Page 111 of Blade of the Nightking

I wheezed as I pushed myself upright. “I’m a bit… distracted,” I managed, shooting her as sour a look as I could muster.

Her eyes narrowed. Then, to my surprise, she held out a hand. I took her wrist, and she hauled me to my feet with little effort. I immediately doubled over, bracing my hands on my knees as I struggled to catch my breath.

“She’ll be fine,” Segolayne said curtly.

“Any sign yet of her…” I swallowed hard between breaths. “Coming back?”

“No.”

The single clipped word made my stomach sink.

She shoved the blunted dagger back into my hand. “Again.”

“How bad is it?” I pressed, unable to stop myself.

“Bad.”

My chest tightened painfully.

Levinica had screamed when they tried to take the book from her. Truly screamed. In the end, Segolayne had resorted to magic, violet threads binding her as she thrashed, sobbed, and called for Dannis while they led her from the room.

What haunted me most wasn't the screaming itself, but the confusion on her face. The terror. The way she looked around as though she no longer knew where she was or what was happening, weeping for her son as if he'd been taken only moments before.

Those cries echoed in my head.

I'd barely slept. Unable to quiet my mind, I slipped from bed and wandered into the living area, where Levinica's books still lay scattered across the table.

The book had been damaged during the struggle. Its cover had torn loose completely. It took me several minutes to find it where it had fallen between the couch and the table. The Little Moon Boat. I stood there silently turning it over in my hands, staring down at the drawing inked across the inside.

The faint tug of the bond pulled at my attention, and I turned instinctively toward the enclosed courtyard. I half expected to find Rìan standing there in the moonlight, his dark cloak billowing around him.

But if he’d been there, he never showed himself.

Eventually, I returned to bed. I didn't realize I'd fallen asleep until Segolayne burst into my room before sunrise, as she always did, to drag me to our lesson.

She always took great pleasure in barging into my chambers loudly enough to wake the dead. But this morning there was something harsher beneath it. The wall shook as the door slammed open, and one look at her tight, cold expression told me she'd spent the night with Levinica. It hadn't gone well.

As a result, our lesson was even more brutal than usual.

“Again,” Segolayne hissed through clenched teeth as she disarmed me for the fifth time.

She was just as worried about Levinica as I was—I knew that. She simply expressed it differently. Through violence. Through bruises. Through driving me into the mat whenever I missed a step or hesitated for half a heartbeat.

And this time, somehow, I didn’t resent it. Part of me thought I deserved it.

Sooner or later, during one of our lessons, Levinica would’ve stumbled across some childish drawing or forgotten keepsake tucked between those old pages—but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d caused this. And to some degree, it was obvious Segolayne thought so too, because the next second the dagger went flying from my hand and my back struck the mat, my legs swept out from beneath me so quickly I hadn't even seen her move.

I rolled onto my side, dragging air into aching lungs.

“What…” I wheezed. “the fuck… is wrong with you?”

Segolayne crouched beside me and used the tip of the blunted dagger to tilt my face toward hers. She gave a small, careless shrug, but her eyes burned with something ugly.

“I told you,” she said coldly. “Again. Why weren’t you prepared?”

She hauled me up by the back of my collar so abruptly it sparked a flash of anger.

“Don't touch me like that.” I wrenched free of her grasp.