CHAPTER 27
The celebration of Reagan’s twenty-fifth birthday was near, but he couldn’t have looked more detached from the thought of it.
Tension gathered beneath his skin like a living thing. He had grown quieter with each passing day, sometimes vanishing from the Hall altogether. To where, I didn’t know, and I didn’t ask. Not when I had seen the quiet warning in his eyes.
We still spoke over dinner and in my room at night, as if we were circling a dark wall in the centre of a room. I tried to hide my concern and frustration at the secrets he kept.
I had been hoping for our next liaison, wanting to gain more experience as an emissary. But there seemed to be no new opportunities to work or visit other places.
Today, it was just the two of us in the training room.
“It’s a ward bound to you. It should keep any charm from compelling or hurting you. Except mine, of course, since it’s my own ward.”
Reagan had told me there was no infallible layer of protection, but some were harder to break, especially when the density of mana was higher, like his.
“Your rune scar won’t shield you from everyone.
I, for one, know how to circumvent runes.
It’s not common knowledge, at least. It’s complicated.
But if that happens, or if something happens to the ward, the best protection you have is knowing how to recognise when someone is targeting you.
You might have only seconds to sense if someone is trying to slip into your mind or compel you to do something you don’t want to. ”
I reined in my disappointment that the Algiz on my thigh could not protect me from everything.
“How will I know?”
With his palm facing upward, he let a sliver of his mana hover above his hand, the white tendril circling his finger. “There are signs. If you smell this . . .”
A metallic scent, like copper with a hint of sweetness, coated my tongue. I wrinkled my nose as I nodded.
“Or this.”
The light vanished, and for a heartbeat, there was nothing. Then a dull ache surged between my temples, faint at first but growing. He stopped.
“If you feel anything like that, or sudden numbness, someone might be targeting you. You can’t let your guard down, and you need to be quick in sensing it.”
“All right,” I said, keeping my voice deliberately light. “Please don’t do that again. Our run earlier was headache enough.”
He frowned. “This is serious. You need to hear what I’m telling you.”
“Of course this is serious. I understand that.” I sighed. “Why are you so worried today?”
His words were sharp. “I’m focused. You need to do the same. You’re not in a position to be careless.”
The sting of his words pressed down on me, and I bit back my retort. He was just stating the truth as he saw it, but it still struck a nerve.
As if I wasn’t doing enough, wasn’t trying hard enough to be prepared, or wasn’t taking it seriously.
“Are you wearing the embroidered clothes yet?” he asked, his focused gaze sweeping over my outfit as if he were already displeased with the answer.
I swallowed, my tone clipped. “Not yet.”
“You should be wearing at least one by now, Jane.”
“The seamstress hasn’t given them back to me yet.” I crossed my arms. “We only asked her yesterday.”
“Then she’s had long enough.” He was already moving toward the door. “We’ll get them.”
“Caedmon, I’m not going there. We can wait.” I shook my head, trying to make sense of his mood. “You’re being difficult.”
Reagan spun on his heel, and the look he levelled at me made my stomach twist.
“Oh, right. My mistake for trying to protect you. Should I just let them have their way with you instead? Maybe being influenced sounds better to you?”
I opened my mouth to speak again, ready to tell him to shove his attitude down someone else’s throat. But then I felt it.
A strange numbness spread from the tips of my fingers and toes, curling upward like smoke.
“Fine. I feel it.”
“Do you feel this?” he asked with a tone that was unnervingly calm.
My words faltered. A suffocating heat surged inside me, anger rising too quickly, too unnatural to be my own. My patience thinned to the point of snapping.
“What in the gods’ name are you doing?”
“I’m showing you how important it is to take this seriously,” he drawled, his expression like stone. “Now, come closer.”
The command sliced through my thoughts, and before I could stop myself, my legs moved towards him. My heart drummed against my ribs as I closed the distance.
“Put your hands around my neck,” he ordered coldly.
My arms stiffened, yet moved as if they belonged to someone else.
“I can’t stop,” I breathed to myself. “I don’t know how to stop.”
My hands rose, completely subjected to his influence, and wrapped around his throat. Reagan didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. His neck was rigid under my touch.
“Now choke me,” he ordered.
“No,” I rasped, clenching my jaw.
But the tension in my hands told me the choice wasn’t mine.
My fingers tightened around his throat. The pressure was real. So was the panic rising inside my ribcage.
My rune didn’t work against him.
“Stop this,” I bit out, my voice trembling with rage and fear.
Reagan’s power snapped away like a thread cut clean. My hands flew to my chest, shaking with the feeling of his skin beneath my palms. White marks lingered on his neck before fading.
“Why would you do that?” I demanded, my voice raw. My blood felt like ice in my veins, and my heart wouldn’t stop hammering.
Cold, wretched prick.
“It was a demonstration,” he whispered. “So you understand what you’re up against. What you need to protect yourself from.”
“You think I don’t know?” My voice rose, splintered. “You think I need a twisted lesson to remind me how weak I am against your people? Against you?”
“That’s why you need to be twice as focused.”
“I know. It’s engraved into my skull. I’m human. I’m weak. I’m vulnerable. Believe me, Caedmon, I don’t need the reminder. If I let myself focus on it too much, I wouldn’t even leave this room.”
I threaded my fingers through my hair just to grab something, lest I choke him wilfully this time.
Air left his lungs with a heavy feeling. “You aren’t weak, Jan. But maybe you’ve convinced yourself you are.”
I forced a breath through my teeth. “I don’t need to convince myself when you’re so ready to do it for me.”
Reagan walked towards me, his assessing eyes seeming to read further beneath my layer of rage. And just as I considered leaving, his hand rose to my cheek, turning my head back to face him.
“I’m sure that you can handle everything I’m throwing your way,” he murmured. “For someone who acts so brave . . . do you tell yourself you’re weak?”
I tried to look away, but he held my chin firm.
“Of course not,” I rasped, “but I am not blind. I know my limitations. Not all of us are gifted with power. Some of us were never built for this world, but I’m still trying to learn. As futile as my efforts might be, considering what your people can do.”
His brow knit.
Sometimes it felt as if he were blind. Or he didn’t want to acknowledge the truth. That we were not the same. That he desired someone who would never be as capable.
I steeled myself, willing my expression to betray nothing. “I am sorry to disappoint you.”
He scowled, dropping his hand. His gaze bored into mine, twin seas storming in the silence that hung between us. The overhead lamplight had never seemed so bright, so revealing.
“The only thing that disappoints me is that you don’t seem to see yourself clearly. And neither you nor I think your efforts are futile. I know that you’ll be brave, even if someone is stupid enough to harm you. You will not balk. But it makes me see red to think that.”
He drew the smallest fraction closer. “What is in your head matters a whole lot, so believe in that strength. Understand? Or I will prove to you that you can, but you won’t appreciate how I do it.”
My eyes narrowed.
I didn’t need convincing. I had been learning to protect myself for months.
“You just can’t help but resort to threats, can you?” I said and turned towards the door. “I need to leave.”
His voice sharpened to a razor’s edge. “We are finished. Hate me all you want, but my conscience will be clear when you find yourself in the hands of people who would harm you for their pleasure. Again.”
I stopped. The words were bitter, meant to hurt.
“If harm finds me, I will either defend myself or I won’t. It will not be your fault.”
I did not wait for his response as I left the room.
◆◆◆
I sank to the floor, breathing hard.
“Your defence is improving, Red,” Gwinifer noted, propping her elbows on her knees. There was something almost like pride in her tone. “You don’t fight like a little terrified bird anymore.”
Almost.
I tipped the water bottle to my lips, the cool liquid doing little to quench my thirst after the gruelling hour.
“After almost three months of being bruised and beaten, I was hoping I could knock you down, just once.”
Gwinifer’s laugh was low and wholly unimpressed. “Three months is hardly anything,” she said, brushing a damp strand of hair from her face. “But you will be able to put up a fight.”
I closed my eyes, leaning my head back against the wall. “A small mercy, I guess.”
A faint buzz of preparations drifted in from outside, where the Hall’s workers scurried back and forth, setting everything in place for the night.
I hadn’t seen him since our discussion in this very training room yesterday, only hearing from Cerridwen that he had left with Finn to go over something about his last liaison.
“Is it going to be in the courtyard?” I asked, glancing at Gwin, who was rolling her shoulders. “Like the Rite?”
“No. This event will be in the audience room.”
Not a celebration. An event. That was what they called it now. The word was clipped too, void of joy. Gwinifer’s gaze was fixed on the opposite wall, as if her thoughts had wandered somewhere else.
“And what about the sentence today?” I ventured cautiously.
She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye.