Roar (Stormheart #1)(59)
For the first time since she had been tossed in this cell, Nova went cold. Bumps rose along her skin, and the air felt charged with fury and magic. She reached for her fire, found it flickering low inside her, but could not call it out. The air was too thick, too smothered with the prince’s power.
“Explain to me, Novaya”—he dragged out the syllables of her name as if they belonged to him—“how this came to be in your room.”
She hesitated, heart thundering in her ears, fire sparking inside her, trying and failing to catch. “The princess gave it to me.”
He flew across the room, and caught her by the throat. “You lie.” The touch of his hand spread a shock wave of residual storm magic over her skin. Her own magic leaped up to meet it, pushing at the barrier of her skin. She leaned back, splaying her hands on the mattress, and he loomed over her.
The fire made her brave, made her stupid, and she hissed back, “She loathed you.”
He sneered, “Because of the knife wound? She’s not so weak as to be bothered by that. I apologized, and she accepted.”
Nova smiled, past caring about the consequences. Maybe he would kill her. Maybe she would burst into flame and kill them both. At least then, she would never waste another second worrying herself into misery. She choked out the words, “She knew. Knew you were … using her. Just … wanted throne.”
All at once his constricting grip was gone, and he stood back glaring at her. His chest jerked with the rise and fall of his breath, and he spun back toward the door without a word. He rapped hard against the heavy wood until the guard outside answered. When the door clanged shut once more, locking out the world, Nova lifted her hands to find she had left behind a charred imprint of two hands on her mattress. She laughed, a high desperate sound, because she did not know what else to do.
She knew this was not over. He would be back. But she was just as capable of inflicting damage as he.
Perhaps death is all that waits for me across the great waters, but better to know death than to choose fear of the unknown.
—The Tale of Lord Finneus Wolfram
14
Locke’s whole upper body was stiff when he woke, as if the branch had stayed inside him and grew around him while he slept. He pulled a shirt on, and his muscles burned when he lifted his injured arm to shove it through the sleeve. Sweat clung to his forehead, and he decided he was too tired to bother with buttons. He lugged himself to his feet, ungainly and awkward, two things he rarely was. He shoved out of his tent to face the gradually lightening sky, and was shocked to see Roar seated by last night’s campfire, a bow and arrow at her feet and two rabbits roasting over a newly stoked flame.
His stomach twisted at the sight of her, and he wrote it off as hunger.
“What are you doing?”
She startled at the interruption, a heavy book sliding from her lap to land in the dirt.
“I was not sure if we were still to train this morning. When you did not come, I decided to be useful.” She gestured toward the rabbits.
“You killed them?”
Her lips thinned. “No. They fell from the sky and landed above the flames on their own. Some strange new type of storm, I guess.”
He snorted. “Calm your skies. I meant nothing by it.”
She lifted her chin. “What might seem a careless phrase for one can cut deep as a blade for another.”
“Now you sound like Duke.”
He bent gingerly to pick up the book that had fallen. The Tale of Lord Finneus Wolfram. He’d known this tale as a boy, though only from stories whispered on cold nights among homeless children looking to think about anything else but their actual lives.
He returned the book and sat down on a log, leaving one between them. “Have I done that to you?” he asked, already knowing and dreading the answer. “Cut you with my careless words?” Somehow what began as the intent to protect and teach had become a way to scorch any connection between them, like burning back an encroaching forest before the roots could dig too deep.
Before she answered, a yawning Jinx plopped down on the log between them, stretching dramatically in an attempt to wake up.
“Don’t tell me you two are arguing again,” she said. “Even I’m exhausted by it, and I’ve just been watching. Often. It’s hard to look away really. What am I saying? Don’t stop. You are my only entertainment besides Ran’s terrible jokes.”
“I have the best jokes,” Ransom said gruffly, stopping by the fire to examine the rabbits, and nodding approvingly.
Jinx clucked consolingly. “Ran, if you have to sing your own praises, you probably don’t deserve them.”
The morning continued with the rest of the crew ambling their way out of their tents, fatigued and groggy from the celebrations the night before.
Bit by bit, Locke was putting together the puzzle of Roar. She was so fiercely stubborn because somewhere along the way, someone had used her, had made her feel inferior, and now she protected the border of herself at all costs. What he did not understand was how a girl with all her skills and her drive could question her worth.
“Roar,” he said after they had divided up the meat between them along with bread from their stores. “You have questions.” She looked bewildered by the turn in conversation. “We’ve got plenty of time on our hands. Now is the time to ask them.”