Page 37 of Hunted By Wolves and Shadow
“Both.” She lowered the point and fixed me with a meaningful stare, deliberating before she spoke again. “I trust you, Emi. Maybe I shouldn’t but I do. My real name is Juliet. My mother was Lady Crestborn.”
“Oh.Oh!” I remembered the story of the terrible fire nearly four annums ago that had claimed the life of the Lady of Crestborn Manor, and the unbelievable tale of her daughter who had walked out unscathed. The daughter who had then been accused of witchcraft and murder. “Oh, Julie…er, Juliet. What happened to your mother was awful. I am terribly sorry for your loss, and for the way people treated you after. I can only imagine how that hurt.”
“Thank you. No one’s ever said that to me.”
“That’s why you know so much about witches.”
She nodded. “I’m no witch, but I shouldn’t have lived that night. It’s also why you can’t ever tell anyone my real name or where I am. I’d be killed if the Mont’Ag discovers me here given the longstanding feud between our families, and I’ll be tried for my own mother’s death if I ever return to Anterra.”
“It’s complicated,” I breathed, repeating our conversation from days ago.
“It is that.”
“Your secret is safe with me. I can never repay you for what you’ve done for me here, Juliet.”
“Just call me Jules. It’s safer, and that’s what Locke calls me. Now show me the cross cut-twist-and-block sequence again.”
I wanted to ask more, but I went through the move. It was my idea to learn how to fight, after all. I wanted to be worthy of the fight when I returned to Anterra, which I’d begun to realize I must.
My blinders had been lowered here, revealing how little I knew about my own world and family. I’m not sure when I started imagining my return to Anterra, but in the past twelve days that I’d been in Zocere, I’d shifted from never wanting to return to dreaming of it nightly. Or at least, dreaming about Wolf.
I told myself I needed to see my family and uncover the secrets that had been hidden from me, not that I wanted to know whathad happened to Wolf. I kept that question relegated to the haunting dreams, scrubbing the ache from my breastbone each morning. The thought of seeing him again had nothing to do with my gnawing unease, it was only that I wanted to set things right.
Revenge for Grandma was a conflicted need now that I knew the truth. If my own kin was responsible for cursing Anterra with the Mist, then maybe I could do something about it. I needed to find meaning in this mess.
I stepped my foot in toward my weight center as I completed the twist and block.
“Better,” Juliet praised. “Your stance…”
I looked up to find her studying me. “What?”
“Just something I’ve noticed. You had some training before?”
I’d only vaguely mentioned it, not wanting to bore her with my troubles with Wolf or make her think I might bring difficulty to her door that she wasn’t willing to put up with. “A bit,” I hedged. “Is my stance wrong?”
“No, not wrong. It’s just…” Juliet’s mouth twisted into a rare smile. “It’s obvious whoever trained you really cares about you.”
“What?” I nearly swallowed my tongue. Ididfumble my sword and it clattered to the dirt. “Why would you say that?”
“Well, you told me you wanted to learn to fight, but your natural stance is purely defensive. You’re strongest in protective moves. Most at ease. That tells me that your trainer was more concerned with keeping you safe than setting you up for your own attack.”
“That’s not…He said…Oh!” I grabbed up my dropped sword and stomped a circle while my mind raced. “That slippery, conniving, dastardlydog!”
“Um…”
“He lied!”
Juliet didn’t ask, just waited patiently for me to work off the fury with more stomping and pacing. For some stupid reason, Wolf’s words, “Don’t fight angry,” slid through my head. I could practically hear him tutting at me.
He’d said he was training me to fight. How had I not noticed that he was always the one attacking while I only learned to block and deflect? He even pointed out the times I should run whenever I got free. My only attacks on him were my own chaotic, emotional outbursts, all ones he had no trouble thwarting.
Well, I wanted to fight now! Wolf wouldn’t know what hit him.
Had he been mocking me the whole time? Was he, even now, having a good laugh with his friends about the silly witchling he’d bested? His stupid cinnamon curls would be flopping at his temple as he laughed in that infectious chuckle. His silver eyes would be sparkling, his slightly too-sharp canines gleaming in the light as he tossed his head back and exposed the little cluster of freckles on the column of his neck.
Had I been one big joke to him?
Wolf was the last person I should want to see, butohhh sundogs, I wanted answers. “How dare he?”
