Page 38 of The Freedom You Seek
The men usually took turns keeping watch, and when I voiced my desire to take over a shift as well, I was met with much protest and, in Dion’s case—of course—growling.
It was Fig who explained the decision to leave me out of the rotation. “It makes no sense to change our shift routine, at least not at the moment. You’re no fighter, which is a necessary prerequisite for a protective duty like night watch. If something or someone attacks, you can’t even defend yourself. No, Nayana, we can find other tasks for you to fulfill, and there are plenty of ways to contribute to the group. Besides, Dion has already told me that he plans to train you in self-defense soon. You’ll be surprised how taxing it’ll be for you. So for now, at night, you’ll sleep.”
I hated the logic behind his words. Of course, taking watch meant more than just staying awake for a few hours while everyone else was sleeping—even I knew that. If I was attacked at night while on watch duty, there was a good chance I’d be taken or dead before I could even thinkof waking the men. So, I stopped fighting for night shift duty and concentrated on finding other opportunities to be useful.
Luckily, Fig kept his word, and I was given several other tasks. I often prepared meals, mended clothes, and helped with the horses.
One afternoon, when we’d taken a break to let the horses rest, Antas had called me over to show me how to repair half-broken arrows that were still salvageable. Much to our mutual surprise, I turned out to be quite adept at restoring them, and soon Antas had stopped supervising me when I prepared the scraping tools and assorted fletchings.
Some of my chores I could even do while riding, considering I was simply a passenger on horseback. I still hadn’t been taught how to ride on my own, so I sat in front of Dion day after day. By now, I’d gotten used to it, and I was utilizing the idle time as best as I could.
At one point, I voiced my concern for our horse, but Dion just eyeballed me with his head canted, his usual response to what he considered my foolish questions. It was safe to say he spent half of his days with his head tipped to the side.
“My horse is bred for endurance. This breed can easily carry a man twice my weight without breaking a sweat. The tiny thing you are doesn’t make a difference. I bet, if he could talk, he’d laugh, then tell you that he didn’t even realize that he was carrying one more person.” The huff that followed was accompanied by a smirk, and I quickly dropped the topic.
Instead, I went back to fixing a torn sleeve on one of Ireas’ tunics. The fabric was a pleasant shade of azure that reminded me of a cloudless sunny sky, and the soft material spoke of the many times the healer must have worn this garment. As I sewed, I hummed a traditional lullaby of unknown origin that my grandmother had sometimes sung to me ages ago.
“You have a pleasant singing voice,” Dion said, speaking out of the blue and pulling me out of my reverie. I turned to him, searching for a sarcastic smirk or a mean twinkle in his eye, but there was none. Curiosity sparkled in his eyes, and he examined me with an intensity in his expression.
“Huh, thanks. Do you like music?”
“Very much so. I used to play a plethora of different instruments when I was young, and there was nothing I enjoyed more than losing myself in harmonies.”
“Why did you stop then?”
“I had to grow up.”
“Because of your family?”
“Yes.” Dion smiled, but the gesture was so full of melancholy that it tied my airways together and stole my breath.
This side of Dion was unexpected. Maybe it wasn’t only that he showed me a softer side of himself or that he shared a piece of his past of his own volition, but also how real he seemed for a moment.
But it was over before I could blink, and his usual aloof mask slipped back into place.
I returned to my needlework, no longer humming, for I was far too self-conscious when I considered that the manriding behind me might have been a musical prodigy, and I—well, I liked to sing sometimes.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your song. It’s great to see that you’re adjusting to the circumstances and feel more at ease with us.”
I paused and thought about what he’d said and came to the conclusion he was indeed right. Over the course of the past few days, I had relaxed more and more. It helped that I could be useful, and I’d begun to trust my companions not to have other motives than those they’d presented to me. “I guess I could’ve been cursed with worse company.”
His chest vibrated as it usually did when he chuckled, and both of us fell silent, which gave me time to contemplate. Dion had never talked about his personal life before, and now that I’d tasted blood, I was even more determined to find out more.
I couldn’t help myself; once something had sparked my curiosity, my research always bordered on a compulsion to pry deeper—and there was no difference when it came to the man I was riding with and whatever he was hiding. The others rarely talked about themselves as well, but they weren’t nearly as tight-lipped as Dion—his secrecy annoyed me to no end.
As the days passed, I uncovered small details about the men I was accompanying on this journey. For example, they were all soldiers living in the capital. Fig accidentally revealed that he was a high-ranking general in the royal army, and I could easily envision it.
When I asked him if he’d get in trouble for spending time around a convicted murderer, he simply shrugged and told me he was currently on personal leave and thatthe army could kiss his ass. That was when I discovered Fig wasn’t above using profanities.
Ireas was the youngest of three siblings and, as he put it, the child his parents had wished for but had never believed they would be blessed with.
He learned everything he knew about medicine from an army healer and loved his vocation, even though he’d never wanted to join the army in the first place as he was a pacifist who hated fighting and only did it when there was no other way left. Additionally, I found out that he was the youngest among the group of men.
What I’d unearthed about Thain was mostly second-hand knowledge, since Dion never gave me a chance to have a proper conversation with the redhead.
But one night, Ireas grabbed the wrong canteen, got drunk, and gossiped, and I learned Thain was part of the royal cavalry.
Imagining him as a soldier was hard. He didn’t strike me as the type of man who followed order and discipline, and I wondered how differently he acted in the service of king and country. As a side note, I found out that it had been his unauthorized canteen containing the surprise schnapps—no surprise here.