by Evie Manieri
Frea charged, just as he had expected. He knew Lahlil was unarmed and that he should intervene, but still Strife’s Bane never twitched in his hand – not that it mattered, because Isa was there. She stepped in front of Lahlil as if she too had anticipated Frea’s lunge.
His bones shook with the impact of Isa’s sword against Blood’s Pride. She and Frea circled and he stepped back out of the way, but Lahlil stayed behind Isa like a shadow, hovering dangerously close to her back swing.
Isa’s eyes flicked back to her for a fleeting moment.
Eofar could feel Lahlil’s intensity snaking out towards his little sister, like vines.
Frea lunged with a soundless snarl, but again Isa stepped fluidly out of range. Lahlil moved in tandem with her and now, when Isa’s arm came up to block the blow, it was as if Lahlil had pulled it on a string.
Eofar shut his eyes, as if by doing so he could block out the image of his mother and sisters on the back of that triffon, flying away from him.
Strife’s Bane trembled in Eofar’s hand and he tightened his grip sympathetically on the hilt, that same desperate urgency to stop what was happening shooting through his veins. He didn’t want to know – he had never wanted to know.
said Isa. Her arms and legs were quaking with the force of Frea’s blows, and her shoulders were beginning to sag with the effort. Still, she held her ground. Frea, her strength squandered, changed to a two-handed grip and fell back, and Isa immediately went on the offensive. Eofar watched her blade slicing and darting.
Isa twisted her wrist to change her grip. The hilt of the sword leapt from her hand and hung in the air for an elastic moment. Then it dropped back into her palm with a slap and she swept her arm around in a long, lovely arc, turning with the blade as smoothly as a fish in an ocean current and sliced a gash along Frea’s unprotected side.
Blood’s Pride fell to the ground with a clang.
Eofar watched numbly as Frea – invulnerable Frea – clutched her bleeding abdomen and doubled over. Isa stood over her and ended the story with the finality of an executioner’s axe.
Eofar’s thudding pulse went suddenly quiet. It was all so obvious: of course Frea had cut the harness. With the harness broken, Mother would have had to turn back; there was no room on the back of that triffon for another little girl. And if Lahlil had come back, she would have shoved the rest of them out of Mother’s life, just as she had always done. He would have done the same – no, he admitted to himself; he would have wanted to – only he would never have had the courage.
Blue blood welled through Frea’s fingers and spattered the dirty floor. With her other hand, she reached into her jacket and brought out the letter.
He could feel Frea’s fervid anticipation as she sat on the ground, bleeding. She had won before she’d even drawn her sword.
She sat down on the step and unfolded it with her long grey fingers.
He forced himself to look at her.
A curious sound rumbled through the room. He turned in alarm and saw Lahlil, still sprawled on the step, waving the letter gently in her hand. Her shoulders were shaking and the sound was coming from somewhere deep in her throat.
She was laughing.
Isa sheathed her sword and looked around at her siblings incredulously.
Her eyes were glittering as she walked over to Lahlil.
Eofar recoiled in shock.
She was firm and immovable, but the icy veneer she’d had earlier had burned away, revealing something very different underneath. He felt like he was seeing the real Isa for the first time.
His own buried truths churned inside of him.
Isa didn’t have to tell him to shut up this time: her wordless contempt for his ignorance was more than enough to stifle him.
Lahlil stood up, still holding Eleana’s letter in her hand.
She turned to Eofar first, but he found he had nothing to say.
Lahlil held out the letter.
Isa’s reply throbbed with pain.
Isa took the letter and left the room.
Eofar felt a chill as Frea walked in front of him, her hand pressed against the still-bleeding wound. He felt closer to her than he ever had before, even as she turned her wrath and disdain on him.
He opened his eyes to find Frea gone and a sticky trail of blue blood leading out of the door.
Lahlil was still sitting on the step, her chin in her hands, watching him.
He clawed his way to his feet. His head spun dreadfully and he felt like he was going to be sick again. At least he finally understood one thing.
It wasn’t until one of them moaned that he noticed the two soldiers tumbled together in a heap near the doorway. The other one moved his legs weakly, trying to get up; she had left them alive, at any rate. He had more urgent matters to worry about.
He staggered over to her, grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. The tight compartment of resentment he had banked down inside him for so many years had finally burst open and his anger overpowered his fear of her, at least for the moment.
Eofar felt a crack zigzag through Lahlil’s emotions and hastily dropped her arm just as a searing flash of red burned into him. He was sucked into a nightmare landscape, an endless battlefield in a chasm lit only by the flash of bloody blades. She hadn’t meant to let him in – she didn’t want him there – but she was too late. Though her will slammed into him, pushing him out, he had seen what churned behind her disconcerting blankness, and the strength of will it required to maintain her façade staggered him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rho rolled over and buried his face in his pillow.
Rho shut his eyes again.
Rho poked his head out of his shirt and found his friend staring at him.