Chapter 5: Nathaniel

Nathaniel woke slowly, his mind foggy, his head aching and his stomach roiling. Really, he thought it should be much worse – he’d started drinking early, and while he didn’t remember how much he’d had to drink, his actions the previous evening indicated that he should have stopped much sooner than he had. Given that he’d apparently drunk until enraged, then pathetic and sloppy, and then blacked out, he was surprised he wasn’t feeling more ill – he would have expected to spend the day with his head in a chamber pot.

He supposed he should have felt lucky – vomiting until his stomach bled didn’t really appeal – but given what he did remember about the night before, he wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t prefer to spend the day sicking up all over himself than facing the people he knew waited for him down the hall.

‘How could I?’ he berated himself. That soldier who’d glanced at Kallian hadn’t even said anything, never mind done anything inappropriate; Nate had been lucky the man’s friends had realised who Nate was and dragged them apart before Nate had done something unforgiveable – or had his ass handed to him if his friends had chosen a different way to intervene. And then Sierra ... he didn’t even know her, but the poor woman – Aedan’s sister, and wasn’t that just the most insane thing he’d heard? Which was saying something given he’d just spent weeks being tortured by his own father – certainly hadn’t deserved to put up with him as a maudlin drunk. He remembered pouring his heart out to her – awkwardly, given his intoxication – but not much after that. He had a vague memory of everything sliding sideways, the hallway lurching as he was carried, and then ... nothing.

He had slept better than he could have imagined – he had expected nightmares, at the least. I guess all that practice at the archery butts paid off, he mused as he slowly got dressed. It had been a strange experience, yet somehow so calming, standing next to someone and firing arrow after arrow, not even looking to see where he’d hit, trusting his aim and losing himself in the rhythm. It reminded him of cold mornings as a child when he’d escape outside to practice rather than listen to his parents scream at each other in the family quarters – he’d learned to let it all go, to clear his mind and let the time slip around him until a servant would come looking for him for a meal or a lesson. It had all come back to him in a rush, and he had given in to the soothing familiarity gratefully. It had clearly helped more than he had any right to expect, too, because he felt reasonably well-rested and surprisingly light of heart.

He thought about what Aedan’s sister had said; he considered everything from Kallian’s perspective, in the cool light flooding the barracks, and while he didn’t think he’d ever completely forgive himself for giving in to his father, he could also admit that he hadn’t been entirely wrong to make the decision he had. He was just grateful not to have had to go through with it, and he realised he’d neglected to thank those who’d rescued him. He resolved to fix that oversight, and with a small smile, left the barracks to do just that.