You have no idea what I’d be willing to do for you. “I’d give it my best shot.” I forced a smile.
“I don’t think one lesson is enough to get me far,” Isay murmured but stood anyway. A small victory in my favour. “Don’t expect me to do whatever these guys did.” She waved her hand towards Hiko and the rest, still slightly out of it. “Actually, I don’t have any skills to show off whatsoever. You’ll have me with one strike.”
“You’ll be fine,” I reassured her, although I wanted to have her more than anything. “We’ll go slow.”
Really damn slow. I needed to win back that smile she’d graced me with when we showed up at the dining hall, before I’d killed the servant, and her eyes went wide with wonder. If slow was the way to it, so be it.
Sinister’s blade was shorter and lighter than mine and I drew it out of its sheath with the man giving me a side-eye but not pulling away.
I held it by the blade toward Isay so that she had plenty of space to grab it without having to worry about our fingers touching. I was a gentleman like that. If I wanted to be. She took hold of it hesitantly. But the moment I let go, the blade dipped towards the ground. Her face scrunched up in concentration, keeping her hands from shaking at the weight of it.
I bit my lip to keep myself from smiling. She looked damn adorable gripping a one-handed sword between both of her palms, knees slightly bent on instinct and that determination burning in her eyes.
This wasn’t the smartest idea I’d ever gotten because now she stood an arm’s length away from me, and try as I might, I couldn’t convince myself that reaching out was a terrible, terrible idea.
Swallowing hard, I pulled out my own sword and showed her the most basic swing, letting her practise it on me. After that, I showed her how to block hits and how to move her feet. The burning hunger didn’t ease up during the whole practice. If anything, it grew in intensity.
I hoped I would be able to leave Isay to Regar or Ferro after the training so that she wouldn’t need to spend any more time with me than absolutely necessary, but they both scattered the moment Hiko called an end. I was not going to leave her to Hiko’s care after her admission of the prince violating her privacy.
He might’ve been a close second on her hate-list, me being at the very top. So I was the one left to trail her to the dining hall and watch her pile her plate full of the different breakfast options spread out on one of the tables. Not that I was complaining.
She picked a spot in the corner, farthest away from everyone else, and sat with her back to the wall. Her gaze kept sweeping through the room periodically, assessing threats. That was my job, but I was too immersed in studying her.
“What would you like to do today?” I asked after a while.
She remained calm, as if the promise of getting rid of me soon was good enough for now, or perhaps now that she’d had her outburst she could look past it a little easier. I didn’t expect her to forgive and forget, but if she could stand to be around me without exploding, that was a win in my book.
“I would like to go to the forest,” she said quietly.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath to calm my damned heart, and then agreed. “Okay.”
I wasn’t going to tell her that the forest bordering the Vindican court was nothing like what she was used to. That there were things living in there worse than her worst nightmare. That even I might not be able to protect her if some of them came out to play.
She was going to find that out on her own.
Chapter 10
ISAY
I DIDN’T EXPECT KARMUTH TO ACCEPT TAKING ME OUTSIDE THE reservation’s borders, but he was true to his word.
His tense posture searched behind every tree while mine relaxed at the simple comfort of being in a familiar environment, even if this forest was miles from my home. The ruffling of dirt and leaves as a bird ran into the bushes to hide from our intrusion, the crack of a stick under Karmuth’s boot that made him jump out of his skin brought a smile to my face.
“Skittish much?” I asked. It was the first time I’d spoken up since we left the dining hall. Karmuth was the one to convince the suspicious gate guard to let us through. The other fae had been as tense as Karmuth now.
He muttered, “Just keep walking. We do not want to stay in one place for too long and let the delthers catch our scent.”
I brushed a low-hanging branch with my fingers, feeling it hum under my touch as I followed him slower than he set the pace for. A few feet farther along, I crouched down to smell a clematis nested in moss and heard Karmuth shuffle back to where I stopped.
“Princess, I am responsible for your safety, and I take it very seriously,” Karmuth said with intensity burning in his eyes. “Please believe me when I tell you it is not wise to stop.”
“What are delthers?” I stood and let Karmuth lead me through the foliage at a rushed pace.
Being one step ahead, he turned to look back at me. “You’ve never heard of delthers?” His forehead creased in concern.
I shrugged. “Never.”
He almost did not look as though he believed me. “Isay, how old are you?”
My breathing stopped as the question took me by surprise. With a suddenly racing heart that had nothing to do with being afraid of Karmuth and everything to do with being attracted to him regardless of the things he’d done, I gulped pathetically.
“What’s that got to do with it?” I mumbled.
Karmuth’s eyebrows furrowed. He’d forgotten his own advice to keep moving and stopped to take a better look at me. His eyes roaved over every inch of me as if there was a way he could read my age from my appearance. There wasn’t.
There were no obvious ways to tell the age of a fae. Being absolutely certain there hadn’t been any death fae born within the last twenty-five years, I knew all of my protectors were a whole lot older than me. There were other tell-tale signs like the way a fae talked, or how they carried themselves. After the first century, many fae became self-assured. After the second, they might have learned their lesson and mellowed. Every fae aged differently, however.
I did not wish Karmuth to know I hadn’t even reached my third decade yet; rather, I was barely over the border of the second. In the years of fae I was but a youngling. Even in human years I hadn’t yet reached full maturity.
Not reading anything significant out of my posture, as I’d guessed he wouldn’t, he turned back around to continue walking. There wasn’t a path to follow, so he made his own through branches and bushes.
“A century ago, a pack of delthers attacked the court of Hessia. Seven hundred fae died within an hour before the beasts were finally taken down. Fifty years later, Felroth suffered similar losses. Since the Vindican court grew in strength with every one of those deaths, the council of courts turned against us, restricting our feeding grounds. There haven’t been any further attacks, but we’re still taking the blame for them. It is believed that delthers are born out of a death fae’s nightmares, but the fae must be at full strength to conjure them up. A lot of bullshit, if you ask me.”
He gave me a tight smile after his history lesson, and I nodded in appreciation. Not everyone had the patience to educate me, and I’d learned a long time not to ask too many questions. It would immediately out me as a youngling and result in special treatment.
“So, how old are you?” Karmuth asked again as if unable to stifle his curiosity. “I thought everyone knew this story.”
I stiffened. “Elverstone has not been attacked by delthers. We do not gossip about other courts’ misfortune, either.” Which was partly true, but my mother likely knew about delthers and failed to mention them when we moved in right next door. “How old are you?” I asked back, hoping to get the focus off me. Just how many decades older was he?
