“Sure, sure,” she said, though her expression was still one of mild condescension. “All I’m saying is you probably could’ve stayed safe at home and the outcome would have been the same. And maybe it would have lit a fire under him to speed things up, get home to you faster. Not that I don’t appreciate your presence, of course, or your coin.” She grinned cheekily at that, and he managed a slight smile in return as he took a long drink from his goblet of wine. He was starting to suspect the same.
“It is what it is,” he sighed. “I’m already here, trying to make the best of it.”
At that point, another customer distracted her, and it was getting close to sundown, so he dropped a few coins on the bar, waved goodbye, and left.
After that day, Miss Jade would ask him how Zorvut’s training was progressing at some point during most of his visits, and he realized he did not really know. It must have been going well, he assumed, for Zorvut always seemed tired and drained at the end of the day, but Tom appeared pleased with his progress. The last he had seen was when he had mastered creating both fire and lightning, and had been working on creating ice. Hopefully he had accomplished that as well, though Taegan wasn’t sure what the goal was beyond that.
“It was just so boring to watch,” he sighed. “It sounds much more exciting than it actually is. There were a lot of breathing exercises and practicing stances. I don’t know enough to really follow the magic parts of what they discussed.”
“I’m surprised the elves couldn’t teach him more,” she remarked, raising her eyebrows. “You’re the ones known for having the best grasp on magic, after all.”
“I think it was just too different,” Taegan said with a shrug. “I don’t fully understand it. But Tomlin seemed able to explain things in a way he could understand, and that’s how he’s learned so much so far. As long as it works, I suppose.”
At that point, it had been nearly three weeks since they had first arrived in Naimere; he probably should know with a bit more certainty how well Zorvut was doing. As he walked home, he considered how to ask about it without sounding flippant, or worse, like he was trying to push Zorvut to leaving sooner. That certainly would not go down well.
Dinner was largely the same as usual, and when Zorvut returned from his bath later that night, Taegan stood from where he was sitting and reading, catching his attention.
“Before you go to sleep,” he said quickly. “I wanted to ask you something.”
Zorvut blinked in surprise, but sat down on the edge of the bed and gestured for him to speak. “Go on,” he said.
“I realized I haven’t kept up much with your training the past few days,” he said, though that was an exaggeration. “I just wondered what you were working on now, how it was going.”
There was a beat of silence, then Taegan was surprised to see Zorvut glance away with a stifled chuckle.
“It’s funny you would ask me that now,” he said, shaking his head. “I had something I needed to bring up to you as well. Tom has taught me much, certainly. But I’ve gotten a pretty good handle on most of the combat magic he knows, and there’s not much more he can teach me. But he was telling me about a friend of his, a warlock, out in Vlissingstadt who he thinks can teach me a lot more. He specializes in combat magic. Tom was going to send him a message tomorrow to see if he would be willing to tutor me.”
Whatever Taegan had been expecting, that was not it. He hesitated for a long moment before replying, trying to calm his suddenly pounding heart.
“Vlissingstadt is awfully far away,” he finally settled on saying, keeping his tone as carefully neutral as he could. “I don’t know if it’s really safe for us to be traveling more than necessary these days.”
“But I can protect us much better, too,” he interjected. “I know you haven’t seen it yet, Taegan, but there’s a lot I’ve accomplished since we’ve gotten here. I can set my sword on fire, throw bolts of lightning—there’s nothing I couldn’t protect us from.”
“But that’s still opening ourselves up to more risk, risks we don’t need to take,” he protested. It was getting harder to push down the panic tugging at the edges of his chest. “And how long do you think it would take us to get there? And how long would we stay?”
“It’s about a week of travel,” Zorvut said, looking away. Whatever he was feeling, he was keeping it closely guarded; Taegan couldn’t get any sense of anything from him. “I’d anticipate us being there another three or four weeks like we’ve been here.”
“Absolutely not!” Taegan exclaimed before he could even think about what to say. He bit his lip, forcing himself to choose his words before speaking again. “That would mean we’d spend over two months away from home. I can’t be gone that long, not when we’re still at war.”
“It would benefit both of us,” Zorvut said, still not meeting his gaze. “The stronger I am, the stronger we both are.”
“I’m not going,” Taegan said bitterly, crossing his arms over his chest. “If it means that much to you, go alone. I’m not leaving my father for that long.”
Zorvut seemed to flinch at that, his expression faltering, and through the bond Taegan felt a faint flash of anger. “It’s not like you’ve been here with me this far.”
“Don’t—” Taegan stammered, lifting a finger in accusation before biting down the words and clenching his hand into a fist, lowering it to his side. “I came here in support of you.”
“And now you don’t support me,” the half-orc said flatly. His expression was carefully neutral once again, devoid of any emotion, and for a moment Taegan hated the cruel cast of his eyes, the hard line of his mouth, just different enough from his own that he could never get a good read on his face if Zorvut did not allow it.
“That’s not true,” he protested. “But my father, my nation—ournation—needs our support as well. There’s only so much we can do from afar.”
“Stop,” Zorvut said, lifting a hand. “This isn’t about them, this isn’t about anyone but us. If you want to leave, I can’t stop you. Fine. You left once already. I’ll figure it out on my own.”
All the anger flooded out of his veins all at once as his heart broke. “Is that really what you think this is about?” he asked hoarsely, his brows furrowing.
“I don’tknowwhat this is about,” Zorvut replied, his face twisting the same way. “All I know is that you disappear all day and don’t talk when you’re here. You’ve broken our bond once, so what’s stopping you from doing it again?”
“That’s not fair!” he exclaimed. Tears burned at the corners of his eyes, but he willed himself not to cry, now of all times. “That’s unreasonable and you know it. That was a completely different situation. I’ve been keeping myself busy because I have nothing to do here. I can’t exactly help you with what you’re doing, so I’ve tried to find things Icando to pass the time. You’ve seen me coming back from the beach—I walk, I swim, I drink. That’s been my entire existence the whole time we’ve been here. I’mtryingto stay sane, sitting here twiddling my thumbs while my father is at war. If you can’t trust me on that, then that’s an entirely different conversation.”
