Page 75 of Ashborne: Defiance

‘To my enemies!’

‘And to measure those whose motives you don’t yet know. Koa is new to humans, but insists she is being truthful. She knows Grace’s heart—as I sense yours. There is no shadow there.’

Except the shadow of hurt, that voice in my head insisted.

I swallowed. “The dragons believe you’re telling the truth,” I admitted.

“Do you?”

I avoided the question. “You must see that it would be unwise for me to reveal anything about anyone I’m close to before you’ve become one of us? A caution I have that isn’t unique to you.” She opened her mouth, but I hurried on before she could interrupt me. “If you’re accustomed to navigating the subtleties of the high classes, you must see how I could be accused of betraying those I’m sworn to protect if I simply reveal everything I know before you’ve proven your very new loyalties.”

She took a moment to consider that. “Would you have betrayed your dragon in the first days?” she asked.

That was a blade that cut to the heart of all of this. Because she knew, as did I, that once that bond was forged, hurting one’s dragon was akin to hurting oneself.

“No.”

“Neither will I,” she said, though without the ring of triumph I would have given to the same sentiment, if our roles had been reversed.

I chewed on that for a moment, surprised when Kham didn’t press me further. “I don’t know any nobles who know how to hunt, or spy, unless they were trained by someone—for nefarious purposes.”

“Is that why you’re so skilled? Nefarious purposes?” she asked pointedly, with another glance over her shoulder.

“My enemies would say so.” I hadn’t intended to give the words any heat, but she shivered. “So?”

She frowned. “So, what?”

“Tell me how you learned those skills? How did you end up in the secret passages of the castle? Even if you were truly looking for Bren, finding those and using them properly—being able to trail me into the forest for hours without my knowledge—it all points to a woman who is not what she appears to be.”

“And what is it, precisely, that I appear to be?”

“Honestly?”

“Yes,” she said through gritted teeth.

“A woman of skill and cunning who is very, very good at playing the innocent maiden.”

Apparently she hadn’t expected that, because her eyes went round and she craned her head around to look at me again. “You think I’m skilled?”

I frowned. “I’ve said that since the first moment—I just asked you how you came to be skilled. I am not blowing air up your skirts, Grace. No one follows me without my senses prickling. It’s a God-given gift. The fact that I stumbled upon you in the castle without sensing you there was startling enough. For you to follow me? I half-believe the Creator has removed my gifts from me,” I muttered.

She rolled her eyes. “It must be that your expertise has been removed? It couldn’t possibly be that mine exceeded it?”

“No,” I said with a shrug, because it was true. “I have a gift, Grace.”

“Well, so do I, I suppose.”

“Who trained you?”

“No one. I practiced. For over ten years. For the first two or three years I kept being caught. I learned how to remain quiet. I stole clothing that would help.”

“You must have practiced a great deal,” I muttered.

But she took it as a true query. “Yes, I did. I have always struggled with the restrictions on my life. As a child I was constantly attended, first by a nanny, then tutors. And when I came of age, my father kept guards. I started hiding in the house when I was quite young, at first just to be away from the nanny. But when I was twelve, I started sneaking out to ride my horse at night, without a guard. I was often caught, but I kept trying. Eluding the servants, the guards, the stablehands… over time, I grew good at it. I stopped being caught, and my parents thought I had stopped the attempts. But I couldn’t. Even when nothing bad happened, being anywhere without someone else’s eyes on me helps me breathe.”

God, I knew that feeling, and I hated that compassion swelled in my chest at her words. Though, likely not for the same reasons, I, too, had to flee the constant presence of others. If I didn’t get a few hours away from my brothers—even the ones I trusted—most days, my skin began to itch. And if it was days between being in solitude, I was forced to sleep away from the barracks just to be able to rest.

Yet, while I knew what had brought me to the point of needing solitude, why would a coddled, prized woman feel that way?