“First, she wouldn’t see me bat my lashes from here, and second—”
“This is your fault! You brought her here, and now she’s stolen our home!”
They quiet as they hear me moving about the house, hauling things around.
“Is she—” Soren starts.
“She’s moving the mattress over the top of the trapdoor! You are not keeping us out here all night long, Rasmira.”
“That’s entirely up to you,” I say, plumping up my pillow before finding a comfy position.
“What do we do?” Iric asks. “Shatter the window? Or we could wait her out. There’s not that much food up there. She’s got to piss sometime.”
A beat of silence. “Is the idea of talking to me really so unbearable that you’re suggesting we lay siege to our tree house?” Soren says gruffly.
“You know what? Fine. FINE! Soren, I forgive you. There. Happy, Rasmira? I said I forgive him. Now let us up.”
I don’t bother responding to that pathetic attempt.
“That’s not enough for you?” Iric demands. “You need me to mean it, too? I can’t force that. That’s not how it works!”
I don’t know why Iric thinks he can reason with me at this point, but he keeps trying.
“I told you what he did! He made me think I could be a warrior! He made me believe I could have Aros forever if I took the trial with him. He promised he’d have my back during the trial, and you know what? He didn’t. How do I forgive that?”
I can imagine Soren wincing after every accusation. After a beat of silence, he says softly, “Iric, I’m so sorry. I can’t fix it. I did what I did. I was confident. Too confident, and I got us both stuck out here. I did the best I could after the fact. I failed my trial on purpose so you wouldn’t be left alone out here. You’re my brother, and from now on, I swear to always have your back.”
“How can I believe that? How can I trust you?”
“Because I’ve changed. Because I’ve spent every day in the wild looking after you, excluding the fact that I now owe a life debt to Rasmira. But she’s our friend now. She’s on our side. And she’s changing things. She’s helping us go home. Is a whole year of penance on my part not enough for you? What more can I do?”
More silence, and I find that I’m holding my breath.
“I want it to go away. All of it,” Iric says. “No more struggling to stay alive. I miss the village. I miss our family. I just want things to go back to the way they were.”
“I do, too,” Soren says.
“I’ve spent so much time being angry.”
“You don’t have to be angry. Not anymore. Now we have hope.”
Iric is quiet for so long, I wonder if perhaps he left. Then quietly, so quietly I can barely hear it, Iric says, “I’m sorry, Soren. I’m sorry I’ve spent so much time hating you instead of being your brother and helping us go home.”
And with those words, I move the mattress back to its former position. The boys come up top. Iric starts shucking his wet clothes and throwing them at me. I’m torn between averting my eyes and catching the heavy garments before they strike my head.
When Iric is turned, Soren mouths, Thank you.
I fall asleep with the most profound sense of contentment. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be a good leader.
CHAPTER
14
Iric’s swimming lessons take precedence over all else. We still have to feed ourselves, of course. The wood gets chopped, the traps get checked, the berries are picked—but with that done, it’s off to the pools. Day after day after day.
Soren continues to come with, though he mostly serves as a silent guard off to the side.
“You know,” Iric says, “I can’t tell if Soren comes to watch me or to watch you.”
We’re both in the water. Iric is flat on his back, and I’ve got my arms held out in front of me, tucked under him, helping him float.
“You, of course,” I say. “He wants you to succeed. He’s here to support you.”
“Or to see you in sopping wet clothes every day.”
“Iric, I will drop you.”
“Come on, Raz. You know I’m kidding.” He reaches up a hand and ruffles my hair with it, sending droplets down my face. “I think he comes because he likes seeing you in your element.”
“My element?”
“You know, bossing people around? Kidding again! I mean, leading. Teaching. You’re a born leader. Didn’t you say that’s what you were training to be? The next leader of Seravin? It shows.”
“Yes, but I was never any good at it. Nobody ever listened to me. I never had the respect of the trainees back home.”
“Did you treat them the way you treat us?”
We reach the end of the small pool, so I turn Iric in a half circle and start walking toward the other end. “What do you mean?”
“Well, did you encourage them? Offer to help them in the areas they were lacking? Did you give out quick and efficient orders whenever you were in a crisis? Like we were with the gunda.”
I try to swallow past a sudden knot in my throat.
No, I didn’t do any of those things. When the boys made mistakes, I pointed them out. When they were horrible to me, I put them in their places. During training exercises, they never listened to my instructions, so I stopped giving them. Instead, I took the lead and expected them to follow my example.
“I didn’t treat them the way I treat you and Soren. They weren’t ever kind to me the way you are.”
Iric tries to turn his body toward me before he remembers he’s supposed to be holding still and floating. “Maybe they needed you to be the bigger person and make the first move to change things.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Could we talk about something else?”
Iric looks up at the cloud-covered sky. “Sure. Oh! Want to get a reaction out of Soren?”
“What?”
“Pull me closer.”
I bend my elbows, tugging Iric near my chest. He gives me a devilish grin before reaching forward and tucking a strand of my hair behind one ear.
At first, the motion sends goose bumps along my skin—and not pleasant ones. Torrin would touch my hair this way and—
But then there’s a sound, and Iric and I both turn our heads. Soren has dropped his whetstone onto the rocks. He bends down to retrieve it, and when he looks back up, he’s got a glare fixed on Iric.
Iric lets out a low laugh. “Priceless.”
“That’s not funny,” I snap. I take my arms back and cross them over my chest.
“Just because Soren and I are working on things, that doesn’t mean I don’t get to provoke him. Besides, he knows you’re not my type, so the fact that he’s getting worked up only makes it funnier!”
“You are a horrible person and—” I break off as I realize Iric is drifting away from me. “You’re floating.”
“What do you think we’ve been doing for the last half hour?”
“No, you’re floating on your own!”
“I am? I am!” Iric fumbles for a moment, as though knowing I’m not there suddenly throws him off balance, but he quickly rights himself, and continues floating. “Soren! I’m floating! Look!”
But shouting seems to have been too much for Iric, for he goes under in the next second. I step through the water as quickly as possible to reach him, but Iric gets his feet under him before I get there.
When he breaches the surface, it’s to hear Soren laughing at him.
Iric pulls himself out of the water and flies at Soren, tackling him with his soaking body. Then he’s pulling on him, trying to force him into one of the pools.
“Raz, I could use some help!”
We’re supposed to be learning how to swim, but what the hell.
I get myself behind Soren and push.
“No!” Soren shrieks.
Too late. We fling him into one of the midsized pools, armor and skins and all. He was smart enough to drop his ax before it got too close to the pool.
Iric was able to let go in time, but me? Soren clamps a hand down on my arm and pulls me in with him.
I kick to the surface and glare at Iric. “This is what I get for helping you? You abandon me?”