Chapter 68

Chapter 68

The Villain

Trystan’s skin was aflame.

In part due to his fever just now breaking, but it could mostly be attributed to the scene playing out before him—a scene that included two large men standing over his apprentice like she was quarry.

Sage leaped to her feet, standing in front of both men. “Sir, don’t be rash. It isn’t as it appears.”

Trystan was on her in seconds. The delirium of sickness still fogging his thoughts, he tugged her arm toward him when he spied blood from a scrape on her elbow. His face darkened, and so did his thoughts.

“What. Is. That?” He pointed to it calmly, disguising the rage behind his words. His mist called to her, coiling around her, climbing up and circling the wound. It lit red. It was fresh.

Sage furrowed her brow. “Would you believe me if I said a plant did it?”

His head felt like it had a twenty-pound weight on it and his eyelids were heavy, but he fought against the sleepiness to answer, “Unfortunately.”

Sage reached down and picked up the thin sword that the footman had dropped. She sighed. “The Fortis brothers were teaching me how to fight ‘properly.’” She put air quotes around the word.

Becky snorted.

Raphael cut in, commanding attention the way a leader would. “Your assistant lacks coordination and any sense of finesse—”

“Apprentice,” Trystan corrected coldly. “If you’re going to address her like she isn’t here, I caution you to at least do it with her proper title.”

Even though he was lashing out, Trystan knew he wasn’t truly angry with Raphael. In fact, he appreciated them giving Sage some self-defense training; gods knew she could use it. But her mother was set to arrive in the very near future, which meant that she would want to revisit their kiss, revisit the possibility of…what, he still didn’t quite know. But what the destiny monster had whispered to him… He shuddered.

There was no way forward with Sage. No hope. And worst of all, he wasn’t even surprised. This was his life—had always been his life, in all honesty.

This was being The Villain.

Raphael huffed, tossing a sword back into the cart.

Roland sighed, removing his glasses and buffing them against his shirt. “Forgive Raphael. He has not a romantic bone in his body. I think it’s very gallant you want to ensure she is properly recognized for her advancements. There’s clearly a great respect and love between you.”

It was as if a hand had reached out to slap him before diving into his chest to rip out his heart. “I am The Villain,” he said with a calmness he did not feel. “I do not have the time or the patience for love, and I certainly would not pursue such a useless emotion with someone who works for me.”

He looked directly at Roland. Anywhere but at Sage.

Trystan had witnessed a carriage accident as a boy. Watched the wheels twist and bend against a stone wall, the doors and roofing bowed and gnarled. Watched it and wondered quietly to himself why nobody could’ve stopped it. But now, he understood it with stark clarity.

Because he was no longer watching a carriage accident.

He was the carriage accident.

A cloud broke, and a light drizzle began to sprinkle down upon them; it felt as if the rain were trying to extinguish the flames he’d just made of his life, of his relationship with Sage.

It had to be done.

Because he was a glutton for punishment, his eyes landed on her. She didn’t flinch at the raindrop running down the slope of her nose, just stared at him with no expression on her face.

“Come now, Roland. It would be nonsensical for The Villain to find love,” Raphael said, a scoff in his voice. “With his bevy of enemies? Always living life on guard? It would be a disaster. A nightmare. I’m certain one couldn’t find someone more difficult to love.”

“I didn’t find it difficult at all,” Sage whispered.

Everything froze.

Trystan’s head slowly turned toward her in the painful quiet, his mouth falling open. The bees stopped buzzing; the plants didn’t sway. Nothing else existed. Just her. Just Sage. In all her splendid color.

He said his words with such carefulness, like he was treading on glass. “What did you just say?”

She took a step away from him and pulled in an anxious breath. She made a fist, then released it. A sharp sound of swinging metal cut the air as Sage’s discarded dagger flew into her waiting hand.

Raphael frowned, likely shocked at her ability to call the powerful weapon. “I don’t have time for this,” he grumbled as he stalked back toward the house.

Sage’s knuckles went white around the dagger, and the torchlight illuminated pure anger etched in the lines of her mouth. “Perhaps you all should join him.”

Nobody moved.

“Now. Please.”

Trystan had never heard a plea sound so threatening. He’d be impressed if he wasn’t so shaken.

I didn’t find it difficult at all.

How did one move on from such a statement? How could he ever move forward when those words replayed on an endless, agonizing loop in his mind?

All the others moved immediately at her words, however, scattering back to the fortress. Becky leaned in toward Sage as she passed. “There is a very brave person standing here, and it’s not The Villain.”

“Ms. Erring!” This was mutiny.

Instead of looking remorseful, the woman just spared him a quick glance before scurrying after her brothers, a lightness to her steps that was different from the usual weight in her gait.

When his attention turned back to Sage, he was met with the tip of a dagger. The drizzle and the torchlight created an ethereal glow over her dampening curls. He arched a brow, his eyes going to the steel and then to hers.

I didn’t find it difficult at all.

“Sage…are you…all right?” Did I destroy you, just as destiny said I would?Have I already fulfilled destiny’s prophecy?

She picked up one of the stray thin swords and tossed it to him; he caught it easily. “Do you mean am I embarrassed of unrequited feelings? No, I am not. And since all I am to be is your apprentice, then I demand that my learning begins now.”

Unrequited? What a fucking cosmic joke.

His lips parted. The rain mixed with the sweat from his broken fever on his skin. “Learning what, precisely?”

She stepped toward him, stretching her arms high above her head, loosening her shoulders, and bringing her chest up. The top curves of her breasts were peeking out from her corset. He looked down at the grass and the tops of his shoes.

And that was when Sage demanded: “Teach me to fight like The Villain.”