Malin and I saddle our horses and ride into the mountains twice aday: once early in the morning, before soldiers are in the stables, and again during the dinner hour, when the training fields are empty. At first, I keep our rides short, hour-long patrol loops I remember from my days as a recruit. I worry we might be watched or restricted, and I’m ready to receive a terse order from the king that we’re not even allowed to do this.
But when no one questions us—or even seems to care—Malin and I spend more time in the mountains. We race along trails and spar in empty clearings and hunt for food when we’re hungry. Once we even slip bottles of spirits into our saddlebags and our thoughts are loose and fuzzy by the time we return. In the absence of duty and obligation, our shared isolation begins to bond us together like brothers.
And when we’re alone, I practice my magic. It’s more boredom—or rebellion—than any kind of desire to gain proficiency. But I discover that the more Iuseit instead of trying to hide it, the more readily those sparks and stars flare in my blood, and the easier the magic becomes.
I don’t even bother to hide it from Malin. There’s no point.
At first, these bursts of power are tiny, inconsequential. I send a pulse of magic into the ground to check for other soldiers on patrol, or I start a campfire, or I cut a slice across my palm to heal it. I’m cautious, because I heard Nakiis’s warnings, and I don’t want to draw more scravers here.
But as days pass, my magic grows bolder, responding the instant I need it. And if I’m being honest with myself . . . ?I like the little burn of defiance in my chest each time I do it.
I think Malin does, too, because he’s grown a little more vicious when we spar—and a lot more reckless. He tries to get inside my guard once andmisses, and my sword cuts right into his hip before I can deflect. He swears and goes down.
I stare at him. “Mal! What were youthinking—”
“Silver hell,shut up!” He’s breathing through clenched teeth, a fist pressed to the wound. “Just fix it so I can try that again.”
Anytime we let the horses rest, we talk. He has a lot of stories, which I like. Which Ienvy. What I told him before was true: my years as a soldier weren’t full of mischief and fun. No one showed up for duty hungover or spit in their commanding officer’s food—at least not in front ofme. Malin shares it all openly, and it’s a new kind of trust I’ve never had. Most of his stories carry a warm note of camaraderie, especially when he mentions Sephran, and it makes my chest ache a bit. I’ve never had that kind of friendship with anyone.
Well, until now, maybe.
The instant I have the thought, I realize that my friendship with Malin has grown closer than my relationship with Jax. We’ve certainly spent more time together.
That’s striking, and I’m not sure what it means—or if it means anything at all. I certainly don’t have any romantic inclinations toward Malin, and it’sclearhe has none toward me. Every night, when we walk past the training arena on our return to the palace, he asks if I want to watch the guard drills. I don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling, but it’s not me. He’s hoping Nolla Verin will try to slice him open again.
But I remember Jax teasing me when I was jealous of the time he spent with the soldiers. I remember the pang in my chest when I realized someone else taught him about archery. I wanted him to make friends, and I genuinely hope he’s making them now—but I wonder if he’s finding a similar closeness with someone else, too.
It shouldn’t worry me, but it does. Noah’s warnings are still present in my thoughts, the way he said this time apart would strain . . . ?whatever we have.
The way he thought Jax might break my heart.
I think of our last night together, hiding in the hayloft. My thoughts were all wrapped up in anxiety about the soldiers for so many reasons, so I kept a distance between us.
But now, looking back, I wish I’d thrown caution to the wind. Hewas so beautiful in the dark shadows of the stables, his hair unbound and his eyes shining.
Come back to the Shield House with me, he whispered. I turned him down.
I’m such an idiot.
As time passes, the conversations between me and Malin turn to darker things. One day we’re letting the horses walk after a long gallop, and Malin tells me more about the Syhl Shallow prisoners he had to care for, back when his father was trying to convince him not to join the army. He tells me how Emberish officers would come to question the prisoners, and he was supposed to starve them so they’d be more willing to talk. He says he could never do it. He’d go hungry and sneak them his own food.
“I was supposed to hate them,” he says. “But they were already terrified. It’s one thing to fight for your life in battle. It’s hard to starve someone right in front of you.” He shrugs, offering his horse a loose rein as we walk along the path in the sunlight. “And when they marched on us, they were just following orders. We would have done the same thing.”
He’s right. I think of the number of times I’ve pulled my sword or drawn back a bow in battle. Following orders.
The person on the other side of that violence was doing the same.
After a week, the sky turns heavy with clouds, and rain filters down through the trees. We take the horses out anyway, because the thought of being locked in the palace is worse than rain soaking through our armor. It’s too muddy to risk galloping, so we’re weaving between trees at a walk, heading for a small rocky clearing where one of us will probably break an ankle when we spar because we’ve both gotten too reckless.
I don’t know what makes me think of my childhood, but I’ve been trapped in my memories for miles, so when Malin says, “It’s your turn for a story, Tycho,” I tell him what happened when I was young. Howmy father gambled money he didn’t have, how the Emberish soldiers attacked my family. I don’t quite tell him . . . ?everything, because that’s too much. But I tell him enough—and I think he guesses the rest anyway.
He pushes damp hair back from his forehead and glances over at me. “No wonder you joined the army on this side.”
I frown. “I told you why I joined on this side. I first came here with Grey.”
“Yeah, but it’s reallyherarmy.” He scoffs. “The king joined it, too. Even now, he hardly has any of us here. It’s all hers.”
I’m struck by that, because until this moment, I never really thought about it that way. Wedidjoin the Queen’s Army in the beginning, for complex political reasons. And maybe Malin is right that some of it was an unconscious rebellion against Emberfall’s army on my part.
