Page 135 of Unrivaled
She finally twisted out of his grip in a move made less graceful by her anger.In one of the outfits that exposed her arms, it would’ve made her forearms and biceps flex in a way I suspected Luca would’ve been uncomfortable with.
I saw him moving to follow her and stepped between them, forcing myself into his space, making him fall back onto his stool in shock.Yasmine held aside the tent flap and shot Luca a glare as she accompanied Audrey out into the afternoon sunlight.
He opened his mouth to say something to Audrey’s back, then hesitated.
“Go on,” I murmured, disappointed.“Push her just a little more, lordling.See how far she goes.”
His eyes cut to me.His concerned expression sat on his face as if it’d been hastily pinned in place.There was no light in his eyes.Unease clawed up my spine.“That isn’t the girl I rescued all those years ago.”
“As if you’d even know,” I scoffed, and left to find Audrey, letting him remain in peace with the last few shreds of his ego.
It was a kindness I doubted Audrey would offer him again.
CHAPTERFORTY-NINE
AUDREY
An apprentice leaving is acceptable, if undesirable, but to have a mage who worked at the Farm slip away?—in a letter from High Magelord, Bearer of All, Gautier the First, to the First Guidelord, Luis
17thDay of Autumn’s Son Moon,
Age of the Locways, Year 272
La’Angi Keep
The whispers were everywhere.Her father wouldn't have him.Imagine what the Duke would say.He wouldn't be so bold with the Duke here.
They were the truth, but they were not the whole truth.I watched from somewhere outside of my body up near the painted roof.The ripples of conversation moved out around me as I went.Luca himself stayed away.Others didn't, and I participated in conversations the way I did drills.Parry, parry, sidestep, dip, lunge.Couldn’t feel my mouth moving but I could see it.The words spilled from my lips and the people around me responded.What precisely they responded with I didn't know but I saw from their body language that it worked.That my defenses held.
Eventually I ended up in my rooms again.The feast had begun and had ended with me simply surviving it.Up in my rooms I tried to settle in with the contracts I needed to read.The smell of the market lingered on my skin and in my hair.Every time I moved the scent jarred my attention from the words.The words themselves were no more help, seeming to slide off my brain as if it had been oiled.In place of the information I was trying to read were memories of conversations.The way I’d laughed at Yasmine’s joy at finding the carpet seeds.Had she been insulted by that?The shame at Luca’s continued disregard of my request while ripples of whispers spread around us.The rush of embarrassment when I bought an unfamiliar food item and realized I’d started to eat it incorrectly.
The dreadful surety that my father would be home soon.
Without planning to, I stood.Since I was up anyway, I made my way to Chay’s rooms.I didn't know what was in my head.There was nothing in my hands.My brain was tired.More than tired, in a way that I couldn’t describe.My body wasn’t mine.I didn’t know quite how to reclaim it or even if I should but I knew who my allies were.
But when I opened the door, his bunk was empty.Skipped across to Raiders Ban, to the man who couldn't walk without a staff duedirectlyto my father.The shame that came in the wake of that thought stole my air, so I turned away closing the door behind me.
Isolde appeared, clearly searching for me.Her pace slowed as she approached.
I didn’t explain.
“Come on up,” she said.“We’ll change you out of your pretty clothes and we’ll get sweaty.”
We did, and I did, finding solace in the rhythm of the movements as she attacked and I defended, then I attacked and she defended.The predictable and safe back-and-forth that let my mind spin and my body focus.We both ignored the tears that crept out of my eyes.It was only day two.
My father would be here soon.
Like a glass dropped onto cobbles, my attention smashed.All the things that could possibly happen hit me.I was no soothsayer, no more than the child who picked up his father’s shield was a knight.Still the images flooded my brain, themayhapsand thewhat-ifs.
Stone was hard beneath my back.Isolde’s hands were strong in my shirt.The fabric was pulled taut, just another weapon once it was in her grip.It clung across my shoulders and over one curve of my neck.I dragged air into my lungs.She transitioned to a position where I was open to being submitted dozens of ways.Her deceptively delicate body was heavy and reassuring on me as I struggled against her.In my head, I wondered how people would react if my father appeared while I was at a perfume stall with Luca, eating food with Yasmine, following behind a distressed staff member with another grumpy noble demanding to be seen.Would I wake up and find him here?Would a runner come, stumbling over their words?And then what if he came directly to me?If I were to challenge him with less witnesses he’d try to manipulate it.He wouldn’t want to fight me, not because he’d believe he could lose but because he thought he wouldn’t.That would mean I’d be dead, and he didn’t want to lose his property.
When Isolde’s hand closed over my wrist, rather than bend it at a painful angle and force me to submit, she squeezed it.If my father had arrived right when I’d seen that patronizing smile appear on Luca’s lips, it couldn’t have gone worse.How had I let him humiliate me like that?Why hadn’t I spoken out harder, longer, louder?
“Drum your hands,” Isolde told me.One of her curls danced with her words as they floated to me.
I drummed my hands.Her grip withdrew.The stone beneath me was cold and sweat itched on my skin.If my father had arrived, I’d have forgotten to deal with Luca.I’d get an obscenely extravagant gift I didn’t want delivered to my door in the aftermath of the battle or distributed at the service my father would either forbid or control tightly.Was it ironic that I’d been looking at funerary oil?If it had gone the way it was in my head, I’d’ve been hailed with nigh-mythical foresight.
“Drum and breathe.”Isolde’s instructions were simple.Sensible.I followed them, but I could imagine how at a tourney in a decade’s time, when the sails the nobles sheltered under had changed and naught else had, the way they’d turn to each other and murmur,Remember how she bought her own funerary oils?
