Page 37

JAX

I fetch Teddy and head for the archery fields almost every night. Anytime Sephran and his friends have leave, they’ll join me. Sephran usually brings food from the mess hall to share, and we’ll eat as we ride across the grounds. I can’t quite have full conversations yet, but I listen to their gossip and stories, parsing out what I can.

The soldiers tell me that there have been reports about more scraver attacks throughout Emberfall, that there are more rumors about the “monster” returning. When we shoot, there’s an edge to our practice now, a pressure to be faster, more accurate—as if the soldiers are more acutely aware their lives might depend on it.

I feel that same pressure. At night, when Kutter and Sephran give Leo instruction, I listen, trying to understand as much as I can. When Sephran notices my focus, they begin to include me in their lessons, adjusting my stance, my angle, my hands. Practicing with the false foot pays off, and after a week, I can stand and shoot without needing to kneel for stability. I practice rapid firing so many times that I earn blisters on my fingers, but after four days, I can put five arrows into a distant target in less than ten seconds.

Sephran whistles, then grins and gives me a good-natured shove in the shoulder. “They should put you on patrol.”

“I no soldier,” I say. But his praise makes me blush, pleased.

The last time Tycho was gone for months, he began to feel like a dream, like someone I conjured from my imagination.

It’s beginning to feel like that again. My loneliness has started to twist into something darker. Sharper. I always have to shove it away. But it clings.

One evening Sephran shows up at the forge alone, and he tells me Leo has watch duty and Kutter is on patrol. He asks if I still want to go shooting.

It’s quite literally the best part of my day, so I look at him like he’s crazy. “Yes,” I say. “I want.”

We race across the grounds, my hair whipping back from my face, the speed taking my breath away. The wild sense of freedom is still so new, so foreign . I sometimes think about the first moment Tycho let me ride Mercy, the way he was leading me at a sedate walk, but it felt like we were going twice as fast as I could manage on my own. Now, riding with Sephran, I feel like I’m flying.

I have bread and apples wrapped up in my saddlebag, and Sephran has dried beef strips in his, so after we shoot, we sit against a tree and share. He’s also got a small flask of something that smells sharp and sweet, like cinnamon, but when he holds it my way, offering, I shake my head.

He takes a long swallow, then tilts his head and looks at me sideways. “You never drink,” he says.

That’s true. He and the others often have a flask of something, or a small bottle tucked away, but I never share. I shrug a little, frowning, because I hadn’t realized he noticed. I don’t know how to explain that I don’t want to do anything that reminds me of my father.

But Sephran is patient, and I don’t want to keep it a secret. He waits while I piece words together. “That drink,” I say, tapping his flask, “make father sick.”

A line appears between his eyebrows, and I know that’s not quite the right word.

“Mean sick,” I add. “ Angry sick.”

Understanding flares in his eyes. “Oh.” He winces, then puts the cap back on. “Sorry.”

I put out a hand to stop him. “No, Sephran. Not you.”

He looks down at my hand on his wrist, then screws the lid the rest of the way on. Somehow it feels a little more purposeful. A little more intimate, in a way I can’t quite define. I let my hand drop, but it makes me flush anyway. Now I wish I hadn’t said anything at all. I look out at the darkening fields, because I suddenly can’t meet his eyes.

He looks out at the fields, too, which is a relief. “It never makes me mean,” he says, and his voice is casual. “Not Mal either.” He chuckles, his voice warm with fondness for his friend. He has a lot of stories about Malin, and even though I only understand about half of them, I know Sephran misses him.

“Once we had three days of leave,” he’s saying. “We almost drowned ourselves in liquor in Valkins Valley. We both drew an early watch on our first day back, and he was vomiting in the bushes every time the captain stepped away.”

When I frown at the word vomiting , Sephran mimes it, which makes me smile.

He grins. “He begged me to tie his belt to a tree to keep him upright.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.” He heaves an aggrieved sigh. “And while I was doing it, he vomited down my back.”

That’s so unexpected that it makes me laugh, and Sephran looks over. It’s grown late, and shadows are long, darkening his eyes. “You understand so much now.”

I shrug a little, but I’m pleased. “You have good stories.”

He smiles, but his gaze is searching mine, and warmth crawls up my cheeks again. I turn to look toward the palace. Half a dozen windows are lit from within, and I wonder if the prince is in there, all sad and alone.

I know I am.

The thought comes from nowhere, striking with accuracy.

I feel a tug at my hair, and I turn my head in surprise. It’s light but firm, and I think maybe it’s a prelude to tussling or teasing, but when I inhale, Sephran’s mouth lands on mine.

For an instant, I’m not sure how to react. My lips were parted, and I taste the cinnamon of the liquor before I even realize it’s happening. The kiss is small and sweet and not entirely unpleasant. But then his hand winds tighter in my hair, and I remember myself. I put a hand against his shoulder, but he’s already deepening the kiss, his tongue brushing mine. I try to pull back, but I’m against a tree and there’s nowhere to go.

I make a sound and push against him more firmly, thinking this must all be a moment of confusion. But he grabs hold of my wrist, then pins it to the tree over my head. He’s bigger than I am, and he’s still in armor, giving him enough leverage to trap me there. A spark of fear lights in my gut just as his tongue thrusts into my mouth.

I wrench my head to the side, and it breaks the kiss, but Sephran makes a low sound and moves to my neck. His free hand is at my waist now, and my body automatically recoils, sucking back against the tree.

“Sephran. Stop.” I jerk against his hold, then squirm away from the hand that’s sliding up my waist. “ Stop. ”

He stops so abruptly that it takes me by surprise. Part of me was worried he wouldn’t stop at all. But he draws back and looks down at me. “Jax?”

My heart is pounding, and my hand is still trapped against the tree. He’s still pinning me here.

“Let go,” I say sharply.

His hands slip away at once, and he rolls back on his heels. For a moment, we just sit there staring at each other, and my heart refuses to stop racing.

“Jax.” His expression turns beseeching. His voice is low. “I’m sorry. I misunderstood, all right? Do you understand me? I’m sorry .”

“I understand you are sorry,” I say darkly.

“Would you stop glaring at me?” He runs a hand across the back of his neck. “I didn’t attack you! You kissed me back!”

The thought is jarring, and I freeze.

Because maybe I did. Maybe, for a fraction of a second, I allowed it to happen. Sephran is my friend, and loneliness has been clinging to me for weeks.

He speaks into my silence. “Silver hell. When you told me to stop, I stopped.” He grimaces, then scowls, abashed. “But you kept looking at me, and then you put your hand on my arm, and—” He makes a frustrated sound. “I’m sorry , Jax. I’m sorry I got confused in the middle there. But I don’t think I was confused in the beginning.”

These words get a little tangled up, and I wish I couldn’t figure them out, but I can. A chill of regret washes over me. I can’t decide which part of this is the worst. Did I betray Tycho? Myself? Or is Sephran to blame? Have I lost one of the only friends I have here?

And if Tycho weren’t constantly leaving, would any of this have happened?

The thought makes me feel cold inside. I’ve been watching for him for weeks. Waiting for weeks. Maybe it’s not his fault, but as usual, it’s not mine either. I can’t decide if that makes me feel more angry—or more guilty. Either way, a flush has crawled up my neck. I turn away from Sephran and head for the horses. “I must return to the Shield House.”

He follows me. “Stop. Talk to me. I want to understand. Is there someone else?”

I’ve reached Teddy, and the question forces me still. I put my hand against the horse’s shoulder, and I remember Tycho’s last night here, the way the king’s orders frustrated him to the point that he fell against me, his emotion choking both of us. He was angry and resentful and miserable in his duties.

And still, he left.

“Yes,” I say to Sephran. I turn and look at him. “There is Tycho.”

It’s the first time I’ve said it to anyone , and after so long and so much buildup, I expect a reaction.

But Sephran just sighs, and there’s a rueful note to it that I can’t quite figure out. “The King’s Courier.”

“Yes.”

He scoffs and looks away. “Malin thought so, but I didn’t believe it.”

That gets my attention, and I frown, unsure if I understood. “Why not believe?”

“ Why? He’s been gone for weeks , and you haven’t had word.”

“You have had no word from Malin.”

“Because he’s a soldier. He has to follow orders. He’s not an attendant to the king . The whole time we traveled here, Lord Tycho hardly even looked at you.”

These words are twisting up in my gut. “He had reasons,” I say.

Sephran scoffs again. “If you say so.”

I scowl and turn back to the horse, then swing onto Teddy’s back.

Sephran grabs the rein, then puts a hand on my boot.

My thoughts are too scrambled up, and it reminds me too much of what Niall and Brinley did. That spark of fear in my gut hasn’t fully gone out. “ Let go ,” I snap.

He raises his hands in surrender, but his eyes are full of righteous anger. “All right, look . You might hate me right now, but I know how lonely you are. I’ve seen it. Do you understand all this, Jax? Do you understand what I am saying to you?”

My jaw is set, and I look away.

But I understand every word.

“I was wrong,” he says. “I shouldn’t have done that. And I am sorry. But you shouldn’t waste your time pining away for some asshole who dragged you away from home and left you here to wait for him.”

The words take my breath away. I don’t know what to say.

Sephran swears and begins to untether his own horse.

I still haven’t moved.

He heaves a sigh and swings aboard, then turns his horse back toward the stables.

“Sephran,” I say, and my voice sounds a bit hollow.

He whirls so quickly that it makes me think he wouldn’t mind if I took it all back. But his eyes are still shadowed, and he looks at me warily.

“What?” he says.

“I not hate you.” I cluck to Teddy and urge him forward.

After a moment, Sephran falls into step beside me. This time, there’s a larger gap between us than there was before, and I know he’s doing it deliberately.

Some of the tension in my gut won’t go away, but a fraction of it eases.

“Still want to be friends?” he says.

My tongue stalls on an answer. Everything he said and did is still wound up in my thoughts, and it’s going to take a while to unravel it.

Especially since some of it—maybe a lot of it—has nothing to do with him at all.

So I don’t say anything, and we ride in silence for a while.

But I think about the way he put the cap back on that flask of liquor when I explained why I didn’t want any. I think about the way he brought me the bench when I so desperately needed it.

I think about the fact that he stopped the instant I said his name. He apologized. He explained.

I think about the fact that he has been here, while Tycho has not.

“Yes, Sephran,” I say, though I sigh. “I want.”