A Vow So Bold and Deadly (Cursebreakers, #3)(89)

I sense there is more for him to say, so I glance at him and wait.

Maybe he’s encouraged by my silence, because he continues. “The other recruits seem almost excited to do it,” he says. “They have chants about the blood we’ll spill in Emberfall.”

I remember what Noah said, the first day I found Tycho hiding in the infirmary. I thought the others might have been hazing Tycho a bit, because of his youth, because of where we came from, because of his friendship with me. But maybe that wasn’t it at all.

I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong, Noah said. I think they’re just being soldiers.

I remember my days in training for the Royal Guard. “Those chants aren’t uncommon here either,” I say.

“I know.” He hesitates.

Again, I wait. The woods around us are so silent, I can hear the wind slip between the leaves.

“When I was a boy,” he says, “we had cats that would sleep in the rafters of our barn. One of them had kittens, and my sisters and I loved them. We’d play in the barn for hours after chores were done.” He pauses, and sunlight breaks through the trees, painting gold in his hair. “My father lost a game of cards to a few soldiers one night, and he didn’t have the coins he’d promised. They tore through our house. One of them … he … my mother … well.” His voice tightens, and he takes a breath before changing course. “The other soldiers came into the barn. We had a cow, and one of them drew a sword and cut its throat. My sisters were screaming, we were all screaming, clutching those kittens.” He hesitates, but then his voice accelerates, as if he can’t get the words out fast enough. “He drew a dagger and started plucking the kittens out of my sisters’ hands. Killing them one by one. He said, ‘I like when they squeak.’ ” Tycho’s eyes flash with fury. “I shoved my kitten down my shirt. It kept clawing at me, but I didn’t care. And then he said, ‘I bet you’ll squeak, too.’ ” He shudders, and I can’t tell which is stronger in his voice, the current anger or the remembered fear.

He stops there, and he’s so still that I don’t think he’s breathing. There’s more to this story. There has to be more. But this is the most he’s ever told me, so I keep quiet.

“He was hurting my sisters. He was hurting me.” He cringes, his eyes on the trees. “I couldn’t stop him. My father was shouting for the enforcers, so he turned me loose before—before he could be caught. But I don’t—I can’t be like that. I can’t … revel in it.” He frowns, looking a bit abashed that he admitted all that.

I think of that kitten in Noah’s infirmary. “Being a soldier does not require cruelty,” I say quietly. “Nor revelry.”

“Doesn’t it?” he says. He lifts the bow meaningfully, then pats at the dagger strapped to his thigh. “A little?”

“When I joined the Royal Guard,” I say, “I had to take a life.” The moment is seared into my memory for so many reasons. I can still hear the bell of the arena ringing, can still smell my own sweat and fear. “It was a man condemned to death, but it was still a life. If I failed, I would have been dead and my family would have starved. Is that cruelty?”

He doesn’t have an answer for that.

I lean back against the tree. “Those men who hurt your family—that was not because they were soldiers, Tycho. They may have had the skills and the weaponry to cause harm, but that did not make them cruel. Defending yourself—defending your people—that does not make a man cruel either. When the time comes for you to use deadly force, I have no doubt you’ll do it well, and do it honorably.”

Or he’ll die.

I don’t say that. I’m sure he knows it.

His eyes are on the horizon, but I can tell he’s thinking.

But then his gaze sharpens, and he rolls to his feet in one fluid motion. That arrow finds his hand again, and it’s nocked on the string just as my eyes see the target, a hint of motion between the trees a hundred yards away.

“Grey,” he breathes.

I’m already on my feet beside him. My eyes search the trees, seeking more. This could be a lone scout, or it could be an attack.

There. A glint of red and gold, almost obscured by the trees—but far enough from the first that I doubt it’s scouts working together.

“Hold,” I say to Tycho, and he nods, keeping the bowstring taut.

The sun is rising beyond the forest, but it’s still early, and heavy shadows still linger among the trees. As I watch, more soldiers in gold and red seem to appear among the trees, coming from all directions, easing through the foliage.

There are more than two dozen.

Tycho is frozen in place beside me, waiting for an order, that arrow nocked and ready. But everyone else is sleeping, and … I turn to look … we’re surrounded. I don’t know how they knew, how they tracked us, but it doesn’t matter. If I shout for the others, they’ll attack. If Tycho fires, they’ll attack.

“Grey!” Tycho shoves me down just as I hear the swip of a bowstring, and I duck automatically. An arrow embeds itself in the tree where I was standing.

“Return fire,” I say, but he’s already doing that, snapping arrows off the string with calm focus.

I wish I had a bow. I could return fire with him. As it is, I’m thirty feet away from the sleeping camp, and now soldiers are slipping between the trees with more confidence. They’re shooting at me, at Tycho, but I knock the arrows out of the air while he shoots.