Hollis
I storm out of the copse of trees, clenching and unclenching my hands. I have to hit something. There has to be something in this Goddess-forsaken place for me to hit. I march back to the mock-training ground Zain and I slapped together, still empty, but we've only finished the fucking archery part.
It's better than nothing. I shoulder one of the heavy bows, nock an arrow, and let it fly. Bullseye.
Inhale, aim, fire, exhale. The next arrow lands directly next to it.
Tension knots my muscles, overtightens my grip. The third quivers in the ring just outside the bullseye, its bright-red fletching taunting me. I throw the bow down in the grass and storm down the shooting range. All fucking clear. And I have to get that last arrow out before anybody else sees it. I haven't missed the bullseye from this close since I was sixteen.
I'm not an idiot. I know I went a little overboard. The look in her eyes is going to haunt me in my dreams tonight; she was like a baby bird looking at a foot coming down on top of it, her soft blue irises shimmering with tears. And I knew she just had this awful talk with her mother, though she made it fucking hard to remember. But what the hell was she expecting, cornering me like that after we agreed that wasn't a good time to talk?
At the target, I rip the arrows free one after the next, not nearly as careful as I should be. One of the heads chips. I snap the arrow over my knee and throw it on the ground. The blacksmith fucking hates reforging chipped arrows, and I know our coffers are full enough for one replacement.
She clearly wasn't going to let it drop. She left me with no choice. I scrape my hands through my hair. I need to talk to-
Eva. Dammit.
'Still at the bar?' I ask Zain through mind-link.
'Fuck training. These guys are way better at drinking like they wanna die,' he slurs back.
Good enough for me. I abandon the weapons, knowing Father's going to be pissed about that later, and storm off.
Music and laughter leak out of the bar Lilywind set up at the center of their circle of tents. It's audible almost a hundred feet away. I crack my knuckles as I approach. Hopefully, they don't mind bar fights.
Zain, the other delegates, and a couple of dozen clay steins fill the middle table. They're laughing louder and more drunkenly than anyone else. They've even collected a couple of other patrons, including Candace's younger brother, Finn.
"Hollis!" Zain yells as I walk in. "Another round!"
A woman in an apron walks over with another tray of steins and starts handing them out. A very small part of me is impressed. How the hell did Lilywind know to bring all this crap? Then, the woman pushes a beer into my hands, and I stop being anything but very thirsty. I tip the mug to my lips, chasing away the taste of her.
"Chug! Chug! Chug!" Someone starts chanting, and what seems like the rest of the bar joins in.
Breathless, I tilt my head back and finish off the last foamy dregs then slam the stein on the table. The group roars, and I grin.
Forget Eva. This is what I need. Applause is even better than punching something.
"What the fuck happened to you?" Zain hands me another stein, this one half-finished, as I sit on the low-slung bench.
Every head turns in my direction. Father would want me to give some civilized, political answer.
"I've got a girl," I say. "Needed some time with her."
Laughter and hoots fill the air. Someone claps me on the shoulder, sloshing more beer on the already sticky table.
"I thought you didn't mate." Zain shakes his head. He doesn't believe me.
"Who said I fucking did?" I raise my beer and cover the pain in my mark by chugging it, too.
"I thought you were some kind of monk." Finn raises his stein to me with a smirk. "Aren't you promised?"
"Fuck that!" Ty hollers. "You should get what you can."
"See, that's what I think." I gesture to him with my beer. "She's not exactly on the same page."
Zain shakes his head and groans. "That is the worst."
I nod, bolstered by the agreement.
"Today, we were having a nice time when she fucking corners me, demands to know what kind of future I see for us." I laugh. Saying it out loud, here, it sounds so ridiculous.
"What'd you say?" Finn asks.
"I told her I didn't have a future with anyone who asked those kinds of questions."
More laughter. My smile grows. I can barely feel the mark's sting. I'm not the problem, Candace is. She demanded answers after we agreed that it wasn't the time to talk. What did she expect? I chug my beer, and before I can even put the stein down, someone is shoving another one in my hand. Zain is right. Training was useless. Drinking is obviously where these delegates shine.
King Anwen shoulders one of the lower-level nobles out of the way and sits down next to his brother. Immediately, Finn stops laughing and straightens up. So do most of the lower-level nobles, and I realize there's music playing from somewhere that I haven't been able to hear this whole time.
"What's so funny?" King Anwen asks.
Finn shakes his head at me. I roll my eyes. Sure, his brother's a king, but he's been king for less than a year, and I'm a crown prince. And neither of them even know I'm talking about their sister.
"I was just telling these guys how I handle women who don't listen." I lean back in my seat and wave my beer. It's heavier than I remember. Some spills over the side. "I've been having a great time with this girl, but she interrupted that to ask about our future after we already said we weren't going to talk about that, so I put her back in her place."
King Anwen closes his eyes and takes a long, deep breath. Brave man. I wouldn't want to smell this place anymore than I have to.
"Finn," he says. "Thump Prince Hollis on the back of the head for me so I don't have to start an international incident."
"Hey-"
Finn stands up and obeys before I can get a full sentence out. He doesn't thump me hard-he's too scared, I bet-but the blow jars my brain enough to speed the arrival of my hangover.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" I demand. "I'll start an international incident all over your ass, no matter whether the king or some barely crown prince hits me."
"You like this girl?" Anwen asks calmly.
I splutter. "Stand up and fucking face me. Man to man."
"You like her enough to keep spending time with her, at least." Anwen clenches his jaw. "And she likes you enough that she does, too."
"Who cares?" My blood boils in my veins. I lurch to my feet, ready to fight. Where's the squirrelly bastard I remember from his wedding? I should've pissed him right off by now.
"If you wanted to treat her like a man, you could've reminded her you weren't going to talk about big stuff right then." He looks up at me, completely unperturbed. "Or you could've told her the truth, which is that you're too damn scared of what a future with her might mean to face it."
I lunge across the table with a punch, but Zain catches me before I can make contact. Everyone starts muttering, taking sides. I grit my teeth and glare at Anwen. Last time I saw him, he needed my fucking help. Where the hell does he get off talking to me like this now?
"Being scared is normal." Anwen stands. "Reacting like a child and blowing up instead of facing your fear isn't. If you actually like her, or you just want to stop being a chickenshit, go to her and tell her that." He pulls Finn up. "But we're leaving."
The two of them walk away. Dead, flat silence fills the bar in their wake. I clench and unclench my fists around nothing. I don't even remember putting down my stein. A hangover pulses in my temples. Zain's arm around my chest is the only thing keeping me from taking off after that so-called king and teaching him a lesson he won't forget.
Somewhere deep down in my chest, a voice that sounds uncomfortably like Eva's reminds me no one has ever talked to me like that before. But that stupid fucking voice doesn't mean that he was being disrespectful. It means he was acting like an older brother.
Or a father.
I crush the voice to pieces, shove every thought it put in my head away, and order another round. The best way out of a hangover is to go deeper.