Page 20 of Knight of Staria
His voice echoed in the dark wood. They were so close he could see Eli’s long, dark lashes and the freckles under his irritated flush, and Rey’s heart hammered heavily in his chest. Eli was quiet for a long time, then he slowly pried Rey’s hands off his shoulders. “Thinking selfishly brought me here,” he said at last. “I’m not noble. But I know someone who can draw the sword. Someone honest. Someone good. The kind of man these spells are made for.”
“Who on earth is good enough for this?” Rey asked.
Eli’s smile was small and sad. “Sabre de Valois,” he said. “My brother.”
Eli leftthe woods with just his stays on, his wet shirt hanging from his fingers and Rey sulking behind him like a guilty hound. Unicorn could care less—she happily tore up grass while Eli and Rey uncovered the cart again, but Rey was clearly upset that his plan to throw Eli off the quest had failed.
“You still swore to help,” Eli reminded him, as Rey hauled the cart out of the grass.
“I swore to help you recover the sword. I didn’t swear to help you die by it.”
“Noted.” Eli helped him hitch Unicorn to the cart, ignoring his sullen looks.
“And what makes you think this brother of yours is honest enough for the spell on the sword?” he asked.
“He sticks to his loyalties,” Eli said. “He’s good-hearted to a fault. My mother…” He trailed off into silence.
“What?”
“My mother and I were traitors,” Eli said at last. “That’s why I was hanged. Sabre wasn’t. Even then, he was too loyal to turn on the crown.”
Rey’s eyes were narrowed. “You, a traitor? That’s impossible.”
“That can’t be so hard to believe.”
“What did the king do to you?” Rey asked.
Eli ran a hand through his hair. “Nothing. Existed, I suppose. Mother told me he arranged my father’s death, but that ended up being a lie. What matters is that Sabre couldn’t be corrupted.”
“You were a teenager at the time,” Rey said, following Eli as he urged Unicorn toward one of the public paths to the main road.
“So? Teenagers commit crimes all the time.”
“But your mother?—”
“I’m not here to debate my guilt,” Eli said.
“And the king had youhanged?”
“Yes!” Eli threw his hands in the air. “What do you want me to say, Rey? I died! The King of the Wild Hunt brought me back! Now I’m here. I’m sorry I can’t be as pure and good as Emeric or one of those fairytale princes you go on about, but I’m not one of your stories. I’m not a knight who’s brave and true and goes around pulling magic swords out of trees. I’m a traitor who got the attention of the wrong spirit at the right time.”
“Two spirits,” Rey said.
“What?”
“You encountered two spirits that night.” Rey pressed a finger into Eli’s chest, and an old ache ran through Eli, the dominance he never let himself truly indulge in urging him to bring Rey to his knees. “You didn’t seem like a traitor when you hid in my cart. You seemed like a terrified kid who’d been wronged by the adults who should have protected you. But you act like you think you deserved to meet the spirit of the Wild King instead that night, and not the spirit of the trickster who offered you some of his coin.”
Eli drew a breath to argue, then walked on ahead. He couldn’t debate this. It felt too raw, like his insides were being scraped out and left for everyone to see, and it left his stomach wobbling and his head uneasy.
He had to find Sabre. He had to convince him, somehow, to trust Eli enough to come out to the middle of a forest and stick his arm down a pit of water between some trees. He wasn’t sure how that was going to happen when Eli was the monster who had planned a contingency for Sabre’s death in case he turned on their mother.
Rey was wrong. He didn’t understand the selfishness it took to betray someone he should have loved. His life was one of pranks and cons on strangers, never getting close enough for the betrayal to sting. What did he know of treachery?
“I’m not sure what you’re planning to do,” Rey said at last, after Eli had been stomping in the grass long enough for him to feel slightly awkward about it. “But maybe we should be on the same page.”
“I’m going to convince Sabre to draw the sword,” Eli said.
“Right. And how would you do that if you’re supposed to be dead?” Eli twisted round to look at Rey, who had his hands up in supplication. “I’m just thinking. It’s been a while. You obviously don’t look the same. Maybe we can be a little more…roundabout.”
