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I charged at him without a thought, a ball of fists and red hot fury. I wasn’t sure what I was aiming for, but he caught my swing in one hand, easily pushing me to the side. “Fuck you, fuck Kauvras, and fuck your stupid fucking cause!” Punch after punch he deflected me. I grew angrier each time. “Take me to my mother!Now!”
I wound up a punch that I intended to land under his jaw, where the mask wouldn’t protect him, but the bastard blocked my swing. When I turned around to face him again, his dagger was pointed at me. I froze. “You’re coming with me to Kauvras. Your mother is a lost cause.”
I seethed, knowing one wrong move would end my life. I debated running, taking away his prize, or at the very least, making his mission that much more difficult as he would inevitably pursue me. He inclined his head, silently telling me to turn and walk.
???
We walked in silence down the Pass, all the while my eyes on my sheathed dagger at his hip. Within two hours we had leveled onto flat land. The grass looked dry and crunchy but was surprisingly soft on my bare feet. A balmy breeze blew toward the mountain. If only my fucking jailer wasn’t here to ruin it.
I tried to will myself into feeling fear, knowing that fear would keep me cautious, and caution would keep me safe. But I wasn’t afraid for myself at all, only my mother. I resented her for being so Saints damned helpless throughout the years, even more so now. I resented her for depending so heavily on me when it should have been the other way around. I resented her now more than ever for marrying Castemont. But I feared for her, simply because I knew she was no longer able to fear for herself.
Miles marched behind me. I didn’t turn to look at him when I spoke. “What will happen to her?” The words flew from my mouth with palpable vitriol. The pale blue sky stretched all around us, the sun somehow milder, gentler than in Eserene.
“Same thing that happens to the rest of them,” he answered curtly.
I waited. “And that is…?”
“She’ll have a bed in the barracks and a dose of leechthorn as needed.”
“And then what?”
“You ask a lot of questions for a liar,” he snarled. I was so taken aback that I almost missed a step.
“Excuse me?” Damn. Larka would have been proud of the venom in my voice.
“You heard what I said.” The rasp in his voice was maddening, grinding against every nerve in my body.
“I’m no liar.”
The tip of his dagger pressed into my back hard enough to make me jerk. He threw a hand out and grabbed me, whirling me to face him as I felt the now familiar feeling of blood dripping down my spine. His eyes were undetectable behind the mask, but I could feel his stare boring into my soul through the tiny slits. “You’re immune to leechthorn,” he growled.
I felt my face go white. The energy that radiated from him was calm, steady, but I knew what brewed beneath it. “No.” I said matter-of-factly.
“Yes.”
I bit my tongue, calculating my next words. “How?” And I wasn’t sure whether I was asking how he knew I was immune, or how one could tell if they were immune, or how the actual fuck I was, apparently, immune.
He laughed, the noise husky and harsh. He seemed to laugh a lot for a hateful soldier. “You’re not nearly as strong as the others. Your eyes are clear. You canspeakfar longer than the others can after a dose. You had the sense to throw a fucking dagger at a bonehog that day in the valley. And you’re hungry enough to eat a bitterfern, which I’m sure you found has a very accurate name.” He finally lowered his blade to his side, resheathing it. My shoulders slackened. “How long have you known you’re the Daughter of Katia?”
I recoiled. “What?”
“How long have you known?” Though his weapon was sheathed, his words were sharper than any blade.
“The Daughter of Katia? I don’t understand.”
“I watched you kill dozens of bloodthirsty monsters without so much as a blade. I watched their throats explode and their bones snap. I’ve never seenanyonekill a Veridian raptor, and you killedthreeof them.” I didn’t even know what a Veridian raptor looked like. In the mess of fur and claws and feathers that had hurled themselves toward me, I didn’t have time to distinguish one monster from another.
Speaking to a mask rather than a person was maddening. My stomach roiled. “I didn’t kill anything.”
“Then who did?”
“Someone must have been shooting arrows, or throwing daggers, or–”
“Did you see any arrows laying around? Any blades? I’m not sure how an arrow could snap an oxbear’s spine in three places, or pull it clean from its body, for that matter.”
“It wasn’t me.”
My Saints are showing me fearsome beasts laying slain in your wake.
