Page 28 of Great Falls Protector
I blink. A dozen yards down the hallway, a servant carrying firewood ducks out of one of the many passages and scurries into another. Somewhere above us, a carpenter bangs his hammer. All normal sights and sounds for a conversation that is anything but. “You don’t?”
“No.” Shaking his head, River clasps his hands firmly behind his back. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?” I ask.
“Be with you.” River’s voice lowers to a near whisper, his storm-filled eyes fighting with all their might to conceal the vulnerability sparkling inside. “And before you say anything, I’m well aware that Tye’s proposal was simply a way to keep you in the Academy. And no, he isn’t the reason I need to walk away. It boils down to trust, Leralynn. I can’t be with someone who will not trust me when things truly matter. Whom I cannot trust in return.”
I clench my nails into my palms, the only thing I can do to keep myself from reaching for him again. “I trust you, River.”
“No. No, you don’t.” A muscle tics along River’s jaw. “I only learned that you were in a fight this morning. From Coal. Because you couldn’t confide in me until you were all gathered together, and confident and patched up.”
River’s words are an eerie echo of my own thoughts this morning, though he speaks them as if they are a bad thing. As if he himself doesn’t wear strength and composure the way other people don clothes. After months and months of forging my own path, maybe I don’t want to prance around naked. Maybe I have a right not to.
“It was a bad day, River.” I can hear my voice stiffening. “I wasattacked. Cut me some—”
“You weren’t attacked, you were in afight,” River snaps back at me, his control wavering. Without moving, he seems to grow taller above me, making me fight the urge to step back. “As you are on a regular basis. I’m not daft, so don’t make me pretend to be. You and I both know that your sudden departure from the arena yesterday wasn’t caused by panic over the exam question. Moreover, if you had actually feared for your safety, you’d have stayed right where you were—in plain sight of a dozen guards and a pace away from me. But you didn’t. Which all means you weren’t runningfromthe arena, but rathertoa place. You left because there was somewhere—or someone—you needed to see. And lo and behold, then you clash with the one man who has information on the very attack you’ve been worried about.”
Damn it.“I know how it looks,” I say, keeping a firm grip on my voice, despite my racing pulse. “But you are wrong.”
“Am I? Where exactly do the lies start and stop?” River stops as a servant rushes past with a clattering tray of empty wine bottles, then continues in a harsh murmur. “Every time I think we’ve made it to a new level of trust, vaulted over a barrier that I’m certain is the last, I discover you’re playing me still. You told me that learning to read mattered greatly to you, and I believed you and helped. But then you claimed that staying on the Prowess team was more vital than anything. I violated every rule and regulation, every bit of my own code, to let you stay by the royals as you asked. Except the Prowess Team turned out to little matter after all—you were already on your next solo mission targeting a Night Guard ally you told me nothing about. You know what I think happened? I think you saw Zake, recognized him, and decided to go after him on your own then and there, instead of telling me the truth.”
“No.” My heart thumps. I step forward, though it means having to tip my head back to keep River’s gaze. “I wasn’t looking for a fight, I swear, River. I was trying to avoid one. I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?” He waits for an answer that I can’t give, then snorts softly. “Let me guess, you can’t tell me. But you’d like me to trust you that it was important. To convince myself that you haven’t been lying to me with every breath for months and months.”
I open my mouth to shove back against the accusation—but this time when River holds out his hand to stop me, the finality of his words hits my soul like a shard of ice. “I love you, Leralynn. I probably always will. But I can’t be with you. You and I, we’re done.”
4
River
River’s gut twisted as he turned to walk in the opposite direction from Leralynn, the portraits in the hallway looking on with morbid satisfaction.Yes,the painted frowns said,you fell in love with and bedded a student—that pain filling your soul now is just the punishment you deserve.
The portraits weren’t wrong—but that didn’t make walking away from Lera hurt any less. Finding an open window, River braced his hands on the windowsill and drew in desperate breaths. His chest was tight, his eyes stinging in the bright sun. Now that he’d stopped walking, he couldn’t move, his hands gripping the aged wood so tightly that his knuckles blanched. Try as he might, his mind refused to think of anything but Lera’s musical laugh, the way she twined her auburn braid around her finger when she was thinking, how perfectly she fit into his arms when he pressed her soft body against his.
But River couldn’t be with her. Lera’s lies left him no choice. If she still wouldn’t trust him with the truth after everything he’d done, then that was that. The end. It had to be.And now that he thought about it, when he’d told her he loved her, she never said as much back.
River pushed himself away from the window, straightening his jacket in time to nod courteously to a passing pair of guards. The deputy headmaster did not get to sulk, no matter how much his heart ached. The Academy deserved better from its leader. He had to look the part whether he felt it or not.
River realized he’d walked himself to the dungeon only as he was already checking the ledger to see where Coal had left Lera’s attacker. He pressed the page flat, his breath quickening again. He was here to check if this Zake might have awoken. If he had more information about the alleged impending assault.
Ensuring firsthand that the bastard who’d attacked Leralynn was paying justly had nothing to do with River’s actions. It didn’t.
Pulling open the heavy door to the lowest level, River inhaled the stench of urine and fear mixing with the mossy stone.His footsteps scraped dully against the steep stone steps as he wound his way down, bracing himself for whatever he was about to hear.
“—the mountain.” The prisoner’s voice, coming from his cell around the bend, was thick with panic, rising to a whine before deteriorating to sputtering mutters. “They’re in a mountain, that’s all I know. Owalin blindfolded me. Fae. You bloody fae.”
“Talking to yourself, Zake?” River called.
“No.” Stepping out of the shadow, Coal looked River up and down with impassive blue eyes, probably assessing whether River intended to give him trouble or not. “He’s talking to me. If you can call these insane ramblings talk. We have a name, but little else. Zake’s been provided with few details of the attack itself.”
“Perhaps because there isn’t going to be one,” River said with a raised brow, though his heart hammered his ribs. Unlike River himself, Coal had been there when Lera was attacked, and that made River want to thank the man and slug him in equal measure.
“If you believe that, you’re even more Sage’s puppet than I thought.”
River swallowed a hot retort and turned toward Zake’s cell to avoid Coal’s annoyingly placid face. “Rumors of the prisoner’s unconsciousness seem to have been resolved,” he said. “Is there anything else Leralynn is having you lie about?”
“River, Zake the prisoner. Zake, Deputy Headmaster River,” Coal said, blithely ignoring River’s question without even a twitch of an eyebrow. “I don’t believe you two have met.” Jerking his chin toward the door, Coal stepped neatly around River. “I’m heading out to see about locating this dark mountain lair. Excuse me.”
