Heiress of the Sea

Chapter 22

Training resumed bright and early the next morning.

In fact, I was out of the palace and teaching a class in feigning surrender to my army with Caspian so early, that I didn't even have the chance to talk to Soren or Lazarus. The idea hadn't even passed my mind as I wandered outside, dressed in brand-new leather slacks and freshly polished boots. I knew, since Lazarus had taken my boots on the mountain, that he was the one who had gifted me with these clothes.

I wondered if this was his way of apologizing for his most scandalous advice—after all, neither of us were expecting such an abrupt and intense reaction from Soren.

"Now," I instructed, pacing around with a brand-new sword sheathed at my side (given to me by Lazarus as well), "I want you all to remember that the secret to being two-faced is making sure that at least one of those faces is pretty. You need to express through your facial expression what you want people to think you feel, rather than what you actually feel. Sounds easy, but it's really not. For example, you—Jerin," I said, pointing to one of the soldiers. "You've got a serious look on your face, even though I know for a fact that you don't really respect me. How do I know this? Well, I have the benefit of having overheard you refer to me as the King's bed-thing the other day."

At this point, I was directly targeting this soldier. But I didn't care. He deserved to be targeted for what he'd said. I wished I could rip him to shreds, but I knew that would take significant effort—and I preferred verbal torment, anyhow.

"I'll have you know," I told him through my teeth. "That what Soren and I do in our free time is a thousand times better than anything you're going to ever get on the off-chance you get to screw some unlucky girl." I was inches away from his face; my tone more of a feral growl than a human murmur.

The soldier's face twisted into a scowl.

"Ailith?"

I spun around, immediately feeling the heat rising to my cheeks as I realized Soren had been standing behind me that entire time.

So he'd heard me telling the lie about he things we did...or rather, the things we didn't do, that I had turned down the previous evening.

Soren's amused smirk made me want to die inside. His hands were clasped behind this back as he spoke softly to me.

I lowered my gaze.

"Could you possibly take a break to talk to me for a while?" Soren murmured, bending forward as to keep any of the nearby soldiers from overhearing our conversation.

I nodded. "That's probably a good idea."

He looped an arm around mine, and we began walking away from the lineups of soldiers. I spotted Soren turning his head over our shoulders to glare at the one soldier I'd been chastising, and took a shaky breath as I realized he'd probably heard me say what he'd said about me.

That's what people really thought? That I was Soren's bed-thing?

Ew.

Soren, surprisingly, was the first one to speak.

"I wanted to apologize, Ailith," he told me, as we walked through the fields, along the shoreline. "How I behaved last night was terribly uncouth. I don't know what came over me."

I think I do, I wanted to utter.

I sneered. "No need to apologize. You don't scare me, Sor," I told him.