At her wave, a servant pushed a cart into the room. A three-tiered cake spread with a thick, buttercream frosting towered on the cart. Sugared flower petals topped the buttercream.
Brandi tugged Renna forward. “Come on.”
As the servant dished slices onto plates, Brandi shoved two plates into Renna’s hands. “Take a piece to Leith.”
“Why me?” Renna glanced toward Leith. He’d backed against the wall, his eyes flicking around the room. A flash of something, both cold and hot, darted through her stomach. “Why not you?”
Brandi grabbed two more plates and waved one towards Jamie. Jamie stared at the room, eyes wide. “I’m taking a piece to Jamie. After all, he’s my birthday present.”
She waltzed across the room and brandished one of the plates. “Have you ever had cake, Jamie? It’s about the best thing ever, after Aunt Mara’s maple sugar cookies. Those are the best ever.”
Jamie jumped, his hands waving in the air as if in surrender. “Not in a few years.”
When Renna turned, Leith’s eyes rested on her. Her breath caught in her chest and fluttered there, papery thin.
She could do this. She shuffled one foot forward, then the other. A few feet from Leith, she held out the plate. “Would you like a piece of cake?”
“Yes, thanks.” His smile carved dimples into his cheeks.
Not fair. Her heart thumped in her temples and drooled heat down her arms. The plate in her hand bobbled as Leith reached for it. He lunged forward and caught the tipping plate, sticking a hand into the cake’s frosting. The fork grated across the plate and thumped onto the rug.
For a moment, they stared at the fork. Renna peeked up at Leith. A smile crept across his face. “At least I caught the cake. Less of a mess.”
Her chest relaxed. Why had she been so nervous? A smile broke onto her own face. “I’ll fetch a new fork.”
She retrieved the fork from the floor and crossed the room. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Leith holding out his frosting-covered fingers and glancing around the room. He popped his fingers into his mouth.
She swiped a fork and two napkins from the cart and returned to Leith. He halted partway through licking a speck of frosting and yanked his finger from his mouth.
“Brandi helpfully shoved plates and forks into my hands, but she forgot napkins.” Renna held out the fork and napkin.
Leith took them, nodded his thanks, and poked at his piece of cake with his fork. “Are you doing all right? After what happened with Vane?”
Was she all right? If anything, she was too all right. She’d watched a man die. She should be more traumatized by that, shouldn’t she? But it wasn’t like she mourned Vane. He’d killed her mother. He’d threatened to kill her several times. “I’m fine. And you? How’s your arm?”
With a glance around the room, he angled his shoulder towards the wall and pushed up his left sleeve until she could see the bowl of his shoulder and the purple-red splotch from his knife wound.
Renna leaned closer, her fingers itching to probe the wound and check the amount the muscle had healed below the skin. “The wound closed nicely. It might take a few months or longer before the color fades to white. How’s the muscle feel? Can you move your arm all right?”
Before he could answer, her eyes snagged on the single red line across the top of his shoulder. This time, her hand made it most of the way to his shoulder before she caught herself. “Your mark of failure.”
“The only mark I’m not ashamed of.” He dropped his sleeve, hiding the mark once again.
She’d seen the marks marching down his right arm nearly to his elbow. His past, etched into his skin. So much shame displayed in a way he never could erase. It could only be covered, hidden.
Forgiven.
She’d forgiven him for the role he’d played in the deaths of her parents and one of her cousins. So what now? What happened after forgiveness? Trust? She already trusted him. Friendship? What would a friendship with Leith look like? Not like the one he had with Brandi. Hers with him was more than that. Or less. Or something.
Silence stretched between them. Not a bad silence, but not exactly comfortable either. She wasn’t sure what to call it. She held up her plate, her cake only missing a few bites. “How do you like the cake?”
He held up his piece, also missing only two bites. “It’s good. Really good. Not something Respen feeds his Blades.”
Renna smiled. Leith’s answering smile shot warmth into her fingers and toes.
“Renna. Daniel. You two.” Brandi’s voice cut through the silence. “If you’re done talking, it’s time to open presents.”
Renna turned. Every person in the room was staring at her and Leith. Uncle Abel had his arms crossed. A different heat flashed across her face and neck. She ducked her head, scurried across the room, and slipped into the seat next to Brandi.
Uncle Abel produced a small box. “This was something we should’ve given you years ago.”
Renna touched the silver cross dangling from a slender chain around her neck.
Grinning, Brandi yanked the ribbon from the box and flung the top open. She drew out a thin chain. A silver cross tinkled along the chain and swung at the end as she held it up. Her eyes and mouth formed matching Os. “It’s just like Renna’s.”
Aunt Mara rested a hand on Brandi’s knee. “Your mother always said it was a reminder of where to look when you needed strength.”
Brandi clasped it around her neck and met Renna’s gaze. Renna touched her own necklace again. When Brandi flung herself at Aunt Mara and Uncle Abel for breath-stealing hugs, Renna found her gaze drifting towards Leith. He and Jamie leaned against the wall in the far corner.
His gaze met hers. Her face heated. As she ducked her head, she caught sight of Uncle Abel’s bright eyes watching them.
9
Leith rolled out of his blanket in the cold damp of pre-dawn. Jamie still curled in his blanket on the cot across from him. Leith shook him. The boy groaned and rolled over. Leith shook him harder. “Jamie. Time to get up.”
Jamie blinked, then bolted upright so fast he banged the back of his head on the wall. “First Blade. Sorry. I’m awake.”
Leith knelt. “You should know by now I’m not like First Blade Vane.”
Jamie straightened his shoulders. “I know. I just…for a moment, I forgot.”
Leith hung his head. Leaning over Jamie like that, he’d probably triggered a memory of Vane. Leith had endured enough of his own beatings at Vane’s hands. Sometimes Vane had kicked him awake so hard he’d had black bruises spread across his ribs.
He patted Jamie’s shoulder and stood. “Grab breakfast and tend the horses.”
Jamie nodded, straightened his clothes, and hurried from the room. Leith strode from the room a moment later.
The cooks passed him a slice of bread as he strolled through the kitchens and out the door. The crisp morning air tiptoed along his skin. Too soon, the sun would burn the hint of dew from the grass.
Leith trailed his fingers over thigh-high cornstalks. The scratchy leaves tugged at his clothes. Someone had tended this vegetable patch in his absence. He couldn’t find any weeds that needed plucking.
When the kitchen door opened and shut, Leith didn’t turn around. Most likely Renna. Had she been the one to take care of the garden?
A boot crunched on the grass. A heavy tread, not Renna’s light patter. A man’s foot.
Leith whirled. His hand closed over thin air where his knife’s hilt usually rested.
Abel Lachlan stood a few yards away. “A little jumpy.”
Leith swallowed. Lachlan had every reason to be suspicious. Perhaps not of Leith’s loyalty to the Resistance. He’d proved that to Lord Alistair, and through him, to Lachlan.
But Lachlan was perceptive. And thanks to Brandi, everyone had seen Leith and Renna talking and staring at each other last night.
Lachlan crossed his arms. “What’s your interest in Renna?”
Yep, Brandi
had done a good job of making sure everyone noticed. Leith ducked his head. “I have no interest in Renna.”
“We both know that’s a lie.” Lachlan’s voice sliced the morning air. “You might lie to Respen, but you should at least tell the truth here.”
Leith dragged in a deep breath. He could face Respen. Surely he had the courage to face Lachlan. Leith widened his stance and met Lachlan’s gaze. “Fine. Yes. But it makes no difference. I’ll never pursue it.”
“Why not?”
“I’m a Blade. I have blood on my hands.” The words carved into his chest. He’d helped kill Renna’s parents. He’d killed her cousin. Yes, she’d forgiven him. But forgiveness was one thing. Courting was something altogether different.
“If Renna and Brandi are to be believed, you’re a Christian. Is the blood on your hands more powerful than the blood of Christ?” Lachlan’s gaze stabbed at him.
“No, it isn’t. I know it has been forgiven.” Leith crossed his arms as if to stop his chest from crumbling. He hung his head, unable to hold Lachlan’s gaze any longer. “What I’m doing is dangerous. It wouldn’t be fair to Renna to drag her into it any more than she already is, and…I know I’m not going to survive this war.”
“How can you know that?” Lachlan’s tone softened. “Only the Lord knows each man’s time.”
“When Respen finds out, he’ll kill me. And he will find out. One day, I’ll make a mistake. No one never fails, not even me. When that happens, I will die.” His throat burned.
It did him no good to dream of the future. He’d never have it. The best he could hope for would be to make sure Renna and Brandi got their future. That’s why God had placed him in the Blades, wasn’t it? Not to save himself, but to save everyone else.
“Your life is in God’s hands, not Respen’s.”
Leith released a slow breath. “I know.”
“Both Brandi and Renna are going to need your friendship. Mara and I will be leaving later this morning.” Lachlan dropped his arms to his sides. “Be gentle with Renna. She’s been through a lot.”
Leith flinched. He’d been the one to inflict much of it on her.
Lachlan stepped closer. “I can’t protect them. I never had the skill. But Renna and Brandi will need a protector.”
Leith met Lachlan’s gaze and held it. “I promise I will protect them with my life.”
Lachlan rested a hand on Leith’s shoulder. “Thank you.” With a groan, Lachlan eased onto the grassy slope beside the garden. “Sit.”
Something in Lachlan’s eyes told Leith he had more to say. Leith sat on the grass a few feet away. What else did Lachlan want to say to him?
Lachlan stared at the waving line of cornstalks in front of them. “A number of years ago, I was the minister in Blathe.”
Leith’s breath caught. He tried to ask when, but the word died in his throat. Lachlan could’ve left Blathe long before Leith had been born. He might be telling Leith for any number of reasons.
“I was there the night your mother and father died.”
“My mother killed herself.” Leith spat the words. His stomach churned with memories he’d locked in the past.
“Did Respen tell you that?” Lachlan draped his arms across his knees.
“Yes.” Leith squeezed his eyes shut. He’d screamed for his mother, but she’d never come. She hadn’t loved him enough to even try to get him back when his father had sold him to the lord of Blathe.
“Respen lied.”
“What?” Leith blinked at Lachlan.
“She didn’t kill herself. She died saving my life.”
Leith’s muscles froze. Nine years of pain. A lie. He cleared his throat, but his voice still came out scratchy. “What happened?”
“When your father sold you to Respen, Lena, your mother, came to me and Mara to ask us to intervene. She had nowhere else to turn. We approached your father to plead with him to try to get you back. Orn refused.” The rising sun glinted on Lachlan’s silver-gray hair. “Orn leaped to false conclusions and grew angry. He drew a knife and would’ve stabbed me if Lena hadn’t stepped between us. I’m not sure if she intended to take the knife or just stop Orn.”
Leith hung his head. Too many questions. “Why did my mother stay with him? Or even marry him in the first place?”
“I don’t know.” Lachlan leaned his head back and stared at the sky. “Perhaps she wasn’t willing to say she’d made the wrong choice. Maybe she thought she could change him or maybe, deep down, she still loved him. I don’t think she’d anywhere else to go or anywhere to turn. When Mara and I tried to reach out to her, it took a long time before she was willing to accept even a small charity.”
A memory sparked. Leith closed his eyes. “She told me, the night before she died, that we were going to go to church in the morning. Do you think…before she died…”
“I have hope that God worked in her heart before she died. I can’t be sure, but I like to think she died with hope.”
Hope. She hadn’t had much of it in her life. An ache in Leith’s chest eased. A scar, perhaps, finally healing. She hadn’t willingly abandoned him. She’d tried to get him back and died while trying to rescue him. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this while I was at Stetterly?”
“The same reason I’m confessing this to you now. I failed back then. I promised Lena I’d look after you.” Lachlan’s shoulders curved as if the weight of the past bore down on him. “But Respen refused to give you up. When I tried, he used circumstances in Blathe to force Mara and me to leave town. He had his own reasons for wanting us gone. In my cowardice, I never went back. I told myself you were better off with Respen. When I caught a glimpse of you the night Laurence and Annita died, I knew I’d made a horrific mistake. Instead of protecting you, I’d turned my back and let Respen turn you into a killer.”
Something inside Leith tilted. “That’s why you didn’t toss me out into the snow or let the sheriff kill me.” Lachlan had called on principles as his reason for helping Leith. It’d been the truth, but only part of the truth.
“I feared that if I told you, you’d grow angry. Angry enough to turn us in to Respen. Or you might’ve become disillusioned and stopped searching the way you were.”
Maybe he would have. Or maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference. Leith couldn’t be sure.
He couldn’t feel anger. Not toward Lachlan. His confession had soothed some of the raw edges of Leith’s past. “You aren’t at fault for what happened to me or the choices I made. I knew what I was doing when I killed the first time, and I made the decision again and again to obey Respen. The responsibility is mine.”
After a pause, Leith raised his head. The growing dawn spread fingers through the cornstalks and shooed away the dew. “What would you have done if Respen had let me go?”
Lachlan shrugged. “Brought you to Stetterly.”
What would it have been like to have been raised in Stetterly? Grown up racing down the halls, wiggling through church services in the white church down the road from the manor, getting patched up by Mara Lachlan whenever he got into some kind of scrape.
Would the Lachlans have adopted him? Leith couldn’t bring himself to ask. They’d never had children, so he had a feeling they probably would’ve.
That would’ve made him Renna and Brandi’s adopted cousin. Which would make the things he felt toward Renna a whole lot more awkward.
No, it was probably best things had turned out the way they had. As much as a past in Stetterly glowed with the same golden blush as the rising sun, he was where God had placed him. He was a Blade for a reason.
He stumbled to his feet. “I should go look for Jamie. It’s his first day here. He doesn’t know his way around yet.”
He tried to keep his pace casual as he retreated. When he reached the stables, he ducked inside and leaned against the wall in the shadows. As his eyes adjusted, he picked out hooves shuffling through straw, crunching teeth on hay, and the long, low snorts of horses clearing dust from their n
ostrils.
“Blizzard loves apples.” Brandi’s voice rang from the back of the stable.
“Blizzard?” Jamie’s tone dipped.
“Daniel’s horse. He let me name him.”
Leith couldn’t help but smile at that. Brandi hadn’t given him much choice.
“What’s your horse named?”
“Named?” Jamie sounded even more confused. “I don’t know.”
Leith could picture Brandi’s eyes rolling. “I get it. It’s a horse. It doesn’t have a name.”
“Um, how about Buck?”
Brandi gave such a huge sigh that Leith could hear it even from his place in the shadows. “Buck? Really? Every buckskin horse is called Buck. It’s not a creative name at all.”
“Well…I kind of call him…in my head you see…I call him Buster.”
“Buster? That’s the best you could come up with?”
Leith slipped out the door. He didn’t need to worry about Jamie. Brandi would look out for him. Or, at the very least, get him so confused he wouldn’t be able to get into any trouble.
10
Renna swallowed her tears for the thousandth time that morning. Uncle Abel led the second mule from Walden’s stables while Aunt Mara stood next to Stubborn. Brandi alternately squeezed the breath from her and strangled their goat Ginger with hugs.
Uncle Abel paused next to Renna and rested a hand on her shoulder. She sniffed and scrubbed at her eyes. “Why do you have to go so soon?”
He rubbed her back. “Stetterly needs us, and we can’t risk having Respen’s army cut us off.”
“Stetterly isn’t at risk, is it?” Renna twisted her fingers into her skirt. Stetterly should be safe. It hadn’t been attacked by the Blades last time. Surely it wouldn’t be attacked this time either.
Uncle Abel patted her shoulder, but his gaze grew distant. “Yes, we’ll be fine. We are in God’s hands.”
Renna didn’t dare ask what he wasn’t telling her. She leaned into his hug. “When will you be coming back?”
Deny (The Blades of Acktar Book 2) Page 6