Today’s dig was about my father again.‘Fighting like that,you seem to think the Great Goddess will offer her gifting to just anyone. Then again, I guess you need her to.’
‘He’s all bark,’ I add, aware that the others are still looking at me. ‘Honestly, I can’t imagine how he got a dire wolf to bond with him.’
‘I guess some wolves just have really shitty taste,’ Llinos replies.
As I laugh, my eye is drawn to the far end of the dining room, where Oke is glowering at me. It’s not an unusual sight, and I actually wouldn’t be surprised to discover they’ve written up a timetable, an actual rota, to ensure that, no matter when or where we are, one of the Rowell Rettlings is glaring at me.
‘You know we have spare beds in our dorm,’ Llinos says, staring pointedly at the Rowell group. ‘You can move in if you like. Safety in numbers and all that.’
Safety from Zara is what I’m sure she means, yet there have been no threats on my life since that first day. I have a horrible feeling that Zara wants an audience when she finishes me off, which means a trial that they let spectators attend.
‘Oh yeah,’ Benny says, ‘I’m sure Rose wants to give up her little corner of tranquillity to listen to you and Caz all night.’
Llinos’s cheeks colour. ‘Talking,’ she clarifies. ‘We talk. And it’s not all night. She always makes sure she’s back in the northern arc in the morning. The last thing we want is for someone to catch us and stop her coming.’
Benny’s cheeks puff and his eyes squeeze shut as a strangled snort threatens to burst free.
‘What are you doing?’ Llinos asks as his body shudders.
A snicker escapes. ‘You said you didn’t want someone to stop her coming. It’s just too easy.’
Llinos rolls her eyes before looking back at me.
‘So … about the room?’ she asks yet again.
I press my lips together as I prepare to give her the same reply I’ve given the last five times she’s asked me. ‘Is it okay if I think about it?’
‘Is someone else having their own bedtime conversations?’ Benny waggles his eyebrows suggestively. ‘You and Jonas were having a good spar the other day. From where I was standing, things looked as though they were getting rather hot – if you get my drift.’
‘Everyone gets your drift,’ Llinos comments scathingly, ‘because your innuendo has all the finesse of a horny bull on market day.’
I snort.
‘Wow. Cruel.’ Benny pouts.
‘But seriously.’ Llin turns to me. ‘Have you two finally bitten the bullet yet, or are you still pretending that you’re just “old friends”?’ She uses her fingers to emphasise the last two words. Not that I need the visual cue to get her meaning.
‘Wearejust old friends. I think,’ I reply, only to let out a sigh.
I’m still not sure what’s going on with Jonas and me, but it definitely hasn’t got to the stage of needing a room. We’ve mostly given up sparring together, mainly because he’s still going too easy on me – making me oddly grateful that I have Kyor making my morning training sessions such a misery – yet Jonas always appears at some point in the day, and each time, we end up talking. Sometimes for hours. Often the conversations centre around the trials, but not always. He’s told me about his father’s wards and how he’s sure Kay will be enjoying her time with them. He’s massaged my shoulders when they’ve been tight from training, and I’ve offered him salves to help with his scrapes. I’ve even fallen asleep on his shoulder at the dining table after a particularly brutal day.
And through it all, he’s never once mentioned any significant men or women in his life. But then, I’ve not brought it up either. Though if he is betrothed, or even seeing someone, I can’t imagine they’d appreciate the time he and I spend together. Or the static hum that buzzes in the air when his eyes have held mine for just a fraction too long.
I hate to be cynical, but I’ve come to two conclusions: one, that he doesn’t want to sleep with me and get too attached because he thinks I’m going to die; and two, that he doesn’t want to sleep with me because, like many of the other Rettlings, he’s repulsed by my lack of magic. But the more time we spend together, the less the second one feels true.
So early death it is. I just hope that whatever this is between us, it’ll be enough for him to feel a desire to look after Kay if anything happens to me.
‘They told me to warn you! They told me to make you see!’
My thoughts are severed by a commotion over on the other side of the dining hall. Seiren is wildly waving her hands around as she races between the tables, shouting at the top of her lungs, ‘Why won’t you see?’
‘Fuck, here it comes,’ Loch mutters.
‘Brace yourself.’ Benny grimaces.
‘Maybe Kestria will manage to stop her before she—’ I don’t get to the end of my sentence before the entire dining room is swallowed in darkness.
Seiren’s illusion magic is something else. The walls are instantlyreplaced with towering trees, the tiled floor now grassy undergrowth, complete with scuttling rodents. But it’s the shift in the air that’s most astonishing – the cold chill and crisp sweetness that can come only from the forest.
