The Knave of Souls - Fantasy - Sequel to The Jack of Souls

Chapter 31

Better to be slapped by truth than kissed by flattery.

—Attributed to Queen Chasia

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OPEN EYES

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Harric donned his clothes and circled Caris's horse camp until he could approach from the direction of Willard's camp. By the time he'd completed the circuit, Caris had stopped her training and put her sword away, and when he joined her she had leaned over the water bucket to splash her face and swab her neck with a rag. Idgit noticed him first and swiveled her ears his direction, whickering.

Caris's eyes found him and she stood, nostrils flaring.

"Hey," he said. Water dripped from her chin down the curve of her collar bones. She reached back with both hands to tie her hair behind her head, which stretched and pulled at her clinging shirt. He forced his eyes away, but her gaze feasted on him like she'd missed him for weeks.

"Are you sleeping down here?" she asked.

His heart fell. Had the ring already made her forget her declaration? "No, Willard wants me to sleep on the hill." He gave her a lopsided smile. "Plus, remember how you said you'd kill me if I did?"

She clamped her jaw shut, and her face darkened. "You said you loved me," she said, voice suddenly ragged. "Was that a lie?"

The pain in her voice stabbed at him and hardened his resolve: his was artificial pain; it should be there; it was not hers.

"No, that wasn't a lie," he said. "I do love you...but there are other things I haven't been truthful about, and I came down here just now to unsay them and tell you the truth. You probably aren't going to like what I have to say, but hear me out."

Caris's eyes went cold. He could practically see the word truth resonating in her, calling up her deepest self. "You lied to me?" she said, voice low but hard as stone. "About what?"

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He could practically hear his mother shouting a dozen dodges to extract himself from this foolish mistake, to back out of this corner, but he clenched his teeth and swallowed a lifetime of trickster training."I didn't lie when I said I loved you." His voice came out faint and trembling, which made him angry. Louder, he said, "I meant that, but you should know a couple things before you give that too much weight. Things like my training. My childhood. I never told you the whole truth about that."

"What does your training have to do with love?" 

He suppressed a groan. Truth telling was harder than he'd thought it would be, and he was doing it much worse than he'd expected. It shouldn't be hard—just say it like it is, no creativity required—so he forced himself to keep talking, groping around for an entrance. "My training makes it hard for me to say this. I sometimes wonder if I might...or even if I can—" 

 "Gods take it, spit it out!" Caris rammed her sword in a log. "Or I swear I'll throw you over this tree."

 "Right. Okay." He took another step back, hands up in a plea for patience. "For you to understand, I need to tell you what I was trained as—."

"Then cobbing tell me!"

"Promise you won't repeat it to anyone."

"Toss yourself, Harric. I don't make the Rash Promise."

Harric winced. He'd won her apprenticeship with a Rash Promise from Willard, so she had grounds to be wary. "All right, then I'll simply have to trust you, because nothing else will make sense until you know. It's like this: my mother didn't just train me to be a courtier, Caris. She trained me as a courtiste. The courtistes are real. My mother was one—the best, if she's to be believed, which she isn't—and she raised me in their ways."