Page 50 of Revealing Fate

Kal’s head snapped up. “What?”

Saul nodded. “I had similar sentiments.”

Kal had seen Kitty fight. She had no training. No natural skill in combat. Unless that, too, had been a farce. She played him like a fucking harp, plucking his strings until he craved the reverberations of her touch with a desperation unlike him. Kal stood. He suddenly needed to get out of the cramped space. Needed some kind of physical release to take the sharpened edge off his ire.

Saul looked after him. “Don’t you want to know what manner of trial the Conclave has decided upon?”

Kal didn’t look up as he strapped his weapons in place. “You mean what trial you decided on?” He suffered no delusions. While Saul was one of five members, he was the clear head of the Conclave. His opinions carried significant weight.

“I am but one voice, Kal,” Saul replied, scratching his jaw. “Regrettably, my adversary nomination was disregarded in favor of Lucien’s more…colorful contribution.” He grimaced. “Bloody theatrics. The only thing they allowed me was a say in the trial’s duration. I tried to make it reasonable.”

“I can’t say that I care.”

Saul snorted, chestnut eyes dancing. “Young Kitty is not the only poor liar, it seems.”

Kal pinned Saul with a dark glare. “Her physical trial only means one thing to me: Either she’ll live and keep her secrets, or she’ll die with them. No matter the outcome, we remain ignorant of her true intentions.”

“Perhaps, if she prevails, she’ll reveal herself willingly.”

It was Kal’s turn to scoff. “I’ve seen her skill. That’s a big if.” Maybe it was better that she failed. Then, they needn’t worry about the potential threat she presented. The notion caused the beast of his second form to gnash its teeth in objection.

Before he turned for the exit, Kal caught sight of Saul’s serious red-brown eyes. He couldn’t say what it was, but something in them gave him pause.

“Pray she is a spy, then, Kalevar,” he said solemnly. “And that she concealed her training well. For tomorrow, she will face a grimalkin in her physical trial.”

Kal’s rigid posture tightened further. “If that’s the case, she’ll need more than prayers.” She’d need a godsdamned miracle.

Saul didn’t reply, and the resulting silence screamed at him. Kal left the barracks and tried unsuccessfully to shrug off the sense of doom that settled over him like the smothering weight of rain-soaked wool.

Kal spent the night at the southern depot. He couldn’t bring himself to return home. After besting seventeen of Stillwater Watch’s most talented soldiers in hand-to-hand combat—six of them having shifted to second form—he dragged his finally exhausted, thoroughly contused, carcass back to the lumpy cot and passed out. He forewent last meal. His appetite had vanished the moment Kitty’s newly ambiguous identity filled his belly with lead stones.

When he woke, the forest still entertained the shadows of an early predawn. The depot was quiet, the camp’s interior vacant save for the night guard posted on the perimeter wall.

Kal shrugged out of his armor and tugged his shirt over his head, wincing at the fresh ache in his stiff muscles. The fabric stuck to his sweat-stained body in all the places his perspiration had dried the evening before. He stank. Laundered guards’ clothes were found tucked into a chest of drawers. Kal retrieved a linen shirt and a pair of trousers before heading to the showers.

He wasn’t sure why he bothered. It wasn’t as though he cared to impress anyone.

Afterward, with hair still dripping and a towel slung over his shoulders, Kal wandered toward the commissary. The market was located inside a three-sided building and remained open twenty-four hours a day. The lone clerk reclined behind the counter, eyes closed. Kal perused the aisles until he found what he was looking for. The clerk didn’t wake when Kal placed his items on the counter. He fished in his pocket for an acceptable sum and left the coins next to the tender box.

Moments later, Kal stood at the entrance of the cell block. Beaumont Stonehaugh sat at the far end of the row, against the inner wall, directly in front of Kitty’s cell.

I shouldn’t be here, Kal thought, irritated. He should leave the goods with Stonehaugh to pass along to the prisoner. He should return home, sterilize his cabin to erase any lingering trace of her miserable scent, and get back to his life.

Instead, Kal found himself face-to-face with Stonehaugh, who had lumbered over.

“Battle Master,” he said, and Kal dipped his chin in greeting, not trusting himself to speak. Gods, he was in a shit mood. “I need to piss. Mind watching the cell?”

Stonehaugh didn’t need to piss. The man never left a post. But they’d spent enough time training Watch recruits, bolstering Meressian defenses, and guarding each other’s backs during rebellion skirmishes to earn a mutual sense of respect. Stonehaugh didn’t owe Kal any favors, but he’d offer them out of loyalty regardless. Kal nodded and watched the guard disappear around the wall.

Kal battled himself for another few minutes before his feet decided for him. Several long strides brought him before Kitty’s cell.

His hand clenched the item he’d purchased from the commissary, but it may as well have been his own pitiful heart locked in his fist. The traitorous organ squeezed painfully as he watched her.

Kitty’s chest rose and fell in the steady rhythm of deep slumber. Her head rested on a half-scattered pile of hay. A blanket had been tossed over her curled form, both arms clutching it under her chin.

She looked so innocent in sleep. Until the previous afternoon, Kal had believed that innocence extended to her conscious self as well. How many times had he watched over her as she slept? Traced the contours of that lovely face? Resisted the temptation to run his hands along the dip between her waist and hip?

It was almost easy to forget she wasn’t Railah Harless. Watching her now, he could almost overlook the lie, the betrayal.