Page 81 of The Fury She Holds
To his credit, the guardsman did his best to appear dumbfounded. “Goodness, Tal, what’s with all the hostility? I lived here, remember?”
Carrick grabbed her arm. “You’re not mad athim.”
She ripped her arm out of Carrick’s grasp and pushed out of Gale’s, grumbling that she didn’t even get to throwonepunch. The tavern door hit the wall with a satisfyingcrack.
Carrick let her walk down the street, following closely behind, and then stepped beside her. “Let’s go to the pier.” He didn’t wait for her to respond, but she followed him anyway. They made their way to the water and Tal marched down the wooden planks. She glared at the large ship docked there and kicked at its moorings. Mice scurried out of her way.
At the end of the pier, Carrick turned and took out his knives. He eyed Tal expectantly until she took out two of her own. Reluctantly, she stepped beside him and turned her back to the open water.
“You first.” He elbowed her.
Tal let out a frustrated sigh and threw her knife with as much force as she could. It hit with a loudthunkin the second wooden post on the right. Her aim was sloppy, landing two inches from the bottom, on the right side of the surface facing them.
“Should we go to the Willow for an easier target?”
Tal scowled. If she focused, she could almost see the enormous tree in the distance, another reminder that the life they lived veered so far from the one they planned all those years ago.
Carrick threw one of his own knives, and hit the third post on the left, an inch to the side, two inches from the top. They continued like that, each taking a turn to out-throw the other. When they had each thrown four knives, they walked down the pier and silently picked the weapons from the wood. They continued to the beginning, turned, and started again.
They’d played this game since stealing their first dagger. It had been a way to pass the time. Then, as their skill improved, it became an exercise to protect themselves or hone their hunting skills. The twins taught them even more when they showed up one day, two malnourished teens stowed away on a ship alonebut with extensive fighting knowledge. Their skillset eventually outgrew the game at the pier, but Talwyn and Carrick often still went there when something troubled them.
“She has her motives for goading you on like that.” Sybil had a knack for pushing someone toward an event that would make one of her visions come true. However, the seer never revealed her reasoning.
Tal threw another knife, landing four posts down but slightly off-center this time. She nodded. “It would be easier if she would just tell me her visions, and I can decipher them myself.”
“You know she doesn’t work like that.” Carrick’s knife crossed over the invisible line down the center of the wooden planks and landed dead-center on Tal’s post. He smirked, and she answered with a scowl.
“Right, she’s told us a million times,” Tal mocked. “I don’t see how it’s much different than telling us where to throw a knife in a fight,” she grumbled. The hollowthunkof Carrick’s knife punctuated the momentary silence. “But what is she getting at? Is she trying to get me to hate him? To confront him? To marry him?” She scoffed at the last part.
They walked back to the end to pull their knives out. When they readied to start over, Carrick asked, “Well, do you like him?”
Tal glowered at him.
“Come on, Tal. We could all see it. And I know you kissed him last night.” He held onto his knife, ignoring his turn.
She grumbled something about Egan being terrible at keeping secrets.
“Why can’t you just admit it? There’s nothing wrong with caring for him.”
Tal’s next knife went wide and landed in the water. She swore then turned to Carrick. “Because it’s pointless, Carrick.” She threw up her arms in defeat and turned to him. “He’s the king!Not some insignificant noble with few responsibilities. Even if I did like him, it wouldn’t change anything. Or did you forget that commoners aren’t supposed to even be in the same room as royalty, let alone fall in lo—” She stopped herself.What a stupid thought. She didn’t love Faron. They barely knew each other, even less so than she thought. But she couldn’t lie to herself that, at one point, she had wondered where her developing feelings could lead, and if Faron would feel the same.
Carrick worked at a nail in the wood with the toe of his brown leather boot. “He likes you too, you know.”
“Not enough to tell me the truth apparently.” She started picking at the handle of her knife. “No matter how either of us feels, it doesn’t change the fact that he lied to us. He could have been misleading us this whole time so that we don’t find wherever these mages are hiding or maybe he’s been giving us false information to protect himself.”
“I think you know that he has no involvement with that. Everything he’s done up to this point has given us more information than we could have gathered on our own. He may have been protecting himself at first, but I think he just didn’t know how to tell us the truth yet. Not to mention, would we have believed him? And what would we have done to him, what with our accusing the king of being at the center of everything?”
Tal sheathed her knives and sighed. “It doesn’t matter, Carrick. He lied. We can’t trust him.” She walked to the post where her knife had entered the water and glared at the dark surface. With a groan, she stripped off her clothes and dove into the frigid waters to retrieve her weapon.
For the second time in as many days, Faron came to the tunnels to talk to Talwyn. The first time, Sybil gladly would have let him in, but she relented when Talwyn threatened to burn off her eyebrows in her sleep.
“I only want to explain. That’s all. Then I’ll leave.” His voice carried to the bend in the tunnels where Tal hid. She peered around the corner and saw nothing but Carrick’s enormous form filling the space.
“She doesn’t want to talk to you.” Carrick crossed his arms.
Silence rang through the tunnel, and Tal could imagine the resigned slump in his shoulders. “I know. I’m sorry. Can you at least give this to her for me?”
Tal took a step out of the shadow to get a better view only to see the top of Faron’s head as he retreated toward the exit. Carrick remained, ensuring Faron didn’t turn around, and Tal used his body as a shield.
