by Deb E Howell
Remembering the hand-shaped scar under Jonas’ jaw, she wondered if it really was all that much kinder. Perhaps if she did it slowly it wouldn’t burn like that. She just needed her weakened.
Llew lifted the knife and drew it lightly across the mound of her thumb. The sharp blade sliced the skin easily and, despite her intention to appear unfazed, she snatched her hand away and sucked in air. The cut was tiny. Driving the knife back into its sheath, she grabbed the woman’s wrist. The familiar tingling began in the fingers, subtle enough that she might have missed it if she weren’t concentrating. She held her hand up, watching the self-inflicted cut. At first, it seemed nothing was happening, but as the tingling trickled up her arm, across her chest, down the other arm and to her hand, the injury began to glow, with the red blood sparkling pink. She nearly let the woman go, but forced herself to tighten her grip, glaring at the woman when she felt her try to free herself.
With such a small wound, it was slow, but it was working; she was draining the woman, and the wound was failing to heal.
“I’m sorry,” she said as the woman began to weaken.
She let the woman lie on the bed. “I’m sorry,” she said again, “But I can’t risk you going to Braph.” The woman nodded.
When she judged the woman weak enough, Llew relaxed her grip and left.
Using the banister to minimise the weight she put on the stairs, she skipped down them several at a time. What sounds she produced were so light and brief she was almost certain Braph wouldn’t hear them.
The mechanical drone continued in his room, and the hall was empty, with every door closed. She pressed her ear to the first door on the opposite side of the hallway from Braph’s room and heard the faint but distinctive murmur of Nilv’s dry voice. She turned the handle and found the door unlocked.
Candlelight from below reflected off a banister post. More stairs.
She eased the door closed behind her, hoping the sound of the latch clicking home would be quiet enough not to be heard over Nilv’s drone. There was no break in his yammering, so Llew eased herself on to the stairs, feeling her way in the dark. She could make some words out now: he was talking about her. Surely he wouldn’t blab on like that to captives other than her father? She couldn’t leave him behind, not when she was this close to having him back.
The stairway bent in a hairpin halfway down, but was sturdy and there were no creaks to give her away.
It was her father who did that. As soon as the candlelight lit her, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. At first Nilv didn’t seem to notice, but when Llew reached the last step, he turned to see what his captive was staring at.
Llew stepped into the room wielding the knife, orange light flashing down the blade.
“Release him.” She pressed the tip into Nilv’s shoulder. “Now.”
“How did–?”
“I said, release him.”
“You won’t get far with him, girl. He’ll only slow you down.”
“Release him.” She pressed harder and blood seeped through his shirt. “I’m not bluffing.” She raised the blade to his cheek.
Nilv hesitated for a brief moment before giving a small shrug, careful not to press his cheek against the blade. He reached down and unstrapped her father.
“Llewella, I’ll only slow you down. Get out while you can.”
“You saved me once. It’s my turn.”
“Llew–”
“Pa.” She fixed him with the kind of look she remembered getting from him when she’d protested having to work the smithy when the other kids were playing just down the road.
As soon as her father stood up, Llew flicked the knife across and her eyes down, indicating for Nilv to take his place. Reluctantly, he did so.
“Tie him up,” she instructed. She kept the blade to Nilv’s skin.
“You can’t escape Braph, girl. He’s Karan and he’s got your crystals. He’ll hunt you down.”
“Where’s he gonna start looking? Turhmos is a big place.” Once Nilv was secured, Llew searched him for a key to the front door.
“You think he trusts me with it? He doesn’t trust a soul.”
It was true. His pockets were empty.
“You have no idea what he’s capable of. And where are you going to run to, with enemies in all directions? You won’t get far.”
“Shut up. Come on, Pa.”
Her father hesitated, looking like he was going to say something. Then he did as she said and followed her. They crept up the stairs and Llew checked the hallway was still deserted as her father made the last few steps; she urged him to follow her on.
The front door was locked.
Once again, Llew looked to Jonas’ knife, but dismissed the idea of using it. She didn’t know if the blade could withstand that kind of punishment and, knowing Braph, the lock would be solid and probably complex.
There was a door off the hallway just inside the main entrance. She tested the door’s handle and it opened. The room was bright despite the time of day, and light from a street light-globe infiltrated a large window, with a degree of privacy maintained by net curtains: there was a large bed, a wardrobe, and little else. Unlike the rest of the house apart from Llew’s room, the walls were bare. Braph’s room.
Llew waved her father inside and crossed to the window, only to find the frame nailed shut, and the old catch dismantled. Braph must have been so paranoid about his security he wouldn’t even indulge a breath of fresh air in his room. There seemed only one way out.
Closing her eyes to make a brief plea to whatever spirits or gods might listen, Llew lifted her skirt and kicked the window. The glass cracked and shattered. She withdrew her blood-covered ankle and skipped away, knocking her father back and shielding her eyes with her forearm as glass cascaded down. Then she helped her father through the window and clambered through after him.
They were out in the cold night air of Turhmos, Llew in nothing but a light dress, and leaving a trail of blood. But the house was silent.
Llew gave a brief smile. She could survive the cold and she would heal. She was free. And her father was with her.
* * *
At first, they just ran to put distance between them and the house. Duffirk was a big city, larger than Cheer, and larger than Ryaen: taller, at least. But like any other city, Duffirk had a rhythm, and the night time measure was one of introspection; if you didn’t pay others any mind, neither would they show an interest in you. Unless they thought you had something they wanted. And a girl in a flimsy dress, accompanied only by a frail-looking man, drew rather more attention than Llew was comfortable with.
Fortunately, she only had to make her point once.
The man thought he would just push Llew’s old companion aside and take his place. But Llew wasn’t a stranger to a street brawl, and playing the role of a young male had many benefits often denied young girls. She was on the man in an instant, straddling him, punching him senseless. It wasn’t just a man, it was men and it was Braph, and Llew’s muscles grew hot with a desire to punish. One punch was followed by another, and another, and then another. Her fingers dug into his shoulders and she pulled his head up and threw it back down, slamming it into the road. His eyes rolled up and back.
“No you don’t! You can’t hide from me!” She yanked him back up and shook him.
“Llew.”
Llew slapped the hand from her shoulder before her mind registered the voice as her pa’s, and then she calmed instantly. She released the man and stood up, brushing grit from her knees.
“We’ve got to keep moving Llew. Get as far as we can before Braph realises we’ve gone.”
Llew knew they had to move, that they had no time to stop, but she’d needed that release. Breathing deeply and regaining her composure, she glared around at the gathered night-dwellers, daring others to take their turn. They weren’t Karan. They weren’t magicians with powers of mind-control, or body-control, or whatever hocus pocus Braph had used. They were nothing. She could take
them.
None moved. They stood frozen as Llew pushed her short hair back and dashed off into the night with her pa close behind. Despite appearances, he was able to move swiftly.
Night had been well set in by the time they’d lit out of Braph’s place and with the lack of moon there was no clue to the passage of time. It didn’t matter. The longer they ran, the greater their chance of remaining free, and they needed little else to drive them on. Sometimes Llew staggered and slowed as her legs and body tired. Her pa urged her onward. When he staggered, she replied in kind.
They were several miles out of town when they stepped amongst the roadside woods to catch their breath and rest. For a long while, nothing but nervous glances flickered between them. Llew didn’t know where to begin; there was so much to tell, and so much not to tell.
“Is that how it happened? You left to lead Braph away from me?”
Her pa’s face pinched at the memory, but he nodded. “I told him too much. I’d been drinking and I talked too much.” He dipped his head in shame. Llew had begged him to cut back his drinking, stay home some nights, but, of course, she had just been a kid and he had known better. “He kept asking about you, your health, your life. At first I wanted to talk. I was proud of you. What father wouldn’t be?” He risked a smile and relaxed at what he saw in Llew’s eyes. She’d forgiven him the moment she’d seen him at Braph’s. “I’d already told him too much by the time I realised what he was doing. He followed me from the bar. I tried to lose him by taking stray turns, but he had only sipped his drink and was stone cold sober.” The self-derision returned, the ‘if only’ echoes almost audible. “Eventually, I just took the north road, hoping he would come with me. He did for a while, before turning back to Cheer.” In his eyes and the droop of his mouth, Llew saw how he must have felt back then, knowing that Braph was after his daughter and not knowing how to protect her. “But a few days later he caught up to me, without you. I was so relieved.”
Llew smiled back at him. Her freedom had cost her father his. She drew him to her and they hugged for a long while, the years of separation falling away.
“Is it true about the smithy?” Llew’s pa asked when they parted.
Llew nodded and had to fight down anger as she recounted the day, a week after her father’s disappearance, when the rival smith had come with his son and the law to uproot her, saying it was simply not the job of a girl, and certainly not a woman, as Llew would soon be. In fact, it had been suggested that she marry the son, passing the rights of the smithy to him legally. Of course, she’d refused. In that case, the Farry involved had said, the smithy’s ownership reverted to the town, who then passed it on to the son of the other smith anyway.
She had surrendered the family home by choice when she got sick of her father’s friends offering to ‘comfort’ her in his absence; he looked both outraged and saddened at this, evidently unaware of the passes his buddies had made to his daughter right under his drunken nose. Going into hiding for a few weeks had been enough to reintegrate slowly into society as the boy, Llew. She’d always been boyish anyway, it was just a matter of letting society forget they’d known of a girl called Llewella. It hadn’t taken long but for a few of his drinking companions.
“I was a terrible father.”
The sorrow in his voice tugged at Llew’s heart and she drew him into a hug again.
“You missed ma. I always knew that.” She had forgiven him his failings, right up until that day he hadn’t come home.
“But it shouldn’t have been an excuse. I’m so sorry, Llew.”
Llew shushed him and rocked him side-to-side, like her mother would have done for her back in the old days.
Eventually they parted again, and lay holding hands. Llew would never let her father go again. Braph might find them, but they would fight for their freedom or die trying. She wouldn’t live to be bled and raped by him, and she wouldn’t allow her father to return to it. They would go back to Cheer – it was her home, after all – and they would reclaim the smithy, and everything would go back to the way it had been; to the way it should have been.
She felt the knife at her hip and was reassured by its presence. Then she looked to the cut in her hand. It was so small, yet it had drained that woman to a state that allowed Llew to escape without fear of anyone coming after her too soon. If Braph caught up to them, she wouldn’t hesitate to make it bigger, deeper. She would use the knife on him, one way or the other. In her hands, it was more deadly than ever; a smile touched her lips at the thought of wielding such power. The second she felt her mind cloud, she would cut herself. Just try and take me then, you bastard.
Remembering why she’d cut herself in the first place, she pulled her hand free of her father’s. She hadn’t been aware of any ghi transference, and she doubted it would have an effect – he was Aenuk, too, after all – but she couldn’t ignore the niggle in the back of her mind.
She groaned as the first drops of rain hit the leaves above them.
“I haven’t felt rain on my skin in years,” her pa said.
She turned to him and smiled. With that simple statement, he had washed away her annoyance, replacing it with appreciation. The rain did feel good, it meant they were free, and it wouldn’t kill her to get a little damp.
She closed her eyes and, eventually, she dozed.
***
Enveloped in the fog of lingering sleep, Llew rolled onto her side. The hand that had been resting on her arm slid across her back and hit the ground. Jonas! She smiled and rolled over. Not Jonas. Pa. They’d escaped. Braph hadn’t caught up to them in the night. They were free.
But he didn’t smile back. His staring eyes didn’t even blink.
“Pa?” The smile slid from Llew’s face.
She reached out a hand and snapped it back. He was as frozen as the ground beneath them. Only his hand remained supple where it had been warmed by her skin.
She hoisted herself up on an elbow. “Pa?”
She touched him again and he flopped onto his back, his hand reaching grotesquely high before his staring eyes. Her eyes pricked with hot tears. No! It couldn’t be.
Death stretched in every direction: left, right, up, and down. So slowly she could hardly feel it, her bare skin was draining ghi from everything . . . even her father.
But it couldn’t be. He was Aenuk, too.
“Pa?” She tried to shake him. His solid form just rocked back and forth, hand raised and grotesquely waving farewell. “No! Pa?” Same action. Same result.
She looked at the cut on her hand. It had scabbed over. A scab! She’d never had a scab in her life. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her father had saved her by leaving her behind in Cheer, and now, after all these years, she’d killed him trying to take him back with her.
She pulled the offending weapon, flinging it into the woods, and bawled. She gripped her face in her hands, unable to look at the devastation, unable to look at her father. What a mess she’d made of everything. She was somewhere in the middle of Turhmos and she’d killed her father, and in doing so had also created a huge signpost to anyone with an interest in her whereabouts. Braph would find her soon and she didn’t know if she could fight him. He would take her again, bleed her, rape her.
And what was she doing to stop him? Kneeling, crying into her hands. She sat up straight, sniffed, and wiped her nose on her forearm.
She should find the knife and take her own life. It was the only way to end her suffering and the devastation she caused. No more killing. Yes, she still wanted that ordinary life she’d always dreamed of. She still wanted to slot in with the rest of society and live life. But who was she kidding? She was never going to get that. Her options were to live as Braph’s slave, Turhmos’ slave, or Quaver’s prisoner. Better to just end it now.
Out the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of her father’s stiff corpse, and nearly choked up and bawled again, but she couldn’t. She had to stop this; she had to move.
Half stumbling, half cra
wling after the weapon, she got down on hands and knees and sifted through the undergrowth until she found it. Kneeling, she brandished it before her. The knife. The weapon that could kill her and end it all.
But what if she failed? What if she only managed a near fatal wound? What would happen then? Would she drain everything even faster? Would she kill the whole Phyos continent and everything and everyone on it? Jonas? Anya? Cassidy? Alvaro? She couldn’t take that risk. As important as it was to end it all, it was just as important to do so without making an even bigger mess.
Jonas was the one who could do it. And if he wouldn’t, she would pester him until he snapped. If she couldn’t kill herself, then Jonas had to. He just had to.
She re-emerged into the clearing where her father lay, that hand still pointing to the sky, and knelt by him. Once again she scanned the area around them, but not a hint of life remained, probably not for miles. She reached for his hand, but it wouldn’t move under her light touch and she feared breaking him with more. She closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Pa.” She pressed her fingers to her lips and then to her father’s cheek. “I love you.” She made to move and found she couldn’t leave. She knelt by her father and wept again. It wasn’t fair. Her father had loved her more than any man ever had, ever could, and she’d gone and killed him. And now she had to leave him. She had no spade, no way to bury him properly. She had no horse, no way to take him with her.
She straightened his dirty, old, grey shirt over his waist and ran her hand down it, smoothing its rumples. She could do little for him now except leave him looking his best. She ran her fingers through his hair, smoothing it. And then she was combing it with both hands, parting it nicely, styling it. He had gone grey since she’d seen him last, but he still had a full head of hair.
