Lu turns to me, and for the first time in years, it’s almost like I’m looking at that fourteen-year-old girl again. Served a shitty platter of an undeserving family, caught in the prongs of their shortcomings. She was fucked up, tossed out, forced to fend for herself. Her combative attitude wasn’t a character flaw. It was her fortitude. “I hated you that day, you know. For drafting me into your army and making me into one of your fucked up soldiers. I didn’t want to answer to you. Didn’t want to answer to anybody.”
“Oh, I know. You cursed me out on more than one occasion for it. I think you were on latrine duty for a solid nine months.”
“It was twelve,” she counters, almost proudly. “And I secretly hated you more because I was so damn thankful.” Brows lifting at her candor, I watch as she shakes her head and lets out a sigh. “Let’s face it. If you hadn’t scraped me off that street and given me a sword, I would’ve died, Rip.”
I shake my head. “I don’t believe that for a second. You were strong, even then.”
Her brown eyes are cast down, staring at the charred wood burning on the grate. “I don’t mean die physically, but mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually.” She presses a hand to her chest, thumping it twice. “You can’t contemplate or settle or thrive when you’re living like that. I was dead and running, just trying to keep up with survival. Just making it one day. People don’t get that, you know? If they’ve never lived like that. It’sone day. A whole slew of one-day-at-a-times, just getting through, squeezing by. Always running, never expecting anything else. Never having anyone or anything but that running and fighting and dying through it.”
“You’re not that girl anymore. That’s not your life.”
“You’re right,” she replies. “Just like Osrik isn’t the mercenary, and Judd isn’t the thief. Because you picked us to fight at your side and showed us that it wasn’t just one day. It wasn’t just running and dying.” Her gaze meets my own head-on. “I’m the woman I am today because you tossed my ass in your army and let me make myself into a captain.”
Unexpected emotion tightens in my chest. “You earned it every step of the way, Talula Gallerin.”
Her nose wrinkles up, and she leans over to punch me in the arm, but it’s not anywhere near her real strength. “Don’t call me that.”
I smirk and rub my arm. “Still vicious.”
“Always,” she laughs, and then she tips her head toward Auren. “She’s gonna wake up, you know.”
I swallow hard, all the light amusement draining back out of me. “You sound sure.”
“That’s because I am,” she says before she unfolds herself and gets to her feet. “You took my belligerence and tossed a uniform in my face. You met Osrik’s kill drive and decided to give him your sword. You saw every jail cell that couldn’t hold Judd and, instead of tossing him in another one, let him keep the keys. This time, you found your goldfinch and watched her leave her cage. She’ll open her eyes, just like you got the rest of us to do.”
“This is a little more literal. I fucking rotted her.”
Lu just shrugs. “We’ve all got a little rotten in us, and I wouldn’t change that for anything. It’s how we’ve survived.”
CHAPTER 7
SLADE
Age 8
I’m so tired. My body hurts all over, but it’s the worst on my arms and back where the spikes come out. Even now, they’re poking from under the skin, making it stretch and turning my skin gray.
“Again!”
My father’s command makes me flinch, but I raise the sword in my hand, even though it’s heavy and my whole arm shakes as I try to keep it up.
My sparring teacher is a fae named Cado, who’s bald like my father but with dark brown skin and no beard, and when he wants, he can bring blades from his fingertips. It’s never a good day when he brings those out.
I used to train with Cado three days a week for only an hour, but ever since my power came out a few weeks ago, Father has been making me do this every day for hours. He says that I have to get stronger physically so that I can learn how to wield my new magic. All my other lessons are on hold for now. But so far, I haven’t been able to bring my spikes or my power out on command.
I try. I really do. I’m tired of being out in this field day after day, while the sun burns and my sweat drips and my father makes me train with a real sword instead of the wooden practice ones. I hate it. But he says that pushing myself is the only way to make the magic come.
I barely get my sword up in time for Cado to slam his own blade into mine. I’m supposed to be practicing blocks, but he hits me so hard that the metal clang goes all the way up my arms and makes my teeth feel funny.
Staggering back, my feet dig into the crunchy grass as I sway.
“That wasn’t a block,” my father barks.
Glancing over, I see him standing several feet away with Uncle Iberik right next to him. I hate that they’re both watching me, calling out every single little thing I do wrong.
“I’m tired,” I pant. I have to wipe the sweat from my forehead because it’s dripping in my eyes and making them sting.
“You’re still weak,” he counters, his arms crossed in front of him, red shirt matching my own. It reminds me of blood. The same color of the split lip I got yesterday when I missed my block and Cado rammed the hilt of his sword into my mouth. The same shade that drips down my arms every time the spikes poke through.
