The loft was lovely. The pointed A-frame roof was supported by six natural beams, and made for a low ceiling at the edges of the room. A small table and chairs sat atop swirling blue rugs. There were latched chests, end tables with empty vases, and a wicker sofa with pillowy cushions. Everything was made of a natural pale wood that brightened the stone structure. The entire front wall, from floor to ceiling, was an open window without glass. Curling vines of ivy had crawled partly inside, and a pair of sparrows fled to the sky at our intrusion. Gauzy linen curtains draped the frame, leaving the magnificent view of the docks and the glittering harbor unobstructed. A crescent of small town buildings hugged the pure blue waters.
This was someone's favorite place. I could tell. At the end of the day, the storehouse owner would come up here to relax and watch the sunset. It was nice, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was invading someone else's life.
Opening a short cupboard, Rune pulled out an old copper tin with a painted label that was too scratched to read. Popping the top open, he examined and then sniffed at the contents. “Coffee,” he said appreciatively. “It was sealed up pretty good. Carmine will weep with joy if it makes a decent pot.”
I nodded absently.
“You've been quieter than usual.” He put the tin down atop the cupboard to save it for later, and then moved on to the drawers of an end table. “If it's about dunking you in the harbor, I don't feel guilty and I'd do it again if I had the chance.”
“I'll keep that in mind for future retaliation, but it's not about that.” Don't bring it up, Kat. “It's all those names outside.”
Great.
My heart thrummed. The floodgates had already opened and I couldn't stop myself. “I thought you guys were exaggerating about this place, but it was true, names and numbers on every wall. It got me thinking... maybe a little too much. I'm sorry to bring it up. It must be hard for you.”
Pulling a pair of screwdrivers from a drawer he asked, “Why?”
Oh no. Stop talking, Kat. Just stop talking.
“Well,” I cleared my throat, panicking. I scrambled for something else to say. Maybe, that it must be difficult to learn how to whistle at twenty years of age. “Those are the number of your people that they've killed. A lot of them must be Dragoons, even people you've known.”
And there it is. The train wreck has blown up the station.
Rune looked up at me and gave up on his search. “The walls aren't newly built. The carvings could be ten, fifty, a hundred years old, for all we know. One of those numbers could represent someone I've fought alongside, that's true,” he shrugged. “But it doesn't bother me.”
I shouldn't have said anything. What's wrong with me?
I swallowed the lump in my throat. When had my mouth gotten so dry? “Because of your training as a Dragoon?”
It happened like I thought it would. His face may as well have been made of clay for how little expression he had. Strolling away, he ducked beneath a low beam, and ran a hand along another short cabinet, rubbing the dust from his fingers.
“We're not meant to look at one another as friends. We do not mourn for each other. You're right that I cannot feel sorry for them. I don't know how. All of us have been trained to fight to our last breath. They've been my enemies in training as often as they were my allies in battle. I identify with them because I am one of them. I'm not sad to see the number of dead because at least here we're represented. Back home, there would be no recognition that we'd ever lived at all.”
I hadn't anticipated that perspective. If things hadn't changed, Rune would have been happy to be a tally on an enemy's death count. He still saw himself as a Dragoon, and he probably always would. Turning against the military and his prince didn't change who he was and would always be.
Even if he's not a Dragoon by occupation, he's still a Dragoon.
Maybe it was this empty town, or the written monument pressed onto every outer wall of the city, but I became anxious. I didn't want us to spend the rest of our lives chasing and running from the way we felt about each other. There was precious little time in life. Hadn't we wasted enough of it?
He glanced back at me. “You seem surprised.”
Rune had already become distant, I could tell by the tone of his voice. He was barely clinging to the conversation, and at any minute I knew he'd slip away. I messed things up again. I figured that I should apologize, or better yet, leave it alone. Naive girl, Kat, was back for an encore performance.
Of course I was horrified by the thought that a person could be happy to be chalked up to a number under the name of the person who'd killed them! I didn't want to imagine it happening to him. I cared about Rune more than warmth or hunger or breath, more than my comfort or safety.
Hunched there beneath the low ceiling, he awaited my response. The longer I didn't speak, the colder and more neutral his expression became. It was like he was sinking in a quicksand that devoured all emotion.
In keeping with the day's tradition of saying whatever thought ran through my head, seven words spilled from me before I could stop them. “I'm in love with you, you idiot.”
Chapter 21: My Finest Afternoon
Rune's jaw went slack and he straightened up to his full height, forgetting his surroundings. His head hit the low ceiling beam, with a painful thunk.
The cold came first. A chill swept from my head down, draining my face of color. Then came the heat. My cheeks burned with a fiery blush. Was I hot or cold? Pale or red? I had no idea. I wanted to take to that incredible view and jump right out the window. It was so close. I could do it. And if I didn't die of embarrassment or impact, I'd use my lightning to blast a burrow deep into the ground where I could hide for all eternity.
Gravity! He hit his head too.
I felt terrible. My nerves prickled and my vision whitened. The only way things could get any worse would have been to heave an I love you at someone and follow up the proclamation by passing out on the floor. I grabbed onto the nearby chair for support. I could smell the slightest hint of smoke on the air.
Oh, good. I'm having a stroke.
“Are you okay?” I managed to ask.
Wincing, he rubbed his head where he'd hit it, and froze mid-motion. “Uh... Kat. You're um.”
“Stupid! I know I am. I shouldn't have said anything,” I said, backpedaling. Before I could apologize, my anger flared up. “But you're not nothing, you know. How many times do I have to say that before you'll listen? You matter to me! I don't care where you've come from, or what they trained you with. You're not a damned number, you're not an expendable pawn to be used and discarded. Now that you're free, you're not a defector or a rare statistic for Raserion's history books. You're Rune Thayer, and damn it, I love you!”
Damn! I said it again! And it was easier that time. And why am I saying 'damn' so much? I'm completely losing it.
He blinked like I'd slapped him, and to be honest, in the heat of the moment, I almost wished I had. How dare he talk about himself like he was still an isolated soldier to be consumed by his own loneliness? He had me! Wasn't that worth anything? Perhaps, I realized, it would matter more if I hadn't been dodging, avoiding, and fighting him with swords. I'd made a colossal wreck of things.
“Sorry,” I said, feeling the word stick to my throat. Humiliation poured over me. I just wanted to get away from this stupid beautiful room, Rune's stupid handsome face, and most of all, my own stupid self. I turned to go.
“Kat,” he said darting toward me and stopping short. “Wait!”
“I know. I mess everything up, don't I?” I pushed away from the chair and stalked off toward the stairs, trying to ignore the blinding whiteness encroaching on my vision. Any minute now, I'd fall flat on my face. “I'm sorry about your head. I hope it feels better soon.”
Some tough final words, Kat.
“Katelyn Kestrel, stop!” he practically shouted at me.
I did, despite my strong desire hide somewhere and eat my way into the center of a cheeseca
ke. Turning slowly around, I faced him. My heart was racing. When I took a step forward, he took a step back. He didn't want to be near me. With my gift for inciting awkward situations, I couldn't blame him.
The merciless hammer of rejection slammed into my chest. So this is what it'd been like for him that night in the kitchens of the Flying Fish. “You don't feel the same way. It's okay.”
“It's not that!” he said, seeming incredibly frustrated. “Kat, you're burning the room.”
What?
I looked down at myself and saw pulses of electricity webbing over me. It was beginning to burn my clothes in small areas, and I'd left a scorched black and brown handprint on the chair I'd been holding onto. “Oh gravity!” I cried out, batting at myself to put out the bolts. That was why my vision was going white and I smelled something burning! By the time I'd smothered the last remnant of lightning, closing up the Spark within myself, I was whimpering and muttering to myself with shame. Could I never get a break?
Rune slowly strolled his way over to me. “Is it safe?”
“Yes,” I grumbled, pinching at the singed fabric of my coat.
“If you're certain,” he said.
I looked up and my heart wanted to crack in half at the sight of him. His blue eyes were soft with fondness and his warm brown skin made them seem all the brighter. He smiled, reached a hand out, and using his Ability, puffed out a tiny flame that had developed from the electricity on my shoulder. I hadn't even known it was there. “You're quite mad, you know that?”
I sighed, having exhausted myself. “For all of the usual reasons, I assume.”
He moved closer to me. “Everything I've– for as long as– never in my life did I imagine that I'd hear those words spoken.”
“Was that before or after we kissed in front of the Margrave and an entire brigade of Dragoons?”
“That wasn't a brigade.”
I found myself unable to avoid smiling. “Whatever.”
“I seem to recall you being the one to initiate that.”
“I seem to recall you liking it.”
He laughed, and the sound was pleasant and unburdened. “This,” he said, turning partially away to look out the window. “I like this too.”
His easy manner soothed me. The way he curved the conversation, I didn't feel on the spot for what I'd said and done. The way he moved and spoke assured me that I had no reason to feel any shame for my actions. Still, my heart tugged. He hadn't said anything back. “You don't find the emptiness eerie?”
“It's the opposite.” He took in a deep breath and seemed to be reveling in our surroundings. “This place was something once, but it's all changed. The field has been cleared. It's open now, free to be redefined.”
I didn't miss the connection he was making between Sheer Town and himself. What I saw was a poor husk of a town that had suffered losing its heart and soul. The streets had memories, and there was written proof on the walls of every home. The Northerners sounded cruel and wild by their description, but I just couldn't imagine heartless villains creating a room like this one.
Rune, he saw Sheer Town as fresh and clean, brilliantly available for reinvention. He saw the possibilities for change. I wondered if my sentimentality was holding back my optimism. Considering the differences in our two lives, I never thought that I'd learn how to be positive from him. It was humbling.
“It's always been this way, with me and you,” he said, and I didn't get the feeling that he'd meant it in a bad way. He sounded wistful, which was a strange thing for a young man of his experience. “Ever since we met in that cave.”
“How many people can say something like that?”
A smile curled onto his lips. “Not many, and certainly no other Dragoons. That day changed everything. Knowing that someone cared whether I lived or died made life clearer. I'd rather be struck down in pursuit or protection of that single feeling than I would for anything else in this damnable war. When you escaped and returned home, I was certain I'd never see you again. I imagined what it must be like to live in a place like Haven, where people are free to be themselves and never experience a blood-soaked battlefield. Could a place like that truly exist? You were gone. I'd never see Haven with my own eyes, but the idea had crept up and soaked into my bones. I thought about it after the death of my parents, and when I was shipped off to the front lines again, and when... when they invited me to drain Lina, my own sister, for a promotion. After she... after she was killed, I knew my purpose. I would create a Haven in the West. I'd think like you, and turn against this war. I had purpose and I was content with dying for such an ambition.
“But you returned. You saved my life a second time, and now I'm here, with you.” He turned back to look at me with fire in his eyes. “I want a new life. I want to be a new person. I don't know how to do that, but there must be a way. My family is gone, I'm all that's left, and I have a responsibility to live for them. I don't know what I'll be able to accomplish, or where I'll be able to go, but I know one thing: I want–” His words broke off, but he found them again. “I need you to be in my life. I'd burn the world down with my own hands to protect you. If that isn't love, then I don't know what it is.”
Rune's words ended there. He appeared to be concentrating, struggling to find more ways to explain himself.
I was shaken by the power of his words. He'd meant it.
We were separated by two small steps. This breach between us was one of my own creation, no thanks to my rejecting him so recently. But I’d faced my fears and acknowledged that my true pain had come from losing Sterling that day. No matter what happened to us, I would always be pulled to Rune, just as I had been from the beginning. As he'd said, it wasn't a desire. It was a necessity, and the only thing that felt right.
I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around him. His moment of shock didn't last long, and soon, he pulled me nearer.
“I can't ever go back,” he whispered, and I understood what he'd meant. The confirmation made me happy enough to celebrate. Not only did he love me, he confessed that his days of burying his emotions were over. This was an effort to restructure his entire psychological outlook. It wouldn't be an overnight process, but he was trying.
I pulled back so that I could see his face. The sliver scar he'd gotten from Commander Stakes remained there, from temple to cheek. There was a vulnerable honesty to what he was saying, and I appreciated his openness. “You don't have to.”
My hands slid up his arms, and I thrilled inwardly at the dip and curve of muscle beneath his clothes. Reaching up, I traced that very scar that he'd earned from saving my life, and he closed his eyes. I pushed myself up onto my toes, adding an inch to my height, and leaned in to kiss him.
His eyes opened to focus on me, and he pulled back before any contact was made. “Kat... in Cape Hill...”
“It's okay. It's behind us, I promise.”
“No. It isn't okay. I swear to you, on my life, on my blood as a Thayer, on my honor as a Cormorant Dragoon, for whatever that's worth, I will never harm you again. There is no force strong enough, not Commander, Margrave, or Prince, who can make me break this oath.”
Rune searched my face, seeking acknowledgment. Knees weak, head light, heart fluttering in my chest like a sparrow in a cage, the response I gave him was a wordless one. My eyes caught on the shape of his mouth, and I found myself biting my bottom lip with anticipation. I looked up at him and our gazes met. Seeing the same wounded soldier I'd met in the cave more than a year ago and finding the same rare, boyish innocence as I had that very day, I melted. Before I could slip into an incoherent puddle on the floor, I lifted my chin and kissed him. It was soft, sweet, and pure. The kind of kiss that says more than words do. A familiar feeling of euphoria bloomed in my chest. He was the only one who had ever invoked this kind of bliss and I yearned for more.
Taking the lead, I pushed him gently backwards, and together we sunk into the cushions of the sofa and lost the entire afternoon.
Ch
apter 22: Into the North
Sheer Town. I didn't think I'd miss it, but it turned out to be an oasis that I'd never forget. That day was perfect and we became nearly inseparable in the time that followed. It'd been difficult to leave our secret place, but once we did, I'd never seen Rune more talkative. He was still a little rough around the edges, but the difference was night and day.
“So in Haven, people use their Abilities in secret to support the community?” he asked me as we walked back to the Flying Fish with tin coffee cans in hand.
“Basically, yeah. I hate that they lie to us until we're of age.”
“Yes, but it seems to function for the greater good. Fewer accidents, no envy or judgment. You know, I really think we could do something like that here. If Abilities were used to help our kingdoms instead of being weapons of war, imagine what we could achieve. The possibilities are boundless.”
I cracked a smile. “I'm surprised you think so. Everyone else around here seems to believe that ending this war is a futile effort.”
“No effort is futile. Inaction is the only sure path to failure.”
“You weren't always such a bright-eyed optimist,” I said with affection.
He grinned down at me. “I didn't always have you.”
We chattered like that all the way back to the little round harbor, saturated in a golden sunset that turned Rune's blue eyes green. When we were a mere fifty feet from the ship, movement caught my eye and I stopped walking. Rune paused beside me.
“That was...” I began to say.
“I know,” he whispered back.
An oblong black shadow stood on the dock. Instead of moving up the loading ramp to the ship's open rail gate, it reached upward, clawing and wriggling its way over the side of the ship and onto the main deck. Slipping behind the mast, it vanished.
Monarch (War of the Princes Book 3) Page 14