But when he sighs against me, I realize it’s the first time I’ve seen him relax in days. Maybe weeks. I chase the thoughts out of my head.
There will be enough time for worry later. For now, I just breathe.
We don’t sleep very long. I don’t know what wakes me, but the pitch-dark sky outside the hayloft doors hasn’t gained a single thread of sunrise. Tycho is still curled against me, but his eyes are open and trained on the rafters overhead, glittering faintly in the dying lantern light. It makes me wonder if he really slept at all.
It almost feels like a dream when he says, “I don’t hate him, Jax.”
I lift my head just enough to look at him, but he doesn’t move, not even to look at me.
His voice is so serious, as if he’s trying to convince himself. But I felt his anger. His resentment. I’ve been feeling it for days. He’s certainly not going to convince me.
Then he turns his head to look at me. “I do hate the soldiers, though.”
A note in his voice tells me this is about more than the jealousy we teased about earlier.
Part of the reason I resent the prince is that Tycho endured so much when he was young, well before he ever came to Ironrose—and then he got caught up in a fight for a throne he had nothing to do with. He was already broken and abused long before the prince ever gave him those scars on his back. It’s a vulnerability Tycho keeps hidden, buried so deeply beneath training and armor and violent skill that I’m not sure many people even know.
Tycho’s eyes shift back to the rafters. “I served in the army in Syhl Shallow, and that was hard enough.” He draws a sharp breath. “I neverwould have joined the army here.Never.Not after what those soldiers did to my family.”
And what they did tohim.
Suddenly, I retrace all the moments we spent on the road, every man who glared or muttered a comment. I consider the way Tycho wouldn’t sleep or pulled away or kept his distance, and I reevaluate it all in a different light.
I consider the way he caught my hand, the way he pulled away tonight.
“I’ve beenaroundthem from time to time,” Tycho says. “I mean—obviously. But I haven’t been a soldier in a while. And never . . . ?like that. Never like we were.”
No wonder he’s so angry. No wonder he wants to fight. It’s more than me. It’s more than his conflict with the king. It’s more than his orders.
It’s an enemy he can’t defeat. A wrong he can’t right.
I frown. “I shouldn’t have teased you—about the archery—”
“No—Jax. Stop.” He scowls and runs a hand across his face. “This is stupid. It’s not you. It’s not eventhem. It’s me.” Now he swears. “Forget it. I hate this.”
“Hush,” I whisper, stroking a hand along his arm. But then I pause, reevaluating again. “Tycho, we don’t . . . ?we don’t have to lie here. I didn’t mean to—”
He grabs hold of me like I’m going to drift away. “Not you, Jax. Never you.”
I relax against him—but I’m not sure he does. We lie in silence again for the longest time, my fingers drifting along his forearm.
I wonder if he’s ever shared any of this with anyone, or if he’s kept it all trapped in his heart, allowing the pent-up emotion to escape when he couldn’t confine it anymore.
I think of what I know about him, and I suspect it’s mostly the latter.
“It’s over now anyway,” he says, and again, he sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. “I likely won’t have to travel with them again.”
“Except for Malin.”
He sighs. “It’ll be fine. Just out and back.”
I thread my fingers through his hair. “It’s all right to hate the soldiers, Tycho.” I pause. “It’s all right to hate the king, too.”
He flinches a little when I say that. “I don’t. Truly, I don’t.”
“Fine. It’s all right to beangryat him. He’s taken so much from you, and I don’t think he’s even aware of it.”
That forces him still. After a moment, he frowns. “He’sgivenso much to me.”
