by Lizzy Ford
“I’m not saying that.” She did not know how to express her inner turmoil. “Where are we going today?” she asked instead.
“You go nowhere,” he replied. “I will take my revenge this morning.”
“Revenge,” she repeated. “Right now?
“Aye.”
He jammed another two daggers into the saddlebags.
“What does that entail?” she asked. “You are not facing an army alone, are you?”
“I will do to him what he did to me.”
“But didn’t he murder your little sisters?” It then dawned on her what he meant. “You’re going to murder his family?”
“His wife and child.”
Sela watched him uneasily in silence. While she understood him to be capable of violence, it had never crossed her mind he could – or would – murder a child.
“There is no honor in this,” she said. “How could you –”
“This is Inlander justice.”
“You said this man was committing Inlander justice against your family and murdered them. You also called him a coward!”
“If you are wise, you will hold your tongue.” Tieran glared at her. He yanked the door open and walked out.
Sela remained in the middle of the room for only a breath before striding out into the hallway. The image of Tieran murdering a little boy or girl left her feeling ill – and angry.
“You cannot do this, Tieran!” she called after him.
He stopped.
Sela resisted the urge to retreat. “Murdering a child will not bring you peace.”
“What do you know of what will bring me peace?” he retorted and faced her.
“I don’t need to know you or your customs to understand pain cannot be righted with more pain!”
“You have no understanding of the world,” he snapped and turned to leave.
“If you do this, I’ll leave!” she shouted.
“Then I will murder them and find you, as always, and you will not like what follows!” he yelled back.
She wracked her brain for any leverage she had against him. “Then I will marry that Lord Winlin, and you will be forced to leave the Inlands and serve another man’s gods, king, and priests! You will lose your freedom. All of it!”
He strode towards her. He stopped with his toes touching hers, his body rigid and eyes blazing.
Sela refused to back down.
“Do it,” he said in the soft, dangerous voice that made her insides quake.
She glared up at him, hating that he knew her mind well enough to understand she was losing her desire to chain herself to a man and king she did know, let alone to one she did not.
“I’m not the only one who values freedom,” Tieran said.
Furious he meant to follow through and even angrier she had no choice but to spend her life with mage-warrior with morals against everything she believed in, Sela whirled. “I’m taking my horse. You better pray I do not reach a body of water before you find me!” she yelled over her shoulder. “I will drown you!”
“You won’t last half a day on your own!”
Her pace quickened until she was running. Tears of anger blurred her eyes, and Sela found herself cursing Karav for abandoning her to the Inlander brute who had no heart and hated her more than she did him. How was she supposed to spend her life with him? He spoke of freedom, but she was little more than a slave to him, forced to go where he went, and unable to speak her mind without him threatening her.
She reached the stables and jerkily placed the saddle and bridle on the horse Karav had left. The well-bred gelding stood still. She finished and paused, sucking in deep breaths to calm herself.
What had the savage done with her horse anyway?
She breathed out a puff of air, forcing herself to calm.
What would Karav advise her to do? He always had the answers. Without him, she felt lost in every way. Her former guardian had been noble, honorable, and always willing to do what was right, no matter what the expense to himself. He had never once placed her in danger or abandoned her when she was distressed.
He would never murder an innocent child.
How could a man like Tieran ever have cared for anyone, when he was willing to murder the helpless for vengeance? At one point, he had to have loved his sisters. Was their loss so great, he was blind to the wrong he was about to commit, or was this Inlander custom? Or a matter of vengeance to settle his wounded pride?
Her thoughts went to the woman she had not saved at his uncle’s hold. Her inaction left her feeling guilty. What would Tieran feel, when he realized what he had done?
What would she feel, if she did not act to save a life now?
Her anger faded. Karav had told her never to obey a command that went against her better judgment. This was not a command – but it did go against what she thought was moral and just. Further, she had heard Karav speak his regrets to her in his final days. Whatever he had done earlier in his life, it continued to haunt him, thirty seasons later.
Tieran was not rational about his vengeance. Karav would tell her that meant he was driven by emotion, not reason. The Inlander had been reluctant to speak of his sisters when Sela asked about them. She assumed he did not trust her. But was it because he could not bear the pain of speaking of them instead?
Whatever she thought of him as a guardian, Tieran had, in his past, cared for someone else, enough to blind him to his actions now. At times, she glimpsed the side of him that was more like Karav than an Inlander. He had tried to perform his duty to her with mixed results. Would a normal Inlander had done that much?
Tieran was a man, and men were capable of making mistakes.
What would Karav have done, if she were in Tieran’s place?
This answer was easier. Karav never would have allowed her to go in the first place. He would have told her revenge was not worth the burden of what it cost to see it through, that no man could live with hurting a child, even a rabid Inlander mercenary.
Sela led her horse out of the barn and mounted. She scanned the surrounding area. Her eyes settled on a lone figure on horseback, racing south up a small hill.
She set off after Tieran. Urgency filled her, along with the impulse to cry. She could not help feeling the loss of Karav whenever she considered not only what pain Tieran likely bore, but also that of the family whose child and mother he was about to murder. There was no justice, Inlander or otherwise, in killing the innocent.
The sense of being helpless flooded her. She had watched Karav disappear over a hill to his death, and now, saw her new guardian disappear to a worse fate. The tears that stung her eyes were those of anger and frustration. For the first time in her life, she felt truly powerless to change what was going to happen. Karav may have been her guardian, and may have made all the decisions about her life, but he had never made her feel as if she did not matter, or as if she had no control over herself and fate.
It was as much for her own sake as Tieran’s that she raced up the hill after him. If she did not try to stop him, if she allowed him to murder innocents, she was a savage no better than he was. Karav had taught her to use her power in defense only, and to take no life unless absolutely necessary.
Tieran was about to violate everything Karav had taught her to believe in, everything a mage-warrior was supposed to stand for.
Sela reached the top of the hill and wiped her eyes, halting her horse.
In the valley between hills, Tieran’s horse stood outside the tent at the edge of a small grouping of tents. He appeared from the interior of the tent outside which his horse waited, dragging a woman by her hair and carrying a little girl no more than five seasons under one arm.
Sela’s heart and breath felt trapped in her tight chest. She nudged her horse forward, already gauging the distance to be too far to reach Tieran in time to stop him. Even if she did, how could she prevent him from following through? She had no power in the barbaric Inlands and could never pose a challenge to him physically.
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“Please don’t,” she whispered over and over. More tears rose.
Tieran released the woman and placed the child nearby. The woman rose, but he shoved her back down with a foot in her back. The little girl scrambled on hands and knees to her mother and clung to her. The two were crying, and so was Sela.
What kind of man murdered a mother and child?
Tieran drew his broadsword and hefted it. The blue gem in its hilt glowed. He glanced towards the sky.
“Please don’t!” Sela chanted over and over.
Tieran raised the sword, positioned to drive it through both bodies. He paused to the top of the swing and then slashed downward.
“No!” Sela gasped. She stopped the horse close to the three and flung herself off, standing in horror.
The girl moved, and then the mother did. Tieran had driven his sword into the ground beside them, mere hairs away from the woman’s body. He let out a roar of fury and strode away.
Swallowing her tears, Sela hurried towards the mother and daughter.
The woman wrapped her daughter in her arms. Both sobbed and shook, and Sela looked from them towards Tieran, hardly daring to believe the savage had not been able to follow through.
In that moment, with adrenaline racing though her body, clearing her troubled thoughts, Sela understood Tieran in a way that had eluded her before. His threats, his intimidation, his fiery responses to everything she said, were for the purpose of hiding his pain. He had pushed her away because he had lost those he cared about.
How had she missed all this before?
Because I did the same to him. She hated this answer and the clarity it provided into her own flawed behavior.
Sela gazed at him, struck by what his act of not being able to murder a child showed her about him. He had lived and breathed vengeance for over a season. When he had the chance to take from his enemy what his enemy had taken from him, he could not do it. He had the strength, the weapon, and the justification.
He’s not who I thought he was. Was she proud or furious? Sela’s emotions were too jumbled for her to tell.
The Inlander had put some distance between him and the family. His hands were on his hips, his face turned towards the sky and eyes closed. He did not acknowledge her.
The sobbing of mother and child drew Sela’s focus back to them.
She helped the woman up. “Go,” she said. “Quickly.” She pushed the two towards their tiny encampment and watched them until satisfied they were safe. They entered the encampment and went straight to the horses. The two of them mounted without bridles or saddles and bolted towards the west.
The Inlander remained where he was. Drawing a shaky breath, Sela approached him. She circled and stood in front of him. Fury boiled within her.
She slapped him. “That’s for tormenting an innocent woman and her child!” she said, throat tight. She slapped him again. “And that’s for forcing me to understand who you really are! I want to hate you, Tieran!”
Tieran leveled his gaze on her without reacting. A flicker of the feral fire sparked within them. He was dangerous to everyone else – but not to her. Never to her, no matter what he claimed. If he could not harm the family of his sworn enemy, he would never harm the woman he had taken an oath to.
He reached out to her.
“Don’t touch me!” Sela snapped and moved away. “You deserve to suffer for what has passed here!” Her breathing was uneven, and tears streaked her face with more threatening to spill. “If a man murdered your family, you murder him. You do not pursue his family like a coward!” She spat the words at him. “You have never hurt me, because you promised a dead man you never would. You are better than the coward who is your enemy! Your heart is scarred, but it is good. Whether or not you wish to be, you are honorable! And I hate you for it!”
Without waiting for him to respond, she strode back to her horse and mounted. Her eyes fell to Tieran’s horse, a mount he had borrowed or stolen from the stables. She trotted towards it, gripped the reins, and then turned towards the route she had come. She nudged her gelding into a canter and returned to the inn.
Their three reluctant companions were at the stables, preparing their horses. Sela slid off her mount and handed over both horses to a stable hand.
“You may go, but we are not leaving today,” she snapped at her companions.
“Did you kill him?” Vinian asked.
She glared at him.
“Then I take it your offer to marry me was not serious.” Lord Winlin was smiling.
“I am not a broodmare!” Sela rounded on him, fed up with men ruling her life for the day. “I will not wed you or anyone else. If I were near a lake or river, I’d drown you all!”
Citon laughed, earning him the disapproving look of his mage.
Sela whipped around and raced through the inne, back to the room she had shared with Tieran. She closed the door – and broke down in tears. Throwing herself onto a pallet as hard as the ground, she released the sorrow of losing Karav that had been eating her up inside, along with her frustration and fear of an uncertain future, and the distress she experienced when she believed Tieran capable of murdering a mother and child.
Worst of all, she felt hopeful for their future together for the first time since meeting him. What if they could become friends and learn to trust one another? Did she want that?
Confusion added to her tears.
She cried until a headache formed. Sela fell into a restless doze, dreaming of Tieran watching his sisters die. When she awoke, she was surprised to find him absent. She glanced towards the small window above the bed. It was dusk. She had wasted the day she could have used to escape him.
Except … she had no idea where to go or how to travel there alone. The three men she had met in her journey would not humor any destination except the ones leading straight back to their kings. And Tieran had no intention of going anywhere at all.
Since Karav’s death, she had been lost and frustrated, not only because of Tieran’s obstinacy, but because she had no idea what she wanted her future to be. If she could choose to go anywhere, do anything, what would she do?
She did not know, and she could not comprehend exactly what it meant to be free. Instead of leaving the inne, she remained, because she had nowhere else to go.
Exhausted from crying, with eyes swollen and throat hurting, Sela closed her eyes. Perhaps, she would remain here until the innkeeper threw her out, then find a lake and drown herself.
The door opened. She did not have to look to know Tieran was in the doorway.
“Leave me be,” she muttered, too tired for another confrontation.
As usual, he ignored her. He entered, closing the door behind him. She felt his agitated energy, as if he had spent the day trying not to be around her while the magic in his blood demanded he return to her side. She listened to the sound of him removing his weapons and then his boots.
He sat on the pallet opposite her.
“My sisters were three seasons, seven, and twelve,” he said quietly. “My father died in battle two seasons before, and my mother in childbirth. I raised the baby with no help from anyone, aside from my sisters. I raised her as my own.”
Sela’s breath caught. She swore she would not let anything he said appease her anger with him, until she heard the careful words.
“I was obsessed with gold, as we Inlanders often are, and I went with my uncle on a raid. When we arrived, the town was empty. It did not take much to realize we had been tricked. When we returned, my village was on fire, and everyone in it dead. Women, children, babes, horses. These were not good, quick deaths, Sela. My uncle’s family was safe in his hold. I was one of the only five men in my mother’s clan to survive.”
She sat up, eyes riveted to him. Tieran spoke with no emotion, and the feral fire burnt in his gaze. Even so, she sensed the amount of control it took for him to utter the truth about what happened to his family. His fury and pain ran deep.
“You are too innocent to
hear how they died,” he continued. “I failed to protect what was mine to protect. I swore that day the men who hurt them would suffer in ways a woman like you cannot imagine. I have spent the past twelve-moon planning for their deaths. I spent my time selling my sword for copper and silver to buy allies and tracking my enemy across the Inlands. And then I heard the Gift of Knowing, and you appeared with the duty I never wanted. I left my gold behind and rode until I found you.”
She frowned. Karav had once told her that her heart was as soft as her tongue was sharp. She had never viewed it as a disadvantage before Tieran’s confession. She wanted to maintain some distance between them and instead, wished she could remove the pain that drove him to consider murdering a child.
“I did not ask for this,” she murmured. “If I could change it, I would.”
“Why did you follow me instead of running away?”
When he looked at her with such intensity, as if he already knew the answer, she wanted to scream.
Sela sighed and looked away. “I could not live with you doing it,” she replied with the half-truth.
“You are a proud fool,” he said.
She ignored the insult, lest she say something to destroy his relative calm. “I wanted to save those people,” she replied.
“Those were not your thoughts when you were begging me not to do it or after, when I spared them.”
“What does it matter?” she asked, face growing warm.
“Your way is not the Inlander way. But perhaps, at times, your way is not wrong.”
She met his gaze again, this time surprised. “Is that … is that an apology?” she asked.
“Inlanders do not apologize.”
“But you just did. You know you were wrong! Will you also admit to being honorable?” She ignored his warning look. “I will write this day on a scroll and remember it with reverence every time –”
“Quiet, mage,” Tieran growled.
She obeyed, less because of his order, and more because she understood his pain. It had not been easy for him to walk away this day, to spare those he had plotted to murder for over a season.