Page 18 of A City of Flames

Still nothing.

I lift a brow towards Freya, implying how we honestly shouldn’t have bothered him. She ignores me, slamming her plate down and pushing me onto the benches with her. “Link, right? I’m Freya.” Her hand comes out to meet his, yet he doesn’t respond to it. I’m wondering if there is a chance that I can run away from this. Again, she clears her throat and points to me. “This is Nara—”

“I know who she is,” he mumbles, lowering his head. Those golden-brown waves drift over his light tan forehead.

“Oh! Is it because she saved you?” Her smile returns. “Or is it because she’s an Ambrose?”

I smooth the grimace forming on my face as I focus on my food. Despite my father’s known status, Freya had told me she met my father when she was young and I’d made sure to hear all the tales. Except she didn’t have much memory of it other than my father’s taunting comebacks to general Erion, something she said reminded her of me.

“So, I took a new liking to painting. Nara told me she adored my portrait of flowers!”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her the flowers looked more like a pile of disfigured animals.

“Do you do anything in your spare time? Nara here carves! I asked her if she could carve lilacs on my chest of drawers since they are my—”

“Would you have really broken Adriel’s hand?” Link interrupts, and I snap my head up as he looks at me, his finger idly sliding around the rim of a tankard mug. It’s like everything Freya was talking about for the last minute went entirely over his head.

“Of course,” I say, thinking back to the two guys who’d cornered him. Adriel and Oran, Freya had said they were called. “You see, back home, I had an enemy list.”

“An enemy list?” Link repeats like he finds that hard to believe.

Nodding, I say, “Whoever wronged my brothers or me—” I pause midway through scarfing down food. “—I’d write their names somewhere and then later threaten them.”

“What did you do if...” Freya trails off, and the corner of my mouth flutters upward.

“Well,” I say. “Once, I broke a man’s wrist for stealing from my brother.”

“Solaris!” Freya gasps, her dark bronze skin glowing as she smiles. “You are wild, Nara.”

“And you never got in trouble for that?” Link’s brow curves up.

“I did... mainly with my eldest brother.” I drop my gaze as my mind starts thinking about them. A week seems too long without them already. I know we’ll write each other letters, and Illias will likely have the longest summaries of what he’d done throughout the day, but it still isn’t the same.

With a small intake of breath, I glance up at Link. His lips bloom into a soft smile, and dimples form on both sides of his cheek. It’s a smile that showed more with his eyes than anything.

He starts to say something when the mug in his hand rattles as it hits the floor, cutting him off, and whatever tinge of happiness he had before fades once I see gaunt hands press against the table.

“Seems the new girl has taken a liking to orphaned pigs,” Adriel says as I look at him and Oran standing beside him, both with vile grins on their lips. “Oh wait... aren’t you an orphan as well considering what happened to your father?”

So, these assholes have learned nothing from last week.

“I heard your mother died of a rümen’s bite,” Oran chimes in, laughing. His long dark hair plunging past his shoulders.

“That’s not true,” I say in quiet wrath as heat slips through my fingernails.

“Shame, perhaps she couldn’t burden herself with looking after a child like you—”

“Adriel, I think you should leave before—”

“What are you going to do Freya, tell your father, who doesn’t even acknowledge your existence?”

Freya’s shoulders sink low at Adriel’s words, and I eye the knife to my right. I picture grabbing it then holding it to his throat.

“It’s not as if the general would disagree with us,” he jeers. “We all saw how he treated her the other day.”

My hand now hovers above the knife without them noticing, and I stare at it, wanting to wipe the smug look off their faces.

“Hey, how did it happen?” Adriel’s voice doesn’t sound like he’s concerned. It sounds taunting again. “Was it a witch? Are you cursed?”

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