Page 24 of Null & Void

It turns competitive of course. Weapons are introduced. Beans was right—Bitty is excellent at knife throwing, so it’s always one of us two who wins. Watching Beans and Riley fight with swords is exciting and terrifying—I hope I am never on the receiving end of their wrath.

Almost every fight ends in them wrestling each other on the ground, hollering and yelling. Once, when the day was unseasonably warm, they trained without shirts—their rippled muscles glistening with sweat—and it was a show of pure and unadulterated testosterone and strength. I had to stop watching as the swirling low in my belly triggered my rage.

Riley and Beans also spar with their axes, leaving the leather bindings over the heads to be safe. It takes a lot of control to fight to win, but still hold it back so you don’t seriously hurt anyone. Which is exactly what I have to do, every time I have a weapon in my hand. The rage wants to take over and cause pain, no matter who is on the receiving end.

One evening, I decide to spar alone with my hatchets. Their lightness is conducive for me to flip and jump while having them safely in hand. I fucking love them. Breathing hard, and grinning to myself after a particularly enjoyable sequence, I yank one of the hatchets out of a tree.

“Are you deliberately trying to prove me right?” Riley asks, leaning against a tree not far from me, giving me a heated look up and down with his classic smirk.

I point at him with one of my hatchets and narrow my eyes. “Don’t tempt me,” I threaten half-heartedly.

Riley puts his arms up in mock surrender. “I was coming to tell you dinner’s ready, Firecat.”

I throw a hatchet to hit the tree above and to the right of his head as he ducks and runs back to the camp. “She’s an angry little thing!” he yells in a sing-song way.

My lips twist as I resist the urge to grin.

After a couple of weeks with no inn, we’re all a little testy. Strangely, Riley is in the best mood of us all. We travel in single file, Tovi in front, then Bitty, Beans, me, and Riley bringing up the rear. I spot the back of a blue deer briefly during our silent march through the countryside. Although it is not actually blue, the deer’s coat is just so dark and inky that it almost looks blue. They camouflage so well in the forest, looking like the dappled bushes that overtake the understory.

After so many hours of silent travel, and the other three slowly pulling ahead, I am startled to find Riley walking beside me. The sun glows through his hair, highlighting the dark blood-red color in all its glory. He catches me watching him and the smirk is back, warming my cheeks. Maybe the smirk isn’t totally unattractive.

“Want to play a game?” he asks.

“What kind of game?”

He waggles his brows. “You bring up a topic about yourself, I try to guess the correct answer. If I get it wrong, then I have to answer instead.”

“Okay…” I drawl. “Example?”

“Favorite weapon. Now you guess what mine is.”

I study him, wondering what the trick is, as he uses his shoulder to gently shove me. “Your hands,” I guess, and his eyebrows go up.

“Yes,” he laughs. “I thought you’d guess my axe, though I know your answer would be your hatchets. Now you pick something for me to guess, and if I get it wrong, I’ll answer it.”

I think on it, wondering what I would like to know about him, that he couldn’t guess about me, but coming up with nothing. “Favorite food,” I suggest, weakly.

“Apricots,” he says within a heartbeat of me finishing the words.

Damn it, I was too obvious with Mama.

“Favorite season in any country?” he asks.

How the fuck would I know that about him. He only has a small smattering of freckles, so I don’t think it’s any of the hot seasons, which leaves three choices.

“Cold and dry?”

“Nope! Now you have to tell me,” he says, with a sparkle I’ve never seen in his eyes before.

“I would’ve said the cold and windy season, but Nemoris is making me doubt that.”

This goes on for a few more rounds, while we learn unimportant and silly things about each other, though I learn more about him than he does about me. I now know he hates being tickled and loves the sound of rain and the smell of fresh bread.

“Siblings.”

“That is cheating, Firecat. I wouldn’t be able to guess correctly unless you know. Do you know?”

I shrug, giving him a wicked grin that he shakes his head at as he spins to walk backward in front of me.

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