Croak shrugged. “I?—”
“Don’t,” Terena warned, her hand grabbing his wrist. She looked over at Jason wryly. “The only songs he knows are dirty ones.”
Jason and the other Liodari, Michael, chuckled. Even Gabriol was grinning from his place at Croak’s other side.
“Sing one,” Jason goaded.
Croaked loosed a loud sigh. “Terena will turn bright red if I do that.”
Terena scoffed. “I’ve heard your songs before, idiot.”
“There once was a man with a very big c?—”
“Stop!” Terena yelled, and the others laughed.
After the laughter died down, Michael asked, “How did you become a tracker?”
Terena looked across at him in surprise. It was the first time the warrior had spoken to her, to any of them.
She ducked her head and lifted her right shoulder. “I,” she cleared her throat. “I was maybe eight or nine, when I find out my father and mother—the people who’d raised me—weren’t my actual parents. I was… devastated. To learn the only parents I had ever known, my family, were not my blood.”
“She beat the shit out of the boy who told her,” Croak added, his eyes boring into Terena’s and she ducked her head. This was the story they had concocted, because to share the truth would be to reveal too much.
“He started taunting you with it and you wailed on him, remember?”
Terena nodded. “My father was horrified when the boy’s father approached him, dragging me along. Screaming at my father about what a heathen I was.”
“He was so pissed,” Croak muttered.
“Did you two… grow up together?” Daris asked.
Terena started, her gaze jumping to his across the fire. “Yes, of course.” She looked over at Croak and jabbed her elbow into his side. “He’s my brother.”
Terena glanced back at Daris, a look flashing on his face she couldn’t decipher.
“What’d your father do?” Jason asked. “I hope he gave the man a good beating, too.”
“No,” Terena answered, shaking her head as she dropped her gaze from Daris to her hands. “He spoke calmly to the man, diffusing his anger.”
“I thought you said your father was the one who taught you to fight?” Rydon said.
“I didn’t say he didn’t know how to fight,” Terena clarified. “He was the best fighter I’ve ever seen. But that was only his profession, not his passion. Books. Knowledge. That was what he lived for, and what he gave me—us—along with the gift of how to defend ourselves.”
“Your father was a soldier?” Jason asked, his voice soft.
“Our father was the Captain of the Imperial Guard to Emperor Solon,” Croak said proudly, his eyes on the fire.
She heard the murmurs from the Liodari.
“Aye,” Terena said, clearing her throat once more. It hurt still to talk about him, even though it had been five years since his death. Croak leaned closer and Terena calmed. “He taught us how to fight, but he also taught us about the gods and the wars, the myths and the heroes.” Terena rubbed at her forehead.
“When I asked him if… what he—what that boy had said was true, about me not being his daughter, I’d never seen such devastation on his face. I knew right then it was true, and I cried. Cried so much it took him forever to calm me down.”
This part of the story was true. She’d been shattered.
Croak slipped his hand into the crook of her arm. Terena blinked furiously to clear her eyes of the tears that threatened.
She didn’t speak for a long time, but no one said anything to push her.
