Page 36 of The King's Man
She was still fifty feet away when her hands rose to her mouth and I saw her eyes well.
I shook my head, unable to fight back fresh tears for poor Istral and sweet Gall and what must have happened to them. Sickened by it, and brokenhearted. I’d been pushing the feelings aside, focused only on the mission. But now.
“Yilan,” I croaked and started towards her. “I’m so sorry.”
“No.” She sobbed and backed away one step, shaking her head. “No.”
“I’m sorry, Yilan. She’s not… we didn’t find her. We didn’t find either of them.”
“NO!” Yilan cried, but instead of running as I thought she would, she dropped to her knees, right there on the trail.“No!”
I was rushing to her when Melek’s roar shook the trees. It seemed to rush up the land like the wind, rustling leaves. I’d reached Yilan, was dropping to the earth, one hand on her shoulder, pleading with her to forgive me for not bringing better news, rushing to reassure her that wewould find her—when a shadow passed over us and I flinched.
A moment later, with a strangled cry of Yilan’s name, Melek landed to my right, thudding to the ground and catching his weight like he’d dropped straight out of the air.
Yilan’s head snapped up and she launched herself at him, crying, throwing herself into his chest. He snarled and swept her up, snapped those wings once, and they both shot into the sky.
“Stop! Melek! She needs to cry—”
A thick, warm hand caught my arm as I ran, tugging me to a stop.
I whirled to find Jann at my side, his eyes on the black shadow shooting higher into the sky. “Leave them. They need time. They both know what this means. It means the Fallen are involved and they’re blaming themselves. And Yilan needs him as much as he needs her right now—”
“Let me go!” I snapped, yanking my arm from his grip and shoving him away. “I don’t need you to explain my own best friend to me!”
Jann barely swayed back at my push, but his expression grew tight. “You aren’t the only one concerned for them. But this isn’t the time to give in to emotion—”
“Not the time?” I gasped.
Jann’s eyes were dark. “The King and Queen have lost their son and sister.Theyneed to grieve. Sowe,who’ve had time to process,wehave to be strong. This isn’t the time for weeping and wailing. This is the time to be measured and logical—”
“Not the fuckingtime?Tell me, Jann, when is the time to grieve poor Istral? Whenisthe time to be sad for Gall?”
His lips twisted. “Fucking women, always twisting words and their meanings. That’s not what I meant. If you could stop being deafened by your feelings forone moment—”
Rageroaredthrough my bones as surely as Melek’s had shaken the trees. “Don’t give me your Alpha male bullshit aboutnot the timewhen I’m the only one in this Godforsaken camp who cares.The only one who has fuckingfeelingsinstead of roaring around, taking control, because you’re all so idiotically sure that theworldandtruthwill bow to your superior fuckingstrength—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’mnot!It’s what you do! Growl and snap and intimidate with your looming and your threats and whatever the fuck other sick things you and yourbrothersthink about—and that disgusting, abhorrentcesspityou call a culture, that’swhatIstral’s dealing with. Right now! Right now, we’re here safe and fed and… and unharmed and she’s out there somewhere gettingrapedand destroyed andthat’s fucking horrific, so don’t tell me not to fucking feel it!”
“I didn’t,” he growled, baring his teeth, and then—without any fucking irony!—stepped right up to loom over me. “I didn’t tell you not to feel, Diadre. I told you not togive in.Their grief is more important than ours, and that means that we carry the responsibility—the privilege!—of standing, clear-headed, andhandling shitwhile they grieve. You can weep all you please when the job is done, but if this is how you handle crisis when it comes, stop whining to me about men not respecting you because you’re a woman. It’s not your cunt they refuse to follow—it’s thismindlesshysteria that—”
I slapped him so hard the crack echoed up the mountainside.
And the fucker closed his eyes, but didn’t even flinch.
“How’s that for hysteria?” I hissed. “And by the way—there’s nothing mindless aboutdecidingto tell you to fuck all the way off.”
Then I turned on my heel and stormed back towards the camp. But the tears… the tears blurred my vision and made my chest hitch.
“Diadre—”
He sounded so weary. And so sad. And that made me more angry becausehow the fuck did he switch gears so fucking fast?
The ground grew steeper, and soon I was running.
Running. And weeping. And not fucking hysterical. I wasthinking.Because this was so much bullshit, and I would find a way to locate Istral and get her away from these monstersforever.
