“You married Father. Didn’t you promise him then?”
She had a point. Naelin was supposed to always love him. They’d built a life together. They’d had a home. They’d raised children. They were supposed to grow old together. If she could just forgive him for this one mistake . . . Except it wasn’t one mistake. It was the culmination of every mistake. It was the fact that he’d never grown up, never taken responsibility, never . . . But Erian was waiting for her answer. “That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because he also made promises to me . . . and he didn’t keep them. I loved him, and he thought that meant that he had no responsibilities, that I would mother him and you, that I’d fix his problems, correct his mistakes, and keep us all safe no matter what whim struck him . . . and that almost cost me you and Llor. And I won’t let that happen. I promise.”
Erian relaxed. She padded to the room where she and Llor slept, and let Naelin tuck her in and kiss her forehead. She even smiled at Ven and gave Bayn a pat on the head. Tiptoeing out with Ven and Bayn, Naelin shut the door on the children.
“Are you all right?” Ven asked her.
“I owe you an apology for all the family drama,” Naelin said. “I know it’s not the role of a champion.” She tried to summon up a smile, but it required too much energy. She sank onto the couch.
“But it is the role of a friend.” He sat beside her.
“Aw, that’s sweet. You know, you look deadly, but you are a sweet kitten inside.” Without thinking about it, Naelin leaned against him, resting her cheek on his shoulder. After a moment, he put his arm around her shoulders, and she was suddenly conscious of how close they were. They’d been close before, during training, especially when he was teaching her how to break holds and dodge knives, but that was entirely different, when Renet’s accusation still hung in the air. She felt his chest rise and fall with each breath, and she breathed in the smell of him: a mix of leather and sweat and pine needles. She could move away. Stand up, say good night, fall asleep in her own bed. But this . . . was nice.
She fell asleep like that, head resting on his shoulder, his arm around her—safe.
Two more days of training.
Naelin spent the mornings with Queen Daleina and the afternoons with Ven. Throughout, the wolf Bayn stuck with her. She took to requesting raw meat with every meal, so that she could feed him too. “You should be out hunting,” she told him. “You’re a wolf. It’s the wolfly thing to do.”
He merely looked at her with his yellow wolf eyes and then lay down in the hearth in the late Queen Fara’s chambers.
“He likes you,” Ven said.
“He likes the meat.”
“That too.” Coming up behind her, Ven put one hand on Naelin’s wrist. “Now, what do you do if I grab you, spin you, and try to stab you?” He pulled her around, and she spun to face him. His other hand was formed into a fist, as if he held a knife. She felt his fist against her stomach. If it had been a real knife, she’d already be dead.
It wasn’t a knife, though, and she was aware of how close he was, holding her pressed against him. It was damn distracting. She twisted away and jabbed upward with her elbow. She hit hard enough that he loosened his grip.
“Faster. You won’t have time to think about your reactions. It has to be instinctual.” This time, when he spun her, she twisted and jabbed at the same time. “Good. Again.”
They repeated the maneuver over and over, until she was sweating and hungry and thoroughly done with it. As he spun her for the hundredth time, she called an air spirit—a small one—with her mind. She twisted—and the air spirit swept his feet out from under him.
He thudded down backward.
The air spirit perched on the arm of the couch and giggled. It was a tiny spirit, comprised of mainly white and brown feathers. Its giggle was shrill, like the sound of glass breaking.
Naelin sent the spirit away and grinned at Ven. “Got you.”
“Clever.” He held out his hand. She took it and pulled. He sprang up. He wasn’t winded at all, damn him. He looked like he could keep doing this for hours.
“I need to rest,” she told him.
“An attack could come at any time.” He spun her again. But this time, she didn’t move. She let him hold her, close against him. Tilting her head, she studied his face. It was the beard that made him look so stern. You couldn’t see the gentleness in his lips. His eyes weren’t stern. He looked worried, and she knew for a fact that he spent most of his waking hours worrying about either her or Daleina.
“It’s a shame you aren’t a father,” she said.
“Sorry?”
“You’d love your children with all your heart.”
“I’m not cut out for parenthood. It doesn’t suit my lifestyle. And why are we talking about this? Are you delaying so you don’t have to practice anymore?”
“Yes. I’m tired. I told you, I need to rest.”
“Then rest.” He released her, and she felt suddenly cold as a breeze sliced between them. The windows to the balcony were open. He crossed to them and shut them, as if he’d seen her shiver. He probably had. He watched her closely, she knew. Because he’s evaluating me, she reminded herself. Nothing more. She knew Queen Daleina was relying on him to say when Naelin was ready for the trials.
“What would you be if you weren’t a champion?” she asked.
“You keep trying to get to know me, as if I were complicated. But I’m not. I knew at a young age that it was my responsibility to carry on the family tradition. That was my goal. I never wavered.”
“You never wanted an ordinary life? A house, a wife, a family?”
“That was never my destiny.”
She snorted. She didn’t believe in destiny. She believed in random chance that you pushed and pulled at to give you a life you could live with. “You never fell in love?”
He looked away. “Once.”
“What happened?” As soon as she asked, she thought maybe she shouldn’t push. “You don’t need to answer that. We can train more.” Naelin stepped back closer to him. She’d jab and twist, or whatever she needed to do.
“She changed. And then she died.”
Naelin laid a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”
“That too is the destiny of champions: to love people who die.”
She wanted to say something sympathetic. She knew that was what the situation called for, but he was sounding ridiculously melodramatic. “At the risk of sounding insensitive, everyone dies, so by definition, everyone loves people who die. The fact that your love died doesn’t make you a brooding hero out of a tale. Actually, the fact that you’re both brooding and a hero is what makes you one, but that’s not what I’m trying to say. I mean . . . I don’t know what I mean. Except that you don’t need to be so afraid. I’m not planning on dying.”
“Good,” he said.
And this time, when he spun her around, she again didn’t twist away. Instead, this time, she kissed him. He kissed her back.
Chapter 27