His smirk turns into a grin. “You strut around with such confidence. It’s almost endearing.”
I pick up a bridle and examine it closely. “I’m not sure what you find so amusing.”
“The fact that you think she’ll just trot off with you like a well-trained mare.” He takes another bite of his apple and eats it louder than necessary.
I drape the bridle back on its hook and face him, arms crossed. “Annora is no mare to be trained.”
If Jude had seen Annora the way I found her standing in her bedchamber, the moonlight spilling through the windows and framing her face, he would never call her a mare. No, he would have seen the side of her that I see, the fire burning calmly inside her. And he would have seen the light in her eyes, refusing to be quenched despite many summers of living with her scars.
She may see herself as merely a sapling, fragile and easily broken, but I see a strong, mighty oak who refuses to be cut down.
Soon, she will understand there is far more to her than she can grasp right now. She has Lyra’s magic and her own gifts living inside her, and when she learns how to use them, nobody will stop her from achieving her goals.
“And yet here you are…” Jude gestures with the apple as he continues, “…trying to coax her from her perch with sweet words.”
“Women like sweet words.” I lean against the stall door and fold my arms again.
Jude tosses the apple core out into the night. “But tell me, brother, does she know you want to take her to Sharhavva? Does she know you want to marry her?”
I hadn’t exactly gotten to that part. All I wanted to do the moment I finally laid eyes on her was kiss her.
I scowl at him. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you?” Jude brushes past me, heading toward the stable entrance, where he steps outside and leans down, snapping up a long blade of grass. He twirls the slender green stalk between his fingers as he continues. “Because from where I stand, it seems like you’re more likely to get pecked than nested with.”
It doesn’t matter to Jude that he has never even met Annora. He just enjoys trying to rile me. He always has.
From the pile next to me, I grab a handful of straw and toss it at Jude.
He dodges easily and laughs. “You’ll have to be quicker than that if you want to catch anything, let alone Annora’s heart.”
“Maybe I should take lessons from you? You were quite adept at catching... What was her name? The scullery maid with the crooked smile?”
Jude continues twirling the blade of grass between his fingers. “Low blow, brother. But unlike some, I don’t aim for falcons when sparrows are just as sweet.”
To Jude, every woman is worth the chase. Rich or poor. Silver or crimson. If not for his connection with a woman who can open portals with silver flames, we wouldn’t even be here.
“Go on,” he says, “woo your falcon with grand gestures and poetic verses. Just remember that birds have wings for a reason.”
Like Lyra?
She took flight the moment she married me. Then, she ended up dying with only her mother left to witness her demise.
Her mother kept that a secret from me until Annora disappeared. Maybe because by then, Lyra’s mother realized she wouldn’t get any coin from me.
I shake my head at him. “You’re enjoying this far too much.”
Jude slaps me on the back. “Of course. It’s not every day I get to see you brought low by love.”
“I am not brought low.”
“No?” Jude smirks. “Then why do I feel like I’m watching a mighty dragon brought to heel by a mere slip of a girl?”
“Because you have an overactive imagination.”
“And you have an underactive sense of self-preservation,” he quips without missing a beat.
Maybe he’s right. After all, I’m deep in House of Silver territory, where Asha would relish capturing me.
