Chapter 12: Walk Away

"No," I said.

Jorund blinked.

"I won't order you away," I said.

"Not tonight, not ever, not for a test."

"Brenna."

"If I tell you to go, and you go, you've proved nothing.

"If I tell you to go, and you come back, you've proved nothing either."

"Then what?"

"Then I say it in my own voice, the same one I used on the wall.

"Go if you want to.

"Stay if you want to.

"I won't say another word about it."

I took a breath.

"The Pull is mine.

"It's not yours to carry."

They looked at each other.

Caelan rubbed the back of his neck.

"I hate that this is the sensible answer."

"So do I," said Jorund.

Neither of them moved.

I stood in front of them with my arms crossed, shaking, wet to the knees.

The silence went on for a long time.

I walked away first.

I went up the bank to where Eira held the horses, and mounted without speaking.

I rode back to Ironwatch alone, with sixty riders behind me who would not meet my eyes.

I did not look back.

Behind me, one by one, I heard two horses turn away into the dark, in opposite directions.

A day passed.

I did not sleep.

I walked the walls, and I drilled the Host, and I answered every question with a single curt word.

Eira followed me around with a worried face and a jug of tea.

By evening of the second day, I had given up pretending.

I sat on the bed in my own room, with a letter from the dead captain of my childhood in my lap.

I had found it in the bottom of a trunk.

It said, "Be a good girl, Bren, and never raise your voice."

I had thought it was a joke.

A knock came at the door.

I knew the weight of it before I opened it.

Caelan Gournay stood in the corridor with dust in his hair and a split in his lip.

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