Authors: Amanda Hocking
I nodded. “Yes, my lord.”
The meeting appeared to be over, and the Queen was the first to make her exit. As
soon as she rose from her place at the end of the table, the rest of us stood up.
The backs of my legs smacked into my chair, and it creaked loudly against the floor.
“If you don’t mind, I have much to attend to with guests arriving soon.” She smiled
at all of us as she gathered her dress, and she left the hall.
“I should be on my way, also,” King Evert said. “Thank you for attending.”
“My King,” Dad said, stopping him before he left. “If I could have a word with you
for a moment. It’s about the new tax.”
While the King and Queen were appointed to their roles by birth or marriage, the Chancellor
was elected by the people so they could have a voice in the running of the government.
The King nodded. “Yes, of course, Chancellor. Let’s walk and talk.” He and my dad
left the room together, speaking in hushed tones.
“You always gotta make an entrance, don’t you?” Ridley grinned at me as he gathered
his papers together.
“I overslept, I swear. I didn’t think I’d sleep for twelve hours straight.” My pants
had begun slipping down my waist again, and with the royalty gone, I was free to pull
them back up without earning a scrutinizing look from the King.
“Well, you made it, so that’s what counts.”
I sighed and sat down, resting against the arm of the chair. “Maybe it would’ve been
better if I hadn’t come at all.”
“You mean because the King got a little miffed there for a second?” Ridley asked as
he walked over to me. “He’ll get over it. And you weren’t wrong.”
“So you’re saying I was right?” I asked with raised eyebrows.
“Not exactly.” He leaned a hip against the table next to me, crossing his arms so
his stack of papers was against his chest. “We need to protect here first, but once
this anniversary party is over, then we should really implement your ideas. Even if
Konstantin and Bent were only targeting Linus, we can’t just let them get away with
it.”
“So you don’t think this was a one-time thing?”
“Honestly?” He looked at me from behind his thick lashes and hesitated before saying,
“No, I don’t.”
“Dammit. I was kinda hoping I was wrong.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Anyway, thanks
for having my back.”
“I’ll always have your back,” Ridley said with a wry smile. “Or any part of your body.”
I rolled my eyes and smiled despite myself. “Way to ruin a perfectly nice moment,
Ridley.”
“Sorry.” He laughed. “I can’t help myself sometimes.”
“Mmm, I’ve noticed.”
“Have you?”
He leaned back, appraising me, and there was something in his dark eyes, a kind of
heat that made my heart beat out of time. It was something new, something I’d only
begun to detect in the past few months. Most of the time when we were together it
was the same as always, but more and more there was that look in his eyes, a smoldering
that I had no idea how to react to.
I suddenly became aware of my very close proximity to him. My knee had brushed up
against his leg, and if I wanted to, I could reach out and touch him, putting my hand
on the warm skin of his arm, which was bare below where he’d pushed up his sleeves.
As soon as the thought popped into my head, I pushed it away.
The door to the hall swung open, and he lowered his eyes, breaking whatever moment
we’d both been in.
“Good, Bryn, you’re still here,” Dad said as he came into the room.
Ridley looked up and gave me a crooked smile, then shook his head. “I don’t even know
what I’m talking about.”
That’s what he said, but it felt like a lie. Still, I’d become acutely aware that
my dad was staring at us both, watching us look at each other, and the whole situation
felt increasingly awkward.
“Anyway, I should get back to the office.” He straightened up and stepped away from
the table. “It was nice seeing you again, Chancellor.”
“You too.” Dad nodded at him, then turned his attention to me. “I wanted to talk to
you.”
“What did you want to talk to me about?” I asked after Ridley made his escape. “A
lecture on how I shouldn’t put myself in danger? Or maybe how I should retire and
become a teacher like Mom?”
“That would be nice, yes, but actually I wanted to invite you over for dinner tonight.”
“I don’t know, Dad.” I hurried to think up some kind of excuse,
any
excuse. “I’m supposed to be spending time helping Linus get situated.”
“Bryn, you just got back in town after being attacked.”
“I wouldn’t call it an ‘attack’ per se.”
“Your mother wants to see you.
I
want to see you. It’s been weeks since you’ve been over to our house.” Dad used a
tone so close to pleading that it made my heart twist up with guilt. “Mom will make
a nice supper. Just come over. It’ll be good.”
“Okay,” I relented. “What time?”
“Six? Does that work for you?”
“Yep. That’ll be great,” I said and tried to look happy about it.
“Great.” A relieved grin spread across his face. “I know I said some stuff in the
meeting that made you mad, but it’s just because I love you and I want you to be safe.”
“I know, Dad.”
And I did know that. Dad was just trying to express concern. But I wished he’d do
it in a way that didn’t undermine me in front of my superiors.
“Good,” he said. “Is it okay if I hug you now, or does that break your no-hugs-at-work
policy?”
That was a policy I’d instated when I was fifteen and Dad had ruffled my hair and
called me his “adorable little girl” in front of the Högdragen, making them chuckle.
It was already hard enough for me to earn their respect without moments like that.
I nodded, and he wrapped his arms around me. When he let me go, I smiled and said,
“Don’t go making a habit of it.”
We both left the meeting hall after that. Dad had work to be done, and so did I. I
knew I should go down to help Linus Berling. Even without the King’s order to guard
him, as his tracker I was supposed to be the one helping him adjust to his new life
here in Doldastam.
But right at that moment I didn’t think it would be the best idea. The meeting had
left me in a sour mood. Things had not gone well with the King, and I really needed
to burn off steam.
I could spend an hour at the gym, then go down and help Linus. It’d be better for
him if I got in my daily training anyway. If someone was coming after him, I needed
to be strong and sharp enough to fight them off.
The gym in the tracker school had a locker room attached to it, where I changed into
my workout clothes. As I pulled on my tank top, I was acutely aware of the jagged
scar on my shoulder—the gift Konstantin had given me the first time we’d fought. That
only helped fuel my anger, and I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and strode into
the gym.
The younger recruits in tracker school were running laps around the side. A couple
of older kids were practicing fencing at the other end. Swordplay probably wouldn’t
be that useful in the outside world, but the Kanin liked to keep things old school.
We were a culture steeped in tradition, sometimes to a maddening degree.
A few other full-fledged trackers were doing general workouts, including Ember Holmes
and Tilda Moller. Tilda was lifting weights, and Ember hovered over her, spotting
for her.
While Ember was a couple years younger than me, Tilda and I were the same age. We
were actually the only two girls in our graduating tracker class, and that hadn’t
been an easy feat for either of us.
Tilda and I had become friends in kindergarten, when we’d both been deemed outsiders—me
for blond hair and fair skin, and her for her height. As a child, she had been unnaturally
tall, towering over everyone in our class, though as we’d gotten older her height
had become an asset, and she’d filled out with curves and muscles that made her almost
Amazonian.
Growing up, we were subjected to all kinds of bullying—mostly by the royals but even
by our own “peers.” I was quick to anger, and Tilda helped ground me, reminding me
that my temper wouldn’t help the situation. She bore the taunts with poise and stoicism.
Most of the time, anyway. In our first year at tracker school, a boy had made a derisive
comment about us girls not being able to handle the physical training, and Tilda had
punched him, laying him out flat on his back. That was the last time anybody said
anything like that around her.
Hanging down over the weight-lifting bench, Tilda’s long hair shimmered a luscious
dark chestnut. But the only thing about her I’d ever been jealous of was her skin.
As she lifted the barbell, straining against the weight, the tanned color of her skin
shifted, turning dark blue to match the color of the mats propped against the wall
behind her.
Unlike Ember and me, Tilda was full-blooded Kanin. Not everyone could do what she
did either, the chameleonlike ability to blend into her surroundings. As time went
on, it was becoming a rarer and rarer occurrence, and if the bloodlines were diluted
by anyone other than a pure Kanin, the offspring would be unable to do it at all.
And that’s why my skin had the same pallor no matter how angry or frightened I might
get. I was only half Kanin, so I had none of their traits or abilities.
“Hey, Bryn,” Ember said brightly, and I wrapped my hands with boxing tape as I approached
them. “How’d your meeting go?”
As Tilda rested the barbell back in its holder and sat up, her skin slowly shifted
back to its normal color, and she wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her
arm. By the grave look in her eyes, I knew that Ember had filled her in about everything
that had happened with Konstantin.
She didn’t ask about it, though. We’d been friends so long that she didn’t really
need to say anything. She just gave me a look—her charcoal-gray eyes warm and concerned
as they rested heavily on me—and I returned her gaze evenly, trying to assure her
with a pained smile that I was handling everything with Konstantin better than I actually
was.
Of course, Tilda probably knew I was holding back, but she accepted what I was willing
to give and offered me a supportive smile. She would never press or pry, trusting
me to come to her if I needed to.
I shrugged. “I’m here to blow off steam, if that answers your question.”
Ember asked with a smirk, “That bad, huh?”
“The King hates me.” I sighed and adjusted the tape on my hands as I walked over to
the punching bag.
“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you,” Ember said.
Tilda took a long drink from her water bottle, accidentally spilling a few droplets
on her baggy tank top, and Ember walked over to help me. She stood on the other side
of the punching bag, holding it in place, so that when I hit it, it wouldn’t sway
away. I started punching, throwing all my frustration into the bag.
“I have to learn to keep my mouth shut if I’ll ever stand a chance of being on the
Högdragen,” I said, and my words came out in short bursts between punches. “It’s already
gonna be hard enough without me pissing off the King.”
“How did you piss him off?” Tilda asked as she came over to us. She put one hand on
her hip as she watched me, letting her other fall to the side.
“I was just arguing with him. I was right, but it doesn’t matter,” I said, punching
the bag harder. “If the King says the sky is purple and it rains diamonds, then it
does. The King’s word is law.”
I don’t know what made me angrier. The fact the King was wrong and refused to see
it, or that I’d once again botched my own attempts at being one of the Högdragen.
That was all I’d ever wanted for as long as I could remember, and if I wanted to be
in the guard, I’d have to learn to follow orders without talking back.
But I didn’t know how I was supposed to keep my mouth shut if I thought the King was
doing things that might endanger the kingdom.
I started alternating between punching and kicking the bag, taking out all my anger
at the King and at myself. I finally hit it hard enough that the bag swung back, knocking
Ember to the floor.
“Sorry,” I said, and held my hand out to her.
“No harm, no foul.” Ember grinned as I helped her to her feet.
“You make it sound like we live in an Orwellian dystopia, and I know you don’t think
that,” Tilda said, but there was an arch to her eyebrows, like maybe she didn’t completely
disagree with the idea.
She’d never openly speak ill of the kingdom—or of anything, really—but that didn’t
mean she approved of everything that happened here. Neither did I, but Tilda always
managed to handle things with more grace and tact than I could muster.
“No, I don’t.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “But I won’t ever get ahead if I keep
arguing with everyone.”
“Maybe you will,” Tilda said. “You’ve argued and fought your way to where you are
now. Nobody wanted you to be a tracker, but you insisted that you could do it, and
now you’re one of the best.”
“Thanks.” I smiled at her. “Speaking of which, I’m supposed to be shadowing Linus,
so I need to fly through today’s workout. You wanna spar?”
“I think I’ll sit this one out, since the last time you gave me a fat lip,” Tilda
reminded me, pointing to her full lips.
They had been briefly swollen and purplish last month when I accidentally punched
her right in the mouth, temporarily marring her otherwise beautiful face. She’d never
been vain or complained of the bumps and bruises we’d both get during our practicing
fights before, but if she didn’t want to fight today, I wasn’t going to push her.
“Ember, you wanna go?” I asked.
“Sure. But you have to promise not to hit me in the face.” She motioned a circle around
her face. “I don’t want any visible marks for my birthday party.”
I nodded. “Deal. Let’s go.”