Page 57 of Children of Fallen Gods

I’d had enough. I whirled around. One breath, and I’d disarmed him, his rapier in my hand. I pressed him to the leaf-covered ground, his own blade at his throat. Our panting breaths lingered in the air between us.

“You will need to get better than this,” I said.

He watched me, eyes narrowed. Surely he knew a distraction when he saw one.

But then a smile twisted at one corner of his mouth.

“I have no argument.”

“I will help you. If you want it.”

The smile warmed his eyes. They really were something.

“I would be honored to receive your instruction, Aefe.”

What was it about the way he said my name? I rose to my feet and threw his rapier to the ground beside him.

“Then get up,” I said. “And stop asking so many questions.”

* * *

Two weeks of traveling passed.Though we had all managed to refrain from drawing weapons on each other since that first night at camp, tension stretched out between us like a drawn bowstring. At night, I crept away from camp and joined Caduan in the forest, where together we would train. He was a passable swordsman, even a talented one, but what went further than raw talent was his obvious love for learning.

Swordsmanship, though, was not the only thing Caduan wanted to learn. Every night, I dodged his questions just as I dodged his rapier. I quickly learned that he greatly enjoyed knowing things. Perhaps that was why his stare disassembled its subjects and put them back together again.

But I was not ready to let him see so much of me.

Still, for reasons I couldn’t explain, our nights together became a bright spot at the end of long and exhausting days. There was a certain satisfaction in chipping away at something so tangible when there was so much we could not control.

We still received no response from the House of Reeds. Their silence could mean nothing, or it could mean everything.

The night before we were to arrive, our training session was a mess — my instruction muddled and short-tempered, Caduan’s practice distracted and clumsy. After a few half-hearted rounds, I sank down onto a log. I had never been very good at stuffing away my feelings. And now, my anxiety overwhelmed me.

“What do you think?” I asked. “What do you think we’re going to find, tomorrow?”

He turned to me. He was panting, slightly, from the exertion of our last exercise. He wore a thin cotton shirt, which clung to the outline of his form, damp with sweat. It opened just enough in the front to reveal the shape of his clavicle and the edges of still-healing wounds running over it.

He looked so different from the bloody figure I’d hoisted out of the swamp. And yet, the memories he never voiced were written into every line of his body.

“I hope for the best,” he said. “But I suspect the worst.”

He spoke so matter-of-factly.

I stared at him, a wrinkle between my eyebrows. “How can you be so calm about all of this? If I were you…”

There were no words for it. I would be drowning in my rage.

Caduan’s face hardened. “What makes you think I’m calm?”

I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, it all rearranged. I felt like a fool for not seeing it earlier. The stillness in Caduan was not calm. It was paralyzing rage.

“I am not calm, Aefe.” He stepped closer, eyes burning, jaw tight. “I am on fire.”

Chapter Seventeen

Tisaanah

When I awoke, my head felt as if it was made of stone. Nura told me that I had slept for almost two days. It still didn’t seem like enough. But at least I could stand without tipping over, and though my head pounded and my stomach still churned, I seemed to be done emptying my guts.

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