Gar leaned against a tree just outside his training grotto and watched Kindra sloppily attack a tree on the other side with her left arm. The scar on her chin was puckered, and her ear had healed, but it was the third day he’d watched her, and she still hadn’t used her right arm. He didn’t know if it was due to muscle atrophy, or some un-healed damage his brother had left. She hadn’t spoken to him yet, either. Hadn’t even looked his way.

He could tell by the tension in her shoulders that she knew he was there. She was taut as a bowstring, erupting in energy at the tree before her like she had when she was young. And when he walked away, the noise of her attacks would stop. And if he glanced back over his shoulder as he left, he’d see her head bowed as she sucked in deep breaths, her arm draped over the spear for support. She never paused her attacks until he was leaving.

She hadn’t turned her attacks on him yet, but Kindra was angrier than he’d ever seen her. And although she was attacking the tree, he knew all that anger was directed at him.

It wasn’t until her energy began to flag on the third day that he finally spoke. “Would you like to spar against someone else?”

“No.” The word snapped from her mouth as her spear snapped against the tree with renewed vigor.

He watched for a moment. “The tree doesn’t appear to be fighting back.”

“It doesn’t talk back, either.”

He chuckled and stepped over the clearing’s threshold. “You know, it really does sound like I’m the one you’d rather hit.”

She spun and glared at him, knuckles white around the spear, chest heaving from the effort of fighting a most stalwart opponent. Tears shimmered at the corners of her eyes and Gar froze, taken aback by the rare sight. But when she spoke there was no hint of tears in her voice, just burning anger.

“What do you want?”

“You haven’t used your right arm yet.”

“So?”

“Why not?”

Her frown deepened. “It hurts.”

He raised an eyebrow. She’d never been one to let a little pain keep her from fighting.

“It hurts a lot.”

“Can you move it?”

She rotated her shoulder, wincing, but not taking her gaze from his. She didn’t move the rest of her arm. There was a challenge in her eyes and her voice. “Why do you care?”

“Because, I’m your friend.”

“Are you?”

He held her gaze, unflinching. “Yes.”

She let his reply echo between them for a long moment. “Then where have you been?” All the venom had drained from her voice, leaving behind a raw pain he’d only ever heard when she spoke about her father.

“I thought…you wanted me to stay away after what you learned.”

“For an entire moon? You left me to rot like my father!”

He let out a long breath, the old, familiar guilt creeping into his chest like an unwanted pet. “The High Priestess said you would heal, and I thought it best to let you calm down before I returned.”

“For an entire moon?” She repeated, the venom back in her voice.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

He’d wanted to give her time to come to terms with the news, but apparently she’d spent the entire time stewing in it, anger and despair building.

“I’m sorry, Kindra. I should have told you long ago. I was…”

“A coward.”

He nodded. “Yes. It was cowardly. But I was trying to come to terms with being party to the death of my hero, too. I was just a kid.”

“Which is why you shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” she spat, glaring at him.

“I was punished for that, beyond the almost-dying. They held my naming back a summer.” All four of them had been held back, although Geoff and Gar were the only two to actually enter the battle. They’d all broken the rules.

Kindra looked away. “Is that why you offered to help me? To pay off a debt to my father?”

Another long breath escaped Gar, and he shut his eyes, but he couldn’t be a coward now. “Yes, at first.” When he looked at her, she was still turned away, lips pressed together like she was trying not to cry. “And because I knew anyone Fennec trained would be a warrior without equal.”

A staccato “Ha!” left her, and she finally moved her right arm, dashing away tears with another painful wince.

“So, you can use it.”

“Like I said, it hurts. A lot.”

A small smile pulled his lips up. “So, you’re fine.” It was her mantra whenever she was hurt, as if saying it would make it so.

She didn’t return his smile. “I can’t forgive you for what you did.”

“It will take time.”

“No.” She finally looked at him. “If you hadn’t been there, my father would still be alive. I’d be a named warrior. I can never forgive you for that.”

The statement was said with such calm honesty that Gar’s heart clenched. “Kindra, you can’t mean that. It happened eight summers ago. Things have changed.”

“Yes, they have. My father’s dead. My sister’s been stolen away. My mother never returned from Fie Obsid. And I’m not a warrior, and will never be a warrior, because you and your brother stole it from me.”

“Whoa,” Gar put his hands up. “You’re the one who quit in a rage and went after Kaye. You’re the one who punched Jor—”

“He called Kaye a whore.”

“He was trying to provoke you, and you fell for it. You attacked him. You attacked Corbin, too. You keep charging headlong into situations without thinking and attacking when you shouldn’t.”

“It’s better than being a coward and letting the Obsidians run all over us like they own us. Like they can just take our priestesses away.”

Gar ran a hand through his hair. “You sound like your father. He did the exact same thing and ran headlong into battle and got half the warriors killed for no reason, including himself.”

Kindra drew into herself like a rattlesnake ready to strike, and Gar realized he said the wrong thing.

“I’m sorry,” he said before she could strike. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Shouldn’t have said it? Or didn’t mean it?”

She stared him down, but he wouldn’t lie to her again. “Shouldn’t have said it.”

“But you meant it.” It wasn’t a question.

“Kindra, please, I just want to talk.”

“Good, let’s talk then.” The look she leveled on him could have melted his sword, and he almost rested his palm on the hilt in case he needed to defend himself. She shifted her weight. “What were your secret plans with Petoskey?”

“Secret plans? That’s what you want to talk about?”

“Yes.”

He shrugged. “There are no plans now. You got yourself kicked out of the warriors for good and ruined them all.”

“Oh,” she said, and he closed his eyes, because the tone of her voice promised he wouldn’t like what she was about to say. “I’m sorry I ruined all your plans that I didn’t even know about. I’m sorry that you didn’t have a chance to use me before I went after the only person in the world who doesn’t care what my last name is and how that can help them with their ‘secret plans’.”

Gar rubbed his forehead. “For Eoin’s sake, that’s not what this is about.”

“Then what is it about?”

He didn’t reply, because if he told her what he knew of their plans, she would see it as trying to use her for her name and family. “I already told you, it doesn’t matter. Everything’s rumors and suspicions and there’s no way to find out the truth of it now. And nothing we could do about it, even if we knew the truth.”

“Why?” She still glared at him, distrusting. “The truth of what?”

“I can’t say.”

Kindra took a step forward, pointing the spear at his chest. “Tell me.”

“I don’t know the whole of it—Petoskey won’t tell me. You’re the only one he’ll trust with the information, but you’d have to be a warrior.” Gar pushed the spear away. “But you went and attacked a named warrior and now there’s no chance of that.”

“Yes, this is all my fault.” She pointed her spear at his chest again. “I’m done with you trying to teach me lessons. I’m done with you telling me to ‘fight smart.’ You’re a coward who wouldn’t fight for Kaye, and won’t challenge Oak, and will die peacefully in your bed of old age.”

She jabbed the spear just into his skin, drawing blood. “You can keep your secrets, and your plans, and your holier-than-thou attitude, and leave me alone. I’m going to find a way to get Kaye back and stop the Obsidians for good.”

She spit at his feet, turned, and stomped away upriver towards her mourning rock.

Gar watched her go, wondering how everything had gone so wrong, so quickly.