Kade snorted, but Sev continued before he could make a snide comment.
“We both wanted to keep that girl safe,” he pointed out.
“There’s a difference between wanting to protect someone for their sake and wanting to protect someone for your own. You wanted to ‘keep her safe’ so that you didn’t have to be the one to deal the blow. You wanted to ease your own conscience so you could sleep at night.”
Sev bit the inside of his cheek, anger flaring in his breast. The words hurt, and the sting told Sev that Kade had struck close to home. Had Sev saved her neck only so he could save his own? Of course, Kade didn’t see what had happened afterward, how close Sev had come to dying for his decision that day.
“You’re a fair-weather ally—empty words and kind smiles—nothing more.”
“I didn’t ask for this, Kade,” Sev said, his voice quaking slightly as he continued to suppress his outrage. “I’m doing my best.”
“This is your best?” Kade asked skeptically, looking Sev up and down, taking in every imperfect inch of him. “I highly doubt that.”
Sev frowned, trying to work out if Kade’s words were some kind of backhanded compliment. Kade thought Sev was better than a soldier? The idea made him stand taller, even as he realized that Kade was mistaken.
“I . . . This is what I am, Kade. Sorry it’s not good enough for you.”
“I know what you are,” Kade said slowly, almost threateningly. “And it’s not this. This”—he gestured carelessly at Sev’s raider uniform—“is what you chose to be.”
It took Sev’s body several moments to catch up with his mind. When it did, Kade had marched out of his reach, and Sev was forced to stomp after him.
“Hey,” he said harshly, gripping Kade by the upper arm and turning him around. Sev was breathing hard—harder than he should when he’d walked only a few short feet. His heart was pounding in his chest, and there was a tinny ringing in his ears.
Kade stopped so abruptly that Sev’s momentum carried him forward, and they almost bumped chests. Kade’s body was tense, poised as if ready for a blow.
“What choice?” Sev asked, trying to be reasonable. “I didn’t enlist—they forced me into the military. I could either live as a soldier or die as a laborer in the dank mines of Ferro or the sunbaked fields of Stel.”
Kade’s eyes sparked, and standing this close, Sev could pick out shades of amber and russet, warm against his black lashes and heavy brow. His angular face, twisted in rage, became even sharper.
“Not the choice I was talking about, soldier,” Kade said, speaking through tight lips. He shrugged off Sev’s hand, which had still been gripping his biceps, but then he stepped closer, his voice whisper-soft. “You think I don’t see—that I don’t know what you are, animage?”
Sev’s stomach dropped, and the ground seemed to buck and dip beneath him. He staggered back. Kade knew Sev was an animage. Had Trix told him? Or had Sev been that obvious?
“You can pat the animals and get them their feed, you can talk and laugh with the other bondservants, but you’re not one of us. You denied that part of yourself—that’s the choice you made. So you don’t get to play both sides. You don’t get to be a soldier and a friend to animages—it’s one or the other.”
Sev had made a choice long ago to pretend he wasn’t an animage, to hide his magic and suffer the consequences. He’d chosen to be a coward, to “not care” about the world, because it was easier than fighting. It was survival—or so he’d thought.
Animages like Kade had made a different choice. They’d rather risk bondage than hide who they were, and their bravery shamed him.
Worst of all, it shamed his parents, who had died for Sev. They had given themselves to the Phoenix Riders, to their fellow animages, and by denying that part of himself, he denied them as well.
Sudden heat pricked at the back of Sev’s eyes, and before Kade could see more of his weakness, Sev pushed past him, bumping Kade’s shoulder as he lurched away, past the line of animals and into the forest.
Pacing back and forth between the trees, Sev gripped his head. The memory descended upon him like a heavy cloak, and in a blink, he was back home again.
Back where everything had gone wrong.
It had been two years since the end of the Blood War. Animages were fleeing the Golden Empire, making for the recently separated province of Pyra, and Sev’s family lived right on the border. They kept the empire’s forces back and helped families flee persecution.
It was less about politics, his father had said, and more about people. By making herself an enemy of the empire, Avalkyra Ashfire had made all animages enemies of the empire—whether they were Riders or not. The magical registry was being put violently into effect, and the empire was rounding up animages in droves, accusing them of rebel sympathies, of being traitors and conspirators.
It was only a matter of time before the soldiers came for Sev’s parents and the rest of Hillsbridge, their small village. Before they came for Sev.
He’d been playing in the fields when he saw the soldiers approaching in the distance. His parents had always been very clear: If he saw empire soldiers, he was supposed to run back to the house. He was supposed to stay safe.
But back then Sev hadn’t been the coward he was today. Back then Sev had wanted to be a hero.
He might have been young, but on the farm, as soon as you could walk, you could work. First it was scouring the bushes all day, so his father could make his famous blackberry pie, or helping his mother weed the garden. Then it was carrying buckets of water or feed for the animals and hitching their oxen to the plow.
During the spring thaw, when the river would flood and destroy their wooden bridge, Sev would turn the winch and raise the platform, keeping it safe until the waters receded. The river snaked around their farm, and when the bridge was drawn, Sev felt like they were on their own separate island, safe from harm.
As the enemy soldiers approached, Sev knew that if he could just reach the drawbridge in time, he could slow the soldiers long enough for everyone on the farm and in the nearby houses to get to safety. It was late spring, so the river waters were still high and couldn’t be forded easily.
If Sev could just get there, he would be a hero. The thought of his parents’ faces, shining with pride and admiration, filled his heart. He could imagine the villagers praising him for his quick thinking as they retreated to their safe houses. No one would get hurt. No one would die. All thanks to Sev.
The ground was muddy and slick as he ran down to the river’s edge, and he skidded the last few feet as he approached the mechanism that controlled the bridge. The soldiers were much closer than he’d thought from his place on the hill, and fear made his hands clumsy as he struggled to turn the crank that would hoist the bridge, the sound of clinking metal and thumping boots reverberating around him. Sev pulled harder, panting, when the first raindrop splashed onto his face.
The single drop turned into a steady mist, making his hands slip across the metal lever and his feet sink into the ever-deepening mud.
The soldiers came to a halt on the other side of the river. Sev had managed to raise the bridge no more than a foot, and now it was too late to run.