Roar (Stormheart #1)(95)
“Roar—”
“I mean it,” she snapped. “Please just leave.”
So quickly that he might have imagined it, her eyes dropped to his mouth and then she whirled away, sitting on the bed facing away from him. Even though it went against everything his instincts told him, he left the room and even took a few steps down the hall out of sight before he sank down against the wall. He propped his elbows on his knees and buried his head in his hands. He tried to still his thoughts and drain his anger.
Listen.
That was all he needed to do. Just exist and listen in case she needed him. He was not sure how long passed, but it felt far too long. Finally he heard her call, “Locke?”
He called back, “I’m here.”
She was silent for a long time, then said, “I’m sorry about your sister.”
A breath rattled in his chest and his head thudded back against the wall behind him. “Thanks, princess.”
She made a noise that sounded somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Far too close to the latter for his comfort.
“Sorry. Roar.”
“It’s fine. I don’t think I care anymore.”
He hated not being able to see her face. Especially when her voice sounded so hollow. He heard shuffling in her room, and she sounded closer when she spoke.
“Soldiers did that to her?”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth. He did not talk about this ever. But he’d rather split open his chest than suffer through her silence, so he answered, “On orders. But yes.”
“On orders from whom?”
“The king, I suppose. She was just one of thirty that day.”
He heard her gasp. “Thirty? Was that … common?”
“Common enough. Locke isn’t like Pavan. The weather there is even more brutal because of the sea. And the jungles surrounding the city make it a hard place to leave. The people who live there are desperate, and desperate people don’t always think about consequences. And there were consequences for almost everything in Locke.”
“Your sister … was that a consequence?”
He scrubbed his fingers through his hair and tried to deaden his heart for the rest of the tale. “I told you I was young when my parents died. They died during a hurricane. It was just my sister and me left, and she was five years older than me. We weren’t prepared to fend for ourselves. Begging and the few belongings we had left from our parents kept us alive for a couple of months, but that ran out fast, especially after the crown seized the house and all our belongings. I met a man who gave me a gold coin to be his lookout and alert him if I saw any guards. I don’t know what he did while I kept watch. I did not ask. I wanted the coin too badly. He said I did good and if I wanted to make more I could find him at a tavern not too far from the abandoned building where my sister and I slept. That man was the first person to introduce me to the black market.
“It wasn’t like the one in Pavan. There were too many guards, too much danger to keep the market in one place. So, it rotated around the city. He paid me and a few other boys to keep watch. My sister begged me to stop. She insisted we would find another way, even when the few coins I brought home were barely enough to clothe and feed us. She begged on the streets and did odd jobs for anyone who would have her, but I brought home more from one night than she could bring home from a week of working herself ragged. So I kept going back. One night, she followed me, tried to convince me to come home with her. We fought, and I sent her off. I was distracted, so I didn’t notice the guards until it was too late.
“The military raided the market, and I barely got away, hiding behind a cart until I could squeeze through the crowds and run. They rounded up everyone they could get their hands on. Even innocent bystanders who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I ran all the way back home, but at dawn when my sister still had not come home, I knew something was wrong. I got to the square just in time to see them lining everyone up. I was so small, I had to climb up the gutter of a building to see. She was eleven, and they hung her there with mercenaries and thieves and men that she would have been scared to stand beside, let alone spend her last moments with. I don’t remember much. But at one point, I think she saw me in the crowd. Tears were streaking down her face, but she did not make a noise. She smiled at me. One of those, supposed to be reassuring, everything-will-be-okay kind of smiles. And that’s all I remember. I lied before. I don’t recall the moment it happened. Maybe I looked away or ran. Or maybe I’ve just blocked the memory. But she died that day. Because I dragged her into something dangerous.”
Roar did not answer, and he could not blame her. It was a depressing story, not exactly the kind of thing you say to cheer someone up. When he looked up, she was standing in the doorway.
She asked, “Is that why you never took on any apprentices?” His brows lifted. “Duke told me.”
Of course he did. “That’s part of it, yes. I entered this life because I had no other choice. I hated that city. I hated the streets and the guards, most of whom were exactly like those men we just encountered. I hated the royals and the people who cowered in their homes rather than speaking out. I hated everything. And Duke offered me the chance to get out, so I took it and never looked back. Honestly, I think I was hoping I would die. That it would just end. I had lost my parents and my sister, and for some reason, despite ample opportunity, I could not seem to follow them. Before Duke found me, I was becoming more and more reckless with my behavior in the black market, associating with dangerous men, taking risky jobs that were bound to go wrong; but no matter what kind of peril I threw myself into, I always seemed to crawl out of it still breathing. Still do, I guess. I’ve grown to love this life, but I still would not recommend it to anyone who has another option.”