Page 119 of Blade of the Nightking

Which was… unthinkable. Because I was good with a bow. I always had been.

How proud he’d been each time I hit my target.

I pressed my forehead hard against my knees, fighting the sob tearing its way up my throat.

I’d missed.

He was dead. Gone. Snuffed out so completely it was as though he’d never existed at all. As though he’d never mattered to anyone. As though he hadn’t once been an entire world to a little girl.

My fault. My fault. My fault.

The words pounded through my skull in time with the waves crashing against the shore.

Would the torment ever end? Would there ever come a day when I stopped seeing the faces of everyone I’d failed each time I closed my eyes? My hands trembled, my body aching for the numbness only wine could give me, and I fought the craving with everything I had.

I’d been doing so well…

But the memories were relentless now, sweeping over me in a flood of grief and regret I couldn’t hold back. And worse still, I didn’t think I was strong enough to face them head-on. To sit with that pain without trying to drown it.

A sudden touch brushed against my hand.

I jumped, sucking in a sudden breath as I whipped around. Something small darted backward across the sand, scrambling awkwardly behind a piece of bleached driftwood half-buried near the shore line.

A rat? I jerked back, heart still pounding from the fright, before a little head cautiously poked out from behind the driftwood.

A kitten.

Tiny enough that it couldn’t have been more than a few months old, all black, sea-damp fur sticking out in uneven tufts. One ear looked nicked at the tip, and enormous green eyes blinked at me warily from its shelter.

I stared at it. It stared back. It let out a raspy meow.

“What are you looking at?” I muttered hoarsely.

The kitten crept out a hesitant step. Its paws barely sank into the sand as it approached me with surprising boldness, stopping just close enough to sniff curiously at my bare feet before rubbing its face against my toes.

“Absolutely not.” I folded my legs to the side. The last thing I needed was fleas.

The kitten mewed pitifully.

Then, brave as can be, it climbed directly into my lap.

I stared down at it in disbelief as the creature kneaded clumsily at my thighs, paws flexing insistently as though trying to soften them into a proper bed before finally collapsing heavily and shutting its eyes.

“Oh, no you don’t.” I tried to shove it off my lap, but the little menace dug in its claws, and I hissed at the sharp sting. Immediately, the claws retracted again as if it understood me. One tiny paw flexed once against my leg, almost apologetically, the pad beneath it smooth and absurdly pink.

My hand hesitated before betraying me entirely and drifting over its scrawny body. At once, a deep rumbling purr rose from its small chest, rich and powerful enough that I felt the vibration against my thighs. It sounded entirely too large for such a scraggly creature.

Its thinness was almost alarming. Under the scruffy, matted fur, I could feel every ridge of its ribs, every notch of its spine. It smelled unpleasantly of seaweed and wet animal. Something wrenched inside me at the sorry state of it. Where did this thing come from? I lifted my head and scanned the shoreline.

Nothing. No mother cat picking her way across the rocks. No movement among the driftwood higher up the beach. No other kittens tucked into the dunes or cliffs.

All around me, waves rushed endlessly against the shore, battering the cliffs of Noctharis in a frenzied, foaming assault. Yet here, sitting on the cold beach with the ratty kitten curled in my lap, the noise inside my head quieted for the first time all morning.

It finally rose onto shaky little legs and stretched, arching its back with ridiculous satisfaction before turning in a small circle and attempting—very determinedly—to burrow beneath the hem of my loose untucked shirt.

“Oh, no,” I said quickly, catching it before its claws could latch onto me again. “You are not moving into my clothes.”

I scooped it up beneath its front legs and deposited it firmly back onto the ground.