“Only because your father made you,” Daphne points out.
He doesn’t deny it. Instead he reaches behind him to draw his own bow, carved from the same dark wood as hers.
“Mind if I join you?” he asks.
Daphne shrugs. “It’s a big field, plenty of room for us both,” she says before mentally kicking herself. If her mother were here, she would chide her for her sharp tone—she needs Bairre to like her, to desire her. As it is, they can’t have a conversation that lasts longer than a few minutes without insulting each other.
He moves to the target next to her, lifting his bow and pulling an arrow from the quiver behind his back. She watches him for a moment before forcing herself to speak.
“I didn’t know you enjoyed archery,” she says. “I’ve heard Friv has some of the best tournaments in the world. Have you competed?”
He looks at her, surprised, before shaking his head. “It’s just a hobby for me,” he says. “Cillian was in a class of his own, though, so we would practice together sometimes. There’s something…relaxing about it.”
She’s surprised to hear her own thoughts spill from his lips. “It’s hard to feel stressed after shooting pointed weapons at a target,” she agrees.
“Especially when you can picture that target as my face?” he asks.
She opens her mouth to deny it, but when she looks at him, she’s surprised to find he’s almost smiling at her. It’s too wry at the corners to be a true smile, but it’s the closest she’s seen from him.
“Well, whatever helps,” she tells him before nocking another arrow.
This time, though, she hears her mother’s voice in her mind. There is only one tournament, only one prize. As badly as she wants to prove to Bairre that she can hold her own, she needs him to like her more, and that means dulling herself.
It kills her to do it, but she lets her arrow go wide. It lands at the outer edge of the target with a thwack that Daphne feels in her soul. It’s a game, she reminds herself, a means to an end, but still the mortification of failing rakes over her skin like hot nails.
“Rotten luck,” he says, nocking his own arrow and taking aim at the target.
His form is terrible—his elbow is too low and his stance is too narrow. The effort of firing the arrow alone will be enough to knock him off-balance.
“Wait,” she says with a sigh before approaching. She lifts his back elbow so it doesn’t sag and send the arrow high. “Now square your hips.”
“What?” he asks, glancing back at her over his shoulder, brow furrowed.
She nudges his front foot wider, then, feeling heat rise to her cheeks, she sets her hands on his hips, adjusting him so his entire torso is directed at the target.
“There,” she says, dropping her hands away quickly. “Try now.”
His gaze lingers on her a second longer, skeptical and uncertain, before he looks back at the target. He aims and releases the arrow. It lands just inches from the bull’s-eye. For a moment, he just stares at the arrow in shock.
“How did you do that?” he asks her.
She shrugs. “I had a good teacher in Bessemia,” she says.
“Right,” he says, clearing his throat. “Your turn, then.”
Daphne’s smile is strained as she takes aim once more, this time letting the arrow go early so it doesn’t even make it to the target, instead burying itself in the grass two feet short.
“Not your day, is it?” he asks.
She bristles but shoves her pride down. “Apparently not.”
Daphne waits for him to nock his next arrow, but instead he just stares at her, his expression even more perplexed than usual.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to shoot poorly,” he says.
“Then you know less than I thought,” she says. “My wrist is still a bit sore from my fall.”
It’s a lie, but a believable one.
“May I?” he asks, holding his hand out.
Daphne places her left hand in his, letting him unbutton the leather glove and peel it back from the pale skin of her wrist. He turns it over in his hand, brushing his thumb over her pulse, making her heartbeat pick up. She wants to pull away from him, to tug her glove back over her skin before he can do that again, but she doesn’t. Instead she remembers her training and takes a step closer to him, looking up and biting her lip.
“How does it look?” she asks him.
“Still a bit bruised,” he says. “You should rest it a couple of days longer.”
“I should,” she agrees with the small, secret smile she had to spend weeks perfecting in the mirror. “But I’ve never been terribly good at resting.”
He smiles back, but after a moment—far too soon—he looks away and drops her hand.
“Cillian always said you were clever,” he tells her. “He said your letters were some of the wittiest things he’d ever read—and he read a lot, so you can take that as a high compliment.”
The words sit like tar in the pit of her stomach. She doesn’t want to think about the dead prince, the one she wrote letters to by candlelight, the one she can’t even mourn.
“Oh?” she forces herself to say. “And do you agree?”
He laughs, but he sounds vaguely uncomfortable. “Maybe too clever for your own good. Tell me, would you have let Cillian win at archery as well? Or is it because I’m so terrible at it?”
Daphne goes still. “I didn’t realize it was a matter of winning or losing,” she says. “I thought we were only practicing.”
“Really?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. “Because the look in your eyes says otherwise. And you flinch as soon as you fire the arrow—almost like you know exactly where it will go. So is it pity? Or false flattery? Because I think I’ve had enough of both in the last couple of weeks.”
That gives her pause, and for a moment, she only looks at him, getting a glimpse beyond the furrowed brow and angry jawline and the resentment in his eyes. For the first time, he looks like a boy who lost his brother and had his life turned upside down in a single moment.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and this time there is no sarcasm in her voice. “I didn’t…shall we go again?”
He hesitates for a second before nodding and nocking another arrow.
This time, his form is better. She can tell he’s checking himself for the corrections she made last time, though a part of her still wants the excuse to place a hand on his shoulder or hip—anywhere, really. Stars above, she’s becoming as shameless as Beatriz!
When he releases the arrow, it grazes the bull’s-eye, landing just outside.
“Well done,” she says, meaning it.