Page 122 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
But then Geryll had finally found the courage to look me in the eyes and he’d looked so open and hopeful, all I’d been able to do was nod.
So here I was, screaming inside and keeping a calm, confident facade.
“You aim with your eyes first.” I jerked my chin at the twin targets waiting in front of us.
Nadya had commandeered the third and was busy groaning and hurling her axe at it like she wanted to slice it until nothing but splinters were left.
“Got it,” Geryll said with the shaky voice of someone who did not have it.
I swallowed my sigh. “Imagine that red circle is your enemy’s face.”
Mine had Silas’ stupid grin plastered all over it in my mind, two arrows sticking out from where his eyes would have been.
“I don’t have any enemies,” Geryll muttered.
“You must have had a lucky life, then.”
Not all of us had the luxury of being overlooked. Some were born with targets on their backs. By the time I’d turned eighteen, I was already receiving threatening letters from the Borderline Bands, simply because of my name.
“Not really.” He shrugged. “Just…a quiet one. Nobody really bothered with me once they realized I wouldn’t be as fierce as my father, other than the Commander and then Nadya. I miss him, but I don’t miss the expectations his absence has placed on me.”
The words speared my chest harder than Nadya’s axe did the target.
My father’s memory imbued every single breath I took, but the weight of his passing had placed so much strain on me.
His death was the start of my destruction as the heir to the Protectorate throne.
If he were still alive–if he hadn’t beenmurdered, stabbed in the back–where would I be? Not in this crater…or would I?
Would he have used the Protectorate crown to gather the army and bring me back to Aquila–or would he have decided I was safest here if our Clan had been attacked?
If he hadn’t died…I could have still been at home. Never met Mrs. Thornbrew, Nadya, Geryll.
Would have never kissed the Commander.
But that thought was still too fresh, too raw, to lean on too hard. Heat rose up my neck just at the barest whisper of the memory, his tongue in my mouth, my fingers digging into his back.
I shook my head and stared up at Geryll, this boy who towered over me, who looked like a warrior, but bit his lower lip like a youngling on his first day of schooling. “You’re smart.”
“Smart doesn’t win battles.”
“Smartalwayswins. In battle, in life, when you’re fighting with yourself. Never underestimate that.”
I raised my bow and watched him mimic me with that same vulnerable, wavering expression on his face, even as his hands gripped hard and his muscles bulged underneath the leather.
His problem was with the mind, not the body.
“You know why I became an archer?” I asked, keeping my voice light, as I let him adjust to the stance. “I didn’t like getting dirty.”
Geryll huffed a surprised laugh, then cleared his throat to cover it up.
“I’m serious. I didn’t like people rushing at me, wrestling them in the dirt, scraping my knees, dirt caked under mynails, bones crunching when training got tough. Horrible. To be honest–” I lowered my voice. “–I just didn’t like hand-to-hand combat. It scared me, being so close to someone. Having to imagine snuffing them out. My heart wasn’t made for that.”
Geryll turned his head to me slowly. In the distance, even Nadya’s throws quieted.
“Plus, my thin wrists were just a liability.” As Geryll focused on my words, I took out two arrows from the quiver and handed him one. He took it out of instinct. “I could use my eyesight and nimble limbs in better ways, instead of forcing my body and soul to contort to something they hadn’t been made for. Some people thought I was a wimp at first. Then I became the best damn archer they’d ever met and nobody said anything ever again.”
“People have a lot of things to say about what you should and shouldn’t become, as if they live your life. Those expectations are yours to mold, not suffocate under.” Maybe, one day, I’d believe those words myself. But if they’d free Geryll, they’d done their job. My gaze swept the clearing and landed on him, watching me intently. “Notch your arrow on the right side of the bow.”
