Page 146 of Children of Fallen Gods

Nura gave me a long stare. I could feel Max’s eyes, too, bearing into the side of my face.

Then she shrugged and turned away. “You’re lucky,” she said. “That could have been a much deadlier mistake.”

Chapter Fifty

Aefe

Niraja was spoken of in hushed whispers, or more often, not at all — as if it were some place that lingered on the other side of the world. But in truth, Niraja was an island that sat to the south, not far from the House of Nautilus. Journeying there did not take long. Their gates were barely visible in the distance when we dismounted and donned our (still, I insisted, utterly ridiculous) costumes.

“Help me with this one?” I asked Caduan, pinching fabric around my waist and handing him a pin. He was silent as he leaned forward and pinned the chiffon around me. His hands, as always, were incredibly warm. He stood close enough that I could feel his breath on the crest of my ear.

“Thank you,” I muttered, suddenly shy.

I expected him to pull away. But instead, he stayed oddly close, running his gaze down my body in a way that sent a shiver up my spine.

“Your tattoos are beautiful,” he said, quietly. He said it in a matter-of-fact tone, and yet there was something about that tone that made me carefully avoid eye contact for reasons I didn’t fully understand.

“All Sidnee warriors have them.”

I didn’t look at him. But strange, how I could feel his gaze shifting away from the intricate beauty of my tattoos to the black x’s that covered my entire left arm.

He didn’t ask. So I wasn’t sure why I said, “I have had many victories. But I have also made many mistakes.”

“What kind of mistakes earn these?”

I swallowed. “Some petty. Some… not.”

I heard the question that Caduan didn’t ask.

“One time,” I admitted, “I beat a fellow Blade nearly to death.”

I would have killed him, had Siobhan not pulled me off of him. I blinked away the memory. The man’s face had been nothing but smears of violet, bloody flesh, bone visible beneath his wounds. He didn’t come back to the Blades. Still couldn’t walk properly.

The memory came with a pang of shame. I had never volunteered such information about myself before — these were my ugly parts, the impulsive and rash deficiencies that I tried desperately to file away. I wasn’t sure why I was telling Caduan this.

I forced myself to lift my gaze. He wasn’t looking at me with judgement. Just with a quiet, curious gaze.

“And what did your colleague do to deserve that?” he asked.

“He made a joke about my sister.”

“A joke?”

“A joke about raping her.”

Mathira, that snake. For a moment I vividly remembered the way his bones felt cracking beneath my fists and I relished the memory.

“I don’t regret it,” I said, quietly. “Sometimes I wish I had killed him.”

One corner of Caduan’s mouth tightened. “I suspect it wouldn’t have been a great loss to the world if you had.” His gaze softened, and he added, more quietly, “Your sister is very fortunate to have you.”

I smiled, but beneath it, I felt a bittersweet twinge. How strange, to hear someone say that to me.

“Perhaps,” I said, “but that’s justoneX. You should hear about the others before you say that.”

Caduan let out a low chuckle, and with the sound, a certain tension between us relaxed. Still, I crossed my arms and realized I had goosebumps.

“They’re all lovely,” he said. “But I think they might undermine some of our secrecy. Can I hide them?”

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