Page 17 of Queen of the Night
The moment grows warm between us as his words run through my mind. He makes it sound like a sensible, logical sort of gift… but the look in his eyes tells me it’s more. Not only that, but I see the fine details—the sentimentality of the bantha claw as its hilt, the way he watches to see if I’ll love it, the pleasure that lifts the corners of his lips as he waits for my reaction… and Idolove it, though it feels ridiculously extravagant.
I run a finger across the gleaming, flat side of the blade, almost blinded when it hits the sun and reflects into my eyes.
“It’s beautiful, thank you. Now I need to learn to wield it,” I say with a smile, feeling extra clumsy with it all of a sudden even though I’ve carried a sword for years.
It just feels sofancy.
“Rhosse is an expert.” He gestures with a thumb over his shoulder in Rhosse’s general direction as if he, himself, is not also an expert. “He’ll be working with you in the evenings. Whenever there’s time,” he adds.
I don’t know what to do next. I mean, we’ve kissed… but just once… and now I’m working for him, but he just gave me averyexpensive gift... then told me it was meant to be a sensible gift that certainly doesn’tfeelsensible. What’s a woman supposed to do? I figure a hug isfriendlyenough, if I don’t linger—and that’s a bigif.
I carefully sheathe my new sword, then smile at him before I throw my arms around his waist, intending to release him quickly after.Half-second hug. But just as I’m about to pull away, his strong arms come around me, and he smells so good, and even through his leather armor against my cheek his heart beats strong beneath the solid muscle of his chest. I melt. Purr. Sigh. However it can be described, it’s all of the most content feelings summed into one.
“I wondered what you’d think of the hilt,” his voice rumbles deliciously in his chest, and that just deepens my contentment. It feels so natural to be in his arms.
“It’s sort of gross but really sweet,” I mumble into the leather of his armor. I hear his laugh against my ear as I recall the bantha claw that almost killed him, the one I pulled from his leg and is now the hilt of my new sword. It seems toointimate a gift for a simple friend. Someone you’ve only hired to work for you temporarily.
I breathe in deeply once more, then muster up every ounce of self-control I’ve developed over the past twenty-six years, and step away while trying to pretend he doesn’t affect me and my bleeding heart hasn’t begun to hemorrhage with the addition of this moment to my memories.
He steps back with a relaxed smile, as if he’s not nearly as affected as I am, but he can’t hide everything. I see something I can’t quite describe in his eyes.Friends, Vera.It’s then I notice that Rupi left my pocket while we hugged, and she now nips affectionately at his earlobe before settling onto her broad, muscular perch looking more comfortable than she should for beingmybird. I narrow my eyes at her. If I can’t have him, she can’t either, but before I can snatch her back, Darvy comes up beside Ikar and rests a forearm on his opposite shoulder.
He smiles boyishly, looking between us. “From the looks of it, you like your gift.” He grins wickedly at me.
Does he mean the sword or the hug? The hug wasn’tthatlong.
I pat my new sword twice, smiling and trying to hide all evidence of my feelings. “I’ve never been gifted anything like it. Ikar is a very thoughtful friend.”
Darvy’s snort is so loud that Rupi squawks and quills up. Ikar irritatedly jerks his shoulder from beneath Darvy’s arm. Was it whatIsaid, or whatDarvysaid? I look between the two of them, unsure how to proceed and worried I’ve said something wrong.
I take the chance to escape the suddenly tense situation when Rhosse approaches to pull more gear out of the saddle bags, and I need to move out of the way. I grab my pack from the ground several feet away and throw it over my shoulders,huffing beneath its weight. A few minutes later, I watch as the men send the sharp flyers flying back in the direction we came. I sorta wish I was going with them, and take a moment to watch them longingly as they become smaller in the distance. Then I remind myself that I want my freedom—and that freedom requires money—even if it means I pretend to be good enough until I am. I steel my shoulders.
“This way,” Ikar calls, and as a group, we trudge across the field and into the gloamy treeline.
Chapter 12
Vera
It feels as if we journeyed into a painting where the artist’s palette consisted of only gray, black, and dark browns with a little watered-down green. It smells of moist dirt and rot, and many of the plants, though living, look wilted and half-dead. We walk through a particularly spindly copse of trees—their spidery, fragile leaves dangle loosely on their branches. I imagine if I were to take a deep breath, I could blow all around me in a circle and the leaves would come spinning off. It would be quite magical, but I don’t. We don’t need any extra attention drawn toward us. I already feel as if we’re trespassers—lucent magic users crossing into the depths of gloam. I catch a glimpse of a deer in the shadows who watches us pass with curious dark eyes. It appears even the animals know it.
The drizzle has begun again, but we’re partially protected from its chill by the forest that tangles and knots above us. With no idea what to expect in these mountains, we stick close together. The men appear relaxed, but I see the way their hands rest on their weapons, how alert and quiet they stay.Every crack of dead forest debris beneath my boots is magnified compared to how quietly my companions tread; it seems I’m the loudest of the group, though I’m the lightest by far.
The sounds of a normal forest are there, the animals are there, the trees and plants are there; it’s just… weak. Several different animals pause and watch us closely as we pass, most of them thin and appearing more tired than the faded leaves crunching beneath our boots. Various birdcalls come from the trees above, paired with the whisper of dry vegetation when a soft breeze blows, but none of it isnormal. I spend much of my time in the forests of our kingdom traveling with hunters, and none of them feel so haunting.
I position myself strategically between Rhosse and Ikar, who are in the lead, and Darvy, who brings up the rear now.
“Anyone else feel like we’re being watched?” I ask.
Even with our kingdom’s best soldiers at my side, the eerie pressure of unseen eyes pressing into my back makes me want to run.
“There are a lot of curious animals out,” Rhosse says in as comforting a tone as a man as dangerous-looking as he can manage. As a person gifted magic that allows him to track and work with animals, he is especially intuitive, but this feeling doesn’t feel like animals.
“There’s also a lot of gloam, and with gloam comes creatures, and you better believe they’ll be watching for a moment of weakness,” Darvy warns from behind me. “Stay alert.”
An unnecessary reminder. I stuff all of my sarcastic responses down my throat and focus on visualizing the way Ikar showed me how to quickly pull my short sword in our training sessions, over and over. But then I decide I should focus on keeping lucent at the ready, because it’s not likely I’ll be any sort of help with my sword. I frown, thinking backacross all the days that have passed with Ikar… have Ieveractually shared lucent with him? Of course, when he was passed out from the bantha claw, he wasn’t aware when I healed him that my magic works in a much more comfortable fashion than normal healers, so that doesn’t count. My mind spins as I search my memories. There was the time I powered the enchanted arrows when we battled the shifters, and he didn’t notice, but we were also battling high above the earth while riding foreign creatures. Ikar is more watchful and aware than anyone I’ve met… will he notice that my magic runs cooler than the originators he’s used to working and training with? What about Darvy and Rhosse?
I nibble at my lip. I’m always careful to control how much I send, and in all my years of assisting hunters, no one has commented on it, but can I limit the lucent enough here? Or will the amount of gloam require lucent so strong that these warriors will question me? The thoughts remind me that this is why I shouldn’t make snap decisions.
On top of that, I’ve only ever contracted for work with individuals, not groups. I haven’t trained like the originators to lend lucent to groups of soldiers. In fact, I’ve never attempted to send lucent to more than one person at a time. I’d ask to practice with them, but that’s basically blurting out that I’m a complete amateur when I assume they believe they’ve hired an expert. Except, Ikar knows my abilities quite well after our journey together. Why exactly did he want to hire me? I warily eye each of the men around me.What have I done?
