The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(70)

While the boy was fetching water, Lu began unpacking some of the supplies that their stolen warhorse had come laden with. They’d dumped some of the heavier items before fleeing, but she came up with a small silver hatchet, a grooming kit with scissors and a comb, and a sack of coins. She wasn’t sure what it might buy them; she’d have to ask Nok. One of the saddlebags contained a musty woolen blanket and a stretch of thick, roughly hewn canvas bedding that had had been coated in wax to keep out the wet.

She had laid out the bedding beside the fire by the time he returned with the water.

“For sleeping,” she told him, gesturing unnecessarily toward the bedding.

He nodded. “I’ll take first watch,” he said, sitting down against a tree.

“It’s cold,” she told him, climbing under the blanket. “You could just sit up next to me. Put your half of the blanket over your lap. We’ll warm each other.”

Was it a trick of the firelight, or did his face flush? “N-No,” he stuttered. “It’s fine, I’ll just sleep here.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Lu said before she could think to temper her words. “The ground is damp; you’ll catch cold. The last thing I need is a sick companion to take care of.”

“I’m fine.” He scowled, crossing his arms across his middle. “We peasants are a little hardier than you royals.”

“Maybe you could try cauling again—I bet you’d be warmer in that wolf body,” she suggested.

Something almost like guilt—shame?—flared in his eyes. Finally, he mumbled, “I already tried. I think—I think it’s lost. I haven’t been able to do it since that first day.”

“Oh,” she said dumbly. She couldn’t know what it would mean to lose the promise of that power, the Gift, then gain it back . . . only to lose it once more. She could guess.

“Well, give it time,” she said weakly. “I’m sure it’ll return to you.” She winced at how stupid, how useless she sounded. “Are you sure you don’t want the blanket?”

But he merely settled back against his tree and closed his eyes. “No.”

Lu wanted just a little bit to shake him.





CHAPTER 21


Bandits

“Aww, does my cousin love her little puppy?” Set cooed, his eleven-year-old’s voice creaking rustily on the words.

“Shut up!” Lu screamed. “Stop calling him that!”

“Didn’t your mom tell you to stay away from him? She said he’s dangerous. Just to be safe I had better—” The Hana boy drew back his leg suddenly and landed a solid kick to Nok’s knee.

His boots were hard black leather tipped in a point of ornately tooled bronze. Nok’s bones screamed as he went down into the sand. The sun was falling, but it was still hot.

Stupid! How could you not see that coming?

Set was turning back toward the Ashina boys Mitri, Chundo, and Karakk with a smirk when Lu’s fist caught him in the left eye. He stumbled backward with a yell.

“You want to fight someone, fight me,” Lu snarled, raising her hands.

“You! Y-you should not have done that!” Set screamed at her. “Do you forget who I am? Do you forget?” Nok heard the terrible sigh of steel against steel as Set yanked his sword free and began waving it at her.

“No!” Nok gasped.

“Don’t worry,” Lu told him. “A sword’s no good if you can’t use it properly.” But she was eyeing the metal blade uneasily.

Set fixed narrowed, red-rimmed eyes on her. “Watch your tongue.”

“Not for you,” she retorted.

He lunged toward her. Lu darted forward, easily dodging his clumsy horizontal swipe, and yanked the wooden practice sword free from his belt as he pitched forward. She turned and brought her foot down hard on his lower back. He dropped face-first into the sand.

She helped Nok to his feet as her cousin floundered. “Are you okay?”

He grimaced. It didn’t feel like anything was broken.

“Bitch!” Set was spitting like a cat as he scrabbled to his feet, as furious as Nok had ever seen anyone. “Bitch!” He ran at them, sword raised high.

Nok raised his hands as Set slashed wildly at them. The blade was so straight, so clean, that Nok barely felt the tip of it whisper across the length of his palms, then plant the ghost of a kiss on his right cheek.

“Nokhai!” he heard the princess scream. He looked down at his hands. They were painted red as a setting sun.

Lu ran at Set, swinging his wooden sword like a club. There was a horrible crack, and suddenly Set was reeling across the sand.

“I’ll kill you!”

The princess was upon her cousin. She flung away the wooden sword and pummeled him with her fists until she drew yelps of Mercy, mercy, mercy! Something had dropped from the boy’s body, glinting pretty blue-white against the sand. Jewelry?

No—teeth. Three of them, slick with blood.

“Nokhai! Nokhai!”

He closed his eyes against the sight.

“Nokhai!”

“No,” he protested. It will end, he told himself. Even the worst dream always ends. Just a bit longer, hold on, feel nothing, it will end . . .

“Nokhai?”

A hand was on his shoulder, his face. He flinched, closed his eyes. But the touch was gentle. He wanted to surrender, sink into it. Don’t, he thought deliriously. A trick.