She shut her thought down before she had the opportunity to finish his name. Nahrit couldn’t know.
“How do you know so much about the Flames and their powers?” Better to go on the offense than wait for him to sniff out her secret. A secret that could be the death of both Khayrivven and her.
Don’t think about him, don’t think about him.
“You have nothing to fear from me, Elory. I’ve been secretly watching over him since the day he crossed Ashthorn’s threshold clad in the brown of the common army, head bowed like a man broken. But his mind is made of steel,a fortress no one can penetrate. Not even the obstacles the Master of Whispers has made up to torment the man who might best him one day.” Leaning forward, Nahrit pinned Lory with a gaze. “But you, Elory Vednis… You have managed to breach the head of the Triad’s most questionable pick of the century. A Criu boy, brought up in the Brestolyan army between men and women loyal to the king who killed his parents, forged by a training so brutal he should have long broken.”
Those black eyes nearly swallowed her whole. “Something has kept him going, and I’d like to know ifyoumight have been the one.”
The lump in Lory’s throat barely slid down as she repeatedly swallowed. “I only just met him.”
Truth.
But this wasn’t what Nahrit had been referring to.
“A Flame-born woman who will change the fate of this kingdom.” Nahrit’s words were familiar, yet not the exact ones she’d heard before. And the way he said them… like he was reading them from a book.
“My friend, the man who made the prophecy, phrased it so much better than that, but isn’t that who you are? The woman who will change the fate of Brestolya.”
If Lenya’s spies overheard this talk, they’d both be dead. All three of them; only, Khayrivven wouldn’t see his end coming.
Then another thought struck Lory.
What if the Medica Hand was one of those spies? What if she’d just condemned herself and everyone close to her to death? She couldn’t utter another word.
“No use keeping your mouth shut, Elory. Your mind is giving you away.” A glint in his eyes suggested he might strike any moment, but the smile returned, and he leaned back in his chair. “Your secret is safe with me, Elory. Though you’ll need to learn to control your projecting, or you’ll seal your own fate before you can fulfill your destiny.”
Paralyzed, Lory sat in her chair, staring into those black orbs, and her heart thundered in her chest the beat of a future she might not live to see.
“How do you know about the prophecy?” It was the only question she should be asking before she made up her mind if Princeton Nahrit was trustworthy or not.
“That is a long story. One for another day. All I can say is that, had I known my friend’s son survived and was wasting away in the common army, I wouldn’t have chosen to become a teacher at this academy. I would have done all I could to get him out of there. But as the Guardians willed it, they brought him to me, and since I have learned that his will is unbroken, I’ve left him alone, unburdened with the knowledge about yet another traitor inside Ashthorn’s walls. He is better off not carrying that burden when he is carrying that of so many people’s lives.” Wisdom glimmered in the man’s eyes. “Doesn’t mean I can’t aid his endeavors from the sidelines. His father wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”
Twenty-Five
Lory
An unusually graysky announced the Tears of the Gods as Lory crossed the training yard, an annual period of a few days that justified the drainpipes on roofs and the gutters on the streets, and which most of Dunai’s population looked forward to with yearning hearts. As a child, Lory had danced on the streets until her clothes and hair were soaked, and Evven had rolled in the mud like some of the goats the farmers at the outskirts of Dunai kept in small enclosures.
The event was still a few days out, but if she peeked over the walls enclosing the Ward, she’d findcolorful streamers in the marketplaces and people bustling about, spending more than they could afford on something nice to gift a family member.
It was the time of the year Lory wished Evven was still around to surprise him with a piece of candy she’d stolen from a market stand or to share a loaf of sweet bread they’d bought from the money she snuck from an inattentive nobleman’s pocket.
It was a time she’d hoped to spend with Khayrivven, no matter how naive that thought. He’d made it clear no one could know something was going on between them, and she’d thought that meant he would shut her out when he was playing the role of the captain, but that simple word still wouldn’t stop ringing in her head:no.
He didn’t love her, and pathetic as it might have made her, Lory’s chest ached every morning she tried not to watch him eat breakfast on the dais. When she laughed at Thal’s jokes and Hadrian and Anees’s bickering without feeling it. She couldn’t help it—a yawning abyss had opened up inside of her, and she stood at its edge, staring the darkness in the eye as best she could. But there was no escaping Khayrivven. He was there every day for the meals, his eyes meeting hers as if he felt her attention in the rare moments she allowed herself to look. There for the endless hours of practice, when he bested her with blade and stealth. And every time, that fire flared inside his gaze, summoning her like a moth to the light, like a thirsting woman to a stream.
Every day, Lory stood her ground.“You said no,”she reminded him in her head every single time, careful to keepher thoughts directed only at him, and the life guttering in his gaze was a punch to her chest—every single day.
As she strode up to the training parcours, Lory was convinced it would be the same thing today; the dark fire in his eyes promised as much as he nodded in greeting before gesturing at Eira, Brycon, and Thal, who’d been assigned to join their session for the afternoon. For a heartbeat, Lory allowed the abyss to swallow her whole.“You said no.”
The fire guttered.
Lory trudged to Thal’s side, not particularly caring what they’d do. Throw knives, climb walls, jump from mock roof to mock roof. There was little she hadn’t done, little she didn’t already excel at, while Khayrivven personally oversaw her training.
When she dared lift her gaze to the captain, his expression seemed to be saying,I’m sorry.
Lory shook her head.
