“What…” the word came out before he could stop it. Payton glanced at him. Knowing he now had to continue, Jarrett swallowed hard. “What do you do? For fun?”
Payton licked her lips, an embarrassed blush teasing across her cheeks, drawing attention to the small smattering of freckles on her nose. “Draw,” she admitted softly.
“Draw,” he repeated.
“My mom was an artist and she taught me.” She looked lost in thought or memories for a moment but then shook her head dismissively. “I draw. Sometimes things to help my dad with his work. But mostly pictures of people, places I’ve been, stuff like that.”
“I’ve never seen you draw.”
“I haven’t had much time or energy for it since… since mom died. Maybe part of me hasn’t wanted to.”
He could see a sort of bittersweet light that had entered her eyes when she talked about it. Like the idea made her happy but the connection to her mom made her sad. It confused him. Doing something for the sake of happiness sounded like a wonderful concept but he didn’t understand it. He was a fighter. That was what he knew. He might not go as far as saying fighting made him happy but it made sense. It made the world make sense to him.
“Can I see?” he blurted, surprising even himself.
She hesitated and then nodded. Leaning forward she pulled a book from her bag and held it out to him. It was bound in leather and had a buckle to keep it shut. When she turned back to face him, book in hand, he saw a bit of vulnerability in her face, as though she was nervous about showing him.
“Promise me one thing?”
He arched his brow at her.
“No making fun of me after it.”
He felt a faint smile tug on his lips and nodded. “Promised.”
She sat down at the table, opening the other journal she had, leaving Jarrett standing awkwardly. He looked at the book in his hand, unsure exactly what to do. He had never thought to look at art. He had seen it before, in homes and mansions, decorating the Temple of the Triad. But art was just another, well, thing to him, it served no purpose.
Finally, he turned on his heel and sat down in his chair, dropping his sword and shield on the back of it like always. The book’s leather was worn but seemed to hold. The covers were stiffened by a piece of wood wrapped in the brown animal skin. Unbuckling the book, he opened it.
He was toward the back of it and on her most recent sketch which appeared to be of her brothers and father. It was not finished but it was clearly them, the focus on their faces detailed out before she had formed the rest of them. As he turned the pages he saw figures he recognized, Nyla, Takara, sketches of the training room at the barracks. He saw the Pegasus and various angles within the tavern with people drinking.
As he continued, Jarrett saw his face turning up more and more amid the others. It was then he saw what was just a random sketch, a type she seemed to frequent of a single person in the middle of the page. At first, he did not recognize it was of him.
The lone figure was standing, his back straight, shoulders squared. But his own face stared back at him. The image was of the first night they met in the warehouse. His face was looking sideways, his sword and shield dripping as he stared intently at the viewer. His eyes were narrowed in fierce determination and he seemed to glare out from the page, issuing a challenge to anyone who looked.
For what seemed like forever he stared at it, unsure what he felt while looking at the man. The man she had sketched didn’t seem to be afraid. Didn’t look like he had a past haunting him. He was strong, independent, free.
Was this how she saw him?
It took him a while to continue looking through the book. Darcy had appeared in a few sketches, some with him shyly peering at her younger brother, a hint of a blush exchanging between them. The Malvathar was on another page gazing out with a look of humor and desire. Takara with directness and that little bit of light that made her approachable.
But then the sketches changed from the familiar to something different. Darker. Over and over the same image was sketched, depicting nothing but pain and sorrow. A man with muttonchops and mustache pointing to another man with an axe. They stood over a woman who was kneeling. Then the picture below was smeared with a river of red. Blood. He understood in an instant what this was.
The Templars and her mother.
It was heartbreaking to see it. And Jarrett was ashamed at how quickly he needed to turn the page to flee from the pain expressed there. Soon he was gone from it and back in happier memories, toward the beginning of the book. Scenes of her family, of the woman who had been knelt in tears but now alive and joyful with her family. It was a different life that Payton had led, a different family depicted in those pages. A different—
Jarrett sat up straight, his entire body going rigid. He flattened the page and stared at it, his brown eyes narrowing, every part of him screaming that this was not what he thought it was. But it still sat there on the page, screaming out at him, unmistakable and plain as day.
A sigil of a Malvatharian noble house.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Abruptly, Jarrett looked to Payton. “What is this?” He flipped the book around and practically shoved it at her, his fingers digging into the page.
Payton was clearly startled, a wariness to her as she glanced from him to the page. In it was a scene with her father, his hands were folded on the table, a ring prominently displayed. Jarrett wanted, he so desperately wanted her to give a plausible excuse. To say something, anything that would make sense but he watched as her face paled and her shoulders fell. He wanted her to say it was something they picked up in a market. That it was nothing but a trinket. But she did none of those things.
“Jarrett…”
“You’re Malvatharian?” he snarled.
“No! I mean… yes… No… I… shit!” Payton exhaled sharply and squeezed her eyes shut. “No. I am not nor have I ever been Malvatharian. I was born in Vaelorn. My brothers, my mother, we were all born in Vaelorn.”
He waited. A second, a heartbeat but there was nothing more coming. “Your father.”
She swallowed hard. “Was born in Malvathar to the Noble House of Sarrial.”
Jarrett shoved himself onto his feet, pushing away from the table so quickly that his chair fell over and crashed against the floor. The sound echoed off the stone walls, seeming all the louder in the silence of the room.
“Jarrett, please—”
“You deceived me.”
“No, I—”
“You manipulated me. Lied and tricked your way into my home,” he growled before shaking his head, his hands fisting at his side. “What is your end game? What do you want from me? To sell me back to my master? To bring slavers to Imeryn?”
“Jarrett!”
“I should have known better than to believe that anyone would—” He was startled into silence when she slammed her hands on the table and got to her feet.
“Shut up!” she shouted. She looked as surprised as he was at her exclamation. “I realize you are upset at what I kept from you but at least let me explain.”
“Give you the chance to lie?”
“I have never lied to you.”
“No?”
“No! Just step outside of your anger and fear for one damn second and think. Think over everything we’ve talked about. Every moment we’ve spent together. Was there ever a single moment that you doubted my honesty before now?”
He gritted his teeth. “Malvatharians are a tricky people.”
“Screw you, Jarrett. In your mind, you have prejudged me without even knowing why I never told you.”
“Then tell me. Tell me what this mystical reason that will magically make your deceit better. That will whisk away the fact you come from Malvathar blood. That you have a slaver as a father.”
She exhaled several times, appearing to try to get herself under control. “What happened the first time you actually came to socialize with me? Think back. Not that day in the market but that
game night. When we took the first steps to try and become friends. What happened?”
Jarrett glared at her. He had taken one look at her choice of associations and bolted. He had declared to her face the poison that Malvathar was and his desire to have nothing to do with anyone or anything that came from there.
“It was never my intent to hide who my father was from you but how could I tell you when you nearly came to blows with Atherly on sight of him? How could I tell you once I learned why you hate Malvatharians so much? How could I tell you once I realized that you would hate me for it either way? I didn’t want to lose…” She stopped short, her jaw clamping shut.
His eyes narrowed at her. What sort of bet or scheme did she have going? “Didn’t want to lose what?” he sneered.
“You, you idiot.” Payton looked down and when she raised her eyes again he was shocked to see tears in them. “I like you, alright? As prickly and weird as you are, I like you. You aren’t like Nyla who is so chatty she could talk you into shaving your head before you realize what happened. You aren’t like Atherly who is a weird sort of friendly flirt that borders between annoying and charming. You aren’t like Takara who wants to unwind from duty and looks the other way for her friends. You make me… feel free again. Like I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not. To be the strong fighter, the muscle, the smart one who has all the answers. You just let me be me. And I didn’t want to lose that. Not over something I had no control over.”
Jarrett stared at her in complete shock. “You’re mad.”
She snorted. “It’s been said.”
“You aren’t going to try and convince me that your father is one of the good Malvatharians?”
“No. Because I know he wasn’t.”
Jarrett scowled.
“His parents died when he was a child and he grew up on his aunt and uncle’s estate. He never saw anything wrong with his life until mom walked into it.”
“Your mother changed him?”
“Eventually. I think it was more that love blinded him to anything else,” Payton shrugged weakly. “He left everything he ever knew to be with her. Gave it all up because she was more important.”
“Is that supposed to be impressive?”
“If we can never atone for the sins that we commit then we will forever be doomed. He has led a good life since leaving Malvathar. He is a good man, Jarrett.”
“He’s a Malvatharian.”
“So that’s it then. He’s evil. So that means so am I?”
Jarrett did not move. He did not know what to think. It challenged his very way of seeing the world. He did not like that she had kept this from him. Yet he understood why she had. That voice in the back of his mind agreed with her reasoning, pointing out that at no moment had he given her an opportunity to feel safe to share such a thing. And now when he had learned it he had become livid.
“No,” he said quietly.
A look of hope and surprise flickered across her face, filling those large, expressive blue eyes.
“I don’t know what this means,” he admitted honestly. “Every instinct I have tells me to get away from you because of who your father is. That you cannot be trusted due to it. I have never met a Malvatharian that has not shown their true colors. But…” He shifted uncomfortably. “You have proven the opposite so many times that I cannot pass the same judgments on you. Despite your… heritage. I do not know what to make of it. Or how to deal with it.”
“Do you… do you forgive me? I won’t keep things like this from you ever again. I promise.”
“Why would you give such a promise?”
“What do you mean?”
“You offer to expose yourself to me. Why would you do such a thing?”
“You’re my friend. I don’t want to lose you.”
He stared at her. “And that requires complete honesty?” he asked hesitantly.
“Perhaps. When either of us becomes comfortable enough. But it’s more about not hiding things just to keep the other safe or avoiding a fight.”
“Are there other such things?”
“Not at the moment. I don’t think.” Her brow furrowed as she thought. “I’m fairly certain Takara has a big mouth and everyone in our game night knows your history. But I think you already knew that.”
He frowned and nodded.
“Then I don’t think I have anything else. Unless you’re dying to know who my first kiss was or whether I have the strong desire to cut Atherly’s hair just to see if he will still flounce around without it.”
“I… what?”
“Jarrett, I don’t want you to think I kept this from you because I was intentionally trying to hide it. I just… didn’t want a fight or to hurt you. Right now, I’m pretty certain my dad wishes he wasn’t my dad these days anyway so…” She gave a halfhearted shrug.
He was quiet for several long moments before he slowly righted the chair. “Then he is a fool.”
A hesitant but soft smile began to spread across her lips. “Thank you.”
“I told you to stop doing that.”
“What?”
“Thanking me.”
A heartbeat of silence passed before Payton dared to speak again: “We still need to find you a hobby.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sitting at the table at the end of a very strange day with Payton across from him was beginning to feel normal. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
After returning her sketchbook, he tried to come up with something he could do that might amount to a hobby. Following a five minute discussion on whether or not drinking could be counted, he abandoned the idea to drink the day away and instead set about reading the four books he had never touched. It was a suitable waste of time. Which he abandoned within the first hour. It took him too long to figure out the words and any entertainment within the story was lost. So instead he disappeared into the larder and spent the next four hours sorting his wine collection. First by color then by name.
It was stupid. He wanted to be sparring. Hobbies were stupid. When Payton found him, he had opened a bottle and was hiding in a corner drinking. She laughed and joined him. She then gave him a small knife and a block of firewood and told him to make something. His creation was sitting in front of them.
“A bird?” she was on her fifth guess as they ate dinner.
He shook his head.
“But it has wings!”
“Those aren’t wings!” he objected. “Plus it has four legs. What bird has four legs?”
Her brow furrowed. “A griffin.”
“You already guessed that.”
She picked up the hack job he made of the wood piece that was supposedly supposed to have turned into something. “Chimera?”
“No.” Jarrett could not help but smile at the look on her face as she continued to examine his creation. He had never met anyone with a face as expressive as hers.
Her eyes suddenly went wide and her arms dramatically dropped to the table. “You bastard. You carved an ahamay didn’t you?”
He laughed in way of response. She huffed, pinching a piece of her bread and then threw it at him. This only made him laugh harder.
Silence passed between them for a few minutes as they finished their meal, no further food thrown and his “carving” of an ahamay – really that was a generous term, the thing looked more like a blob of misshapen wood – set aside.
Suddenly Payton perked up. “I’ve got a pack of cards in my bag; you want to play Dragon’s Luck?”
Jarrett nodded. “That sounds acceptable.”
As he cleared the table and fetched a bottle of wine, she leaned forward and dug in her pack only to produce a set of well-worn cards.
“What is it tonight?” she asked nodding toward the bottle as she untied the blue silk ribbon that held the cards together.
“Peninsula again. Just a different vintage.”
Reaching across she took a sip and savored the taste. “Not bad,” she began to deal the cards.
Jarrett agreed; while it was not the best of the wines they have shared it was good. Sweeping his cards up, he arranged them pensively. He wondered if she had made any decisions on who to take with her to Kydessa. If his instincts about the storm were correct, it would likely break very soon, possibly even tonight. And they both knew she could not hide here forever.
Discarding, he watched her deal out three for herself and two for him. He wanted to know she would be safe. That she would have someone who could watch her back while in the icy tundra that was filled with monsters. But he had no idea how to broach the subject with her.
“I have a query, if I may,” Jarrett said after deliberation.
“If your question is if I’ll go easy on you,” she laid down a Beast Attack of four unicorns. “No, I won’t.”
Conceding her win, Jarrett watched her gather the cards and reshuffle. “Why are you going to Kydessa?”
“Glory, riches, the chance to bravely go where few have dared tread. You’ve heard the story.”
Jarrett frowned. The tone in her voice made it clear she was not telling the truth. Picking up his cards, he sparred them only a glance before settling his gaze on her. “That does not seem like you.”
She sighed, blowing a piece of her hair out of her face and they discarded. She took a long drink from the wine bottle before leaning back, a pensive look settling on her face as they played. “I want to provide a better life for my family. Get them out of the struggle to survive we’re trapped in. I mean, it’s the same story everyone has. Between the four of us working ourselves to the bone, we can get out of the slums but… it will take years to get back to the life we had and dad isn’t getting any younger. He deserves to slow down, not work harder.”
“An admirable thought.”
“But…”
He looked at her intently.
She waved him away, surrendering the hand to him because she had nothing. “I heard that but in your sentence a mile away. So finish it, mystery man.”
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