Page 7 of A Court of Truth and Thorns
I walk forward until I’m close enough to feel the tension radiating off him, the moon casting dim light across his face and jaw.
“Of all things to come up with doing in the middle of the night after fighting a rose patrol and marching for hours, this rates somewhere between absurd and moronic,” I mutter, taking hold of his elbow. The tightly corded muscles beneath the pads of my fingers send a familiar energy through me. “Let’s go back to the waystation. We’ll discuss whatever this is in the morning.”
He stays rooted to the ground.
“You’re serious?” It takes me voicing the words before I start to believe them. And once I do, my heart lurches into a gallop. Trace leaving is not a possibility I’ve ever considered, and I’m as unprepared for it as I am for the sudden vice of fear gripping my chest. “Stars, Trace, why? Where?” Realizing my voice is rising, I check myself quickly. “Is it Raza? Are you going back for her?”
Trace shakes his head. “If Raza failed to make it out with her guards, there is nothing to be done for it just now.”
I frown. “Then where is it you so desperately need to be?”
“Nowhere,” he says, as if that’s an answer.
And it is, I realize. It’stheanswer. Trace isn’t seeking a destination; he’s just running. My fingers dig into his flesh.
“Coward,” I hiss. He flinches but recovers, raising his chin, ready to accept whatever blow I plan to deliver next. I oblige. “We’re setting course for Everett and it terrifies you. So you run. Like you did five years ago. Except this time, you can’t tell yourself that you’ll do more good implanted in the adversary’s court, because that court just fell.” I swallow. “So where to now? To find some new master to torment you? Some mystic tithe to wash away the sins of a seventeen-year-old boy?”
Trace’s breathing quickens. “This from the girl who hides in the shadows when she should be eclipsing the sun?”
My face heats. “So a day ago I was doing too much in trying to rescue my sister, and now I’m not doing enough?”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” I ask in spite of myself.
Trace opens his mouth, closes it, and steps away, shaking his head. “Nothing. I don’t mean anything. Go back to camp and then go to Everett.”
Everett. Yes. The hurt bubbles to the surface of my memories, burning with hot, reason-defying fire. My hands tremble at my sides, but I’m beyond caring. Or watching my words. The narrow escape, the binds, the fight, the fatigue, they all join forces to feed the inferno in my chest. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? The only reason you’ve... paid attention, let me believe in some bond between us. You wanted me to go to Everett, and now that I’m on my way there, you have no more need to be around me.” I tip my face up to the sky, cursing myself for the stupid little girl I turned out to be.
Trace steps up to me, his voice low. “You think I forced you from the palace because—”
“Because I’m a tool to you, one you maintain so you can point it in the right direction when you think it proper.” My words come between heaving breaths. “I don’t understand why you want me in Everett so badly, but that’s been your goal ever since you discovered that I have some connection with magic, that I might pose a danger to Bahir.”
I shake myself, thinking back to the night Trace found me in the wake of my capture by Viva Sylthia. I was broken. Dying. Trace found me, used his healing crystal to knit together torn muscle and shattered bone. But the healing hurt and I fought, somehow pushing the magic away from me and back into Trace. He told me about Bahir being a mage, someone who can manipulate magic directly—the only one on the continent. And then... then he insisted I go to Everett. His words return to me, vivid as ever.If you won’t go to Everett for your safety, then go to discover what your relationship to magic is. Find out whether you pose more danger to Bahir than comes from just knowing his secret.
I meet Trace’s eyes. “I was your mark, wasn’t I?”
“You are insane,” Trace says, towering over me, his broad shoulders blocking out the starlight. “I came looking for the broken pieces of you that Viva Sylthia left behindbeforeI knew anything about your magic and the danger you might or might not pose to the bishop.”
The logic of his words does nothing for my temper. “I don’t know why you came after me. Not yet. But I’ll find out. The prince of Everett would not rescue a worthless guard trainee without a reason.”
Trace stills. “Worthless guard trainee?” He mouths each word slowly as if digesting its meaning. His hand rises to grip my chin, and his fingers, calloused from wielding a sword, scratch against my skin. Trace’s dark eyes bore into mine as he speaks. “You are brave and loyal and beautiful. I dragged youfrom the palace because I’d rather live with your hate than with your death. And I followed you into the forest because...” He falters, his eyes slipping, losing their confidence. “Because when it comes to you, I seem incapable of rational thought.”
5
KALI
My body stills. I stare at Trace, half expecting him to laugh and declare it all a jest. My heart pounds against my ribs, the sounds of the forest suddenly too loud. Intrusive.
The owl hoots again, as if to say that she heard my complaint and little appreciates it.
Trace swallows, the apple of his throat bobbing. “Do you know how stupid it was of me? To run off, making no arrangements, waiting for no one, likely heading into the same trouble that caught you?”
Trace brushes his large palm over his face, rasping softly against the stubble that’s grown since morning. There is a small scratch above his left brow, the blood dry now but still visible in the dim light. The vulnerability in his gaze flickers like a light bug.
I blink at him like that silly hooting owl. His words still race along my nerves, making my breath come quick, leaving me with too little air. He steps closer and raises a hand to cupmy face this time, running the pad of his thumb along my cheekbone. My skin tingles where it touches his. Instinct, born of years under Lord Gapral’s rule, screams at me to pull away.This will end in hurt, in blood, in death, in pain, a voice in the back of my mind hollers.You know better.Despite the chill air, beads of sweat soak my temples, and my legs tense, ready to run.
But something stronger keeps me still, even while my heart races as if trying to match the rhythm of his. From the twitch of Trace’s face, I know he feels the pounding in my chest as vividly as I feel his. His silver hair, unbound tonight, cascades over his face down to my shoulders, cocooning us together. In a trick of the moonlight, a speck of silver shimmers in his eyes as well. His body’s lean muscles, whose movements my body has learned from training and shared battles, are still as night now. His free hand rises to cover my galloping heart.
