The Wish Granter (Ravenspire #2)(27)

“Again,” he said.

She held one of the star’s five points between her index finger and her thumb, brought her arm up over her head, lunged forward with her left leg, and threw.

The star plowed into the sawdust ten paces from her feet.

Ari glared at the (stupid, probably defective) thing and muttered something very un-princess-like.

“Are you flicking your wrist?” Sebastian asked.

Was she? “Probably.”

He raised a brow. “I don’t think you are.”

She blew a stray piece of hair out of her eyes and went to collect the star. “Fine. I’ll flick my wrist.”

She scooped the star off the ground and resumed her stance. This time when she released the star, she flicked her wrist.

The star drove into the ground at her feet, narrowly missing her little toe. Sebastian started toward her.

“Daka!” she swore like a stableboy, then glanced over her shoulder at the open doorway, but they were alone. If any of the nobility had overheard her use of servants’ slang and told Thad, he’d add it the long list of things Ari was no longer supposed to do now that she was a proper princess.

“Are you hurt?” Sebastian knelt and collected the star, running his gaze over her foot.

She sighed. “The only thing I’ve managed to hurt is the floor.”

“And the post behind you.” His voice was still carefully controlled, but Ari could swear she heard a trace of humor in it.

“Basically the only thing in this entire room that is safe from me is the target.”

“You’re close to hitting it.” He delivered this piece of nonsense with absolute sincerity as he rose to his feet, the star in his hands. “With a few adjustments to your technique, you’ll hit the bull’s-eye.”

“I have been adjusting my technique.”

“You’re flicking your wrist too late. You want to cock it back and release it just as you straighten your arm. Watch me.”

He lifted his arm, wrist cocked, and then brought it down. Flicking his wrist just as his arm straightened at shoulder height, he sent the star flying directly into the center of the target.

Or at least she assumed the star went into the center of the target. Frankly, she was too busy admiring the way his shoulders bunched beneath his tunic to pay much attention to anything else.

“See?” He turned to her.

“No, I wasn’t . . . yes! Yes, I see the star”—she glanced quickly at the target—“right in the center. Well done.”

He raised a brow. “Thank you. Your turn.”

“Where did you learn how to use all the weapons in our arsenal?” she asked as he went to collect the star. The sudden stiffness in his (unfairly distracting!) shoulders sent her scrambling for a different question. “I mean, you’re about my age, right? Kind of young to be a master of so many weapons unless you had training. I know there’s an academy in . . .”

He’d turned to face her, and the look on his face told her she’d stumbled into something he didn’t want to discuss. “I picked up things here and there. If you have questions about my ability to perform my job—”

“Oh please.” She stopped herself from rolling her eyes. Barely. Score one for proper princess behavior. “You just impaled a hand-sized star into the dead center of a target fifty paces away. And you destroyed those men who were trying to take Cleo and me yesterday. Your abilities are not in question. I was making conversation. It’s what friends do.”

He frowned as he approached to give her the weapon, careful to keep from touching her.

“This will be a lot easier for both of us if you tell me what topics are off-limits for conversation with your friends.”

He stood, silent and still.

Fine. She could outwait him. She crossed her arms over her chest so she could look vaguely intimidating and accidentally poked one of the star’s edges into her rib cage.

“Ouch,” she muttered, and then gave Sebastian a look that dared him to remind her that the star was sharp. “Are you going to answer my question, or am I going to have to continue to injure myself while I wait you out?”

Stiffly, he said, “I don’t have off-limit topics—”

“I beg to differ.”

“—because I don’t have friends. I don’t need them.”

Ari’s chest ached at the carefully blank expression on his face. At the way he said the words as if they didn’t matter. She smiled—not a gentle, pitying smile because, stars knew, she hated being on the receiving end of those, but a genuine, wide, all-teeth-on-display smile—and bumped his shoulder with hers. “Well, you have a friend now.”

He stiffened as she touched him, and then slowly relaxed, though she could see that he was forcing himself to look like the touch hadn’t mattered.

She turned toward the target. This time, she was going to hit something other than the floor. Apparently it was all in the wrist. Her arm whispered against Sebastian’s as she raised it over her head, and he immediately took several steps forward and to the right so that he could watch her form.

Drawing in a deep breath, she focused on the target and tried to remember every step of the process. Grip one edge of the star between her index finger and her thumb. Step forward with the opposite leg. Cock her wrist. Drop her arm and straighten it at shoulder height and then flick her wrist. Or was it flick her wrist just before she straightened her arm?