The first rush of bracing fury was fading, and Jahna’s calves flexed with the urge to sprint to the chamber doors so very close and oh so far away, but she didn’t dare turn her back. The voice that spoke behind her her couldn’t have been more welcome.
“Is there a problem here?” Radimar’s green gaze swept Jahna from head to toe first before turning to Evaline and her group, who finally decided to help her off the floor. “Something I need to take to Lord Uhlfrida and Lord Lacramor?” he continued. “I have excellent sight and even better hearing, but there might be a detail or two I missed, and you’re all more than welcome to accompany me to fill in the gaps when we tell our version of events.”
Whether it was the scroll Jahna still held like a mace or Radimar’s implacable expression, none of Evaline’s followers put up a protest or accepted Radimar’s offer. They backed away slowly before turning to scurry back the way they came, Nadel and Tefila dragging a slumped Evaline along with them.
“You should have called for help, Jahna.”
She dragged her gaze away from the fleeing group to find Radimar scowling at her. “Who would hear me? You heard Evaline screeching there. No one came to see what all that racket was about.” She looked past him to the hallway from which he appeared. “I didn’t know you were there.”
“I wasn’t until right before you landed that blow on…”
“Evaline.” He always managed to coax at least a lip twitch from her with his purposeful absentmindedness regarding Evaline’s name.
“The whelp’s face,” he continued. “That wasn’t the wisest decision to face her down with you outnumbered six to one and no help in sight.” He paused. “Though I believe you managed to shift the balance of power permanently in your favor.”
Jahna wasn’t so sure, and in the aftermath of that rush of fury which had buoyed her courage, shivers began a slow ratchet down her spine and up her arms. “She’ll probably be out for revenge.” Her hand throbbed, a reminder of just how hard she’d struck her enemy.
Radimar’s assessing gaze lingered on her face. “Maybe, maybe not. That type is usually cowardly. Their best skill is sniffing out an easy target. You’ve just proven you are no longer one of those targets. I suspect she’ll avoid you in the future. Once you feared her. Now she fears you.”
There was a certain cold comfort to the idea, and Jahna pushed it to the back of her mind to take out and analyze later when she was alone and more contemplative. She reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear and hissed at the pain that sizzled down her fingers.
Pale ribbons of dried blood streaked her knuckles, and the middle one was starting to swell a little. Either her blow was harder than she thought or Evaline possessed one very sturdy cheekbone.
Radimar caught her palm in his in a gentle clasp. “Let me see.” He turned her palm this way and that, his own callused fingers sliding lightly over hers. “Nothing broken. Just some bruising. The whelp, on the other hand, will look a little worse for wear by morning. You probably knocked a few of her teeth loose.”
Jahna had never considered herself either temperamental or violent before. She suffered remorse over killing a spider, but somehow that ready guilt refused to surface to plague her when she recalled the image of Evaline’s shock as Jahna’s hand connected with her cheek. “I’m not sorry if I did,” she said. Some small remnant of that white-hot anger flared to life. “In fact I wish I’d hit her harder.”
“Why ever should you be sorry?” Radimar’s eyes held a glint of knowing. “Justice is sometimes ruthless.”
How did he do it? Clarify the chaos of her thoughts without coddling her? Even when he questioned the soundness of her timing, it sprang only from concern for her welfare, never from doubt in her judgment. He had been a well of heuristic wisdom for both her and Sodrin these past three years, and he was leaving. The unwelcome thought made her want to weep.
“Thank you,” she said in a shuddering voice.
His ginger eyebrows crashed down in a scowl. He guided her toward the door of her father’s suite, and slipped inside on silent feet. The tiny antechamber was empty and dark, the only source of illumination slats of moonlight that managed to slice through the sliver-thin gaps between the shutters. Beyond the closed doors leading to a sitting room and two bedrooms, Sodrin snored down the rafters in solitary inebriation.
Radimar loomed in front of her, the shadowy expanse of his shoulders a living wall between her and the entry door, as if he automatically sought to protect her from some future, unknown intruder. “Thank me for what, Jahna?”
His voice wound around her body like a silk ribbon. She wished she could see his face.
“For making me brave. If you hadn’t taught me how to fight, I would have run or hidden again. I don’t think I would have fought back. You did as you said you would, taught me how to save myself.”
He shook his head. “I taught you a few skills. I didn’t teach you courage. You’ve possessed that all along. It just needed to be coaxed out of the shadows. A few years of growing up and lessons from me just brought it to the forefront.” A smile crept into his voice, along with an unmistakable note of satisfaction. “You should be proud of yourself. That was one impressive strike. You remembered everything I taught you.”
The guilt that hadn’t reared its head earlier surfaced now. “It might have been better if I could use what I learned in the arena instead of against another woman.”
He paused for so long before answering, she began to wonder if he heard her. “How long have…”
“Evaline.”
“The whelp and her lickspittles tormented you?”
Sometimes it seemed like forever. “Years,” she said.
“That corridor was its own arena tonight. Sometimes you take your stand in unlikely spots against your adversaries.”
“Could you love me?” she wanted to ask but instead said “Are you proud of me?”
The darkness obscured his expression, but his low sigh caressed the crown of her head. “Does it matter so much to you, Jahna?”
“Yes. Yes it does.”
She leaned into his palm where it cupped her elbow. “How could I not be proud? And if your brother and father knew, they’d be proud as well. Bravery often rises when you’re most frightened.”
The last of her righteous fury over Evaline’s unwarranted persecution burned itself out, and reaction over her response set in fully, along with the melancholy that had threatened to drown her earlier over Radimar’s news. Her throat closed, making it difficult to talk. Radimar’s black silhouette blurred at the edges as tears filled her eyes. “I like being brave,” she warbled. “I just wish I wasn’t ugly.”