Page 34

CHAPTER 34

Sage

I hobbled two more laps around the small sitting area then headed down to the great hall. There I grabbed a plate with a thick slice of pork, mashed potatoes, and green and yellow beans, covered in gravy, a cup of ale, and another orange.

A small part of me cringed when the man behind me in line saw me set the fruit on my tray, but he didn’t say anything and I reminded myself that they were going to punish me whether I had an orange or not, so I might as well have the treat.

Unlike the previous meals, no one tried to trip me when I left the kitchen, and thankfully Kit, Payne, and Lewin once again sat at a nearby table and I didn’t have to walk the length of the great hall to get to them.

“Wow, you look almost as bad as when we woke you,” Lewin said as he shifted over on the long wooden bench to make room for me.

I set my tray on the table and sagged onto the seat, trying — and from Kit and Payne’s expressions failing — to hide my wince.

“You went back to sleep, didn’t you?” Payne said with a chuckle. “Big mistake.”

“Yeah.” I cut a slice of the pork on my plate and shoved it into my mouth. I didn’t want to lie to them, but I’d promised Tyon I wouldn’t tell anyone about his reading lesson.

“You should have soaked first.” Kit nudged me with his elbow, making me look at him. “Will you take me up on my offer now?”

I glanced at the man at the table behind us. He wasn’t too close, but he was eating alone and could easily concentrate on our conversation.

And while I didn’t care what he thought about me, I did care that I might be making Kit and his team look bad. It was bad enough we were eating together. I didn’t want to think about how the other guardsmen would treat them if it came out they were giving me special treatment.

At this point I didn’t care how they treated me, but I did care about how Kit and his team were treated since Lewin was stuck in the Black Guard for life and Kit and Payne had to commit to fifty years.

I, on the other hand, was going to be thrown in a dungeon, returned to Edred, or killed, hopefully after five rotations.

Thankfully, it was just the one man I had to worry about within hearing distance. The eighth bell was the smaller second shift’s evening meal bell and the night shift’s breakfast bell. So while there were more men in the great hall than there’d been when we’d come down for breakfast, it wasn’t nearly as packed as it was during regular meal time.

“You shouldn’t be thinking about it for this long,” Payne huffed.

Lewin chuckled and pointed his fork at the man behind us. “Don’t worry about anyone else. We can handle them.”

Grefin strolled up to the table and sat beside Payne. “Still trying to convince the runt to use your tub?”

“Don’t know why,” Lewin grumbled. “It’s a perfectly good tub.”

Grefin rolled his eyes. “If he wants to be an idiot, let him be an idiot.”

“He’s being an idiot because he thinks he needs to protect us.” Payne shot me a hard look before taking a long swig of his ale.

“He’s not being an idiot,” Kit said “He’s trying to be considerate. What he needs to know is that we don’t care what the rest of the Guard thinks. We’re a hunting team. An elite team, and we make sure it’s safer for daytime patrols.”

“Yeah,” Lewin added. “They’d be fools to mess with us. We make their job easier.”

“I’m pretty sure we got some fools in this year’s novices,” Grefin said with a pointed look at me.

And really, the guys were right. I’d be a fool to turn down a soak in their tub, especially while they were out hunting. There wouldn’t be a chance that any of them would accidentally wander in on me, and I was already regretting turning them down in the first place.

If they said the other guardsmen weren’t going to give them a difficult time about associating with me, then I needed to take them at their words.

I glanced at the man within earshot. Two other men had joined him and they were laughing about something.

In fact, it didn’t feel like anyone except Kit, Payne, Lewin, and Grefin were paying attention to me.

Before, when I’d had my meals in the great hall with the guys, it had felt like everyone was watching me. It was probably because this wasn’t a proper mealtime for most of the guard and there were fewer men in the room. I was sure things would go back to normal once my lieu time was over and I was back on a regular schedule.

The guys talked and joked about their upcoming hunt and their plans for their lieu time in two days. I ate and listened and enjoyed the sense of camaraderie. Even if I wasn’t really one of the men since I was still a novice and the Tower’s most despised guardsman, it felt good to be included. If I hadn’t been a woman, I would have enjoyed being part of their brotherhood.

Father, I wanted to be a part of it.

But being discovered was inevitable and dreaming about what I couldn’t have would only make it hurt more.

The ninth bell rang and Kit grabbed my tray, stacked it on his, and took them to the bin for the dirty dishes.

“I’ll meet you at the stables,” he said to the others. “I want to show Sawyer to our suite.”

“I’ll have your horse saddled and ready for you,” Payne said.

“Come on.” Kit jerked his chin toward the door on the far side of the great hall, the one that led to the quartermaster’s rooms, the infirmary, the elite team suites, and the individual suites for those of higher rank than a regular grunt like the quartermaster and the head cook.

There hadn’t been a lot of reason for me to go into the Tower’s right wing, so it felt strange to follow Kit into a narrow staircase, climb to the second floor, and head through a maze of halls to a plain wooden door.

Kit opened the door and placed his hand on the fae light just inside, illuminating a long, narrow utilitarian sitting room. There was a conversation area with a plain couch and two chairs by an empty hearth on the right side of the room, and a sturdy wooden table with four wooden chairs on the left. Two ale mugs and a small ceramic pitcher held open a map on the table, and a shirt and a sewing kit took up one of the seats on the couch.

At the back of the room, placed equal distance apart along the back wall, were five doors, two of the five were partially open letting in a little light from unshuttered windows.

“The bathing room is this one,” Kit said as he walked to the first door on the right and opened it. “This room is empty if you want to stay the night.”

He opened the door beside it revealing a simple bedroom like mine in the barracks. The only difference was this room was a little bigger and didn’t have a sink… because, of course, the resident of this room had access to a private bathing room and didn’t need his own sink.

The bathing room was about the size of the bedroom with a sink, tub, a set of shelves with towels and jars on it, and a small room in the front corner just big enough for an indoor privy.

The tub was larger than I expected, but given that half of an elite team had to be fae and fae men were bigger than human men, it made sense for a bigger tub. It also wouldn’t surprise me if those who’d designed the tubs had anticipated that the men would want to soak their aching muscles instead of hiking all the way to the Tower’s other wing to use the basement bathing house, and had made sure the tubs would be big enough for that.

“The salts are up here,” Kit said, grabbing a large jar from the top shelf and moving it to a lower shelf. “You’re supposed to use a handful.” His attention dropped to my hands. “You should probably use two. Your hands are small and from how you’ve been walking, your aches are large.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “That was a Payne joke.”

“It very much was,” he chuckled, and I smiled back at him. “All right. I have to go but make yourself at home and seriously think about staying the night.”

He raised his eyebrows in a knowing look. I’d be safest in their suite.

Or at least I’d be safest in their suite for tonight since no one would know where I was. But the moment someone found out, I’d be just as safe in their suite alone as I’d be in my own room. And staying in my own room would draw less attention.

“I’ll think about it,” I told him as he hurried out the door. A door that also didn’t have a lock.

I sighed and wandered over to one of the comfortable chairs by the cold hearth but thought twice about sitting. The chair was low to the ground and looked far too comfortable. Best to stay standing until I had my bath.

Except if I wanted to guarantee no one would walk in on me, I needed to make sure Kit and his team were well and truly hunting. Which meant I needed to wait.