“You don’t really believe that,” she said quietly.
He lifted his arms in a despondent shrug.“I don’t know what to believe.”
A mosaic of emotions wrestled across her face.Anger won, and her brow descended.
“What the fuck am I doing, then?”
It was barely a whisper, but the words held so much acrimony that Bastion shook his head.“What are you talking about?”
She squared her shoulders, her gaze suddenly predatory.
“What happens if I come away without a Godmark?”she demanded.She took a step closer, the intensity of her focus forcing him to yield a step.“Will you let me accept defeat as easily as you have?”
“You’re not going to fail,” he said.
“We don’t know that!”She took another step.Bastion stood his ground.Almost nose to nose, he could feel her warm breath on his face.“And we don’t know that youhavefailed, either.Even the mad ones and the dead ones were knighted.”
A chill as fine as splintered ice raced over his shoulders and thighs.
“None of them,” he whispered, “wereorphans.”
A sour frown warped her features.“I don’t know what’s become of my friend,” she said.“The eternal optimist, who steals pastries from the kitchens but gets caught on purpose to make the cooks laugh.The man who would not let me give up when my own sister bullied me.The person Endre relies on for strength, wisdom, and levity.”
A hard lump had formed in Bastion’s throat.He swallowed painfully.“He woke up.”
Nesrin regarded him coolly, her eyes hooded and her mouth flat.Bastion matched her stare.He could see a determined fire blazing in her irises and didn’t know how to make her understand.
Whatever she saw in his countenance made her step back and expel a long-suffering sigh.Then, she clicked her heels together, authority stiffening her spine.He instinctively straightened.
“Bastion, we can’t afford to sow disbelief with so few trained soldiers and the entire village shuttered in with us,” Nesrin said.“Kneel.”
He blinked.“What?”
“If you will not accept that you passed your Trial and have earned the title, I will knight you myself.”
His heart skipped a beat.Then another.He struggled to breathe.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Do you want to take this down to the yard, after all?”she threatened.“I’ll knock you on your ass and knight you in the mud.”
Bastion didn’t doubt her, but everything in him insisted he not accept.He shook his head.
“Nesrin, my honor won’t allow me.”
She ground her teeth and gestured at the courtyard below.“You don’t have to believe it, but they do.Kneel.”
An unfamiliar hollowness expanded in his chest, threatening to swallow him from the inside out.Hadn’t he just had this conversation in the armory?
But he couldn’t disobey a direct order from one of the royal family.
Defeated, he knelt.
Nesrin drew her sword.The sun caught the edge, dripping down its length like a bead of molten light.
Bastion bowed his head, a rising terror beating a discordant note against his ribcage.
“I, Lady Nesrin, call on gods forgotten and remembered.In the name of the Three Sisters, bear witness.”She rested the tip of her sword on his shoulder.The sound of the wind and the waves died away, leaving only her voice.“May Bellona’s strength accompany you into battle.May Sonata’s wisdom stay your hand in uncertain times.May you always be crowned with Cindara’s courage.”
