Page 84 of Heirs of the Cursed

A dry chuckle reached Naithea’s ears. She didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. Fawke Biceus, Ward’s second in command, had been present during each of her training sessions. Not to guide her nor to correct her, but to make sure she wasn’t a bloody traitor.

Ever since the Night of the Tides, when their gazes had met through her window, a strange sense of danger had washed over her.

Run,her magic warned her.

All the same, Naithea wouldn’t be intimidated by him. Nothing would keep her from achieving her own mission. If she wished to keep her sisters safe then she must do her utmost to become the fiercest warrior in Laivalon.

“We’re done with combat training for the day,” Leonel said. “But Eames is right. You need to build up your strength and endurance.”

She nodded, turning her attention away from the soldier’s abysmal eyes and replacing her insecurity with a surge of confidence.

“Let’s get to it.”

They raced for half an hour, dodging the trees whose leaves had begun to fall with the arrival of winter. Naithea’s lungs burned from the lack of fresh air, but she didn’t give up. She accelerated her run until she kept pace with Leonel, gasping for air.

By the time they stopped, her chest was rising and falling rapidly.

“It’s almost gone,” Leonel nodded toward her face.

Naithea brought her hand to her cheek. “As if it never happened.”

“I’m sorry, Thea,” he apologized immediately. “I should have been there. I wouldn’t have left your side if I’d known what they would do.”

Days ago, Soldier Magnar had been rather rough with her during one of her training sessions. When he had disarmedNaithea and pinned her against a log with the tip of his sword, hot blood had trickled down her cheek. A lesson the hetaira had learned, but that had angered Ward more than ever.

He had come out of the tent where Osmond Desford, the Healer of Weapons, was treating Naithea and had threatened to punish the soldier with the same sword that had wounded her.

Ward kept his word. Yet, it wasn’t he who led the punishment. No, the commander allowed Naithea to have her vengeance. When he offered her the sword, she knew what had to be done if she wished them to stop seeing her only as the most expensive cunt in the City of the Sea.

Without blinking, she repaid him in kind.

“It’s not your fault,” Naithea told him, holding his hand.

“But I—”

“You are a good man, Leo,” she interrupted him.

“You’re only saying that because you’re afraid I’ll stop training you,” Leonel joked.

Naithea rolled her eyes. She’d been so frightened by the arrival of the Royal Army, by the stories that had crossed the cities of the kingdom about evil and heartless soldiers, that she hadn’t stopped to think that, among them, noble people did exist.

Leonel was one of them. And while Naithea had used him that first night to get the information she wanted and nearly took his life in the act, she loved him. Not in the same way she loved her sisters, but perhaps someday she would. They had become friends, and she didn’t want to know a world where that wasn’t the case.

“No. I just think you’re better than the king you serve and his even more vile son.”

Leonel tensed and his light blue gaze wandered among the thick trunks that surrounded them. “I had no choice,” he admitted. “I was recruited by the Crown.”

“You must miss your home.”

“Camdenn isn’t my home.”

“It’s not?” she asked, perplexed.

“I’m a Bellmarian by birth.” A smile devoid of happiness lifted his chapped lips. “It feels strange to be back after so many years.”

“Have you visited your family?”

“No, I don’t know how I would. The man my mother raised no longer exists. I’m too much of a coward to see the disappointment on her face.”

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