Page 132 of Untempered
And shewashelping them. Not so much herself, but by adjusting the situation and supporting the people who could make change.
I blew out a long breath. If I could support Luca as King, I could support this woman as Duchess.
“It isn’t just revenge,” she said, sounding ancient. “There’s no way I’ll ever really get that. I want it. I want him to look at me and realize he was wrong.” My heart sat in my chest like a stone at the conversational way she delivered that truth, and the depth of agony I knew those words could never, ever touch.
I knew that need.
“But I doubt he ever will,” she went on, “and my world is greater than the pain he caused. That’s a privilege, damn it, but I may as well use it.” The end of her sentence lifted up like a question. Her head turned a little, but she didn’t look at me, rather, off to the side.
“I’m not hearing a revenge plot,” I acknowledged slowly. “It sounds like rebellion.”
“Does that scare you?” she asked, turning to me, her eyes full of anger and shadows, and the black, seeping plague.
“Of course it scares me,” I said, irritated. “But that’s not important. What’s important is whether that fear willstopme, Embers.”
CHAPTERFIFTY-TWO
AUDREY
“In private, it’s a fuck up. In public, it’s a death sentence.” ~ La’Angi saying
The clearing was larger than I remembered it, and quieter.
Storm didn’t like it. She danced around, her ears back, her eyes rolling. I stroked her neck, murmuring to her as I looked at the mass in the center. To the side of me, Chay and Bliksem were doing a similar dance, though his beast’s stamps were quite a bit more threatening, and also much less regular.
“Give her to me,” Chay said impatiently. “I’ll walk them until they settle.”
“Do you think they remember?”
He looked around, his eyes lingering on the shadows between the trees. I’d already scoped it out and found no one. Still, his attention had me taking the quiver from where I’d looped it on my saddle.
“Could be the wind,” he told me. “Feels odd, doesn’t it?”
“Old magic,” I said, smug about that strange sensation in the bottom of my gut. I’d thought it was the fact I’d been grazed by an arrow last time. He caught my gaze for just a moment, and that shared excitement felt like the first kiss of sun after a long storm.
I turned my attention to the stone. I could see where I’d fallen against it. Some of the moss dangled off, dried and withered, whipped to a strange angle by the wind. I ran my hand up from that gap, knocking more loose.
It was blackened under there. Excitement rippled through me. I wanted to dance, move, or shout, but I did none of those things. Instead, I breathed the need in deep and channeled the energy into brushing more moss free until it formed a big, wide belt of clear stone at the height of my chin. My veins felt like they were full of a million tiny bubbles. I knew that feeling, and I knew the inevitable headache that would come. But for now, I rode the high, running to fetch wood and building a fire on the side furthest from the horses.
Chay appeared as I was almost ready to try to light it. “This wind is bitter. How are you feeling?”
I swallowed the polite answer and had to pause to assess exactly what it was that I felt. Pain. So much pain. I preferred the excited bubbles. “Like my bones are all broken, and my veins are full of old snow.”
“That’s not what we want.” He glanced up at the sky, and I couldn’t help but notice the impressive silhouette he made. “Will it take long, do you think?”
Obviously, I had no idea. I didn’t bother to remind him of that, assuming it was a rhetorical question. “Could you please stand behind me?” I asked, adjusting my angle.
He did as I asked, his cloak flapping around me.
I looked over my shoulder and had no idea what his expression was. “I’m worried the wind will prevent me from lighting this,” I explained, trying not to be annoyed. I hadn’t told him, after all. Mayhap he thought I wanted him to shade me from the sun, or watch my technique with flint, or something. “Could you help block it?”
He crouched behind me, his gear chiming softly, close enough that I could smell the scent of beeswax that clung to the leather I’d oiled for him just the other day, and the grass that was crushed beneath his boots. Hiding his tracks would be hard if I needed to. I didn’t mind, though.
Skimming through the options in my mind, I steadied my hand and struck the flint. A spark flew true into the small puffs of tinder that started to smolder.
The wind gusted, and I felt Chay shifting beside me, spreading his cloak to better guard against its intrusion.
I hadn’t realized quite how horrific the cold was until it eased just a little more, but I didn’t linger to thanking him. Focusing my hands on building the fire, my mind danced back over our blunt conversation. Wasn’t it odd that he responded so well to directness? Didn’t people prefer to talk around and slowly approach most topics, like a horse with a new piece of gear? And Chay was from Raider’s Ban. If anyone was horse-like, it ought to be him.
