When Jeren changed the dressing on his leg, he’d sat with his shoulders taut and his eyes closed. When their hands brushed, he’d pulled back as if she carried disease.
It still felt like a physical blow, deep in her stomach. Each and every time.
She was sick of it. It wasn’t just him. It was all of them and she was sick of it. Sick of being reviled for what she was, sick of trudging through the snow, sick of being hunted, sick of being cold and exhausted all the time.
Jeren slowed to a halt, unable and unwilling to put one foot in front of the other any more. Not like this. It only took a moment or two before he looked back, a frown creasing his perfect brow.
“You need to keep up,” he growled at her. More wolf than anything else sometimes, that one. Maybe he learned it from Anala.
“Shan, will you do something for me?” It had preyed on her mind since they left the caves, the way Dervin had so easily overpowered her. She had needed Shan to come to her rescue. She hated herself for it. She hated everything. It needed to change. “Teach me how to fight.”
“Your women don’t fight.”
“Yours do,” she persisted. “No one cares about the sex of a Shistra-Phail. That’s what Gilliad said when he came back. He trained with you.”
Shan took a moment before answering, perhaps picking his words, perhaps thinking over what she said.
“Your Lord spent some time with the Shistra-Phail but he hates us all. You knew that, didn’t you?”
Jeren nodded reluctantly. Oh, she knew. No one else knew it as well as she did. She thought of Haledren, of what her brother had done to him. Yes, Gilliad hated the Fey’na, and the Shistra-Phail most of all. “He saw it as a trial beyond endurance, a legacy from our ancestors’ time. But I’m not Gilliad.”
“Far from it.” Shan barked out a bitter laugh. “You at least have a soul. Come on, Jeren. Keep up.” He strode forwards again but she held firm. His face was a mask.
“Teach me, Shan.”
“Why? You have a formidable weapon already.”
“What?” She tried to sound startled, innocent. He knew. He had figured it out. Perhaps he had known all along.
His face was a mask of distaste.
“Your totem isn’t the owl, Jeren. You’re serpent-born!” Shan spat out the words like venom. “You’re a magic user.”
How dare he?
She balled her hands into fists at her side, gritted her teeth. Anger made her blood burn inside her.
“And if it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have made it this far. You would have been crippled, at the very least. More than likely you’d be dead. I won’t apologise for what I did or who I am. My magic has nothing to do with this. It couldn’t help me against that man! But a sword could have. I wanted to kill him. I needed to kill him. You’ve never faced it, have you? Powerlessness, hopelessness. How could I have dreamed you’d understand?”
Rage-fuelled tears burned in her eyes. But she couldn’t let him see that. Not him. Not anyone but especially not him. She had to get away. Without another word, she stormed by him, determined to just walk, to ignore him, to keep control of herself no matter what.
Jeren marched forwards, pushing past him. Shan’s shoulders sagged as the full fury of her pain hit him. The shock of it left him stunned. Lost, alone and helpless, a child in the wilds, he felt all these things. And through it all, he heard the words.
I wanted to kill him. I needed to kill him.
Ariah had called it the cry of the Shistra-Phail soul. Not so many years ago he had used the same words. The girl shouted his own shame to the skies.
Jeren had accepted him, after her initial terror. Accepted him, healed him, helped him. He had to admire that. He ought to be grateful. And he had the gall to hold an accident of her bloodline against her? His own hypocrisy sickened him. Anala whined, sensing the change in his resolve. She always knew. She knew everything.
Shan dropped the pack behind him. He’d get it later. Right now he needed to move. From standing still to pouncing on her only took an instant. Jeren fell beneath him with a scream, twisting to face her attacker and then, as he knew she would, she tore at his face with her nails, sank her teeth into his arm, fought him with everything she could. No matter what she thought, she was no victim. Why couldn’t she see that?
When he subdued her, he gazed down at her pale face, her raging eyes.
“I’ll teach you, little one. First lesson. Don’t let anger cloud your reason. And you have a lot of anger. For you, this is only the second-hardest lesson. The hardest of all may defeat you.”
Jeren lay quiet beneath him, submissive now, waiting to hear what he said. Her eyes filled with other emotions, relief perhaps and something else, something he could not afford to see there. Affection had no place between them. No place at all. Her mouth parted before she spoke. The urge to kiss her assaulted his determination. Part of him almost threw his body aside in horror. Another part longed to succumb. He couldn’t move.
“What’s the hardest lesson?”
He drew in a shaky breath, forcing himself to focus, to answer.
“Obedience.”
Little lines of consternation formed between her eyebrows.
“I’ve been raised all my life to obey,” she protested.
“That’s your problem.” He gazed into her eyes, saw them reflect what he sensed might lurk in his own. And he knew what he had to say, though it pained him, though he knew it would for her be like a physical assault. That she’d hate him. Perhaps that was for the best. “No woman of the Feyna would lie like this beneath a man unless they were man and wife.”
Jeren froze and the storms of anger flooded back into her features. She caught hold of a handful of snow and thrust it into his face. Shan let her go, trying to force a laugh that wouldn’t come. He wanted to make himself cruel and heartless. He didn’t want to feel… whatever it was that was growing inside him. It was wrong. It would gain them nothing.
She rolled to her feet and walked away from him again, hurt and withdrawn.
Good, he thought. It’s better this way. Neither of us should be having these thoughts.
To hide his feelings, Shan jogged after her, caught her shoulder. She tensed, expecting an attack, her first lesson learned.
Good.
“I will help you, little one,” his voice sounded almost apologetic. That wouldn’t do. He tried again. “I’ll teach you what I can in the time we have, but when we reach the border, I can go no further. You understand that, don’t you?”
Magic user, human, Holter, what did it matter? He could teach her. He could care for her. He could even love her, impossible as that sounded. When they reached the border he would never see her again.
And that would have to be that.
Chapter Six
They journeyed towards Grey Holt, by Jeren’s choice. Though they would cross River Holt lands, she had no desire to go home. Shan never asked why.
Once away from the hills and their sheltering caves, Shan produced a blue-grey canvas tent from his pack. It blended with the snow perfectly, and it became a home they looked forwards to seeing at the end of each day. Jeren tried to forget the assassins on their trail, but the thought never strayed far from Shan’s mind. She could see it written in his eyes whenever they scanned the distant horizon, and each time when Anala returned from her forays.