“They didn’t let you change out of that sweaty, dusty thing?” she asked, saving them from more awkward silence, and Jarek leaped at the topic.
“I feel like one shower won’t be enough after these trials. I mean, did you see what they made us do?” He absently traced a splatter of crusted brownish-red on his arm. “Steel gets a completely new meaning after you actually drive it into someone’s stomach. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over it.”
Jarek was putting on a brave face, but he couldn’t hide the moisture in his eyes. Not too long ago, Lory had been the one bemoaning her first kill—even if it had been to save her life.
“They say it gets easier with time.” It was a flat phrase that hadn’t helped her one bit, but at least it was an attempt at consolation.
Once more, Jarek bobbed his head as if he’d heard those words a million times. “My mother used to say that when I asked her about what it was like.”
For a long moment, they just sat in silence, each of them in their own thoughts.
Jarek was one of the students from a family of magic wielders, who’d applied for Ashthorn and was bound to make a name for himself if he achieved the rank of ashmarked. He also had a sister right there, at the academy. Even in this dark place, he was never truly alone.
“What is it like to have a family?” Lory didn’t think what she was asking, and when she met Jarek’s gaze, the pity there nearly stabbed her.
“Hard, sometimes. Wonderful, most times.” So simple, that answer, yet so deep.
Lory remembered vividly the times it had beenhardwith Evven. Not the moments they’d bickered and fought, but those when Evven had been put in jeopardy because of her. “I can see that.”
“What happened to your family?” This was so Jarek—blunt and straightforward, but not in an insensitive way. He just called things as he saw them and was never afraid of how people would take it. True friends wouldn’t be scared away by his almost naive honesty.
“My mom died when my brother and I were young. My dad, I only met once, and he didn’t want anything to do with us. And my brother died almost three years ago.” Three years—time had passed in a blur since she’d been stuck in Ashthorn Ward.
“I’m sorry.” Jarek gave her the sort of tight-lipped smile that meant he didn’t know what else to say.
“It’s all right. I have all of you now.” She hadn’t meant to say it, but Jarek’s mouth pulled into a broad smile, a full-hearted one, and he reached for her with one long, muscledarm—“Come here, Fire Bug.”—and he hugged her so hard she almost fell out of her chair.
Lory couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Hey, did you coordinate with Anees and Hadrian?”
Jarek’s responding chuckle made her wonder if the thornling actually knew more than he was letting on.
“You mean Frier and Bleek? Guardians, no. They are terrifying as Eroth’s Veil. Both of them.” But his tone was too light to be convincing.
Just as Lory wanted to ask how he knew they called her Fire Bug, someone cleared their throat at the threshold, and Jarek let go of her, his grin spreading even wider.
When Lory turned to the source of the sound, she found Maes Grivor leaning on the door frame, her long reddish-brown hair tied at the nape of her neck and her hazel eyes sparking with mischief.
“Am I interrupting something?”
“Not what you think, but definitelysomething.” Jarek opened his arms wide, and Maes closed the distance between them with a few rushed strides, throwing her own arms around her brother’s neck. “Next time you give me a heart attack by almost dying, I’ll actually kill you,” she said as they pulled apart after a minute, but the tears in her eyes gave away she might actually kill whoever was responsible for Jarek almost plunging to his death. Maes turned to Lory. “Thanks for saving him.”
Lory merely inclined her head. “I wouldn’t wish losing a brother on anyone, no matter how annoying said brother is.”
That earned her a laugh from the Grivor siblings.
“In case you haven’t noticed, being annoying is my signature trait.” Jarek slid back on the cot to make room for Maes, who climbed in beside him and rested her head on his shoulder. “How did it happen? By the time I got word of the incident, there were already a hundred theories circulating among the ashlings.”
“Thornlings,” Jarek corrected. “And I’d like to know that, too. All I know is that someone slipped above me and hit me on their way down. I lost my grip on the wall, and that’s it.”
“Tabi and Thal caught you, or you’d be mush right now,” Lory amended, but her joking tone was only for show. Inside her, the terror of seeing him fall still made her heart almost stop.
“So mush,” Jarek agreed, his grin as half-hearted as Lory felt.
Sitting up straighter, Maes grabbed Lory’s hand, her hair flying with the swift motion. “You were in the audience, Lory. Did you see what really happened? Did someone fall, or was someone sabotaged? I’ve heard that’s pretty common during the ashlings’ final trials.”
Lory tried to remember the exact scene, but no matter how many times she searched her memories for a new detail, Brycon knocking that ashling down remained the inciting incident.
“I don’t know what happened before Brycon kicked that ashling in the face, but he definitely was the one to start the human avalanche.”
