Steel flashed. A curved blade arched downward. Sparks flew, and the swinging latch gaped open like a shocked mouth.
I wrenched my gaze toward Aspen, who balanced the axe handle on her shoulder. “Problem solved.”
“This is private property,” I galled, pointing at the evidence. “You just defaced private property.”
“Yeah. You’re welcome.”
Nicu wedged himself between us, severing the hostile trance. I swerved into his path, barring his entrance.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” I censured. “However commendable your ambitions, your subsequent disappearance has turned the castle upside down.”
Wrong choice of words. Nicu would not assimilate this geographical disarray. He wouldn’t fathom how much distance he’d placed between himself and his family.
Be that as it may, years of conditioning taught him about the concept of separation. Remorse over his actions, love for his family, and longing for independence crowded his features. “And what about me?” he appealed. “How am I supposed to help the clan if I can’t seek out my own stars? Why can’t I search for them? It’s my life.”
“No, Nicu.” I fought to keep my tone low and even. “It’s never just your life. You did not witness your mother’s shattered face or your father’s rampage tonight. By Seasons, you do not know that pain. You don’t know what it’s like to lose someone.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to be lost!” he defended, then shouldered past me into the cottage. His profile regarded the garland installed in the ceiling, which led to his chamber in the loft. At the sight, hurt cracked his voice. “And I’ve lost plenty of people too.”
His birth mother. The grandmother who helped to raise him. His father, when Poet had been the Court Jester of Spring,limited to visiting his son in secret. Then later, Briar when she was temporarily exiled from Autumn.
Of course, Nicu had experienced abandonment. It had been shameful of me to forget.
Humbled, I opened my mouth, hoping to make amends. Yet Nicu moved too quickly, trailing the garland and climbing the stairs. Frustration and anguish emanated from him, so that I felt acutely his predicament and the lengths to which he’d gone. Unable to deny his yearning, I let him be.
Bowing my head, I gripped the right door casing and festered at the ground. As a man intimately acquainted with grief, I understood the burden plaguing all parties. The thought of failing our clan, failing my oath of service, failing to protect yet again, wracked me to the core.
A curvy figure shifted in Nicu’s wake. Without raising my head, my left arm shot sideways, my flat palm hitting the opposite frame to obstruct Aspen’s passage. I whipped toward her, my broadsword slicing from its scabbard, the execution of which felt rhapsodic.
Armed, I prowled forward. Aspen held her ground until my coat smacked her mantle, the contact provoking her into motion. She walked backward, though not out of cowardice, for this woman didn’t know the meaning of that term. Instead, she moved to achieve distance between her clothes and mine.
“He’s not trying to upset anyone,” she advocated while backtracking toward the glowing pumpkins. “You know as well as I, he would never do that.”
“No, he would not,” I agreed. “That ambition is yours.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re skilled in the art of evasion. The Shadow Orchard, where you eluded my brethren. The ruins of The Phantom Wild, when you stowed away on our ship. The bonfire ball during Reaper’s Fest, when you tacked Rhys to the pyre. You manifestout of thin air, then take your unexpected leave with none the wiser. And now, you crossed paths with Nicu during his sojourn from the castle.” I leveled the sword. “Although you had no justifiable cause to be there past midnight.” But when she made no reply, I snapped, “Explain!”
Aspen weathered that strike like a warrior. Her shift in expression testified she’d been about to do just that—albeit carefully—until my tirade. “Which part would you like me to unpack first?”
“What the fuck were you doing in the fortress at that hour? And where the fuck are you going with Nicu?”
“Those are two different subjects.”
“Spare me the cryptic deflection. It will not work.”
“You heard Nicu,” she argued. “He wants to seek his own destiny. What human doesn’t like adventure?”
“We can start with me.”
“You weren’t invited.”
I choked the blade handle. “Thus far, your testimonial scarcely rings innocent.”
“Innocence has never been my thing,” she averted.
We kept walking, me striding ahead, her moving in reverse. Yet it felt less like an advance on my part, more like an inducement on hers. That brash nature acted as a siren’s call, dismantling one’s sense of propriety.
