“You will need to get better than this,” I said.
He watched me, eyes narrowed. Surely he knew a distraction when he saw one.
But then a smile twisted at one corner of his mouth.
“I have no argument.”
“I will help you. If you want it.”
The smile warmed his eyes. They really were something.
“I would be honored to receive your instruction, Aefe.”
What was it about the way he said my name? I rose to my feet and threw his rapier to the ground beside him.
“Then get up,” I said. “And stop asking so many questions.”
Two weeks of traveling passed. Though we had all managed to refrain from drawing weapons on each other since that first night at camp, tension stretched out between us like a drawn bowstring. At night, I crept away from camp and joined Caduan in the forest, where together we would train. He was a passable swordsman, even a talented one, but what went further than raw talent was his obvious love for learning.
Swordsmanship, though, was not the only thing Caduan wanted to learn. Every night, I dodged his questions just as I dodged his rapier. I quickly learned that he greatly enjoyed knowing things. Perhaps that was why his stare disassembled its subjects and put them back together again.
But I was not ready to let him see so much of me.
Still, for reasons I couldn’t explain, our nights together became a bright spot at the end of long and exhausting days. There was a certain satisfaction in chipping away at something so tangible when there was so much we could not control.
We still received no response from the House of Reeds. Their silence could mean nothing, or it could mean everything.
The night before we were to arrive, our training session was a mess — my instruction muddled and short-tempered, Caduan’s practice distracted and clumsy. After a few half-hearted rounds, I sank down onto a log. I had never been very good at stuffing away my feelings. And now, my anxiety overwhelmed me.
“What do you think?” I asked. “What do you think we’re going to find, tomorrow?”
He turned to me. He was panting, slightly, from the exertion of our last exercise. He wore a thin cotton shirt, which clung to the outline of his form, damp with sweat. It opened just enough in the front to reveal the shape of his clavicle and the edges of still-healing wounds running over it.
He looked so different from the bloody figure I’d hoisted out of the swamp. And yet, the memories he never voiced were written into every line of his body.
“I hope for the best,” he said. “But I suspect the worst.”
He spoke so matter-of-factly.
I stared at him, a wrinkle between my eyebrows. “How can you be so calm about all of this? If I were you…”
There were no words for it. I would be drowning in my rage.
Caduan’s face hardened. “What makes you think I’m calm?”
I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, it all rearranged. I felt like a fool for not seeing it earlier. The stillness in Caduan was not calm. It was paralyzing rage.
“I am not calm, Aefe.” He stepped closer, eyes burning, jaw tight. “I am on fire.”
Chapter Seventeen
Tisaanah
When I awoke, my head felt as if it was made of stone. Nura told me that I had slept for almost two days. It still didn’t seem like enough. But at least I could stand without tipping over, and though my head pounded and my stomach still churned, I seemed to be done emptying my guts.
“Clean yourself up and get dressed.” Nura threw a military uniform onto my bed. “We have a meeting to attend. One battle might be over, but we still have a war to fight.”
Didn’t I know it.
I obeyed, and when I met Nura again, she led me to the library of the Farlione home.
It might have been one of the most stunning rooms I’d ever seen — even compared to the cold grace of the Threllian Lords’ architecture. The entire Farlione estate was beautiful. But this room was the one that reminded me most of Max’s cottage, albeit a much, much grander version of it. Still, it had the same cluttered warmth, the shelves overflowing with books and packed with curious oddities. I wondered if Max used to spend a lot of time here when he was young. I could picture him, tucked away into little crevices with a book, hiding from whatever social gatherings were happening beyond the doors.
But no one here, today, was looking at the books. There was a long table in the center of the room, covered in maps. Zeryth sat at its head. Anserra was there, too, as were Eslyn and Ariadnea. The others I did not recognize. There were five figures, all of whom looked to be in their fifties or sixties — two were Valtain. All of them wore red sashes around their neck, hanging down their backs.
“The Council of the Orders,” Nura murmured to me. “Or what’s left of them, anyway.”
My interest was piqued. I had read of the Council, but never met any of its members — though I’d tried to get one or two of them alone during the ball, what felt like a lifetime ago. But even though I didn’t know these people, they clearly knew me. When we entered the room, every set of eyes turned towards me. As I sat down, I could feel magic reaching for me, a mind trying to examine mine. I carefully guarded the wall across my thoughts, my gaze slipping to my left, where a Valtain man with long, wavy silver hair eyed me with great curiosity, smoking a pipe.
I gave him a polite smile that told him I knew exactly what he’d been up to, and he returned it with what looked like genuine satisfaction.
I still felt awful. But I was careful to appear completely put together.
“Ah yes,” Zeryth said, eyeing me.
