4. Killian

CHAPTER FOUR

KILLIAN

I didn't want to be the kind of ass who said someone was beautiful when they were angry, but also, it wasn't quite right. Hector was always beautiful. There was something in his strength, his flashing eyes, his set jaw, that I found deeply compelling, but it wasn't about him being angry, and it wasn't about me mocking his anger.

It was about his passion.

Sometimes, I thought we were all out of passion on the wall.

What time did we have for emotions, when we were busy fighting every day for the lives of all Nemeda?

So yes, Hector's emotions were something special. Something fiery hot and utterly breathtaking, and I wouldn't let myself be the one who took him from the world. Just because Nemedans, as a whole, were a naive lot who thought love was real, and it alone could make someone find their wings, didn't mean that was the truth. What that was, was a lot of fucking nonsense.

Still, I was up half the night worrying about Hector and his reaction. I knew people well enough to know that when they didn't get what they wanted in one place, they looked elsewhere. He hadn't fancied himself in love with me, after all. He'd just been looking for a bed partner. So why wouldn't he have gone off and found someone else to scratch that itch, who could just as easily give him Avianitis as me?

I scrubbed my hands over my face and tried to shake it off, pulling myself out of my bedroll and dressing for the day as slowly as I ever had.

Almost forty, my joints reminded me. Almost forty years old, and not getting younger. The exceptionally cold winter we'd just gotten through had almost been more than my abused bones wanted to deal with. Old aches and pains had flared up; a knee I'd dislocated in my teen years, and the arm that I'd broken just under a decade ago.

I'd thought that arm would be the end of me at the time. I'd broken ribs at the same time, and it had been almost a month of recovery before the healer had deemed me fit for the wall.

I wasn't in the habit of ignoring our healers, but it had been a struggle not to simply head back out. Lying in bed staring at the ceiling wasn't something I was good at.

The only thing that had held me still had been the memory of my mother—not of her disapproval, but the fact that she'd made the same mistake, and died for it. She'd gone back to the wall after an injury before the healer had wanted her to, and it had been a mistake. Her reaction time had been slowed, her skills frayed at the edges from the long inactivity and continuing pain, and she simply hadn't pulled her arm up quick enough to block that final blow.

Somehow, I didn't think Hector had the same example. Or if he did, maybe he hadn't taken it the same way. I didn't know his family history, but there was something strange about his dynamic with Paris and their sister. More like he was their father than their brother. They didn't respect him quite the same way one would a parent, but they accepted his caretaking easily enough, so I wasn't sure what it all meant.

But then, I'd had a dozen or more fathers over the years, and respected only a small handful of them, all of whom were still a part of my inner circle. I didn't think I had anything like a normal idea of what a father was. The Crane weren't like other clans, in that. There was little pairing off and marrying, forming tiny family units that were entirely self-sustaining, in their own homes on their own farms, separate from everyone else.

The Crane lived in our palace, or a handful of forts along the border of Nemeda, and all of us were family. Hundreds of people living together, thousands in the case of the palace, and we were one enormous family, not one sweet little unit with two parents and three cute children. We all had to rely on each other, every day, to survive to the next.

So when someone I thought of as part of my extended family, Paris, marched up, glaring at me, I took it seriously. "What the hell were you thinking, telling Hector he had to serve on the wall?"

I threw my hands up in supplication, but before I could even answer, he crossed his arms over his chest, continuing to glare, but now looking hurt as well. "Esmerelda didn't have to serve on the wall. She said so. Why would Hector?"

I hesitated, and that didn't help. Esmerelda had done more than serve. She'd given us valuable information about the enemy, worth more than anyone's year on the wall had ever been. But she hadn't actually served. Her husband had served almost a decade, and we'd accounted one of his years on her behalf, even though truly, it hadn't been necessary.

Esmerelda had been a miracle, and saved thousands of lives.

While I didn't question that Paris and his family were wonderful, and so very important to Brett and the Hawk Clan, they hadn't given us a fraction of what Esmerelda had, and I didn't want to disrespect her offering. Even if I agreed with Paris in spirit and didn't have any need for them to serve on the wall.

So I crossed my own arms. "Esmerelda defected from the southlands. She gave us information on their troop movements and war plans and leaders." At his hurt expression, I sighed and softened. I let my shoulders drop a fraction, leaning down to meet his gaze head on instead of towering over him. "Paris, I don't think you or your family owe me anything. This isn't about me, or the Crane, or debts. I didn't demand that your brother come to the wall. I think... I think he needs to. For himself."

At that, Paris crumpled, leaning on me, eyes welling with tears. "I don't want to lose him. He could—he might—we're not fighters."

I wrapped an arm around him, turning us so I could lead him back to his new husband. "We train all new people, Paris. I promise you, I won't let your brother stand a single shift on the wall until I'm confident he can handle it."

It didn't fix anything, but he slumped against me, no longer glaring, and not crying. "Promise?"

"Promise. It's no more than I'd do for anyone, Paris. We don't just throw people's lives away. I promise you that. No one is expendable." No need to point out that just because we did our best didn't mean no one died. But he needed to know that we'd do our best to send Hector back to him unharmed. And I would, I swore to myself. If it was in my power, Hector wouldn't suffer so much as a single injury in his time with my clan.

Too bad that wasn't a promise I could be certain to keep.