Chapter 21:
Leave Jade Alone
Boots stomp the mud around me. “Salts!” Giddius curses. I don’t bother to turn my head to face him. Nothing matters right now. I just need to recover.
An assortment of supplies is dumped out the bags. Giddius empties them onto the ground. “This worthless mit has led to yet more loss. The navigation sheets are lost. The rations are lost. The coin is lost. All swallowed by the Merk because she cannot manage even the most basic of tasks.”
I remember now – Trevus was carrying the bag over his head, but he no longer had it after he saved me. Giddius’s scolding remarks run off me like water. I’m too exhausted to care.
“Leave Jade alone,” Trevus says.
“What is it to you?” Giddius spits.
He steps beside my head, his boots so close to my eyes that they blur. “Even with your sorcery, you not only let yourself become a hostage, but a body of water nearly finished you.”
Trevus rises to his feet. “Stop goading Jade.”
“Why? Does she have you under charm?” Giddius’s boot nudges my side, pushing me to roll over. I gingerly sit up, supporting myself with both arms. “You are as a child, a carried burden on every step.”
“Leave. Jade. Alone.”
Giddius turns to Trevus. “Or what?”
Trevus steps closer. “Or I shall put you in your place.”
Giddius’s hands ball into fists. He’d rather be dragged behind a horse than be reminded he’s Trevus’s subordinate.
Trevus is inches from Giddius, not allowing him any personal space. Giddius is a little shorter than Trevus, and it becomes more apparent when he’s forced to look up.
“You are no longer my Captain. I shall make my own path,” Giddius says.
Trevus’s face hardens. “Then so shall it be.”
Giddius points his finger in my direction. “The girl shall follow my party.”
Trevus grits his teeth. “No.”
“Marcellus! Make the square!” Giddius shouts.
Marcellus’s eyes jump between them, but he doesn’t move. Their team that seemed tight knit when leaving Antiock are now dueling over who shall take me as their prisoner.
Trevus gives Marcellus a nod. It snaps Marcellus out of his shock, and he draws a square in the dirt around them. His boot passes between me and the two men, separating us by a line in the mud.
Giddius gets into position on one side of the square. “A single round shall settle the matter,” he says.
Trevus takes the silver locket off his neck and tucks it in his pants pocket. Losing that locket would make Elie seem even further out of reach.
Giddius raises his fists up like a boxer. Trevus remains still. Without oban shirts in the way, their strong builds are out in the open. Despite being shorter, Giddius doesn’t lack muscle. His bow-trained arms carry more bulk, while Trevus is lean.
Trevus holds the stoicism of a stone statue. I’ve seen him angry before – when the wild men caught me – and he wasn’t like this. This is his expedition, where finding his mother is on the line, and it’s falling apart around him.
He believes sending me into Nepolis will help him reach the king, but it won’t. One woman has already lost her life because I used my connection on her. How could I possibly live as a free person committing the same crime to others? I can’t defend myself in Nepolis as Trevus believes. Sending me in there will achieve nothing but my execution for impersonating their leader.
Without warning, Giddius leaps forward and throws a right hook. Trevus twists around to dodge, but Giddius slams a left uppercut into his abdomen.
I tense. Trevus coughs, his body bending over as he stumbles back. No one could remain standing straight after a hit like that.
Trevus is barely on his feet, and if he falls, Giddius will have me. The thought of being alone with Giddius is terrifying. He’s cruel, like the guards in Antiock. If Trevus wasn’t here to protect me, Giddius may have hit me the way he just hit Trevus.
Giddius presses his advantage, slamming his fist into Trevus’s temple. His punch makes a horrible thumping noise that shakes my core. I want this to end. My eyes jump to Marcellus – the only one strong enough to step in. He stands outside the square with folded arms and a grim expression. It won’t end until one of them falls to the ground.
I shouldn’t care about Trevus. He’s my warden, and his plan will lead to my death. But every time he takes a hit, it’s not the fear of being in Giddius’s hands that makes my stomach roil – it’s the pain he’s enduring. I shouldn’t care. Giddius lands another punch to Trevus’s side. But I do.
Trevus is nearly doubled over. Giddius raises his knee to Trevus’s chest, but it stops short. Trevus catches his leg and shouts. He launches the leg up into the air. Giddius’s center of gravity is thrown off, and he’s rotated around by Trevus’s iron arms. His body slams back-first into the mud.
Giddius groans and rolls onto his side. He’s flat on the ground. Trevus took multiple hits without falling, but Giddius was down after just one.
Trevus stands over him. “You are finished!” he shouts.
Giddius pushes himself to his hands and knees. “No.” He slowly rises, looking a little wobbly. “One fortunate strike does not-”
Trevus’s fist crashes into Giddius’s chest with a heavy thud. Giddius stumbles backwards, and Trevus swings again for his face. “You!” Thud. “Are!” Thud. “Finished!” Thud. Trevus’s left fist hits Giddius’s cheek, sending him straight back into the mud.
Trevus’s shoulders roll up and down with each breath. Giddius is left groaning on his back. I didn’t know that Trevus could hit so hard, that his arms possessed so much strength. I think back to the times when I believed he was rough – after I made that comment about his mother at the tailor, and when he tackled me fleeing in the woods. He has been holding back every time.
With another groan of pain, Giddius rolls over to his side and gets up, but his swaying makes it look as if he may fall again. With a twist of his head, his malicious eyes find me.
“Do not even lay your gaze on Jade,” Trevus growls.
Giddius wipes his mouth and turns away. He tosses some of our supplies back in a bag. Trevus’s glare doesn’t leave him.
“Marcellus, this is a fool’s venture,” Giddius says.
“Then there is no better fool to lead us there,” Marcellus says.
With one last dirty look at Trevus, Giddius collects his bow and arrows, and he leaves. Soon he’s obscured by the woods, and all that is left is the roaring of the Merk.
After watching the trees for a long while, Trevus’s gaze returns to me. His eyes run up and down my frame. I’m still sitting in the mud. He opens his mouth to speak, but he stops himself. While he defeated Giddius, an ally turned adversary is never a victory.
Marcellus picks up the remaining items that Giddius dumped on the ground. His slow pace shows that he isn’t celebrating either.
Marcellus tosses Trevus the dry shirt that was carried above the water. Trevus puts his silver locket back around his neck and pulls his shirt over his shoulders.
Mephia seems no different to Versillia. We’re still in thick forest, and if I hadn’t been told that the Merk acts as the border, I wouldn’t have known we tread new land. After years trapped in that Versillian tower, the memories of my childhood in Mephia began to paint the country as a bright friendly place, free from oppression. Antiock’s soldiers never allowed me to forget that I wasn’t Versillian, but looking at it now, how different am I really? I was born on the other side of the river, and my voice isn’t like theirs. The differences are trivial.
While the land feels the same, the people I’m traveling with don’t. Our party of four is now three, and only two of us share the goal of arriving at Nepolis. As sullen as today may have been, I’m one step closer to getting away from these men. I’ll pay close attention to how they handle the night watch. If they expect to be at fighting strength before reaching Nepolis, they’ll need more than half a night’s sleep.
My wet clothes have left me frozen to the bone. I wish that I had a dry shirt like Trevus and Marcellus, but that would have meant crossing the river topless under their gaze.
A cold gust of wind sucks the warmth out of me. I wrap my shivering arms tight around my middle in an effort to conserve heat. The tree canopy blocks nearly all sunlight, leaving my outfit no less soaked than when I was in the Merk.
Trevus unbuttons his shirt and offers it to me without a word. I stop. He’d go bare chested in this weather just so I can have a dry shirt?
My eyes run up and down his frame. This man is a soldier, the one keeping me prisoner. He has no legitimate reason to give me his shirt.
I step around him. “I’m fine.”
Trevus puts a hand on my shoulder, twisting me back to face him. “Damp garments do not retain heat. ’Tis obvious that you are chilled.”
“What difference does it make to you?” It’s not so cold that I’ll die. He’ll meet his father regardless.
“As I stated before, you are a member of the party.”
I slide my shoulder free of his hand. “No. I’m a prisoner. Your offers only exist to keep me cooperative.” That has been drilled into me over and over again. The only time I matter is when I’m useful to others.
“I am not dressing you in my shirt in hopes of attaining your obedience. I am dressing you in my shirt because you are chilled.”
“That’s a lie!” I’m sick of playing his little games – the oban, the bathhouse, the tavern meal. “You don’t care if I’m cold. Your gesture is just more thinly guised manipulation.”
“I do care.”
“You’re a soldier. Soldiers aren’t like that.” All my memories of the tower come flooding back at once. “Soldiers throw freezing water. Soldiers mock and belittle. Soldiers swing their boots.” I’d scream in shock and be left shivering. They’d laugh at my distress, well after I was reduced to tears. I was always the one on the outside, the one to be hurt for their entertainment. Over and over, again and again. “Soldiers
don’t care
.”
“Jade, I do care about you.”
It doesn’t make any sense. I shake my head and look away.
He rests both hands on my shoulders, bringing my focus back to him. “You have been mistreated at the hands of others, but I am not one to mistreat you.”
His eyes don’t share the hostility common in soldiers. There’s only concern – the same concern from when we were in the middle of the Merk’s raging current. I trusted my life to him not because he needs my connection to reach his father, but because deep down it felt like he really cared.
He’s a Versillian soldier, just like all the men who hate me, who’ve tormented my last ten years. Yet he’s the only person in the whole world who cares about me. Why did it have to be him?
“Let us dress you in dry garments,” he says.
I nod.
He unbuttons my wet shirt, leaving it hanging on my frame. I turn my back to him and replace my shirt with his dry one. I pull it together as best I can with sleeved hands, then he buttons it up.
His arm rests across my shoulders, bringing me beside him. My breathing is uneven. His hold is comforting. Ignoring the thoughts protesting in my head, I resign myself to lean against him.
😂
Marcellus probably wishing he went with Giddius rn
im listening
😋
boy you better stfu its easy for your bigfoot stinky ass
idk maybe to finally be able to hurt her without Trevus protecting her
MY HEART
oh me oh my 😜
Becoming that’s probably true
Yes!
Dude, she’s was in prision for ten years of course she doesn’t know how to swim! Rude!
Same
OHHHWEEEEE THAS MY MF MANNN
OHHWEEEED THAS MY MF MANNN
More more more !!!!!
Bcoz of you
😢
great chapter !
UGH😭😭😭
OH
I love him I don’t care😭😭😭
So cute!
Awwww
LOL😄
Daddy
Whoaaaa😧😧
It was a good plan of hers to split the team and escape. She couldn’t know that there’s a possibility of going further with Giddius.
Dude she was in prison for YEARS since childhood, of course she doesn’t know how to swim🤦🏻♀️
I love how loyal he is
one down 2 to go
Yes, she also needs a friend as well as a partner lol
Exactly, it’s like she thinks this wouldn’t happen
Yeah, but he didn’t auctually want to hurt you…
Right? this was bound to happen…
Sweet
Poor girl is traumatized and being reminded of how she was treated
Sometimes its hard to tell the difference between a group being bad and indivuals being bad when your only experiences of members of a group have only been bad and involved painful experiences
He’s real sweet, but am I the only one who wants to hear Marcellus open up and be more of a friend to her?
She has been met with abuse, so expects no more
kindness
But she is not friends with kindess
Just accept the shirt… no use being cold and wet
Though I suppose that shirt wouod get wet soon anyway
Yes, because he cares about you… he just lost a comrad by defending you
Yeah fair enough not wanting to do that
That was your goal
You tell him buddy!
Boy went into protect mode real quick
I guess at least with the river she wasn’t intending on it being something that created trouble
But with the seeds already sewn it was only a matter of time before something like this happened
Well it’s not like you’re the embodiment of physical strengh
ouch
He’s the first person to see you for you, and not your magic