Fearless (Nameless #3)(27)
“Will she become your wife, Ram? Do you love her as family?”
Gryphon went completely still. “That is not your business, Bear.”
“Until my family is safe from the clutches of your miserable clan, the girl is my business.” He leaned in. “Answer the question … please.” The please was clearly an afterthought.
“If our maker sees fit to spare my life to see the end of this war, and if Zo is willing, she will become my family, my w-wife by law.” He swallowed, pushing past the pain of their coming separation, of the ugly promise he’d made to Ajax.
My wife.
As a Ram, he grew up assuming he wouldn’t marry until turning thirty years old. Only twenty now, he’d have a full decade to put it off.
My wife.
Two words that carried so much weight. Such responsibility. Such sacred promise. Gryphon took a half step closer to Ikatou, shooting all the challenge he could into his gaze. “I answered your question, now you answer mine. Will you promise to protect her?”
Ikatou met his gaze and understanding passed between them. He pulled a dagger from his belt and dragged the blade across his palm. “I swear by blood and by bone to protect Zo with my life.”
Gryphon blinked at Ikatou’s blood-dripping hand for a half-second before accepting the moist handshake. He looked the Kodiak in the eye and said, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about your family. I’ll do what I can to help you see them again.”
Ikatou nodded his thanks. “I believe you.”
That night, Gryphon lay in his bed not bothering to try and shut his eyes, his mind devouring his predicament from every angle. He weighed the love of his clan against their war crimes and the enslavement of the Nameless. He weighed his love for Zo against his love for the brothers of his mess unit. They’d been banished because of him. Many were husbands and fathers whose families would be forced to live in shame if he didn’t turn himself over to Barnabas. He knew all too well what it meant to grow up without a father while still carrying the weight of his shame. Dining on both insult and injury.
In the morning he’d only have twenty days before so many fates would be decided.
Joshua stirred beside him, his breathing deep and even. At least the boy was safe and happy. The Allied Camp suited him well. When Gryphon had returned from talking to Ikatou and rinsed his hand of the Bear’s blood, Joshua had been waiting up for him along with Sani. The two made the most unlikely friends. Joshua hadn’t wasted a minute retelling the events of the day. While Joshua had chattered on, Sani had patiently listened, nodding when occasion called for it, and sometimes offering one-word responses.
“And you know that Zo and Sani’s sister are leaving in the morning, don’t you?” Joshua had asked. “I volunteered to go with them, but Commander Laden said I had to stay.”
Gryphon had ruffed the boy’s hair and said, “I wish both of us could go, kid.”
Instead of allowing himself to go mad with worry, he’d just keep his head down and use the following week to map out a plan to help Zo with her blood oath and help Ajax. Zo’s return would be his deadline.
He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes and silently prayed for a solution. If only the Historian were still alive. He felt convinced she would have known what to do. This problem, no matter how much he wanted to fix it, was bigger than him.
But besides Zo, Joshua, and little Tess, he didn’t know to whom he could turn for help. The obvious man to speak to about the matter was also one of the people he trusted least. But at this point, what other options did he have?
Fire! Fire! Fire!
Zo rolled to her side, pulling her favorite lamb’s wool quilt up over her head to hide from the disturbance of another nightmare. But not even its familiar softness could dispel the fear of nights spent fighting the Clanless a few short weeks ago. Persistent as waves crashing against the shore. Burnt flesh suffocating the senses, balls of fire hurdling through the dark sky overhead and landing between mother and child. The panicked, helpless cries of fathers who didn’t dare abandon their place at the perimeter of camp to rush back to their families. Never knowing how the next attack would come. Only that it would come.
“Fire!” Again, Zo shrank deeper into the thick folds of her bedroll.
Small but determined hands shoved against Zo’s shoulder and hip. “Wake up! They need us!” Tess rarely showed fear, even inside the Gate when such weakness was more than justified. Hearing the tremor in her voice propelled Zo up and out of bed in one swift motion. Zo jammed her feet into her boots while threading her arms through the sleeves of an old tunic that used to belong to her father. The fabric reached her knees, but the simple shirt, combined with her mother’s woven belt, always brought her a measure of comfort. A marriage of her parents displayed in one hasty outfit.
“Tell me,” said Zo, as she quickly tied her hair into a rushed knot on the top of her head. If there really was a fire, the last thing she needed was for her wild hair to get in the way.
“A Wolf tent.”
The dry buckskin lining would have easily fueled a fire. But Zo had never heard of someone being so careless.
“They’re saying … they’re saying … ” but Tess was too breathless to finish. She grabbed Zo’s hand and together they ran for the Healer’s Tent.