MARKS - Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

The fact that everyone around me is sleeping indicates it may be before dawn when I wake the next day. Funny that there’s no sunlight in the cave, but my body seems to know what to do without it.

I ease myself up, careful not to disturb Ward. My knee cracks when I stand, the noise seeming to reverberate off the walls. I glance to Ward, but he doesn’t move. He lies flat on his back, a soft rumble sounding with each inhale of breath he takes. The left side of his mouth quirks up, as if he’s smiling knowing his snores are so darn loud. At least I’ve gotten used to them. The first few nights I contemplated either going to sleep outside or finding a knife to kill him with.

The fires are burning just enough to keep me from stepping on elbows as I tiptoe around sleeping bodies to my room of fabric. After two days, they’re finally dark enough. The women will be busy sewing today. Which I suppose means I’ll be, too.

I have most of the fabric folded when footsteps echo down the rock tunnel. Ward emerges with a steaming cup and a slice of bread. He hands me the bread and sets the tea on the worktable.

“There was quite the disagreement from everyone on where you’d gone so early this morning,” he says.

They still don’t trust me? Great skies, if I’d wanted to leave I’d have done it by now. I clear my throat, trying to keep the frustration from my voice. “Oh?”

“Yes, some were convinced you’d poisoned us all and ran away out of guilt and shame when it didn’t work.”

I fold the long length of linen in front of me, his words jarring up along the truth of my past.

“Of course, Liddy was very concerned,” he says. “She thought you went to take care of a personal need and forgot how to get back.”

I peek up at him and he grins, a deep dimple pooling on the left side of his face. I wonder how many girls he’s disarmed with that grin of his.

“Well,” I say, “no alarm if I had. I’m pretty good at wading through crap.”

He casts me a look, and I try not to scowl so he’ll know I’m only joking. I smile and his grin broadens. “And what was your theory?” I ask him.

“I told them you’re really a wood sprite and had returned home to be with your people.”

His face is a carefully arranged expression of seriousness. A laugh bursts out of me, as though it’s been lodged deep inside me for years and wouldn’t let my overthinking squelch its opportunity for freedom.

“Perhaps I am,” I tell him. “And I’m here to recruit you all.”

“Well, you’re wasting your time on me, Sparks,” he says. “I’d get bored in the woods.”

“How come?”

“Because I don’t want to be blind to what’s happening outside of it.”

He says it so casual, and remnants of his grin still linger on his face. But the seriousness behind his words prods me to silence. This cave is a forest to Ward. It cannot contain him. He’d want to know what the King was doing no matter what. Whereas I could stay in this rock prison forever, as long as it meant I was safe.

I sip my tea and nibble on my bread. Not from hunger, more in an attempt to keep myself from speaking. Ward idles at the table as I eat, the pressure of my silence not affecting him at all. When I’ve drained the tea, I start pulling the last of the woolen fabric off the line.

“I’ll need extra wool if you want more than this,” I tell him. “If you plan on going to the city for anything else.”

I turn to fold the cloth in my hand and glimpse Ward’s face, his features not giving anything away. He won’t tell me if they have more planned, even though I’ve been working like crazy to help them.

“This will be enough for now,” Ward says.

I should answer, or at least nod, but I don’t. And by the time I realize I should, I’m too embarrassed to do it. Blast, I’ve got to be better than this. If I don’t watch it, they’ll send me away. And then what?

“It’d be nice if we could go more often,” he says. “Find a way to get more people here.”

In this tiny cave? Move a group of people from the city to here and you might as well light a beacon the whole way. No way the King wouldn’t find out. “That would certainly be an option.” I smooth the fabric and line up the ends.

“You choose your words so carefully.”

My head snaps up. Oh Saints. He knows.

“Like right then,” Ward says, “I bet you wanted to say you thought my idea was dumb, but you didn’t say that.”

I release a breath and study the fabric in my hands. “Words have power.” Careful, Gretta. That was too close to the truth.

“That they do.”

Again silence drapes over us, a thick blanket I wish I could wrestle my way out of.

“What do you do with all your anger?” he asks.

I crease the fabric again because my hands need to be moving. “I don’t have anything to do with my anger.” I can’t set the King on fire, or burn down his castle. Or steal his power. I wish I could.

Ward places his hand on the fabric. “Well, you need something to do with it. Some way to get it out.”

I stare up at him. Does he know?

“Come on.” He heads to the back tunnel.

What in the world? I put down the cloth and follow him. “Where are we going?”

He spins and walks backwards, not missing a beat, and grins. “To get rid of all that anger of yours.”

He stops at the exit and I pluck my cloak from its place, throwing it around my shoulders as I follow Ward out into the winter sunlight. Cold bites through my cloak and snow flurries dance in the air. Ward leads us through the dormant bits of corn field, the brown stalks lay broken and bent under winter’s grasp. Just like our Kingdom. Like our people. Lyran or not, no one is thriving here. I pull my eyes from the ruin under my boots and run to catch up with Ward.

We move into the woods until the trees protect us from prying eyes up on the bluff. He stops and takes off his cloak. Then he turns to me. “Off with yours, too.”

Heat flames up inside me. “What in the heck are you doing, Ward Green?”

Ward cocks his head to the side and raises his brows, a tiny response to my fiery words. “Just trust me, Gretta.”

I want to stalk back inside, but I’ll not let him think he’s gotten the better of me. I take off my cloak and throw it on top of his.

“All right.” Ward pulls a dagger from his side and wraps his massive hand around it. “Grip it tight, so it doesn’t come free when it meets resistance. Think of it as an extension of your arm.”

Ward turns the dagger over, holds it by the blade and extends it out to me. I blink and stare up at him. “Are you out of your mind?”

“As often as I can be,” he says with a grin. “I’ll teach you.” He looks down to the knife. “Take it.”

I grab the handle and hardly have time to process the texture of it under my fingers before Ward slaps my wrist, hard. The blade flies out of my hand and lands on the ground with a thud. “Ow!”

Ward raises a brow. “Tighter,” he says. “Then someone can’t do that.”

I shake my wrist as pain sings through it. “I want to sock you in the jaw for that!”

“Then do it. It’d help you calm down.”

I dip my head, as though I am no more than a chastised girl standing before a parent. But Ward’s not my parent. And I’m not a crippled girl. I need to stop acting like it. I raise my hand and grip the dagger tightly.

Ward smacks my arm again and the dagger stays in it. “Good,” he says. “Now try to hit me with it.”

 

My feet move and I lunge at him, but he dodges left. This is madness, me trying to learn such a skill as using a knife. Ward calls out tips and instructions and I apply them one by one, like layers of dye to a skein of wool. He stops dodging out of the way and eventually uses his arms to swat at my wrists, preventing my blade from reaching him.

“Good. Now again,” he says.

My lungs heave both with effort and the biting cold of the air. I put the dagger in my left hand and shake my right, letting my muscles relax. Then I grip the dagger and face Ward again.

Over and over we do this. Ward stays crouched low like a cat. He’s so big but moves with such grace. Like a tall thundercloud careening its way across a summer sky.

I put my weight on my right foot, dart left, then swipe at him. Nothing. All this effort for blasted nothing.

"Come on, Sparks, you can do better than that.” His grin is like his body, large and roomy, a place to get lost in.

"I don’t know if I’ll ever get this,” I say as I reach for him again.

 

He darts right. “All things come with practice.”

Something he evidently has done a lot of. “Do you train for the guard?” I ask him.

His grin falls. “Nothing can prepare you for that.”

“Ward, what if the King finds out about us here?”

“I won’t let that happen. I take different routes here all the time.”

“What if he finds out you’re not loyal?”

“He might,” he says. “Which means I need to do as much good as I can while there’s still time.”

Time. I seem stuck in time. Each day bleeding to the next, and my nothingness bleeding away with it.

All because of the King. The stupid, awful, wretched King. With his guards and his Blackfeet and a million other arms of evil, out to do his bidding.

You need to do something with your anger.

Usually I fling it on fabric and on the horrible, snappy judgments I make about everyone. But there is no fabric now, and only Ward here. Anger pulses, churning and nasty inside me, and I imagine it rising up and flowing through my arm down to the tip of the dagger. I circle around the clearing, and Ward matches me step for step. I lunge, willing my anger out with each movement. I push my arms and legs without pause or hesitation. When I take a step right, Ward fumbles. I reach out and press the blade against his arm. Blood appears on his skin as quick as a sharp word does on my tongue.

"Agh.” He takes a step back and covers the wound with his hand. Blood pools around his fingers.

 

"Ward!” I drop my arm and step toward him.

 

"It’s not bad. Just a scratch.” He grins. “You did well.”

I stare at the blood. Ward’s blood. I did that. Horror and shame and a million tears rise up inside me.

"Gretta.” Ward grips my chin and forces my eyes away from the blood. “I’m all right. It hardly even hurts.”

My breath and my words are caught in my throat. I look at his eyes, but all I see is blood. “You let me hurt you?”

“Me hurting will make you better, Sparks. I don’t mind.”

I open my mouth, but Ward presses his finger to my lips. “One doesn’t apologize for pain someone else gives up, Gretta. That doesn’t even make sense.”

He doesn’t even make sense. His words get lost in my brain, crowded out by visions of blood. Ward’s. My mother’s. Lucas’. So much blood.

All I see is blood. And stars that dance across my vision, all tinged in red. My body feels fluid and weightless until it hits something solid and the red stars fade out. I blink, surprised to find myself pressed against Ward, his eyes narrowed at me.

“You all right?” he asks.

I nod. Pale winter sky stretches out above me. Ward’s shirt is pressed against my face. “What happened?”

“You passed out. You started to wobble and I grabbed you before you could hit the ground.”

I’m pressed into Ward’s chest. Is that his heart or mine that’s beating so loud and fast right now? He lowers me to the ground, but I press my hand against his chest. “No, no. I’m all right.”

“Didn’t know the sight of blood would affect you,” he says as he wraps a cloth around his wound. He studies my face. “You all right?”

I nod. “Uh huh. I think that’s enough for one day.”

“I think you’re right.” He grabs the dagger then grips my elbow as we head back.

Ward, of course, is quiet as we walk. No mindless chatter from him. I would prattle on to fill the silence if I didn’t have shame like dead weight in my stomach. Here I’m trying to prove that I’m not always weak and not always angry, and everything I do just shows off who I am more.

What will I do next to show Ward how unworthy I am of his protection?