The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles #1) - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,78
crowding the rope boundary. I was being watched. I didn’t know by whom, but I knew. I was being watched, not by the hundreds who surrounded the event but by one.
“Throw!”
I hesitated and then threw. My knife hit the target handle first and bounced off, falling to the ground. All the other contestants’ knives stuck in the wood circles, one in the outer bark, one in the outer white ring, one in the blue ring, none in the center red. We hardly had time to grab the next knife before the game master called again, “Throw!”
Mine struck with a loud thunk, slicing into the white outer circle and staying put. Better, but these knives were clunky and not terribly sharp.
He’s watching. The words crawled up my neck.
“Throw!”
My knife flew past the target entirely, lodging in the dirt beyond. My frustration grew. I couldn’t use distractions as an excuse. Walther had told me that so many times. That was the point of practice, to block out distractions. In the real world when a knife was needed, distractions didn’t politely wait for you to throw—they sought to disarm you.
Watching … watching.
I held the tip tight, fixed my shoulder, and let my arm do the work.
“Throw!”
This time I hit the line between white and blue. I took a deep breath. There was only one knife left. I looked out at the crowds again. Watching. I felt the derision, the mocking gaze, a smirk at my less-than-impressive knife-throwing skills—but I couldn’t see a face, not the face.
Watch, then, I thought, my ire rising.
I lifted my hem.
“Throw!”
My knife sliced through the air so fast and clean it was hardly seen. It hit red, dead center. Out of twenty throws by four contestants, mine was the only one to hit red. The game master took a second look, confused, and then disqualified me. It was worth it. I scanned the mass of onlookers lining the ropes and caught a glimpse of a retreating back being swallowed by the crowd. The nameless soldier? Or someone else?
It was a lucky throw. I knew that, but my watcher didn’t.
I walked over to the target, pulled my gem-studded dagger from the center, and returned it to its sheath on my thigh. I would practice as I’d promised Walther. There would be no more throws left to luck.
The crowned and beaten,
The tongue and sword,
Together they will attack,
Like blinding stars thrown from the heavens.
—Song of Venda
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
KADEN
I didn’t trust him. He was more than just the farmhand he claimed to be. His moves on that log were far too practiced. But practiced in what? And that hellish beast he rode—that wasn’t the average docile nag from a farm. He was also strangely deft at disposing of a body, as if he’d done it before, not the least bit hesitant as a rural bumpkin might be, unless his rural activities ran on the darker side. He could be a farmhand, but he was something else too.
I scrubbed my chest with soap. His attentions toward Lia were just as bad. I’d heard her screaming at him to go away last night. The sudden singing of Berdi and the others drowned out what else was said, but I’d heard enough to know she wanted him to leave her alone. I should have followed, but Pauline was so intent on me staying. It was the first time I had seen her without her mourning scarf in weeks. She looked so fragile. I couldn’t leave, nor would she let me.
I rinsed my hair in the creek. It was my second bath of the day, but after catching fish, swinging axes, and racing to start a fire with two sticks, the so-called games had left me in need of more bathing—especially if I intended to dance with Lia tonight—and I did intend to dance with her. I’d make sure of that.
The way she had looked at me last night, touched my shoulder, I wished things could have been different for us. Maybe at least for one night, they could be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I leaned against the porch post. We were waiting for Berdi to join us for the walk to the plaza and the night’s festivities. She had gone to wash up and change. It had been a long day, and I was still pondering the knife-throwing event and the strange feeling of being watched when certainly a hundred people were watching me. What was one more?
“Pauline,” I asked hesitantly, “do you ever know things? Just know them?”