A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,99

he felt inside. He closed his eyes, could almost still feel Riv’s lips upon his own.

He missed her already, had begun to miss her as he’d watched her fly away from his window.

He had not been good with words, he felt, never had been, and he wanted to do something to show her how strongly he felt for her, to show how much he cared for her.

So, he was going to make her a Sirak bow.

He had helped his brother Altan make his own bow, the one that rested in its leather case leaning against his cot, along with a quiver full of arrows. Bleda had only been nine summers old at the time, but the memory of it was so imprinted upon his mind that he was certain he could do it again.

Riv needs a bow. But there was so much more to it than that. Making Riv a Sirak bow was a symbol of how close he had taken her to his heart. As close as kin and Clan. Closer.

There was a knock on his door.

“Yes,” Bleda said.

Ellac opened it and dipped his head inside.

“The Princess Jin of the Cheren wishes to speak with you,” Ellac said.

“Oh, get out of my way,” Jin said behind him, trying to elbow her way past Ellac.

Bleda gave a quick shake of his head to Ellac as he saw the old warrior about to step in front of Jin, so Ellac allowed her to pass him. But he was not so lenient with the warrior who stood in the corridor behind Jin, a dour, sharp-faced man who attempted to follow the Cheren Princess. Ellac stepped in front of him and, although not a word was said for a moment, there was a cold tension in the air.

“Gerel, keep Old Ellac company and wait for me in the corridor,” Jin said with a wave of her hand.

“But, my Princess—” Gerel began, but Jin interrupted him.

“I am betrothed to Bleda,” she said. “He will soon be King of the Cheren, as I will be Queen of the Sirak. He is hardly going to cut my throat.” She looked at Bleda, then back to Gerel. “He would not dare.”

“As you wish, my Princess,” Gerel said, “I’ll be ri—” the rest of what he was saying became too muffled to hear as Ellac closed the door.

Jin stood in the middle of the room, looking at Bleda. Her face was calm, but in her eyes emotions flickered. There was a hesitancy, a suggestion of vulnerability and uncertainty, of indecision, like someone standing at a crossroad and not knowing which way to go.

“Please, sit,” Bleda said, gesturing to a chair on the other side of his desk. Jin walked to it, picked it up and carried it around the desk, placed it beside him and sat down.

“We are betrothed,” Jin said. “And yet I hardly see you.”

Bleda felt a squirm of nausea in his belly. After seeing Riv only a short while ago, this was not the way he’d hoped to spend his morning. Being reminded of his impending doom.

I cannot do it. I cannot wed her.

He mumbled something about being so busy, about too much to do and too little time.

“I know,” Jin said. “Much has changed, and there is much more to do now. Israfil dead, the new Lord Protector is… different from his predecessor, and your mother is here.” She shrugged. “Much of the change is for the better. My father will be here soon, we are to be wed, and yet…” Jin put her hand over Bleda’s, giving it a squeeze. “Sometimes I wish that we could go back to how we were, before…”

Bleda resisted the urge to pull his hand away.

“Before?” he said.

“Yes. When it was just you and me, together against the world, it felt like. We used to spend our days together, training, learning—” a glint of humour in her eyes—“complaining about the Ben-Elim and White-Wings and their foolish, barbaric ways. I miss those days. You were my friend, my only friend.”

It was true. For five years they had spent most of their waking hours in each other’s company, and on the whole Jin was not unpleasant to be around, though Bleda had often thought that her devotion to her Clan and her disapproval of all else was too plainly writ in her. She thought of the Cheren as superior, and the Ben-Elim as inferior fools. Bleda knew that was too simplistic, and that the Ben-Elim were to be respected, no