“Fine,” she said, her voice soft and tired. Her shoulders slumped low in her exhaustion. “Hang me with Val. That’s where I wanted to go anyway.”
Chapter Seven
Nim pickedup her cloak from where it had fallen on the ground and pulled it on, lifting the hood so that her face was covered. She was exhausted, and she wanted to cry. But the last thing she planned to do was show any more weakness in front of these men. In front of Tristan.
She walked a little way from the campfire and lowered herself to sitting, knees bent, back against a moss-covered rock. Her wing was throbbing again, but she didn’t want to nurse it while the Hawks were watching.
After a few minutes, the man who’d smiled at her earlier—Mathos, Tristan had called him—brought her a plate covered in bread and eggs. His smile was gone, and he had a pensive, worried look about him.
She knew she should eat, so she forced down a few mouthfuls before her stomach rebelled and she pushed it away. Then she lowered her head to her knees and closed her eyes, trying not to give in to the wave of hopeless despair that threatened to engulf her.
She heard the squad finish eating and then Tristan giving quiet commands. Gods, she still remembered when he was Tris. The skinny boy with dark hair and shadowed green eyes. Not anymore—now he was Tristan, Captain of the Guard, through and through, even while wearing the black.
It wouldn’t be long before they were on the road. Well, what she’d said earlier was nothing but the truth; if they took her to Val, she would have achieved exactly what she wanted.
A soft jingle of buckles and the tread of boots walking away told her that they were moving out, and she thought about getting up before someone hauled her up. Tor most likely. Bastard.
But before she could move, Tristan sat down next to her. Somehow, she knew it was him before she even opened her eyes.
She lifted her head and glanced around, noting, to her surprise, that they were alone.
Tristan was sitting with his back to her rock, knees bent like hers, watching her with a strange, uncertain look. The look of a man facing battle, knowing he was unprepared. He cleared his throat twice before he spoke. “Jeremiel says you’re telling the truth.”
She stiffened. “Did you think I was lying?”
“No. I… no. Honestly, I’m not sure what to think anymore, but if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that you don’t lie. You never did, even as a child.”
She let herself relax slightly. “What do you want, Captain Tristan?” She knew her voice had a mocking edge to it, but she couldn’t stop it.
She could see his jaw clenching and unclenching as a sheen of forest green and pewter scales rippled up along the back of his neck, and she knew he must be deeply affected to be showing such a strong reaction. Since she’d known him, he had always worked hard to keep his cool. Kept his beast locked down. Almost silent. Other Tarasque had whole conversations with their beasts, but never Tristan. He kept his firmly under control. Gods knew that displays of emotion had never been accepted in his father’s house.
His voice was rough as he spoke. “Nim, I have to know, did he… Grendel, I mean, did he….” His eyes flicked to the bruises at her throat and settled there as he searched for the right words.
She let the silence hang between them, but only for a moment before she replied quietly, “No.”
The air left his body in a rush, the scales smoothing down his neck in a wave, and then rising again to hard armor as she continued, “But not for lack of trying.”
His clear green eyes found hers. “Please tell me what happened.”
It was the please that got to her, she didn’t think she’d ever heard him use the word before, and she found herself answering. “Grendel came to the house. Told me that Val was dead. That he had died alone, abandoned by his squad. And that they were looking for his fellow conspirators. That we were all traitors. But now, I think… I think Val’s alive and they wanted to punish him by hurting us.”
Tristan grunted, a low sound, maybe agreement, maybe not, and she continued slowly, “Anyway, Papa was already dead, and that made him angry. So he took it out on me. At first, he just swore and ranted. Told me all about how Val had died, screaming and begging. All alone. But I didn’t believe him. There’s plenty of things Val would do but screaming and begging aren’t among them. That just made him angrier. He wanted to punish someone. Immediately. And I think….” She took a deep breath. “I think he likes pain. Other people’s pain.”
Her hands started to tremble where they rested on her knees and she clasped them together to hold them still. To her surprise, Tristan covered them with his big fingers.
His quiet support helped her to keep speaking. She tried to be quick, professional almost, like giving someone a difficult diagnosis. Just say it, and then deal with the consequences. “He dragged me into the house, alone. To the kitchen. Then he threw me onto the table, held me there by my wrists and throat. Told me what would happen. How he was going to hurt me. Exactly what he could do with his knives. And how, afterward, he would drag me back to the capital for everyone to see.”
She was helpless to prevent her slow tears from burning paths down her cheeks as she relived the terror of that horrendous day. Grendel’s foul breath against her face. His armor digging into her body. His repulsive weight as he ground himself into her. The gleam in his eyes as he described the exact size of his dagger blades and how slowly he planned to cut her. How the men would watch. How she had fought and begged, but it just excited him more.
Tristan was rigid beside her, his scales flickering all the way up onto his cheeks. Somehow his distress settled her, made it possible to finish, and the poisonous words poured out. “He let go of my wrists to undo his belt. It was only a second, but he was distracted, and I kicked him. He fell forward, but I was screaming and kicking so hard that I rolled off the table before he could reach me.
“I crawled into the stillroom. Most of my bottles were smashed, but there were a few left. One in a dark clay bottle, they wouldn’t have recognized. Naphtha. Papa had it for something. I don’t know…. Anyway, I threw it and it smashed into a pot boiling on the fire. It exploded in a huge fireball that took out half the rafters, flames pouring down the walls, an instant inferno. I was already running when I threw it, so all I did was launch myself up behind the fire, follow its path out the roof and fly away.”
Tristan cursed and muttered viciously almost under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear. “I’ll kill him myself.” But, despite the murderous look on his face, his hand was soft and careful as he reached over and gently wiped her tears away.
He cupped her chin and turned her head to face him as he murmured, “He will never touch you again, I promise.”
Nim shivered, confused. His words sounded genuine. Caring, almost. And she wanted to lean into his strength. This strange man that she had once known so well. She wanted to believe him, to not be so alone. She wanted him to be the man she’d wished for all her life.
