AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I ordered it, didn’t I? Order your own.”
She didn’t. It seemed wasteful to have someone walk all the way up here to deliver a damn carafe. “The Arrendons are still out?” she asked casually, spreading butter onto a biscuit.
He grunted in response.
“Do you know when they’ll be back?” It wasn’t that she wanted to talk to them, precisely. It was more that she couldn’t help feeling like they were avoiding her. Not that she cared, obviously, it was only that if they were having second thoughts about her, she needed to be prepared.
The looks on both their faces—on Alys’s—yesterday, and that single word: reaper.
“Not for a couple weeks at best. They’re away on business.” She could tell, from the way he said it, that he knew where they were and wasn’t going to tell her.
She drank a swallow of her one-third cup of lukewarm coffee. “You think he likes me best, but you’re the one he tells things to.” You’re the one he trusts. I’m… What was she? Anything more than an obligation? Fitz had been Verol’s apprentice in truth. Verol wasn’t even bothering to pretend to train her. And after yesterday, she didn’t think Marquin would be doing so again either.
She didn’t look at Fitz’s face for a response, and he didn’t give a verbal one. A few minutes of twitchy silence later, he tossed a stack of envelopes at her. “These arrived for you this morning.”
She set them aside. After a night spent on practicing her reading, she was done with it for a few hours, and the letters would give her an excuse to ride back to the Arrendons to ask Alys to help her with them. She was curious to find if the Duchess of Wake was as eager to avoid her as the Arrendons seemed to be.
“So, Clare. Where are you from?”
She didn’t spare the question more than an irritated flick of her gaze.
“What did you do before you came to the Arrendons?”
She bit into the buttered biscuit, which was ridiculously delicious, and continued to ignore him.
“Because I find it interesting that you deduced what I do so quickly. And I admit, it’s made me curious about something.” The too-smooth easiness of Fitz’s voice was the only warning Clare got before he was lunging at her, the dagger in his hand arrowing for her stomach. She barely reacted in time, her body moving one way, her hand lashing out to strike at his wrist. It shunted the blade aside, but didn’t make him drop it.
She looked for his next attack but it didn’t come immediately. He stood there, laughing. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear it. The wheels of memory shifted in her, accelerating her heart rate, telling her it didn’t matter why he’d paused, only mattered that she took advantage of it. The veneer of civilization, of the woman she was pretending to be, fell away. She was back in Renault County, a creature of instinct, every one of them telling her to kill him, kill him quick, before he killed her. She lost herself to that frenzy.
The only thing of coordination in her attack was that she’d fought enough to know where to strike with the dagger she pulled from her boot, the only thing of strategy the certainty that she had to hit and hit hard, with everything she had. To keep him off his stride because he was physically bigger and stronger than her and the Song wouldn’t help her, not here in Alaric’s palace, and fuck she didn’t want to die now.
She forced him across the room with the wildness of her onslaught, and when his back hit the far wall, opportunity reared its head and she struck, right between the ribs, with everything she had...and her knife shattered. Like Fitz was made of stone and the blade of spun glass.
She kicked and punched after that, the skin of her knuckles breaking against the magic that coated Fitz’s body in invisible iron, and all the while he was yelling at her but the fear and the rage in her ears was too much to let the words in. Her strength flagged and he grappled, bearing her to the ground and pinning her.
Her chest heaved, her breaths coming in jagged, painful gulps. It was supposed to have been safe here. Marquin and Verol, they were supposed to be safe, and Fitz was supposed to be safe because they’d left her with him, and how could she have been so stupid?
“Clare, it’s okay. I’m not trying to hurt you, I don’t want to hurt you.” Fitz’s words didn’t register, were almost unintelligible over the words she was screaming, over and over.
“Don’t touch me, get off me, don’t you fucking touch me.” Somewhere in the back of her mind she realized he wasn’t doing anything but stopping her from attacking him further, realized she was able to get her knees between them and kick him off because he didn’t fight it.
She rolled onto all fours, shuddering and panting. Her stomach squeezed and contorted and she retched, her body trying to purge her terror.
“Fuck, Clare, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t trying to kill you, I wasn’t even trying to hurt you, I thought—I thought you might have been like me.”
She sat back, shaking too hard to hold herself up, his words barely cutting through the panic still flooding her mind. He’d thought she was like him. An assassin? What, because she’d been able to recognize it in him? And he’d decided to test that theory by attacking her?
His face was white, and he looked sick. “The blade was dull-coated, it wouldn’t have hurt you if I was wrong. But I didn’t think I was wrong. You had that look people like us get and you knew what I was. I never thought…” He squeezed his eyes shut, tears leaking out the corners. Like she’d scared him. Like he had a right to be upset. He opened his eyes. “I never would have done that if I’d had any idea what you’ve obviously been?—”
“Fuck you.” She shoved to her feet, a rush of dizziness surging through her.
He took a step toward her. “Clare, I?—”
“Stay the hell away from me.” She darted for the door, yanked it open and ran into the hall. She hit the stairway before she realized how she must look. Food was splattered on her shirt from when he’d lunged across the table. Sweat saturated her clothing. Her hair was mussed and wild, her hands bleeding, and while she hadn’t vomited on herself, the remnants of her sickness lingered in her mouth.
She forced herself to calm down, enough to take the edge off her flight. She hadn’t passed anyone in the halls yet. No one had seen her like this. She should go back to the suite and change her clothes. But the thought of going back there right now, even knowing that Fitz had never intended to do anything worse than test her skill with a blade, was unbearable.
The claws of Renault County were digging into her, reminding her of who she was. Of what she was.
