Once again, she found herself surprised that the Prince was trusting enough of her to do such a thing. To be close to her, joke with her, even playfully hit her without fear of being torn apart.
A friend. Strange, to have a friend that didn’t know her truth.
He nudged her again with his elbow. “You know that’s not what I meant.” She didn’t have to follow his gaze to know he was looking toward Cason. “I never got to thank you for the last morning in Severina. That letter from his father should have sent him into a fury, but you somehow kept his fire controlled.”
Brela frowned, her eyes focusing on the far side of the camp where Cason twisted fitfully on his bedroll. She didn’t know much about his past, but she’d gathered enough to recognize the panicked look on Serill’s face that morning. Besides, why wouldn’t she help distract him? Not because it would benefit her, but because that was what she’d always do. For the same reasons she helped him at the tavern in Averlyn.
She considered shrugging it off, but nodded instead.
He gave her a soft smile. “It’s always fear or resentment toward his magic, but the way you looked at him in the courtyard…” Serill faked a gag. “Something is seriously wrong with you two and your attraction to sharp objects, but it works and I won’t complain. Not when I’ve seen my friend stand taller than he has in years.”
Four hells, Brela hated herself. It had always been easy for her to pick marks, make things only about bodies, but Cason…
He’d counted her gods-damned breaths. In that moment, everything had changed for her, and yet nothing had changed for him, at least where it counted. She still kept a secret that, if revealed before he was ready, would clamp that chain on forever.
Honestly, it was probably too late anyway, which made her a terrible person to continue… whatever was growing between them. She felt things for all of him, he only felt those things for half of her.
Serill sighed. “He hasn’t stopped fidgeting since he laid down an hour ago. Since you and I are on first watch, I could set up near Farrah and Elias while you…”
Brela gave him an incredulous look.
“You two hid behind mountain rocks and didn’t have a care in the world that we knew what you were doing.” Serill chuckled and shook his head. “That’s also not what I was suggesting.” Her brows raised suggestively and he flushed. “I was also not offering to join you.”
She gave him a wicked grin as he shoved her toward Cason. “He was worried sick about you when you were unconscious, and now he’s stressed about the wall that dampens his powers. Just sit with him, please, or he’ll be a nightmare to deal with tomorrow.”
Brela tossed her notebook with her bags before poking around the food that had been left out for her. She managed a couple swallows of fish and a few gulps of water before giving up. Snagging the chunk of ice Farrah had left for her to help with the swelling of strange, gray bruises, she set off to the other side of the camp.
Cason was no longer trying to pretend to sleep, half propped on his bags and staring up at the sky as he rubbed at his chest.
His eyes drifted to her as she stopped at the edge of his bedroll, hand pausing. She raised her brow in question, pressing the cloth-wrapped ice to her throat as she nodded toward his hand.
“I feel like I’m missing three limbs and floating around in a fog,” he mumbled.
Brela rolled her eyes, though she did know the feeling. Not just with hellthorn ripping away her magic, but the loss of those enhanced celvusa senses that still left everything somewhat hazy to her.
“I know I’m being dramatic,” Cason sighed. “I don’t know how—“ He cut himself off, but she knew where he was going with the rest of that sentence.How someone can deal with weak or no magic.“Sorry.”
She shrugged, half expecting Serill to call her out on the gesture from wherever he’d settled in the camp. Cason’s comment didn’t really bother her. She’d lived her entire life pretending that her magic didn’t exist, and she had never needed it to survive. Not once had she ever felt jealousy over someone being able to show off their magic.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he said, frowning as he started to sit up. “You know I don’t really believe you’re anything less because you don’t have—“
Brela waved him off before patting Night Carver with a wink.
“A threat and a reminder of what you can do without magic. I deserve that.”
She lifted her chin and grinned proudly, and he looked ready to say something to that, but closed his mouth and leaned back on the bags. She glanced back at the wall, trying to hide the small flicker of disappointment at her inability to return some banter.
Gods, how many nights had she stared toward this wall through her bedroom window? It had been miles away, yet she could feel that threatening yet beautiful tug to her soul. Now, fifteen years since she’d last, truly been this close to it, it was just as terrifying. Maybe because the threat of what might live on the other side—the once mythical celvusa—was now real. What else did Ryia have ready to unleash on them?
“You took out your braids.”
Brela’s hand stilled in her hair, fingers resting over the rough patch of skin normally hidden. She’d asked Elias not to put them back, but she’d forgotten that she couldn’t actually explain why.
Dragging her gaze away from the wall, she looked at Cason and nodded. She lifted her boot and nudged his side, fingers still holding her hair. Concern furrowing his brow, he sat up and shifted, letting her kneel on the edge of his bedroll. She tilted her head and waited for him to lift his hands to her hair.
Cason hissed in surprise as she removed her fingers, his own tracing the damaged skin that barely had feeling left. If she could see his face, she knew it would be the same shock he’d shown at the auction when the scars on her back were visible.
Gentle. Gods, his touch was so kind as his fingers ran over her ear, thumb tracing her cheek. Slowly, he shifted her face toward him, the question easily read in his blue eyes. Brela blinked before holding up the number three, tapping his chest, and then finding his sword and lifting the hilt to her head.
