Grace and Fury (Grace and Fury #1)(67)

Serina took a tentative bite. When the bread went down without incident, she devoured the strips of dried meat he handed her too. As she ate, some of the trembling receded.

She wondered when Commander Ricci had spoken to the crew chiefs, if it was before or after she’d talked to Slash.

Val put another stick on the fire. The movement caught her attention. Serina watched him for a few moments, trying to puzzle him out. “Why are you doing this? Why did you stay?”

He didn’t look at her. “I told you. I didn’t want you to die.”

Serina wasn’t satisfied. “Enough that you were willing to risk your own life? You abandoned your post. Helped a prisoner. They’ll hunt you down. They won’t let this stand, Val. You’ve put a target on your own back. Why?”

The more she thought about it, the more inconceivable it became.

Val abandoned his fire and knelt before her. He reached for her hands. “Your life is worth those things to me, Serina. You may not believe that, but it’s the truth. I thought—” And for the first time she saw uncertainty in his eyes. “I thought there was something between us, something that maybe justified us fighting for each other.…”

The kiss.

The I think I might die, so why not? kiss.

Serina knew how she was supposed to act when a man desired her—obedient, submissive, acquiescent. But she’d spent weeks fighting to unlearn all that she knew about the world. Oracle had told her strength was the currency here. Serina wanted to believe she’d found hers.

“I am grateful you came to my rescue,” Serina said quietly, and forced herself to meet his eyes. “But I don’t know what’s between us yet, if anything. And I—I need time to figure it out.”

She waited for his anger. Expected him to tell her she owed him. Wondered if he might force payment for his sacrifice.

But he just squeezed her hands. “I understand.”

The firelight illuminated his face quite clearly, and she could find no anger or even disappointment in his expression. He released her and went back to the fire, and she felt the irrational desire to follow him, wrap her arms around him, and lose herself in him after all.

But she held her ground.

“You’re so different,” she mused.

“From other men?” he said, glancing over his shoulder.

“Yes.”

Tongues of flame licked his small pile of wood and leaves. He stared at them intently. “My father was part of a trade delegation to Azura just before I was born. He said it opened his eyes to how backward and oppressive Viridia was. So he and my mother tried to do something about it. They started a secret school for girls in the basement of our house. I guess… I’m different because of what they taught me. How they raised me.”

Before Serina could respond, he stood up and grabbed his pack, returning to sit just in front of her. “I need to change your dressing,” he said, pulling out his aid kit.

Gingerly, Serina drew her shirt off her shoulder.

In silence, Val changed the bandage over the bullet wound and rubbed salve on the cut on her arm.

“Were they caught?” Serina asked softly.

“My mother was taken first,” he said, staring at her arm even though he’d completed his ministrations. “One of the fathers of the children found out his daughter was learning to read and reported my parents, along with his own wife. My father tried to stop them from taking my mother, but they hit him. Knocked him out, right in front of me.”

Serina’s heart seized. She couldn’t bear Val’s story, the way he said the words so matter-of-factly, even as his whole body tensed.

“Two days later, they came for my father. I never saw him again. I think he was probably killed.”

“How old were you?” she whispered.

“Fourteen.” Val turned his attention back to the fire. “It took me two years to find out where my mother was, another year to pay for my new identity. Six months more to get this job. By then, she was gone. That was three years ago.”

Serina could hardly breathe. “Your mother was the one on the cliff. She was the jumper.”

Val nodded.

“How did you find out what happened to her?” Her heart ached for him.

At that, Val smiled. “Oracle told me. She remembered her. My mother was too old to fight by the time she arrived. She was going to teach the Cave to read. They didn’t have paper or books, of course, but she could do magic with a piece of charcoal and a bit of rock. She was going to contribute. But after she watched a couple of the fights, she… she didn’t want to stay.”

Serina curled her arms around her knees and stared into the fire.

“I’m sorry, Val,” she murmured.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “None of the guards know the story. They think I volunteer to bring rations to the crews because I want to prove myself, being the youngest. I’m as gruff and nasty as the rest of them, when they’re around. They never questioned it. I paid a lot of money to erase my connection to my parents and their—scandal.”

“Why did you stay, after you found out about your mother?” she asked softly. “You could have gone back to the mainland. Found another job, a wife…”

Val tapped the end of a stick against the ground. “I kept thinking about the families these women left behind. I started doing rounds, and I convinced a few girls not to jump.” He took a deep breath, his words halting. “It’s hard, watching so many people die. Every time a boat arrives, I think, this time I’ll leave. I’ll move on. But I never seem to do it. There’s always another girl standing on a cliff like my mother did. There’s another girl showing up at in-processing, so scared she can’t breathe.”