Warrior of the Wild(33)

I scramble for an excuse not to come.

“If you learn where they are, then I won’t have to come back here to deliver more to you,” he adds.

He’s good. Very good. I can’t argue with that logic.

“All right, then. Lead the way.”

If he wants to smirk over the victory, he’s smart enough to hide it from me.

I don’t walk beside him, but rather just behind him, so I can always keep him in my sights.

Soren pretends not to notice. Either that, or it honestly doesn’t bother him at all. When he veers around a tree, he holds back the branches for me so I can cross without getting whipped by their needles. He takes me in roundabout ways to avoid obstacles, but I put my foot down when he jumps over a log and then holds out his hand to help me over.

“Do I look like a helpless child?” I ask.

“I was just being polite.”

“I’m a warrior. Treat me like one.”

“Sorry, I’ve never met a female warrior before. Didn’t realize they preferred to be treated like men.”

“That’s not—”

I’ve always wanted to be free to behave like a woman, but Father never allowed it. But Father isn’t here now, is he?

I think about what I want. How I would like to be treated. I don’t want Soren going out of his way to make me more comfortable. That just seems silly. What I always wanted was to be free to wear what I wanted. To act how I wanted. Father would chastise me if I hugged my sisters in front of him, if I cried when I was little, if I whined or complained when I was injured.

But no more.

I am a warrior of the wild, and I can behave however I damn well please.

“I’d prefer it if you treated me as you would another warrior,” I say.

“All right, then.”

Soren leads me back to the tree house. He stops to open a shed I hadn’t noticed before at the tree’s base. Inside I see more traps, extra rope, chopped firewood, and buckets. It’s one of the latter that he grabs.

Then he takes me along a well-trodden trail, one I’m sure he and Iric have made during their time living out in the wild.

Eventually, Soren comes to a stop in front of … brambles. Smooth vines with plump yellow berries grow like weeds. They’re everywhere, the plants extending far into this section of the wild.

Soren puts the bucket on the ground and starts picking berries and dropping them inside. I hurry to join him. It seems the best way to say thank you for sharing this location with me.

“What village are you from?” Soren asks.

Since I can’t see how it would hurt to tell him, I answer, “Seravin.”

“I’ve heard of your leader. Torlhon is said to be one of the greatest warriors of his generation.”

Just hearing his name turns my insides cold. His face is all I can see for a moment. Not the way it looked when praising me. When proud of me. When training with me. But the way it looked as it sentenced me to banishment. When it told me I was tasked with killing a god.

“He is,” I manage.

“Did you know him well?”

I swallow. “Yes.”

Soren pauses with his hands full of berries about to be deposited into the bucket. He stares at me, waiting for an explanation. But he doesn’t ask, just leaves a space for me to fill, should I choose to. Not forceful, just open.

“He’s—my father.”

That sends his eyebrows shooting upward. He lets his load roll into the bucket, then wipes his hands on his hide-covered thighs.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Why?”

“Because you are here instead of with your family.”

And that word, family, has thoughts of Irrenia racing through my mind. My throat suddenly aches, and I feel the annoying presence of extra water in my eyes. I blink forcefully, keeping it at bay.

“What about you?” I ask. “Did you leave behind a family?”

“Iric’s family raised me. My father died a warrior’s death. He was on watch when the ziken tried to breach the borders. I was three.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sickness took my mother the year after. I had no siblings. No living relatives at all. But Iric’s parents were unable to have any more children, though they desperately wanted another child, so they took me in.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeat.

“Don’t be. I don’t remember either of them.”

But he’s here now, which means Iric’s parents lost both of their boys after they took their trial. I wonder if they reacted the same way my father did. With such disappointment and sudden hatred.

“And Iric’s parents are the kindest and most giving people I know,” Soren says. “They’ll have the biggest estate imaginable waiting for them in Rexasena’s Paradise.”

I suppose not, then. Perhaps it makes it harder, in a way, to leave them if they were loving up to the end.

“Do you have a big family?” Soren asks. “I know nothing of it outside of your father’s fame.”

The bucket is full now, but Soren and I pick berries and put them directly on our tongues. Neither of us moves to head back down the trail.

So I tell him about my five sisters. They, at least, are not painful to talk about, except for the small ache in me that longs to see them.