We stare at each other, her annoyance infecting me.
“I want you to start guarding Arienna come tomorrow,” I finally say, hoping that will appease her enough to get her to stop snapping at my throat.
“What?” Her tone is no less sharp. If anything, it’s more biting.
“With Saragese currently injured, perhaps dead –”
“You don’t know?” she cuts in, her eyes widening.
My jaw tics, and I glance away briefly. “I have not had the time to check in –”
“No one’s told you?”
“No. Her situation makes no difference to me.”
“No difference?” She looks at me as if I’m a piece of shit on her shoe.
Exhaling sharply, I try again as a thank you for all she has done for my wife. “I cannot change whether Saragese is hurt or dead. I’ve more important –”
“She’s a fucking person.”
“I am aware,” I bite out. “But I can’t see to everyone who gets injured or dies. We have too many casualties.” My scar burning, I take a gulp of my water. Aurelia saw to each and every person she came across – Razian or Vylian, it didn’t matter to her. A life was a life.
And that broke her.
“She isn’teveryone.She’s your guard,” Fabia pushes.
“Do you want the position or not?” I snap, not in the mood to be lectured by a brownie who knows nothing about war, about death and casualties, about what one has to do to stay sane in this fucked up world where you lose everyone you love one by one.
The silence thickens until I almost give up and leave.
“Why me?” Fabia finally demands. “I barely know what I’m doing. There are dozens of better trained recruits.”
“Because you know Arienna.” And if my queen has any chance of surviving here, she needs Fabia beside her. With Evangeline’s order to use her as both bait and a shield, she will watch me kill someone soon.
And when I’m down in the square publicly executing one of our enemies at a later date, she’ll be alone in her rooms. She’ll hear them scream, and I know she’ll be desperate then to leave me. To leave this life and all the monsters in our kingdom. So I’ll be even more vicious torturing the fucker in front of me. Then she will scream louder. And it will be an endless cycle until she breaks.
“Will you take the job or not?” I ask tightly.
“Of course I’ll fucking take it. It’s why I’m getting my body broken every day by Echo’s fists.”
“She’s fighting you herself?” Jace asks. The last recruit Echo sparred with was Seqora, my older sister. She never bothers with those of normal talent – not even Evangeline got the honour (or the nightmare) of being her disciple.
Fabia snorts. “No. She throws me around like a straw dummy, and I struggle to breathe through my broken ribs. Thank gods for your healers. In Brownston, I would’ve died a hundred times over.”
“Echo hurts you that badly?” She’s a hard-ass, but she isn’t cruel.
She half-laughs, half-snorts. “No. There are no healers in Brownston, just wands, and if someone gets hurt withoutimmediateaccess to one, then they get the healing rock.”
“The healing rock?” Jace says slowly. “Please tell me that is not what I think it is.”
She looks up at him, taking another sip of her coffee. “Do you think it’s taking a fist-sized rock and beating someone to death with it?”
“I didn’t...”
“Then it’s not what you thought it was.”
“Dear gods. I thought you all were supposed to be the peaceful ones?”
