The Reluctant Queen (The Queens of Renthia #2)(109)

It wasn't a knife, though, and she was aware of how close he was, holding her pressed against him. It was damn distracting. She twisted away and jabbed upward with her elbow. She hit hard enough that he loosened his grip.

"Faster. You won't have time to think about your reactions. It has to be instinctual." This time, when he spun her, she twisted and jabbed at the same time. "Good. Again."



       
         
       
        

They repeated the maneuver over and over, until she was sweating and hungry and thoroughly done with it. As he spun her for the hundredth time, she called an air spirit-a small one-with her mind. She twisted-and the air spirit swept his feet out from under him.

He thudded down backward.

The air spirit perched on the arm of the couch and giggled. It was a tiny spirit, comprised of mainly white and brown feathers. Its giggle was shrill, like the sound of glass breaking.

Naelin sent the spirit away and grinned at Ven. "Got you."

"Clever." He held out his hand. She took it and pulled. He sprang up. He wasn't winded at all, damn him. He looked like he could keep doing this for hours.

"I need to rest," she told him.

"An attack could come at any time." He spun her again. But this time, she didn't move. She let him hold her, close against him. Tilting her head, she studied his face. It was the beard that made him look so stern. You couldn't see the gentleness in his lips. His eyes weren't stern. He looked worried, and she knew for a fact that he spent most of his waking hours worrying about either her or Daleina.

"It's a shame you aren't a father," she said.

"Sorry?"

"You'd love your children with all your heart."

"I'm not cut out for parenthood. It doesn't suit my lifestyle. And why are we talking about this? Are you delaying so you don't have to practice anymore?"

"Yes. I'm tired. I told you, I need to rest."

"Then rest." He released her, and she felt suddenly cold as a breeze sliced between them. The windows to the balcony were open. He crossed to them and shut them, as if he'd seen her shiver. He probably had. He watched her closely, she knew. Because he's evaluating me, she reminded herself. Nothing more. She knew Queen Daleina was relying on him to say when Naelin was ready for the trials.

"What would you be if you weren't a champion?" she asked.

"You keep trying to get to know me, as if I were complicated. But I'm not. I knew at a young age that it was my responsibility to carry on the family tradition. That was my goal. I never wavered."

"You never wanted an ordinary life? A house, a wife, a family?"

"That was never my destiny."

She snorted. She didn't believe in destiny. She believed in random chance that you pushed and pulled at to give you a life you could live with. "You never fell in love?"

He looked away. "Once."

"What happened?" As soon as she asked, she thought maybe she shouldn't push. "You don't need to answer that. We can train more." Naelin stepped back closer to him. She'd jab and twist, or whatever she needed to do. 

"She changed. And then she died."

Naelin laid a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry."

"That too is the destiny of champions: to love people who die."

She wanted to say something sympathetic. She knew that was what the situation called for, but he was sounding ridiculously melodramatic. "At the risk of sounding insensitive, everyone dies, so by definition, everyone loves people who die. The fact that your love died doesn't make you a brooding hero out of a tale. Actually, the fact that you're both brooding and a hero is what makes you one, but that's not what I'm trying to say. I mean . . . I don't know what I mean. Except that you don't need to be so afraid. I'm not planning on dying."

"Good," he said.

And this time, when he spun her around, she again didn't twist away. Instead, this time, she kissed him. He kissed her back.





Chapter 27




Daleina leaned back against her throne and rubbed her temples. She'd already discarded her crown-it wasn't as if anyone was likely to forget she was queen-but her head still ached. Lack of sleep, Hamon had told her. Also stress. It's not as if I can prevent that. "You are dancing around something, and I don't like it," she informed her chancellors.

Chancellor Isolek fidgeted uncomfortably in his high-back chair. "It is only that we take no pleasure in bringing you this news."

"You don't want to say ‘I told you so'?" Daleina guessed.

"Precisely," Chancellor Quisala said. She looked smaller, as if she'd shrunk during the past few weeks. Her wrinkles had folded in on themselves until her skin looked more like tree bark. Leaning across the table, she placed markers on the map of Aratay. Chancellor Isolek jumped forward and took the markers for her, positioning them along the border with Semo, clustered in the northeast. Chancellor Quisala sagged back into her chair for a moment and then fixed her posture-Daleina thought about ordering the woman to sleep more, but that was as likely to be effective as Hamon telling Daleina to rest. Both of them had better things to do.