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Kalen cleared his throat, letting me know I had been staring for a bit too long.
I jumped.
“You are naked?” To my embarrassment, the words squeaked out of me. “What is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong withme? You’re the one singing ballads and smashing pans in the middle of the night. I didn’t exactly have much time to think about decency.” Kalen grasped at the blanket, pulling it up and securing it tighter around his waist. “Come on, get back to your room.”
He walked around me, the balmy aroma of him nearly knocking out my knees.
“Why?” I hissed. “So I can sit out my punishment while you wait for the right time to let me kill myself for you?”
“You were going kill yourself a month ago, just for the Auriel. Why not a better cause?”
Grabbing me by my arms from behind, he pushed and prodded me like an animal towards its cage. But I dug my heels in, accidentally snapping the stilt of my shoe and sending us both flying to the floor.
“Gwynore,” he growled.
Faster to his feet than I was, Kalen began to circle me once again. Instead of carelessly grasping at any exposed limbs like he usually did, he held his palms out above his shoulders in warning. When he pounced, I drew back nimbly.
“I’m not going to let you get killed, Gwyn. You can fight her, and win. I know it.”
“Well, that’s just the problem, isn’t it?” I rose to stand, falling into step with his slow prowl. “You can’t know that because you don’t know me. I don’t even know me,” I shouted as he lunged towards me, but to both of our amazement, I caught him by the elbow.
My left hand had shot up in defense, while the other threw a marked blow to his gut. Kalen doubled over, surprise the main show on his face. Looking at where I’d caught him, instinct ledme to twist at his arm’s joint, forcing his palm backward and into the space between his shoulder blades.
“No amount of study you have done on my previous abilities is going to help me when the time comes.”
I continued my assault, both verbal and physical. One quick kick of my foot to the back of his knee and I had him. Fisting my hand into the roots of his hair, I pulled back until his eyes met mine until I had his full attention.
“Stones or no stones, memory or no memory.”
Kalen only grunted as he strained against my hold. I let go immediately and dropped him face-first into the marbled floors. What had just come over me, I could not say. I had never fought a day in my life. The life I remembered, at least.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly as he rolled over and rubbed his arm.
“You should be,” he moaned. I waited for him to unleash on me, but he just sat up with a goofy smile plastered to his face. “You want to yell at me for exaggerating your skill? Gwyn, you’ve just walloped me into the floor.”
Kalen laughed then, an earth-shattering laugh that ricocheted off the adamant of the cavern walls. The most divine sound. Heavenly. It was sacrilege to not join in. We both sat there, chuckling to ourselves at the absurdity of it all. What would the men of the Well think if they stumbled upon their leader, nearly disrobed, giggling with an utterly undignified girl holding onto one broken shoe? Kalen sighed, a soft end to the amusement.
“They need you, Gwyn,” he said quietly. “We all do. The Shadows have held the Light for so long. And what’s worse is they don’t do anything with it. Those powers are meant for our people and those demons sit on them and let them waste. Let us waste. Even the strongest of our people are starting to lose their magic. If we don’t take back the Light soon, it will be too late. I know that you don’t remember...” Kalen looked up at me and held my emotions in his eyes so tightly I wanted to tear themfrom him immediately. Run and never look back. “But if what you have left is any part of who you were, you could do it. You could take the Light back. Moreover, you would want to.”
I rolled my head to the side, letting my gaze naturally break from his. I couldn’t handle the hope lingering there. As much as I cursed him for his pompous attitude and general cruelty, with one look I knew his faith in me was genuine.
I wondered, then, how many people might have that same faith if they knew I had returned, that I was alive? How many people had lived in the darkness that forced my departure, slowly losing hope after a few years, a few decades? Knowing that nothing could be done for the sick and the dying. Knowing that even with the protection of the Guardians, it would not be enough. Feeling their magic fading just as surely as their hope for the Light that would never return. Just as I would not.
“Okay,” I sighed and heard him inhale sharply, “I will try.”
Kalen nodded slowly, looking for any waffling in my agreement. Reaching out his hand to mine, he moved to pull us both up.
“But...” I would go down, but never easily. “You have to promise me something in return.”
“And what is that, Gwynore?” he challenged, not sarcastic, just inquisitive. Patiently he waited, surely expecting another odd sentiment to slip out from my Binding-fractured mind.
“No more half-truths,” I said. I couldn’t ask him not to lie, I had no evidence he had done anything more than be ambiguous. “If I ask a question, I need the whole answer. I don’t think I can do this with only one eye open.”
A muscle in Kalen’s cheek barely twitched as he thought it over. A tell? I shook it off. There was no way to rebuild our trust if I was starting unreasonably paranoid.
“Alright,” he agreed, and I let him take my hand in his.
