Magnus hesitated. “You owe him your life.”
Nadine inclined her chin and grunted. “The debt goes both ways.”
He grunted, and his gaze drifted away. Nadine had the distinct impression that what he’d really wanted to ask was, Do you love him? An extreme sense of stubbornness overtook her in that moment, and Nadine decided to happily let him simmer in uncertainty unless he dared to voice that question. It really should be obvious, anyway. She had never felt love for Samar. Perhaps she ought to have. But she could no more love Samar out of obligation than a tree could grow feathers.
Guilt reared inside her and with it, the urge to defend her friend. The barbarian might be tempted to think she’d come here simply to spite Samar, and the idea upset her for multiple reasons she didn’t wish to dwell on. She shifted in the water. “You may not care for him, but he’s a good man. There’s a reason I chose him for this mission.”
“Oh?”
Nadine’s mouth firmed. “We met each other the day after I was burned. The wound dehydrated me and I was so thirsty I thought I would die. Maybe I would have, but he cared for me. More than that, he defended me from those looking to kill me.”
Magnus looked startled. “Why would anyone want to kill you?”
She scowled. “Aside from being the Mushar’s niece?”
He shook his head. “Wouldn’t that protect you?”
“It did, from the Edge Masters. Sometimes. But it made the other recruits hate me. Put a target on my back. And for the first year, the Edge Masters would reward anyone who killed another trainee one-on-one. It didn’t matter if the other combatant was already injured, provided the victim was at least conscious. At the time the reward would have been food and clothing. The difference between life and death for many of us.”
Magnus looked disgusted, and he muttered something under his breath. It could’ve been a curse, but Nadine had never heard him use it before.
“When he first approached, I thought he meant to kill me himself. But instead he knelt down and gave me a drink of water from his hands. He said, ‘Forget your hair. You won’t need it to help me kill those little shits.’ ”
Nadine smiled at the memory. From that day on, they’d been inseparable. Samar had been a year and some months older than she, and different in every possible way. She’d grown up rich and privileged. He’d been born to a bond servant and raised as a street thief. When he’d been caught picking the wrong pocket, the magistrate had let him choose between losing his hand and being sent to Aluk-Nuril. The Edging. They’d survived together. They’d watched each other’s backs as a single unit, and that unity had kept them from being a target. That was, until Nadine had grown into a woman. Then the horror had started anew.
Magnus came closer to her in the water. With less confidence than before, he reached forward and took one of her arms in his hand. Pulling it between them, he found the nick just above her elbow. She went ramrod straight. She was about to pull out of his grasp when he spoke.
“And this one?”
All thoughts of Samar fled her mind. Her breath stalled in her chest, and her eyes fell away from the face of the barbarian before her. His voice went tentative. “Nadine?”
She pulled gently out of his grasp and, without looking at him, answered. “That one I gave myself.”
This time, the barbarian shook his head as though he were rejecting her words out right.
For a brief moment, shame threatened to creep in. Nadine slaughtered it within the shadow of her mind and allowed its lifeblood to water roots of indignation and bitterness. Its vines shot up in an instant, giving her the strength to stand up under his disbelieving scrutiny. She narrowed her eyes at him and cocked her head in challenge. “You want to hear the story?”
He hesitated, as though sensing the dare in her voice, though surely he was unable to put a reason behind it.
“Come now, savage. You’ve asked me so many questions this day.”
He blinked at her. “Tell me.”
Wrong choice.
Nadine girded herself with a cruel smile. “My parents died of plague. Despite our ancient line, the net of our relations cast thin. But my father had a cousin. Maladib Pajel. I was entrusted to him as my guardian and sent to his estate until I would grow into a woman.”
That lecher’s name on her tongue made gooseflesh break out across her skin. Nadine drew her arms tight around herself. To this day, she couldn’t understand how a grown man had been attracted to a mere child. How he’d indulged that attraction to the point of attacking her. Her hand searched for the reassuring weight of her lancet, but it lay on the rocky bank.
She’d believed there was something wrong with her. Something twisted and inherently flawed in her design that a grown man would covet her that way. He’d said as much. But the interest hadn’t stopped with him. The fact that others had done the same was something she now considered a mercy—it had shown her she wasn’t the one at fault. Rather, it was the lascivious nature of men. Swallowing hard, Nadine met Magnus’s eyes. “He put his hands on me only once. But once was one time too many. He lost a finger, and a ruby ring with it, for the error.”
If Magnus had been dumbfounded into silence before, he looked positively stricken now. Before he could react, Nadine hurried on. “I lost a lot more than that. There were no more Pajel family members to send me off to. So Maladib sent me to his wife’s extended family. They were far kinder.” Or at least, that was what she’d believed.
“They had other children I played with, including a son about my age. We used to skip rocks across the sand dunes, and I always beat him.” Nadine would’ve smiled with a genuine fondness for that brief period of time in her life, if it weren’t for what followed.
“But that son had a friend, and he was less kind. He got me alone once and attempted what my uncle had. I didn’t take his finger, but I beat his face so badly I knew he’d lose one of his eyes. When he ran off to tell my guardians, I panicked.” His threat to expose her had been one of the most terrifying moments of her life.
“You see, my uncle had told them that the death of my parents had made me a violent and wild creature prone to tantrums. That I lied about everything. The boy I’d just beaten was the son of a shar. I knew they’d need something to tell his father to save their own skins.” Nadine wiped at the scar by her elbow. “So I found a shepherd’s knife in the stable and gave myself this. Claimed the boy attacked me and that I’d been acting in self-defense. I knew they’d never believe he’d tried to rape me. And even if they did, they’d never tell his father that.”
Nadine was silent as she let the pain of that day wash over her. She felt dizzy as though she’d been soaking in the spring for hours. She was sick to her stomach and wondered if the coming flight would cause her to vomit in the snow. She’d only spoken of this once in her life—to Samar back when she was but a girl. At the time, he’d vowed to help her find that shar’s son and kill him. But he hadn’t understood the true object of her hatred.
“What happened next?” Magnus’s voice came out strained.
She swallowed, then met Magnus’s eyes with steely determination. “I was outed. The shepherd whose knife I’d stolen saw me carving on myself. Even if he hadn’t, my guardians would never have believed my story.” She realized that now. It would have gained them nothing and cost them a great deal to take her side over the shar’s son. Even as the Mushar’s niece, no one wanted to take her on. Not even for his favor.