Page 125 of Untempered
“How’s Luca doing, anyway?” I asked since she’d brought him up. “Heard from him?”
She was quiet for a moment. Then, “Why did you guess him?”
“He’s the only one brave enough, or ignorant enough, with access to you who would flirt with you. It wasn’t hard.” Also, he wouldn’t know his asshole from his elbow, but I kept that to myself. “Why’re you staying up late reading about war crimes, my lady?”
“Oh, so now I’m a lady?”
“You can be a lady until you choose otherwise,” I assured her, settling back.
“Well, I’m nothing in particular right now. I don’t think you especially want to know about what I’m reading, so mayhap just imagine some poems to make yourself giggle and get some rest.” She paused for a moment, then added, “In your bed.”
“Chair’s comfy.” And I didn’t feel so alone here. But I probably should go so she could rest properly. Still… “First, tell me what you’re reading. You’ve hedged too hard now. I need to know.”
“It’s treason,” she said, no trace of mirth in her tone. “You don’t need to know.”
The lingering warmth of sleep vanished. I’d committed my share of treason this year alone, and I wasveryinterested in whatevershewas planning on committing. But I couldn’t share all of that. “Audrey,” I said slowly, “You do realize you harbor a Matri’sion, don’t you?”
“I…” In the gloom, she turned her face toward me. “I suppose. Isn’t a single person who lives outside the law a bit less treasonous than fostering ideas, though?”
What a strange leap of logic. “I’m relatively sure treason is just treason. Why are you reading things that’d get you killed?”
“For fun.”
“And you weren’t going to share?” I asked, pretending to be injured. “I thought we were a team.”
In the glow of the fire, I could see her staring at me, unblinking, like some sort of gorgeous owl. As I tracked the wariness and worry flickering over her face, I wondered if she knew how clearly I could make out her features. It felt unfair to keep teasing her, so I reminded her, “I’m sworn to you, Audrey. You can trust me.”
“You have to be here,” she countered softly. “There’s no choice involved.”
My stomach knotted. “I have to be in this tower,” I agreed, reaching for courage. “I don’t have to be in this chair or asking you questions. I don’t have to make sure you eat or give your horse treats.”
She was silent. Her eyes had gone to the fire. Were they shiny with tears, or had she cried herself dry into her horse’s mane? “That’s very kind of you,” she said in that polite, gentle way that I recognized as a layer of bullshit.
“Not known for my kindness,” I said flatly. “Kind would be saying, ‘Hey, Audrey, remember those kids I killed a few weeks back? Their blood is on no one’s hands but mine.’” She flinched, her jaw tightening. There it was, the festering wound exposed. “That’d be bullshit, though. It was a combination effort. We all did the best we could. Before, during, and after. We all fucked up in different ways.” I rubbed my hand across my aching chest and heard her swallow loudly. “Odds are there will be more fuckups,” I said, trying to be sensible. “We’ll try to learn from them.” I felt the weight of the child’s body on my blade, and the ache in my chest became a solid weight. “I think.” I had to stop for a minute and breathe. “I think I just want to try to forgive the both of us and figure out what happens next. Learn from the past and look to the future. That shit.” Kadan would know how to say that better. Wild horses, I missed the man.
“I’m aware there’s a lot I don’t know,” she said, with tears in her voice and a fragile sort of dignity. “I’m trying. And I’m so sorry for the toll it’s taken on you.”
It was a wonder she didn’tsirme at the end. “I’m sorry for the toll it’s taken on me,” I agreed. “And you. And Isolde, and Thomas, and that runner with the wonky haircut who I snarled at after you broke me out of the dungeons.” I struggled to figure out how to explain that she wasn’t really learning if she was diving head-first into guilt. But I didn’t know if that made sense or was true.
She sniffled. “Okay. That’s a long speech just to hear about my current project.”
Raw as I felt, I still appreciated the lukewarm attempt at a joke. “Did it work?”
She shifted a little, her eyes flickering up to me for less than half a heartbeat before they dropped back down to her hands. In that one moment of connection, my blood heated, and desire flooded my system.
I replayed it quickly in my mind. It hadn’t been one-sided, had it? The thought of pulling her into my arms and holding her tight and being this raw and mixed upwithher made my head swim. I wanted to peel back the layers of polite bullshit and find the ones set by survival, and slowly soak through those. I wanted her to do the same to mine.
“Years ago, Luca visited,” she began quietly, and hearing the man’s name had the same effect as plunging into the sea in midwinter. “He likes old stories, and I like city planning and how everything fits together. There’s actually a lot of crossover.”
I didn’t care. I thought of how he’d sat there and earnestly told us how she needed to be protected. He’d almost gotten heraccidentally assassinated.
It was going to be very hard to be nice to him next time I saw him, I realized.
“Makes sense,” I managed.
Really, they were nothing alike.
“We visited the library often,” she said, pulling the blankets closer. “The weather didn’t always suit riding, and neither of us are soiree sort of people, you see.”
