwise.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, my chest burning with unexpected pride.
Not the weakest. Not by a wide margin.
The way he looks at me … it’s like Zelle actually believes I can survive this. Survive it and maybe even win.
‘Loch also thinks it’s going to be soon,’ Benny says as we sit in the dorm that night. ‘He keeps saying they’re whispering. All whispering.’
‘They are.’ Loch whips his head up from where he was staring blankly at his lap. ‘They think no one can hear them. But I can. I can hear them all.’ He starts to rock.
I open my mouth, ready to ask Loch what exactly he’s heard them saying, but Benny shakes his head. I suspect he’s already tried that.
‘I just hope it’s the one without magic,’ I say instead. ‘I know I’ll stand a chance then.’ I’m determined to build on the confidence my spar with Zelle gave me, even if it’s the conversation beforehand I still can’t stop focusing on.
‘Do you think it will be a group task again?’ Llinos joins in. ‘Most of the trials only have two group tasks, or three at the very most. And normally for at least one of them we’re in pairs.’