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I let out a broken sob. “It’s so stupid. I know I’m not anything special. I know that. But I thought he—”
Lucas flinched back. His face hardened. He wanted to argue with me, tell me Iwassomething special. Somebody worth caring about.
But I had a whole lifetime telling me otherwise. Mom left. Dad threw me out. I couldn’t keep friends—much less anything more.
I’d ended up alone on the street relying on occasional help from people who just didn’t know me well enough to realize their effort was wasted.
That dark hold opened up all around me, and I pulled my feet up onto the bench, wrapping the robe around my legs and tucking it under my toes. Shaking, I hugged my knees close to my chest.
It didn’t matter if these thoughts were wrong, if a stronger person would’ve been able to push them away.
I was just me, and sometimes...
Sometimes I couldn’t help thinking I wasn’t worth the air I breathed.
Fun, how I had that precise phrase burned into my memory in my father’s own voice, to play on repeat whenever I got too comfortable.
Instead of arguing, of telling me things I’d heard before but struggled to believe, Lucas sighed softly. His arm went around my back and he pulled me in close, until I tipped halfway into his lap. I buried my cheek against his shoulder, getting all that nice fabric wet and salty.
“I’m so sorry you feel this way,” Lucas whispered.
Right then, it was the most anyone could do.
CHAPTER22
VORIAN
Kenosi was a thorough caretaker, cleaning and covering the wounds, wrapping them in layers of material to keep the bandages in place. I was dubious about whether the slashes were worth so much effort, but every time I went to speak, he gave me a hard look that reminded me he wasn’t terribly impressed with me just then.
As someone who wasn’t currently impressed with myself, I couldn’t blame him.
As he tied off the last piece of fabric, he sat down across from me. “Tell me of this magic. The other warriors have been quite frustrating. They speak of mages as though we should already know about them, and condescend because we do not.”
I leaned back in the chair he’d pushed me into and considered. After a moment, I nodded as something occurred to me. “Most of these warriors you’ve spoken to, they are young?”
“I would say so, yes.”
“Then they are hiding their own lack of knowledge. I was but a babe when the last Thorzi mage died. Anyone my age or younger than I am would know very little of them.” I held out my right forearm, one of the only uninjured stretches of skin I had to display just then, showing Kenosi the mark there. “This is the Mark of the Hunter. It allows me to transport my body short distances over a battlefield.”
Kenosi inspected it with interest, but quickly looked back up and waited for me to continue.
“Warriors and mages would bond. I do not know how or why, and written information on it is scarce, so no one alive could tell you much about that except Kaelum and his mate.” My mind went back to that moment in the jungle, and the surprise on Kaelum’s face. Perhaps he could not tell anyone much either. “When bonded, the mage can touch the mark of a warrior, and use it in a different way. I can use my Mark of the Hunter to move my own body from one place to another on a battlefield. The priests say that once, mages used the same mark to create portals that anyone could step through, to even distant places.”
Kenosi considered that for a moment, looking again at the mark. “Someone bonded to you could make a portal to another place with that, simply by touching it?”
He reached out as though he would, and I snatched my arm away.
It was rude, and frankly ridiculous. I would not bond with Kenosi. But as kind as he was, as beautiful and pleasant to speak to, I did notwantto bond to Kenosi.
Perhaps most of the warriors on Thorzan would bond any human they could, grasping for that power indiscriminately, but I did not want any human. If Beau could not be my mage, I did not want one.
Far from offended by my hesitance, Kenosi smiled broadly at me, leaning back in his own chair and making no move to touch my marks again. “They tell us you were going to kill Kaelum when Lucas interfered.”
I nodded, curt and silent, wondering what he was trying to say, but Kenosi didn’t continue speaking. He waited.
I looked away. “Crux told me that he would leave Beau and I to each other if I secured the throne for him.”
“By killing Kaelum.”
