Only a Glow

by Nichelle Rae

  Thrawyn reached down and picked his barely conscious, heavily bleeding son off the ground by the front of his robes. “You let a woman beat you up?” He brought his fist back again and it came crashing full force into the young man’s face once more. I blanched at the sound of his facial bones being pulverized! And Thrawyn hit him again! I couldn’t believe the audacity of this man!

  “Hey!” Azrel screamed as his fist came back a fourth time. Azrel stepped forward and, unbelievably, she grabbed his forearm mid-swing, stopping him from busting Addredoc’s face again.

  I couldn’t keep my jaw from going slack; everyone’s did. Thrawyn’s sharp glare at her could have cut stone, but it was no match for the dangerous look in Azrel’s eyes.

  “Hit him again and I’ll break your arm.”

  The rage and hate in his expression vanished into a loud belly laugh. Oh, it was not a smart idea to laugh at Azrel, especially when she makes a threat. Azrel hated being laughed at, no matter what the circumstances, and she wasn’t forgiving of anyone who did so. It was because she had been laughed at so cruelly in The Pitt.

  A huge crowd had gathered around. Thrawyn let go of Addredoc, then lifted an open palm to slap Azrel. I wanted to stop him but I knew what this hateful man was in for. As his hand came down, Azrel released his arm she’d been holding and blocked the blow, then her other fist came out and jabbed him hard in the mouth. He stumbled back with blood dribbling from his lip. The crowd gasped and jumped back with a start. Thrawyn touched his fingertips to the blood and examined it, rubbing it in his fingers as if to make sure it was really there.

  Azrel’s brow twitched. “Now you know what I can do with my bare hands. Care to take it a step further?” She pulled out her Salynn blade from the holder attached to her thigh and suddenly dragged her tongue along the broad side of her blade! Even I blanched at the gesture.

  Thrawyn’s eyes went wide for a moment as he looked at my sister in terror. But he quickly composing himself and scowled. “I don’t have time for this! My son needs to see an herbest.”

  Azrel crossed one arm over her chest, rested her other elbow on top of it, and lightly touched the tip of her Salynn blade to her temple. “Gee, you don’t say. I wonder why that is.”

  Thrawyn only deepened his scowl, his pride apparently bruised enough for one day. He picked up Addredoc, who was just coming to, and threw him back in the direction they’d come. Addredoc stumbled and fell to his knees in the mud. His father roughly pulled him up again by the back of his robes and shoved him on forward. Addredoc nearly fell again, but forced himself to stay on his unsteady feet.

  I felt horrible for Addredoc having a father like that. How had the boy survived this many years? He looked about nineteen. I sneered at Thrawyn’s back as he walked away.

  I was suddenly aware that Azrel was looking at me, and not in a soft manner. “Move!” she barked, thrusting her arm out toward the inn. I scowled at her back as she headed for the building. I hated it when she talked to me like that, as if I was four years old. It degraded me and insulted me. It was made all the worse that my sister was making me feel this way.

  “You should talk to her about that.”

  I just realized Ortheldo had stepped up beside me. I sneered at Azrel as she disappeared in the door. “Talk to her about what?” I didn’t mean to take my aggravation out on him, I was just so tired of Azrel’s nonsense.

  “Treating you like a simpleton that’s incapable of thinking without her aid.”

  I pressed my lips together and sighed, only a little surprised that he already knew what was bothering me. “What good would it do? She won’t listen to me for the mere fact that she doesn’t believe I can think for myself.”

  “She’s a stubborn one,” he said, nodding. “I’ve tried to talk to her about not babysitting you out here.”

  I finally turned to look at him. “You have?”

  He nodded. “Yes, but she won’t listen to me.”

  Big surprise, I wanted to say, but didn’t.

  If she wouldn’t listen to Ortheldo she certainly wasn’t going to listen to me. I wouldn’t bother challenging my sister. We’d never gotten into a serious argument, and I doubted it was even worth it considering her quick tongue, her merciless, warrior temper, and her inability to ever admit she was wrong— especially when it came to me and what she believed was good for me.

  “I see it, Rabryn,” Ortheldo suddenly said. I looked over at him. “I’ve seen it since the night you encountered those Feariters.”

  My brows dropped in confusion. “You’ve seen what?”

  He smiled. “You.” I flinched slightly at the unexpected response. “The real you. The Salynn you, which has been buried deep inside of you your entire life. Even as I look at you now, your eyes are a little sharper, your instincts are surfacing, and your back is even a little straighter, stronger, with beginnings of the infamous Salynn pride. I’ve seen your desire to learn about the world as well as your Salynn, pride driven need to know the dangers out here. I’ve also seen the want and need to be able to face them on your own.”

  I stared at him blankly.

  “I know that you don’t want to be sheltered under her wing any longer, and frankly, it’s impossible to always keep someone protected out here anyway, even for Azrel.”

  I couldn’t believe he was saying this to me. He was so genuine and understanding about it too.

  “But Azrel is blind to the changes in you because she doesn’t want to see them. She feels purpose in the need to protect you.” He shrugged. “But in the long run, if you succumb to her protection, it will backfire. A Salynn needs his instincts to survive, instincts that have suffocated inside of you because you lack experience in the world.” He gave me a somber look. “I think only you can open her eyes.” He nodded in Azrel’s direction. “If you let her go on protecting you, she’ll always believe in her heart that you need protection. First of all, that’s not very fair to her with everything else she’s going to have to deal with soon enough. But it’s not fair to you, either. You need to tell her that you don’t want, or need, protection. You need to show her that you’ve change inside. I know you feel it. She won’t listen to me. She needs to hear it from you, the one she’s determined to protect.”

  “How can I prove it to her?”

  He shrugged again. “Tell her, first of all. She won’t expect you to challenge her. Perhaps that will be a first step.”

  The man I looked up to was treating me like a man. The pride I felt in that replaced the child’s scolding I’d just received from my sister. Maybe with Ortheldo on my side we could tell her together. Maybe she’d understand then that I could think for myself. Maybe she’d understand then that I jumped out of that window for a reason, a real reason, which was to save her life.

  “I want nothing more than to prove myself in her eyes and yours.”

  He smiled and clapped me on the back. “You’ve got nothing to prove to me. Azrel is your only obstacle. But I want you to understand,” he said suddenly, his tone changing to become more firm. “Azrel only treats you the way she does because she loves you. She’s worried for you and does only want to protect you, not make you feel inferior. You have to be wise enough to realize that you can’t hold her at fault for loving you. But you can let her know that she can still love you without protecting you as fiercely as she has been.”

  Partially dazed that he was speaking to me this way, I could only manage a nod as we approached the stairs to the inn. He smiled and clapped my back again as we entered the common.

  I decided I’d tell Azrel the first chance I got, before too much time passed and she completely smothered my instincts. Ortheldo was right—she had enough to worry about without adding me to the list, and I could take care of myself. But with one look at her face as we entered the inn, my courage and conviction withered. All of this, I realized, was going to be a lot easier said than done. The concept was nice, but the actuality of challenging my sister was terrifying.

  “Sit!” s
he barked from across the common, pointing her Salynn blade at a corner table. I grudgingly obeyed. All of us sat around the barrel table, me with my head hanging and wondering if now was really a good time to bring the matter up. Probably not.

  “Loir, would you please bring my brother some hot soup?” She sat down and glanced at my bleeding hand. “And a bandage.”

  “Absolutely,” Loir replied, then headed into the kitchen.

  Azrel interlaced her fingers and set her hands on the tabletop with exaggerated patience. “Well?”

  “Well what?” I asked annoyed.

  “Well, explain to me why you jumped out of a window, half naked, in a rainstorm.”

  Here was my opening! I couldn’t believe it! She was actually asking for an explanation! She wasn’t just screaming at me on a whim. “Because I…”

  My hope deflated when she closed her eyes and held her hand up at me. “If you tell me you did it for me, I will rip your spine out.”

  I snapped my mouth shut as she looked at me. It was quiet for a long time as she waited for me to explain. “Well?” she barked impatiently.

  “You said you’d rip my spine out!” I cried.

  Azrel let out an exasperated sigh and lowered her forehead to the table, putting her hands behind her head. “Why would you do such a stupid thing, Rabryn?” she asked without moving. I didn’t bother answering. She was going to jump down my throat regardless of what I had to say. She removed her hands from her head and rested them on the table, suddenly looking tired and drained. After staring at me for a moment she came over and sat in the chair right next to me. “Rabryn, I don’t want you to risk yourself for me under any circumstances.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” she repeated looking perplexed. “Rabryn, I can’t lose you to such a foolish errand. I can take care of myself.” Her brows dropped and she suddenly became serious. “I’d rather die than live without the one person left in the world that loves me.”

  I resisted the urge to glance at Ortheldo, but from the corner of my eye I saw his shoulders sag and heard him heave a soft, melancholy sigh.

  I looked back into Azrel’s pleading eyes. “Rabryn, if harm ever threatens you, I want it to be my life before yours!”

  “Well then, we have a problem, sis. I’d give my life to save yours, too. I don’t care what your reasons are for this ridiculous notion that you think I would just stand by and watch you lay down your life for me. But it won’t happen. If I have a chance to keep you from harm, I will.”

  “Don’t!”

  We stared at each other for a long, silent moment, and I wondered if I had pushed her too far. No, I would have known if I pushed her too far. I could sense though, that I was getting mighty close.

  Loir set a bowl of steaming hot soup in front of each of us and a long bandage next to Azrel. “I thought you’d all need a little something to warm you up.”

  “Thank you, Loir,” Azrel barely gave him a glance as she picked up the bandage and starting dressing my bleeding knuckles. Loir remained a moment, looking like he wanted to be offered a seat. When no one did, he strode away.

  After Azrel finished wrapping up my hand I took a spoonful of soup. “Azrel,” I began, feeling slightly braver than I had upon entering the inn, “you can’t stop me, just like you couldn’t stop me from jumping out that window. If you’re in danger,” I narrowed my eyes at her, “I will do everything in my power to prevent it from reaching you.”

  Azrel looked at Ortheldo. “Will you help me out here?”

  He looked at her before sitting up and leaning over his soup. Picking up his spoon, he shrugged and looked down into the steamy bowl. “You’re on your own, Azrel. But just for the record, he’s right.”

  “Right about what?” Azrel cried. I could see some color rise to her face as she held back her temper.

  Ortheldo pointed his spoon at me after taking a bite. “He knew more about the danger you were in as you slept.” His eyes narrowed. “Of course, you’d already know that if you had any listening skills at all.” Shocked by his vague insult, I, oddly enough, didn’t feel angry. Instead, I felt proud that he had the guts to stand up to my sister in the face of her barely contained rage. “He was right to go out that window and kill that man.”

  Azrel, her face red hot, stood from her chair so fast it fell over. Her eyes were wide as she turned them to me. “You killed a man?” Her voice was a whisper of rage, but loud enough to wrack my bones. My eyes went to my bowl and I nodded. I wasn’t going to bother explaining the Tan Stranger’s involvement. She wouldn’t have listened anyway. “Why?” she yelled, making me jump, and making me wish I’d kept my mouth shut.

  Ortheldo made the oddest sound then, he barked a small laugh. “Well, well. Now you’re ready to listen? That’s amazing.”

  I looked at him and saw he was looking directly into my sister’s eyes, despite her infamous temper. His look of defiance gave me strength—and blinded me to reason.

  I scoffed a laugh, too. “Really. I wonder if I should bother wasting my breath with an explanation, though. I’m sure she’ll just scream at me anyway.”

  “She probably wouldn’t even care about the fact that you were saving her life!”

  Immediately, as my breath caught in my throat and my heart stopped, I realized what I’d just done. I snapped my eyes up at Azrel, but it was too late. Biting my bottom lip, I waited for the horror to be unleashed because of mine and Ortheldo’s grave mistake.

  My sister’s eyes were watering and her chin quivered something fierce. It made me feel sick. I practically saw memories of her abuse in The Pitt flash in her eyes. Then there was the pain of being betrayed by, not only Ortheldo, whom she’d grown closer to than any other human being, but by me as well. We shouldn’t have ganged up on her. We shouldn’t have laughed at her! I knew better! Oh, my Gods, I was an idiot! I wanted to take my words back. Just take them back and hug my sister, tell her that I was sorry.

  But that wasn’t going to happen.

  Ortheldo had gone back to eating his soup, and the next thing we knew Azrel screamed and picked up an edge of the tabletop, throwing it onto its side with a strength I didn’t even know my sister possessed. Ortheldo and I jumped up to avoid having hot soup fall into our laps; splashing in our faces seemed more likely considering how high she lifted the table. Ortheldo and I looked up with wide eyes as she screamed again, then kicked another table over, sending it though the air before it crashed onto its side five feet away. She ran and kicked it again, sending it smashing into a wall.

  I felt my insides twist with worry and guilt as she dropped to her knees and, screaming at the top of her lungs, madly pounded her fist into the wooden barrel. With only four, bone breaking punches, she’d made a gaping hole in the wood the size of her head and her knuckles were gushing blood. She picked up the entire barrel and heaved it against the wall with another scream, and the wood splintered on contact.

  We watched her to see what she would do next, but she was already running out the door. The few men in the common watched her leave, their eyes wide. Ortheldo and I shared glances of disbelief before running to the doorway. We got there just in time to see Forfirith’s rear end as he galloped at full speed down the main street, Azrel hunched low over his back.

  “What did you do?” a voice asked angrily from behind. We turned to see Loir, his face red as he scowled at us. Without waiting for a reply, he shouldered his way between us and went out to mount his own horse. He galloped after Azrel.

  “What did we do?” Ortheldo asked as we watched Loir disappear into the crowd.

  I swallowed hard, feeling my own eyes well up. “We humiliated her,” I choked out. “We ganged up on her. We made fun of her.” My voice was a small whisper. I couldn’t believe I’d done that to Azrel. I knew better!

  “Well, she does have a listening issue,” Ortheldo stated as he turned away and began to clean up the mess Azrel left. He said it so coldly, so heartlessly. But I couldn’t be angry with him. He didn’t know
what it was like for Azrel in The Pitt. I did. This was my fault. I knew what Azrel had been through. I shouldn’t have let him talk to her like that. I shouldn’t have talked to her like that.

  “It’s more than that, Ortheldo. It goes deeper then you can possibly imagine.” I could barely myself speak. I swallowed hard, holding back tears as I helped him clean up. I desperately tried not to scream out in agony at what I might have just lost with my sister: closeness, love, an unconditional trust. Everything we had.

  “What are you talking about?” Ortheldo said bitterly, probably bitten by the fact that he’d hurt Azrel so badly. Unfortunately, he had no idea just how badly Azrel was hurting right now. I wanted to go after her, but I knew I was the last person in the world she wanted to see right now.

  “Ortheldo, if you’d lived with her in The Pitt, if you’d seen what they did to her, what they put her through, you’d have no trouble understanding what we’ve just done.”

  “What we’ve just done?” he asked in almost disgust as I squatted down to pick up a chair. “You make it sound like she’s going to kill herself or something.”

  All I did was look up at him, my expression as empty as the pain in my soul for causing that possibility. I didn’t know what I would do if I lost my sister.

  Ortheldo’s eyes went wide. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  My knees finally buckled and I hit the floor on all fours. I was going to be sick. “You can’t begin to understand how she was so hated and so often humiliated in The Pitt. Then you and I, the two people she trusts the most, the two people she was sure would never do that to her, suddenly go and do it. We go and make a laughing stock out of her. We find a reason, a flaw for more ridicule. We were all she had, and now she has nothing, no one! She has nothing to believe in if not our trust and love!” I was breathing heavily even as my mouth watered and my stomach bubbled and I prepared to vomit. I moaned Azrel’s name, then pleaded with the Light Gods to stop her from trying to kill herself.