Page 110 of Ashborne: Defiance

I stopped walking and turned on him, rage roaring in my veins. But he merely stopped walking and faced me, his expression daring me to try him.

“I’ve barely slept in a week. A week that I spent traveling with a noblewoman who thought the whole damn thing was a game. I had to train her and try to stop her killing herself out of sheer stupidity, all the while wondering if the man I’d sworn my allegiance to was dead and my brothers embroiled in civil war, asking myself if I’d abandoned the one job I’d been ordered to do.

“I made the call to let my sister travel alone. Then my general, the man I stayed to protect, disappeared. I don’t know what I was thinking. I spent the last two weeks wondering if Donavyn was dead and I was going to land here in the middle of a coup, knowing I was the reason this whole fucking mission failed.”

Ronen’s jaw rolled. “You didn’t fail.”

“I didn’t know that! My dragon took a mate, I spent a week battling their heat so I wouldn’t hurt the porcelain noblewoman, never found Donavyn, then had to travel with her, not knowing what we’d find when we got here. I didn’t know how I’d protect her if things had gone to shit. And forgive me, but getting home and handing her off to Bren was a relief. I got away from her incessant questions for an hour. But then she shows up again when I’m finally getting some food in my stomach and yes, I might not have handled that well, but fuck, Ronen. I just need some fucking space!”

The last word echoed across the courtyard again. I grimaced and folded my arms, waiting for him to remind me how we, as officers, didn’t get to indulge our selfish feelings when we had lower ranks to lead.

To my surprise, he didn’t respond immediately. I set my jaw and stared out over the falling night, the stable and launch hollow further down the slope, the forest on its other side. It should have been such a relief to be here. Safe. Donavyn and Bren safe. The Keep still full of men and dragons. Everything I’d spent the last two weeks begging God to save was here. I should have been ecstatic.

Instead, my guts twisted like tangled weed in the pond. My pulse wouldn’t slow. And every damn time I stopped thinking, I found myself turning, looking, aching for her.

I wanted nothing more than to scream every coarse word I knew, sleep for a week, and then wake up having never met the Lady Grace Barnslow.

Meanwhile, Ronen stood there, watching me like he was waiting for something. And that pissed me off even more. When he did begin to speak, his voice was low enough that it wouldn’t be heard, even by the trickle of men leaving the building.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I blinked. “What? What are you sorry for? I know I was hard on her, that’s not—”

“I wasn’t thinking about what you’d carried on this trip. I forgot you didn’t know Donavyn and Bren were safe. I get it. That was hard. But I want you to hear me on something very important.” He looked aside, then leaned right in. “If someone we love is lost in the course of doing their job, it’s not your fault.”

“I know that,” I said quickly.

He backed off a few inches, but stared at me. Ronen had a very unnerving stare. I fought the urge to shift my feet.

“I don’t think you do,” he said simply. “Our job is to face what the Creator puts in front of us. Trying to carry everyone else’s wellbeing when you’ve done everything you can is too much, Voski. If you’re going to lead, you need to see that. You did your best. You made the call with the information you had. If someone you’re working with dies, unless you wielded the blade, it is not your fault.”

The words hit me like a punch in my very tender stomach. I had to swallow hard to keep it in place. “I’m not saying it’s my fault—”

“No, you’d just tell yourself you could have changed it. If you hadn’t let Bren fly alone—she told me about that, by the way. Her call was good, and so was yours. He needed the eyes and hands more than she did.”

“But he disappeared—”

“With the information you had, and the circumstances as they were, you did the right thing. So did she. I would have made the same call. If Donavyn had been murdered, it wouldn’t have been your fault any more than it would have been mine: It was the fault of the man who took his life. Do you have any schemes in place to assassinate our general? Or his mate?”

“Of course not!” I spluttered. “That’s not—”

“Good, then you can sleep with a clear conscience tonight. In fact, go do that. Right now. Go be alone. Have your silence and breathe, and sleep. Come back in the morning for the Acknowledgement—and play nice. Then you can go again.”

“But—”

“That’s an order.”

I sighed. I knew he was right. I needed sleep. I needed silence. I just prayed that Kham would forgive me for it. “Thank you,” I said quietly.

“Thank you for saving Donavyn’s ass, and keeping Bren safe, and for caring enough that you get twisted up in your head about it.”

“I didn’t save anyone—”

“Don’t be modest. Without your input, Donavyn claims he wouldn’t have unraveled that code in time. He might not be here. I’m proud of you.”

My shoulders dropped and I stood straighter, though I hadn’t intended to. “I… thank you.”

Ronen clapped my arm. “Thank me tomorrow when you’re flying wing for the new Flameborne.”