Once in a Dragon Moon - Ophelia Bell Page 0,30
anyway? If I lose, we can just try again next season, right? Not that I’m losing, of course. Besides, the duo tournament doesn’t begin for another month, so I could theoretically find a partner and compete there if this doesn’t work out.”
Which, if she was being honest, was her real dream, but Jacob had explained that she needed some fights under her belt to impress any would-be partners enough to want to form a team with her.
Gunther remained silent for a moment, idly caressing her back with his fingertips. Then he took a breath. “We haven’t exactly hidden the fact that our relationships with our parents are . . . complicated. We are the heirs to our three clans, which comes with some responsibility. Expectations are high for us to take over before too long.”
“I get that.” And she did, though she couldn’t elaborate on why. Her unit’s commander in the Sandrekar military, Ivan, was the son of Sandrekar’s clan leader. She wouldn’t necessarily consider him a friend, but he was a respected brother-in-arms who carried the heavy weight of his father’s expectations. He would have to give up his role in the army when the time came, and Ksenia had always sensed a deep conflict in him over the prospect.
When Gunther didn’t say more, she looked up at him again, raising a hand to touch his cheek. “When you do, that means you can’t keep training, doesn’t it?”
Gunther heaved a sigh and nodded. “Yeah. Jacob’s dad is the one pushing hardest right now. When we started training champions, it earned us a reprieve. The potential for their sons to have trained a tournament champion made the old men salivate with the acclaim it would bring all our clans. But our first set of trainees didn’t work out, and our fathers are losing patience. We also may have promised them that if we didn’t succeed in five years’ time, we would settle down with mates and agree to prepare to take the mantles within a year.”
“Yikes. But you have a mate now. You have me . . .” She trailed off, realizing what the “mate” part meant. To their elders it would probably signify their readiness to return to the fold. But to them, it must mean something different. Didn’t it?
“I don’t want to give this up without trying. I can’t, not when I’m so close to fulfilling my dream.”
The strident note in her voice made him look down at her in surprise. “Oh, honey, we have no intention of just carting you back to the Hills and filling you with our cubs. Your dream is our dream. We didn’t want to saddle you with the burden, but the only way our fathers will back down is if we prove we can train a winning champion.”
Her stomach rolled and twisted with love and a complicated sense of duty she hadn’t possessed before. But was that the only answer? “I don’t suppose you three have brothers. Are you the only heirs?”
Gunther grimaced and his fingers dug into her side. “Teague is the only one with a sibling, a sister, but even if we did, we all agreed we have no intention of abdicating our titles when the time came. We love the League, but we won’t follow in Blackpaw’s footsteps, no matter how much we respect the man. He’s a good friend, after all.”
Ksenia nodded sagely, though she had no clue what he was referring to or who this “Blackpaw” person was.
Gunther shifted away a little and looked down at her, his eyes narrowed. “You have no idea who I’m talking about, do you?”
“Ah—” She struggled for the right words, but didn’t want to lie to his face. Finally she winced and shook her head.
“Ksenia,” he said gently, “why won’t you tell us the truth? What is so horrible about your origins that you feel the need to hold back? We already pledged our hearts to you with our marks. We wouldn’t take that back even if we could.”
“It isn’t bad, I promise. I just can’t say right now. Not yet.”
“But I’m not wrong that you’ve been winging it all this time, am I? How much did you actually know about arena fighting before you showed up at the tryouts?”
“Almost nothing,” she admitted. “I heard a broadcast about some of the fighters. Midnight Star, Hot Wings . . . All I knew was that I wanted to be like them. Where I come from, we don’t have that kind of sport,