Abaddon's Gift

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Graydon growled his way through most of the winter formal.

When Naena entered, a hushed silence came over the room, as there should have been. She looked magnificent, the dress clinging to her as if she were draped in magic itself.

He watched carefully as she danced with the merchant and said her little words of thank you. He watched Maeno dance and laugh with her, feeling a fury build inside him. He said and did nothing, simply allowing the little act of rebellion to play out.

Once they sat, he slipped in, asked for her presence and then left.

He stepped through the single opened garden door, a small one to one side of the ballroom that allowed servants to come and go without interfering with the main doors. With Naena directly behind him, he made his way to a little sitting area. There, they settled on a bench.

Naena sat with her back straight, shoulders back as they had been practicing. Her full attention was Graydon, and there was a strange, excited edge to that attention.

"With Theon now gone, it's safe for me to say this," Graydon said. "While we're gone, you have to keep up on your exercises. Not the ones I gave you. I want you to take some time for yourself, but what Theon gave you."

Naena's features fell. Her face turned away for the barest of seconds before a fury came over her.

"I know that, Graydon," she said with her face away from him.

Frowning, Graydon got that prickling feeling up the back of his neck that told him he was about to be in a great deal of pain. Naena faced him and let out a huff, then shook her head as she did a... it was a ...

She didn't glare. Her mouth was almost relaxed, not clenched but, at the same time, still stiff. Her chin jutted down a little as if she were determined not to grind her teeth. And her face a thing where it appeared to hold no emotion at all but her eyes were trying to light the air on fire.

It was a look he had never seen before, and he never wanted to see again.

Graydon's mind began reeling back, wondering what he had said or done.

He was giving her a warning no one had offered him, saving her from a whooping when Theon got back and realized she had taken a break.

He should have been the hero.

"A war mage must always be prepared to face whatever comes their way," Naena said.

Her voice all too calm, too still, too controlled, as she spoke to his chin, or thereabouts.

She stood and shook her head, muttered something under her breath, and began walking away.

"Where are you going?" Graydon called after her, standing as he did so.

"Bed," Naena snapped at him.

The next look she cast him made his heart stop. There was a familiarity about it, one he couldn't quite place. One that made him want to turn to the side and cover his most tender bits. The look was cast in the barest moment as she turned back, gave him that perfect curtsey they had practiced for so long, and then straightened and floated away.

That's what it looked like. Not walked, not waltzed, but floated, as if her feet never touched the ground.

Graydon stared at her bare, retreating back in stunned silence. A horror came over him as he realized that he hadn't seen that look in some time. Not since her first week at Amos when she believed he was the enemy. Hatred, anger, and walls stood between them.

And he didn't even know why.

He knew that was a problem, but not how to fix the problem. So, he did the smartest thing he knew.