Page 4 of A Court of Truth and Thorns (Royal Scout #2)

KALI

I only hear the haggard breathing because I’m up to relieve myself and have headed as far away from Luca, who stands watch outside the cavern, as practical.

Peeking silently around a tree trunk, I find Trace on his knees.

He scrubs his hands over his eyes and sits back on his heels, gulping deep, desperate breaths.

I take a step back as quietly as I can. Trace tilts his face to the sky, his hands shaking as he runs them over the spots on his legs where my bones were once shattered.

I wonder whether the phantom pain that still haunts me claims him as well.

Stars, what a nauseating web of violence and grief.

Silently, I return to the cave. I’m about to slink back into my shadowed corner when I see that Calvin is awake as well, sitting beside my blanket. He opens and closes his hand with pained slowness, while the others’ soft snores promise that at least some of us are getting sleep.

“I fear the weather will turn soon,” he says, turning his hand over. “My joints are a more reliable indicator than I would wish.”

“Is there anything I might do to help?” I ask, kneeling beside him. “My sister gave me a heat crystal, which can ward off aches. We could have Alexa tune it for us.”

“I’ll manage.” Calvin pats my hand. “But thank you, girl. It was a kind thought.”

The blood freezes in my veins. “What did you say?” I whisper.

“I said thank you. For offering a heat crystal.”

My mood for games is nonexistent. “The other part,” I hiss through gritted teeth.

A soft chuckle. “Does it matter right now, in the quiet of night?”

I lick my dry mouth, my heart still racing like a drum. “How did you know?”

Calvin shrugs. “It’s my trade to learn people’s secrets, to listen to their bodies and actions as much as their words.” He touches my hand again. “Worry not. I keep what I learn to myself. Though I hope you’ll soon find less need for the secrecy among friends.”

I rub my wrists. They tingle with the memory of Trace’s binds.

“You asked me an interesting question a few days ago, before you disappeared,” says Calvin. “Do you recall it?”

I’d wanted to know whether people, the ones who survive, can recover from a questioner’s methods. Calvin claimed it possible—with help. My thoughts stutter. “No,” I answer too quickly, rising to my feet. “I’m afraid I do not. Goodnight, sir.”

“Kal.” The rebuke in Calvin’s voice halts me in my tracks. “Your displeasure with Trace’s choice to detain you by force is understandable. But his motives were well placed, if unkind. And this night, I do think he might value a friend. ”

Of course Calvin knows about Trace’s current excursion. And that I found him. And that I left. I don’t know why I’m even surprised anymore. I roll my shoulders before answering. “Trace is fine. He’s just...” I shake my head. “He will little welcome company just now. Especially mine.”

Calvin massages his wrists. “Want and need are not always the same.”

I sigh. There is too much of my sister in the old man. It’s easier to indulge the suggestion than to bear the guilt of refusal. “I’ll go talk to him,” I say. “But if our talking wakes up the dead, it’s on you.”

I retrace my steps to the discrete copse where I last saw Trace and find him gone.

The waning moon casts scant light through the clouds, and even with my eyes adjusted to the darkness, it is impossible to make out a trail in the woods.

Closing my eyes, I listen to the forest, half hoping I hear nothing to give me direction.

Then I can return to Calvin and say honestly that I tried.

The rustling of leaves in the wind fills my ears, an owl’s wise hooting mixing with the thin crackle of twigs as small animals scurry along. But there is another sound too. One that isn’t native to these woods.

Whatever Calvin thinks about the goodness of Trace’s motives, the fact is that Trace forced me away from Leaf.

He took away my choice. Bound my wrists.

The raw skin chafes against my shirt in reminder, sending a rush of anger through me, even as the faint sounds of a man moving through the darkness give away Trace’s whereabouts.

I follow the sounds, willing them to disappear before I catch up.

If making Trace feel better is so high on Calvin’s priority list, maybe he should have gone himself.

“Who’s there?” Trace’s voice demands, cutting off my hopes. Moonlight glitters off the steel pointing toward me .

I sigh and step closer, holding out empty hands. “Someone dumb enough to come after you.”

The steel whispers as it descends into its sheath. “Go back, Kalianna.”

“Walk me back.”

A humorless chuckle. “I think you’ll make it just fine. All of you will.”

There is an odd finality to Trace’s words, and I frown at his silhouette. Wide shoulders, straight back, hair shifting in the light wind. I cross my arms. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Away,” Trace says calmly. Too calmly.

I walk forward until I’m close enough to feel the tension radiating off him, the moon casting dim light across his face and jaw.

“Of all things to come up with doing in the middle of the night after fighting a rose patrol and marching for hours, this rates somewhere between absurd and moronic,” I mutter, taking hold of his elbow.

The tightly corded muscles beneath the pads of my fingers send a familiar energy through me.

“Let’s go back to the waystation. We’ll discuss whatever this is in the morning. ”

He stays rooted to the ground.

“You’re serious?” It takes me voicing the words before I start to believe them.

And once I do, my heart lurches into a gallop.

Trace leaving is not a possibility I’ve ever considered, and I’m as unprepared for it as I am for the sudden vice of fear gripping my chest. “Stars, Trace, why? Where?” Realizing my voice is rising, I check myself quickly.

“Is it Raza? Are you going back for her?”

Trace shakes his head. “If Raza failed to make it out with her guards, there is nothing to be done for it just now. ”

I frown. “Then where is it you so desperately need to be?”

“Nowhere,” he says, as if that’s an answer.

And it is, I realize. It’s the answer. Trace isn’t seeking a destination; he’s just running. My fingers dig into his flesh.

“Coward,” I hiss. He flinches but recovers, raising his chin, ready to accept whatever blow I plan to deliver next.

I oblige. “We’re setting course for Everett and it terrifies you.

So you run. Like you did five years ago.

Except this time, you can’t tell yourself that you’ll do more good implanted in the adversary’s court, because that court just fell.

” I swallow. “So where to now? To find some new master to torment you? Some mystic tithe to wash away the sins of a seventeen-year-old boy?”

Trace’s breathing quickens. “This from the girl who hides in the shadows when she should be eclipsing the sun?”

My face heats. “So a day ago I was doing too much in trying to rescue my sister, and now I’m not doing enough?”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?” I ask in spite of myself.

Trace opens his mouth, closes it, and steps away, shaking his head. “Nothing. I don’t mean anything. Go back to camp and then go to Everett.”

Everett. Yes. The hurt bubbles to the surface of my memories, burning with hot, reason-defying fire.

My hands tremble at my sides, but I’m beyond caring.

Or watching my words. The narrow escape, the binds, the fight, the fatigue, they all join forces to feed the inferno in my chest. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?

The only reason you’ve... paid attention, let me believe in some bond between us.

You wanted me to go to Everett, and now that I’m on my way there, you have no more need to be around me.

” I tip my face up to the sky, cursing myself for the stupid little girl I turned out to be.

Trace steps up to me, his voice low. “You think I forced you from the palace because— ”

“Because I’m a tool to you, one you maintain so you can point it in the right direction when you think it proper.

” My words come between heaving breaths.

“I don’t understand why you want me in Everett so badly, but that’s been your goal ever since you discovered that I have some connection with magic, that I might pose a danger to Bahir. ”

I shake myself, thinking back to the night Trace found me in the wake of my capture by Viva Sylthia.

I was broken. Dying. Trace found me, used his healing crystal to knit together torn muscle and shattered bone.

But the healing hurt and I fought, somehow pushing the magic away from me and back into Trace.

He told me about Bahir being a mage, someone who can manipulate magic directly—the only one on the continent.

And then... then he insisted I go to Everett.

His words return to me, vivid as ever. If you won’t go to Everett for your safety, then go to discover what your relationship to magic is.

Find out whether you pose more danger to Bahir than comes from just knowing his secret.

I meet Trace’s eyes. “I was your mark, wasn’t I?”

“You are insane,” Trace says, towering over me, his broad shoulders blocking out the starlight. “I came looking for the broken pieces of you that Viva Sylthia left behind before I knew anything about your magic and the danger you might or might not pose to the bishop.”

The logic of his words does nothing for my temper. “I don’t know why you came after me. Not yet. But I’ll find out. The prince of Everett would not rescue a worthless guard trainee without a reason.”

Trace stills. “Worthless guard trainee?” He mouths each word slowly as if digesting its meaning.

His hand rises to grip my chin, and his fingers, calloused from wielding a sword, scratch against my skin.

Trace’s dark eyes bore into mine as he speaks.

“You are brave and loyal and beautiful. I dragged you from the palace because I’d rather live with your hate than with your death.

And I followed you into the forest because.

..” He falters, his eyes slipping, losing their confidence.

“Because when it comes to you, I seem incapable of rational thought.”