Priestess

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Ara and Coen continued traveling south. The sun seemed hotter, the air even drier. Instead of rich, dark earth, the ground was packed with yellow silt. Exposed boulders littered the ground like the bald heads of buried giants. In the shade of these boulders, squat bushes and short cacti grew.

With the danger past, Ara’s mind was free to remember. Had her family survived? Would they ever forgive her for putting them at such risk? More than once, she pretended to study the landscape to hide the grief that gripped her.

Lodan tried to comfort her, but she closed her mind to him. She didn’t want to talk. When they finally stopped at a river to refill their waterskins, she wandered away from Coen and Lodan.

Crouching down, she pushed her waterskin underwater and watched the bubbles break the surface. Finally alone, she let her tears come. But when she stumbled back, Coen was waiting behind her. She ducked her head, ashamed of the wetness on her cheeks.

He lifted her chin. Try as she might, Ara only cried harder. Ever so gently, he pulled her to him. She resisted at first, but she had to trust someone. And Coen’s Gift wasn’t his fault. The sobs she’d been holding burst free. She cried until her whole body shook.

Coen never said a word. Just stroked her hair and let her weep. It felt so good in his arms that she didn’t want to move. Finally, out of embarrassment, she pulled back. “I’m sorry,” she said as she wiped her eyes.

Coen went to his pack and retrieved a cloth. Dipping it in the stream, he handed it to her.

The cool rag felt good on her hot skin. She wiped her face and felt better. “Thank you.”

His dimples appeared again. “Keep saying that, and I’ll keep doing things to earn it.”

She smiled despite herself.

“Ara.”

She looked up at him.

“Don’t be sorry.” He took a step back. “I want to show you something. Enter my thoughts, all right?”

Fragmenting, she sent some of her soul into Coen. The intimacy of that contact nearly sent her reeling, but she managed to hold on. She found him on a barren mountaintop with freezing swirls of wind whining through the crevasses. He closed his eyes.

One of his memories surfaced. She saw him after his first battle, standing over mounds of fresh turned earth, blood staining his hands. Just as suddenly, she was back on the mountaintop.

“It’s hard to kill another man, even if he deserves it.” He looked away. “After I watched my friends die, the reality that I might never see my home again sank in. That’s the first time I felt homesick.”

Maybe he understood after all. “Does it get easier?”

Coen’s sighed, sending a puff of white from his mouth. “I won’t lie to you, Ara. It only becomes easier when you no longer think of Bondell as your home.”

“What do you mean? Bondell will always be my home.”

“My home is with my soldiers. They need me; I take care of them. I don’t go home anymore, I just visit.” He sighed. “Go back now.”

She pulled back her Fragment and opened her physical eyes. Bondell was her home, her life. “I don’t understand, Coen.”

“You don’t now, but someday you will.” He didn’t seem happy about it though. “You need a break. Come on. I said I’d teach you.”

She hurried after him. “Teach me?”

“Swords.”

For the first time in days, she felt something besides exhaustion, guilt, or fear. “I’ll get mine.”

He shook his head. “No. You’re not ready for that yet.”

She halted and shot him a questioning look.

Maneuvering behind her, Coen molded her limbs into what he called ‘the basic stance.’ All Ara was aware of was how good he smelled and how the heat radiating from him warmed her everywhere their bodies touched.

“You are not learning anything,” Lodan chided as he came through the trees.

“I can’t concentrate,” she admitted.

“That is because you are using all your concentration on him.” Lodan’s mind felt stern.

Ara stopped in the middle of her motion to glare at him. Thankfully, she focused better when she was angry. “Feet shoulder width apart, slightly staggered,” his warm breath whispered against her neck. “Balance your weight on the balls of your feet. Keep low.”

He moved in front of her. “Evasion is the first step. Come on, attack me. I’ll show you.” Ara shifted her weight uncomfortably and then lunged at him.

He backed up a step and gripped her arm. Using her own momentum, he pulled her to the ground. She winced as he twisted her arm behind her. If he pulled much harder, her tendons would snap.

Releasing her, he helped her to her feet. “I used your own momentum against you. You do the same with me. Resume stance.” Working her arm in a slow circle, she obeyed.

“Grip my wrist and pull forward while you whip back around me. As soon as I pass, push forward.”

Ara managed to perform the maneuver a few times, though not with Coen’s fluidity. “Can we try a new one? I think I have this maneuver down.”

“Perfection,” he responded.

“Wouldn’t sword practice be more useful with a sword?” she muttered.

He patiently corrected a mistake. “Swordsmanship uses all the same techniques as grappling: balance, timing, judging distance, positioning, strength, speed. . . Do you want me to teach you or not?”

Ara had never felt so clumsy in all her life. He knocked her down again. Standing, she brushed the dirt from her behind and pulled twigs from her hair.

When it grew so dark that they were forced to fight by firelight, he stepped back. “That’s enough for tonight.”

Ara set up her bed and sank into her blankets. “How did you learn all of it?”

He pulled her sword from her saddle. He said nothing as the steady whisk, whisk, whisk of the whetstone scrapped against the steel. “I have been training since I was old enough to hold a sword,” he answered quietly. He brushed his thumb along the blade to check for sharpness before resuming his rasping.

“How old are you, Coen?”

He paused before answering. “23.”

Six years older than herself. “Why don’t you train me instead of your father?”

He laid the sword down. “I can’t abandon my post, my men.” He brought his intense blue eyes to bear on her. “Don’t ask me again, Ara.”

Frustrated, she went to gather more herbs for Coen’s wound. She made his poultice in silence. “Lay down,” she ordered.

Coen studied her before pulling off his shirt. “Is this your idea of revenge?” he grumbled.

It took all of Ara’s strength not to gawk as he lay down on his belly, resting his head on his intertwined hands.

Maybe revenge against myself, she thought.

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