Page 96 of Kissed By the Gods
“But—what about ‘no distractions’?”
“We’re allowed to have emotionless sex,” Thalric says, his watchful gaze on me. “Where birth control is carefully controlled and the relationships are meticulously monitored to ensure no competing loyalties are formed—either through a relationship with a sexual partner, or through the creation of a child. The Crimson Feather is an outlet and a reward—not a distraction.”
“Exactly!” Faelon says with a grin, going back to inhaling his dinner. “The best kind of sex!”
I force out a laugh, but Thalric keeps his eyes on me. I think maybe he sees too much. Maybe he senses the way my insides have turned to mush, and maybe he hears the way my heart has started to pound. Maybe he can see the way I can’t quite laugh this off. I clear my throat. I don’t want to push the issue, but I want to make sure I understand. “So, it isn’t sex that’s banned,” I confirm.
Faelon snorts. Thalric shakes his head, a quick negative motion.
“It’s the forming of emotional bonds that’s forbidden?” I ask.
“Correct,” Thalric says, and his eyes are full of understanding.
Faelon snorts derisively. “Who wants those anyway?”
I set my fork back on the table and reach instead for the tankard of mead. I trace a bead of moisture lining the outside of the tankard with my finger. Nyrica clears his throat, and I whip my gaze up to his. All of the men are watching me. When I look back at my mug, I realize I’ve made little lines in the condensation all around the mug, twisting it around and around.
“So,” Nyrica starts, offering a subject change. “Leina was asking about the Kher’zenn when you guys sat down.”
Faelon’s eyes light up, and he’s about to open his mouth, but Thalric cuts him off with a stern look.
“Ryot doesn’t want her thinking about that yet,” Thalric says, holding up a hand to stop Faelon. “He wants her focused on Elandors Veil. One step at a time.”
Faelon nods, knowingly. “Yes, one step at a time,” he jokes. “Exactly how you’ll need to climb to the Veil.” His jokes are awful, and we all roll our eyes. Caius throws a buttered roll at him, but he catches it handily. With that, he starts in on how he almost died when he climbed Elandors Veil, about the voices that nearly walked him right off the cliff. I look back at Nyrica and mouththank you. His smile widens, but otherwise he doesn’t acknowledge me.
I’ve already heard Faelon’s gruesome story—twice—so instead of listening I take the time to look around the provisionary. The hall can hold something like 400 men, but I’ve never seen it that full. We aren’t scheduled to eat in shifts, exactly, but it happens that way anyway, correlating closely with guard duty and patrol duty. And some of the men, about 60 at any given time, are stationed on the islands scattered across the Ebonmere Sea and down the coast, acting as a first line of warning for a Kher’zenn attack.
Long wooden tables stretch the length of the room, with benches that could seat dozens of men, but we still sit in small clusters, mostly organized by vanguard and then by cast.There’s a little intermingling—it isn’t forbidden to socialize with others—but the vanguards naturally stick together. Scattered down our table are other Stormriven casts, though there are a handful from Fellsworn mixed in. One table over is the unofficial Fellsworn table, with a few Stormriven sitting over there, too. Stormriven and Fellsworn seem to have formed an alliance of sorts—or at least, the two vanguards are more friendly with each other than they are with Atherclad and Skyforge.
I don’t know why that is, but I can’t say I’m upset by it.
Avoiding Tyrston is a top priority for me.
At the thought, I turn in my seat, looking over my shoulder to the Atherclad table that’s at my back. My gaze is immediately drawn to Tyrston. When he sees me looking at him, he smiles and licks his lips. He throws a dagger into the wooden table.Thwunk. He yanks it back out, giving the handle a quick pull.Thwunk. He pulls the handle forward and backward, and lifts the dagger out of the table again. He kisses the pommel of his dagger, then kisses the air between us. My stomach rolls, but still, my eyes are drawn to his grotesque display.
Until Faelon slams an elbow into my side. “Don’t,” he says, a surprisingly simple reprimand from someone who can’t say two words if twenty will do.
I snap my head back around to find all of the Ra’veth men looking at me with their mouths drawn in tight lines, their eyes solemn.
“Don’t bother with him,” Nyrica tells me. “Your reaction is what he’s after.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one he’s threatening with that dagger.”
Nyrica’s eyes go uncharacteristically hard, and I get a brief glimpse into what he must look like in battle—his expression morphs from friendly and jovial into something menacing andaggressive. It’s chilling, the look on his face, the way his entire body has tensed up.
But it’s Thalric who replies.
“Yes, we are,” Thalric says. “If you threaten one of us, you threaten all of us.”
Like it’s something they rehearsed, each of them—even Kiernan—draw a dagger. In one harmonized motion, they slam the daggers into the table. The entire provisionary goes eerily quiet, the dozens of little conversations dying down to nothing as the distinct sound of those six daggers slamming into the table at the same time resonates up and down the hall.
No one says anything, but Nyrica throws up his fist in a rude gesture toward the Atherclad table. I can’t help the laugh that bubbles in my throat—sharp, surprised, a little unhinged. It’s what Levvi might’ve done. Or Alden. Or Seb. My father.
I think about pretending this never happened—about pretending I’m above it. But Nyrica’s right, and he’s also wrong. Tyrston wants my reaction, but not just any reaction. He wants my fear, my panic, and with my cast beside me, I feel none of those things. So, I turn back toward Tyrston, meeting his gaze evenly. He’s still watching, but this time, his face is flushed red with fury.
I smile, saccharine sweet—afuck youfrom across the room.
Tyrston jumps to standing so quickly that his chair falls over. But in the time it takes for the back of his chair to hit the ground, the sound of 50 chairs scraping across the stone floor echoes against the walls, as each and every man in Stormriven and Fellsworn rises around me.
