Spero's Arc

Chapter 3 of 10

The bandit camp sat in a hollow off the road. Spero and Valeria crept close at dawn. Behind a rope, a small forest fawn shook on thin legs. Its mother was gone. The bandits meant to sell it. Spero raised one hand for Valeria to wait. She didn't. She saw the cage and charged. Spero cursed and followed. He tried to hold the line she left open, but she'd already broken it. A bandit lunged past her guard. His blade sliced the rope and the fawn bolted straight toward the swinging steel. Spero dove and caught the animal against his chest. The sword bit into the dirt beside its head. Close. Too close. They drove the bandits off. But the fawn trembled in Spero's arms, one hoof cut. Valeria stood over the fallen with her fists still up. "You almost got it killed," Spero said. "I won." "You didn't watch me. I watched you. I always watch you." His voice shook. "But you don't trust me back." Her jaw tightened. She turned away. Spero saw it then. The training had made them fight as two, but only one way. She trusted him to cover her. She didn't trust him with anything else. And she felt him holding back too, the same wall she carried. He made a choice. "Come with me. There's a place I need to show you." He led her to the burned house. Black beams stuck up like broken ribs. The porch had caved. Spero stopped at the doorway and did not go in. "This was my home," he said. "My mother got sick here. We had no money for a healer. I watched her die." He touched the wooden pendant at his throat. Inside it he kept their picture. "I had a friend once. Ramiro. When my power showed, he told everyone. Said strength was all that mattered and I was a freak. He left me alone." Valeria stared at the ash. For a long moment she said nothing. "My parents were like your friend," she said at last. "I came from a place where everyone had to be the same. I was born too strong. They were afraid of me. My own family gave me up." Her voice cracked. "So I stopped needing anyone. Needing means you can be thrown away." Spero looked at her. "I've been hiding from you too. Waiting for you to leave, like everyone else." "I know." She wiped her face fast, angry at the tears. "I felt it." "No more of that," he said. "No more secrets. Not between us." She held out her hand. Rough, scarred, steady. "No more secrets." He took it. The fawn nudged his leg, and for the first time Valeria smiled without wanting to fight. That night they set the fawn free at the wood's edge. It bounded off, whole. Spero felt the wall between them gone. Now, at last, they were truly ready to head south, together, toward the sealed report and his sister.