“Step away from the edge.” His calm, calculated tone didn’t let on if he was amused by how easily he’d caught her or if he was disappointed. It was the voice of the captain who’d trained countless thornlings before her. “Now, Thornling.”
It would be so easy to do just that, to get closer to the man to whom the voice belonged, to use the heat that was always simmering between them to disarm him… But Lory had a better plan. One that would work, no matter what the person behind her thought.
“Surrender your weapon.”
Lory did just that.
With a grin, she dropped Khayrivven’s short sword, watching it plunge between the tall platform she was standing on and the cube-like, crooked obstacle not four feet away. The uneven surface provided plenty of hand and footholds.
Without a glance back, Lory jumped after the blade, throwing her arms forward. Khayrivven’s gasp followed her like a tether, and for a moment, she believed he might leap after her in a useless effort to catch her.
But the Veiled Hand knew better.
Lory’s fingers screamed as they hooked into the rough rock, slipping a few inches, nails and skin breaking, but she didn’t fall. One look down to assess how far the distance to the ground remained, and two efficient movements later, Lory let herself drop into the narrow space between the two obstacles, landing a few inches beside Khayrivven’s sword. She picked it up with a wince, spinning around to face the obstacle she’d started the maneuver from.
When she craned her neck to check whether he was following after all, the Veiled Hand was standing on the edge of the platform, a broad grin on his face as he pinched his dagger between his fingers.
Lory rolled her eyes. “I know you could still throw that dagger at me and hit me in the eye or the neck or whatever body part you prefer for killing your opponents.”
“Damn right I could.” Instead of throwing the weapon at her, he hurled it at the obstacle Lory had just used as a ladder, jumping right after it.
The hilt shuddered as the blade embedded itself in the wall, Khayrivven’s fist closing around it a heartbeat later. He didn’t hang there longer than a second. Feet pushing against the rock as he pulled the blade from it, bracing himself against the wall to break his speed as he let himself fall to the ground right in front of Lory. And the dagger was back at her throat.
Eight
Lory
Talkingabout the Flame prisoners was a matter of near-impossibility within the halls of Ashthorn Ward, even when training with Khayrivven became her new routine and they were unobserved on the parcours most of the time. They couldn’t risk having a longer conversation without raising suspicion in case someone was spying after all. Lory didn’t put it past the Triad to do exactly that, and with the ominous comments Khayrivven had made about Lenya having ways to obtain information without needing to be present, she’d become even more careful with what questionsshe asked and which ones she kept for the next time he’d visit her dreams. Not that he’d done that lately either.
Lory swallowed the bitterness coming with the lack of communication about the things that truly mattered. She was ready to confront him about everything, to ask those difficult questions, but was she ready to hear the answers?
What little he’d told her in the rare moments they got to talk, she tucked away at the back of her mind, hoping there’d be a day when she could use that information to help the prisoners escape. At least she knew Enya, Olive, and Hadrick were alive and at Ashthorn, and that Khayrivven hadn’t hurt them after the initial battle, though she knew it wouldn’t be long before they’d be facing interrogations or worse.
Every other night, he checked in while she slept, but despite the brief conversations they had… Selfishly, Lory wanted to use those short minutes to kiss him until she couldn’t breathe.
The topic of the leonthor had come up, though, in more than just her conversations with him; Hand Dunveil had called her in to describe exactly the form and demeanor of the creature, his questions never-ending, and Lory had done her best to give as much detail as she remembered without giving away that the creature had actually talked to her in her mind.
It could have been her imagination running wild after all. Second-guessing herself was easy when the events of her trials and what happened after them might have driven the sanest person into madness. It could have been hallucinations, even though Khayrivven had given her a worried lookwhen he’d asked her about how the leonthor had communicated with her. How she’d known what it wanted and why it hadn’t attacked her.
Then he’d told her not to answer the question at all until they had the opportunity to speak in private, and by that, he’d meant away from the hallways of the academy, or even the training chambers in the pyramid basements, where the ice pit Frost could no longer freeze over was thawing.
When she’d asked Khayrivven about the ice wielder, his face had hardened, and he’d told her that there were no burials for those too weak to survive the Amrin Mountains. That their bodies would feed the wildlife.
The nausea that statement evoked in Lory’s stomach still tended to return whenever she thought of how many families would never get closure because their sons and daughters never got a proper burial. And every time, the same afterthought shoved to the foreground in her mind:Like Evven.
Her twin brother had never gotten a proper burial either, with Lory forced to flee from the Gargoyles and the guards storming the streets. She’d put together a small wooden triangle from wooden sticks, tied with thread pulled from the hem of her shirt back then, to mark a symbolic grave for him. A triangle for Eroth and his children, the Guardians, each of the corners representing one point of deities who used to watch over both continents of the west, Brestolya and Eherea.
By now, the wood would have been sanded down to a needle-thin skeleton, and soon nothing would be left to remind of Evven’s death. Only those memories.
“Are you listening?” Tabi prompted, nudging Lory in the arm to get her attention.
Indeed, Lory’s plate was still full while the others had almost finished their dinner. Hushed conversation and the scent of fresh bread and meat stew clouded the mess hall when Lory dove out of her thoughts, giving Tabi an apologetic smile. “It’s been a long day, sorry.” She scooped up a spoonful of stew and led it to her mouth, reminding herself that the spices used in the food were her favorite, sharp and savory with a sweet nuance to it. “You were saying?”
“The entire Triad is here for dinner today. I haven’t seen Lenya since the day after the trials,” Tabi repeated in the same hushed tone that seemed to befall the students whenever the Master of Whispers attended a meal.
“He could stay away for the rest of all eternity if it were up to me,” Thal offered. “That guy creeps me out.”
“Shhh,” Tabi hissed at him. “He can probably hear you from up there.”
