Bloodguard

chapter 20

Maeve

Leith permits me to guide him. In truth, we look ridiculous. Me in my night garments and he in breeches and a dark-blue blanket draped over his shoulders. His right arm sways leisurely against his side, despite how his fingers fist around the lock of Sullivan’s hair.

I didn’t understand what Leith wanted until he bid me move aside the bottles of herbs on the top shelf. When my fingers felt the soft strands of hair that he’d hidden, I knew.

That gladiator, the one Leith killed the day I first saw him, must have been his friend. I wasn’t certain why he cut that man’s hair. I didn’t know Leith, and in many ways, I still don’t know him. Yet even then, I didn’t see Leith’s actions as coldhearted. Already, I saw more. And I was right.

What he must have felt ending his friend’s life is unfathomable. I fight back tears at the thought. The tears, should any fall, belong to him. I won’t steal a single drop. I don’t deserve to.

While Leith slept, Father and Sonu added another coat of gold fire hornet venom to the rope that surrounds the cottage. They did a good job of covering this extra line of defense with forest debris, except the fresh, sharp scent pricks my nose and I can’t fight my sneeze.

“Are you all right?” Leith asks. “Don’t tell me the elf healer is getting a cold.” His voice remains heavy from sleep and likely a great deal more pain.

“Elves don’t get colds.” I take in a deep breath, welcoming the crisp aroma of dark-green leaves, damp bark and stone, and lush, moist soil.

His focus skips from me to the planter spilling with blood orange lilies, perhaps thinking their silky black pollen stirred my sneeze. I breathe in the tangy petals, and not just to free my nose from the lingering stench of the venom, but because they also overpower the smell of the serpent oil soaking the stump they rest on. While pretty, blood orange lilies are also practical.

I pause and lift the planter so that Leith sees the match secured to the base. “If you’re ever in trouble, strike it hard against the stump. It will catch fire and surround the perimeter of the cottage in a protective wall of flames.”

He laughs without humor. “I noticed the rope when I first arrived, but the match and the stump are pure genius.” He cocks an eyebrow. “I take it this is your way of thwarting my escape?”

“As if anything could keep you here.”

It will help protect Leith, but the cottage wasn’t warded for him.

He eyes the cottage carefully. “That’s prairie mint covering every inch of those exterior walls.”

“It is,” I confirm.

He nods. “It holds a ton of water. It’d keep whoever’s in there safe from the flames.”

At the mention of flames, I shudder, and Leith’s sharp gaze traces over me. “Those defenses aren’t for me, though, are they?” he asks. “They’re for you.”

“Yes.”

We resume walking.

“After the assassination attempt and fire at the castle…Father didn’t think it safe for us to be underfoot,” I explain.

“Why?”

I expel a deep breath. “Because my father didn’t kill my grandmother, which means the real killer is still out there, Leith.”

He pauses and reassesses the grounds as if seeing them for the first time. “Do you have a contingent of guards? Can they be trusted?” He eyes the path that leads to the main house. “This keep doesn’t have high enough walls or anything protecting it from an attack from the forest side.”

“Yes, well, it’s better than living within the castle walls, where an enemy could be lurking around any corner,” I mutter.

“Is that why you moved?” he asks, lifting a long branch out of the way for me.

I duck under. “Partially.” I don’t bother to add that the castle was just filled with too many memories of my grandmother and Papa. “Visiting again soon for the council meetings will be interesting.”

When Leith doesn’t comment, I continue, “Uncle Vitor suggested I start attending when I announced my previous engagement. I hope the invitation still stands even though my fiancé met an untimely demise.”

Leith shrugs. “Not my fault he couldn’t hold on to his sword.”

I roll my eyes and start to respond, but Leith interrupts.

“What’s that?” he asks.

I follow his line of sight and see the small house we built for our staff. “That’s where Pasha, Musy, and Sonu live.”

“Your cooks and the gardener?” Leith asks. “You gave them their own house? Not just a servants’ quarters in your own?”

I tilt my chin. “They never had a home of their own.” His deep frown lines begin to smooth, satisfied with my response. Yet… “Your query sounded more like an accusation. Do you think royal families so incapable of being kind?”

Something like guilt softens his sea-glass eyes. “Maybe not all of them.”

There he goes again, curling my toes with his words, and that smirk twists my insides in all the best ways.

I veer us to the right, avoiding the small trail that leads deeper into the dense forest and instead following the path to where the trees thin and unveil the masterpiece of a hidden lake.

The water is never the same color, changing with the tones in the sky. Today, it’s a pale blue, as close to white as I’ve ever seen. Sun storks in tricolors of pink, turquoise, and orange flap their wings wildly as they break through the waterfall, enjoying a refreshing shower before resuming their calls.

Leith takes in everything from the soothing color and light reflecting along the gentle waves, to the rainbow that always appears beneath the fall on sunny days, to the flight of toadstool butterflies and the whoosh of birds zipping back and forth.

When Leith finally speaks, I can hear his heart breaking. He takes slow, steady breaths, his eyes closing briefly. “Will you…show me the best view of this lake?”

In the brief time we’ve known each other, we’ve experienced many things together, good and bad, hopeful and not. But I know that the most important thing we’ve shared is happening right here and now. I walk toward the left side of the lake, guiding Leith.

We step carefully over the quartz that casts its own unique sparkles along the water. In a few more steps, we’re here, where a large bed of moss and flowers awaits. It is the best and most comfortable place to nap on warm days like this, and it’s the only place where the waterfall spills pink foam.

“The boulders at the base of the fall are rose quartz,” I say before he can ask. “No matter the time of year, the sun’s rays always find them. The minerals in the water have healing properties, too. I think it’s because it’s so beautiful”—I smile—“even the Erth’s magic wants to be here.”

He opens his palm. Strands of withering dark-blond hair tied together with string shouldn’t speak such volumes. But they do.

Leith rolls the only remains of his friend between his fingers. “His name was Sullivan. I’ve been waiting for the right place to bury him,” he says.

I remain silent. Right now, Leith doesn’t need my words. He just needs my heart.

His tormented gaze meets mine. “I killed him. That day I fought the dragon. I killed my friend so I could win the match.”

I know. I saw.

I’ll never forget.

Leith’s features are perpetually stone, not so much as a stitch of vulnerability in sight. Even now…save his eyes.

My chest aches for Sullivan. For Leith. For what it cost them both. “Tell me about Sullivan,” I say, feeling how much he needs to.

The melody of birds and the soothing sounds of the falling water melt away. Leith’s silence is unbearable. When he does speak, it’s worse.

“We met when I was twenty-two and he had just turned forty. I’m not sure how we started speaking—we just did, even though gladiators guard themselves carefully.”

Each syllable that flows from Leith’s mouth holds enough emotion to fill this lake.

“There were long, cold nights when frost licked the bars where we huddled in the driest corner of the barracks we could find. There were other moments when we thought the rain wouldn’t end until it drowned us.” His expression softens. “Those were the best nights with him. We shared stories of our youth, of home. He had a biting sense of humor. Sharp as an axe. Even in those darkest days, he’d find some way to make me laugh.” He almost smiles as if remembering something. “If it wasn’t for him, I’m not sure I’d have made it through. Maeve…coming to Arrow…we just wanted a little more than what we had. We needed it.”

Leith’s body falls perfectly still. The memory is still raw. “That last match…Sullivan lost his legs and part of an arm,” he says. “He was hurt beyond healing.” He bows his head, the extent of his actions too wrong to bear. “That doesn’t make what I did right.”

Leith takes a deep breath and another. “You know what he told me? He said, ‘What are you waiting for? Do you think I’d let you live?’” He curses and clenches the hand holding the hair. “The thing is, I think he would have.”

I cup his face with my hands. “Leith,” I say. “The hardest lesson I’ve learned as a healer is that sometimes, all you can do is end the pain.” My bottom lip quivers. “Sometimes it’s the only grace left to give.”

He shakes his head, remorse heavy in his voice. “On the toughest days, even when fear battered me, I was never a coward. I was that day. I shouldn’t have given in to those fucking rules. I should have held my ground and challenged any guard demanding I kill Sullivan—I should have demanded an audience with Vitor and Soro!”

“What would that have done?” I ask. The thought of Leith challenging them scares the hell out of me. I know Soro. Leith would not have made it far. And Vitor… He will do anything for the good of the kingdom, and he believes that’s the continuation of the games. “Sullivan would have succumbed to his injuries, and they’d have an excuse to kill you, too.”

“But I would have taken them with me,” he snaps. His eyes darken. “I would have sliced them from throat to groin and torn out their hearts for what they’ve made us do—all for fucking coin!”

It’s mostly true. Vitor and Soro forced Leith to kill his friend to satisfy the people’s greed. And not just for coin—for blood.

“They cheered, remember?” Leith says, jolting me back to the moment. “The entire crowd was on their feet when I cut Sullivan’s hair from his corpse. To them, I was another barbarian fulfilling his duty to entertain.” He looks at me. “They never imagined that me , a gladiator, a murderer , would have the heart to honor his friend.”

“I knew you would,” I say.

Leith is brutal in the arena, but he’s no brute. He’s a good man who did all this for his family, long before he did anything for himself. And killer or not, he’s capable of kindness that men with riches have never thought to give.

I hope that he believes me. “You were a true friend.”

He turns away, gazing across the lake. “Sullivan would have liked it here,” he says quietly.

His hardened exterior returns, yet he slowly drops to his knees, the blanket over his shoulders slipping away onto the ground as he clutches the pieces of his fallen friend against his heart. He closes his eyes and recites an old poem reserved for the brave.

The warrior,

He led the way,

Through blood,

Through fear,

Through rage,

But when death became the foe he could not beat,

He faced it willingly and at last won his peace.

I kneel beside him and lower my head.

When he’s done, Leith scoops a section of moss away with a flat stone. With care, he places the strands of Sullivan’s hair into the soil and covers them with the moss he removed. The flat stone becomes the marker to Sullivan’s grave. It’s simple and perfect amidst the bountiful flora.

I gently pull a lily from the cluster beside that and rest it over the grave, using the language of my elven ancestors to bid Sullivan infinite serenity.

This twisted bloodbath cannot be allowed to continue. It is a stain on our kingdom, on our culture. By the great phoenix, even if it means Vitor’s death, I must be queen.