Page 16 of The Lost Art of Finding Where You Belong (Lost Arts #2)

Chapter Seven

H ey,” he said, a little bit weakly. “How are you?”

“Better now that I know you’re not dead!” she snapped and threw herself at him.

He dropped the blanket and managed to awkwardly catch her against him. He patted her with his left hand, but he was doing it gently, so it wasn’t so bad. He was still holding the basket with his right and didn’t really want to drop all their food.

Renny pulled back suddenly. “Wait, am I hurting you? Kee says it’s your left arm that’s hurt.”

He eyed the empty space.

“I haven’t even moved yet. How can you tell?”

Renny tilted her head. “You wouldn’t be holding the picnic basket with your right hand if it were the injured one. And the bandage makes your arm look a bit thicker on the left.” She eyed it. “Oh, yeah, I can see that now.”

Perian huffed a laugh. “I’m going to need more help than normal to get the blankets laid out.”

He set the basket down and they managed it just fine, though Renny scolded him any time he tried to use his left arm for anything.

“Honestly, it’s not that bad,” he tried to assure her.

“Were you or were you not bleeding all over the place?”

“Well, not everywhere ,” Perian protested.

She looked unimpressed. “And did you or did you not have to go see the doctor because the wound was so bad?”

Perian opened his mouth to protest this but couldn’t honestly do it. Hit bone, the doctor had said. Needed twelve stitches and to be checked for days. Perian doubted he could just have gone back to Brannal’s rooms and slapped on a bandage. He closed his mouth again.

Renny gave a decisive little nod. “That’s what I thought. Fomadin is not a Warrior anymore, and he’s been banned from the castle and the city.”

“What?” Perian said a bit blankly.

“Onadal took him before Mother this morning. He has the right to expel people from the Warriors, but he regards Fomadin as a troublemaker with a nature incompatible with the mission of the Warriors, and he wanted to ensure he was set outside of their sphere of influence. So he asked Mother to enforce the ban, which she did.”

“Wow,” Perian said. And then, “Thank you. I mean, thanks to your mother.”

Even though Perian made jokes about Cormal throwing fireballs at him in the hallway, Perian had to admit that deep down, he didn’t think the man would do it for no reason.

But Fomadin had gone out of his way to attack Perian.

The man hadn’t even been working with the newbies, but he’d evidently been carefully monitoring what Perian was doing and had taken the opportunity to try to not just disarm him, but to hurt him.

Perian was pretty sure that Onadal’s assessment was spot on.

“I’ll, uh, feel a little safer walking down the hallways now,” he admitted.

“Good,” Renny said, expression fierce. “No one is allowed to hurt you.”

“I would certainly prefer they didn’t,” he agreed. “Now, what is there to eat? Do you think I can manage it with only one hand?”

Picnics were generally designed to be easily consumable in an outdoor setting without a huge number of utensils, but this ploy successfully distracted Renny and got her to refocus on the food and making sure Perian was comfortable and had eaten enough .

He was quite hungry, actually, a hollow pang in his middle, like his body had just realized he hadn’t eaten in a while, and he had some healing to do.

It was only after they’d finished as much food as they could manage and had flopped back onto the blanket to look up at the sky—clear today, no cloud animals in sight—that Perian remembered about yesterday evening’s ride.

“Kee, I have a question for you. And I guess I can’t ask without your sister being here, sorry, but I think Prince Horsey might have led me to a private place of yours. Do you know where I’m talking about?”

Renny tilted her head, looking immensely curious, and then said, “By the lake?”

It was clear the words were not hers because her brow was furrowed in confusion.

Perian nodded. “It looked very beautiful, and I was hoping it would be all right for me to visit, maybe bring others out with me, but then I realized it might be a private location that you didn’t want to share, so I wanted to ask first. It doesn’t look like it’s been used in years.”

Six years, he assumed but wasn’t going to say.

Renny’s brow was knit as she clearly listened to her brother. She smiled faintly, was silent for another moment, and then looked at Perian.

“He says he used to sneak away occasionally—with Cormal and Brannal, after Cormal caught him on his own once and threatened to go to Mother. So as a compromise, they’d go with him for the night.

Cormal got his dad to tell Mother they were doing some deep learning about Mage Warriors or something like that. Apparently, it sounded convincing.”

Perian grinned. “I’m glad.”

And… maybe he could respect Cormal a little bit for that. He could totally understand Kee wanting time on his own, but the Prince being out of the castle on his own truly was dangerous. But rather than scolding him or forbidding it, Cormal had figured out a way to do it more safely.

Had Cormal been more reasonable when he was younger, or was it just that he really didn’t like Perian, and so Perian saw the worst side of him?

Should he be trying to get on his good side?

He didn’t know the man that well and felt like he was reacting to Cormal’s reaction, which probably wasn’t a well-rounded assessment of character.

On the other hand, Perian really wasn’t impressed with what he’d seen in most cases so far.

But he was Brannal’s Secundus, and it would probably be easier for Brannal if they got along. (For that matter, if they actually got along, or were at least neutral , it would be a lot easier for Perian, too.) Maybe this week apart would be good for everyone and let things reset a bit.

Renny continued, snapping Perian back to the present.

“Kee says you can take people out there.” She made a bit of a face. “He’s not using it, and he’d rather that someone was.” Her face lit up. “Maybe I can go out there, and then you could see it again, Kee!”

Apparently, both Perian and Kee started to protest at the same time, because Renny sat up and turned to face them, holding up her hands. “Stop, stop! I can’t understand you when you’re talking at the same time.”

Perian gestured for Kee to go first, sitting up himself so he could face Renny properly.

She made another face. “He says it’s not safe. I assume you were saying the same thing, but I’m not a little girl!”

“But it is important you’re kept safe,” Perian said, picking his words more carefully. “And I think now that he’s relayed that story, Kee understands just how foolhardy he was being.”

A silence. Renny rolled her eyes. “ You went with Brannal and Cormal.”

“If I say something you don’t like, are you going to punch me?” Perian asked.

Her expression went sour. “No. But only because you’re already injured and that would be mean.”

He put on an exaggerated expression of delight. “Does that mean I can say all the things I think you won’t like all at once, and you won’t do anything to stop me?”

She huffed a reluctant laugh. “Alright, tell me.”

“I’m not saying I think Kee did the right thing.

Having Brannal and Cormal present was a definite improvement to going alone.

But I don’t think the two of them would do it now, not in their positions, not if they thought it put you in danger.

And much as I don’t want to bring it up, I think you would have more trouble than your brother fleeing on horseback if there were trouble. ”

Renny’s lips pressed together in a thin line, but after a moment, she nodded, looking more unhappy than angry.

“But,” Perian continued carefully, stressing the word, “I think everyone agrees you’ve been doing better recently, right? ”

Renny nodded again.

“Still feeling less tired?”

She nodded again. “It’s so much better than it was. I haven’t had a dizzy spell in weeks!”

“I think proposing you leave the castle for an overnight stay out of doors might be a bit premature. But you’re twelve now. Maybe it’s time to raise the idea of riding again?”

Renny’s spine shot straight, animation lighting her up. “Riding?”

“Probably not the fastest horse in the stables,” Perian cautioned. “And I’m sure they’d insist on people going with you, but in a supervised setting, what do you think? Only if your mother says it’s all right,” he hastened to emphasize.

She nodded. “Oh, there’s no point if Mother doesn’t say it’s all right.

Even if I could sneak out to the stables, I certainly couldn’t saddle a horse and get astride one on my own.

And if she doesn’t agree, then the best I could get is maybe one ride sneaked in before everyone got in trouble.

I want this to be something I do regularly.

” She beamed at him. “You’re right. It’s time I asked to do more things. ”

Perian smiled back at her, hoping he hadn’t suggested something that was going to end in tears.

“Just don’t go so fast that you exhaust yourself,” he cautioned.

She blew out a breath but nodded. She was clearly a lot more familiar with her restrictions than he was.

“Sorry,” he said. “You probably already knew that.”

She reached out and clasped his hand.

“I know you’re just looking out for me. You give me as much freedom as possible and think of things I can do even if I’m not like other children. That means a lot to me.”

Perian sniffed and told himself he was definitely not tearing up.

“I really enjoy our time together. You mean a lot to me, Renny.”

She came over to snuggle in his arms, and they rested like that for a few minutes, in the sunshine in a secluded section of a garden in a quadrangle surrounded by the castle that Renny had lived her whole life in.