by B. T. Narro
“What caused it to start?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but it seems to be connected with magic. The more I cast, the worse the attack at night.”
I went quiet to finish creating the Sartious ring around Lisanda’s slender ankle. As talented as I was with the heavy energy, I was too tired to concentrate enough to talk and cast at the same time.
“You don’t need to do that. Especially if it’ll make the attack worse.” She put her hand on my wrist to stop my wand. “I’m not going to run. If I’m going to be here beside you, I’d rather go through the night without seeing what I saw last night in the inn.”
I was so exhausted I couldn’t even think. “I’ve already started. I’m just going to finish it.”
“Fine.” She was insulted.
The mattress was without a frame, lying directly on the wooden floor beside me. With nothing to bind her to, I bound her ankle to mine with about three feet between us. She scooted to the head of her bed, carefully finding a spot between stains to rest her body.
“This mattress is too hard,” Lisanda complained.
I didn’t answer her. Dealing with complaints was the last thing I wanted to do. Lying on the floor shirtless, I was already half asleep with the other half of my mind trying not to worry about the nightmare waiting for me.
“I heard you when I was bathing,” Lisanda muttered to me. “You’re no longer going to ask your father to deliver a message for you. I hope you’re not expecting me to agree to stay for more than three days?”
“No.” My voice had a low grumble from the exhaustion. “We made a deal. I’ll stick by it.”
“So, how will you set up the trade?”
I gave a loud breath as I thought. “I’ll probably go myself to set up the trade, leaving you with my family.”
Lisanda sat up. “They’ll throw you in prison as soon as they see you.”
“Not if I tell them that if I don’t return, you’ll be harmed.”
She gasped. I turned to her, expecting to find shock on her face. It was there for a blink, but it quickly morphed into a look of disgust. I wanted to let her know it was an idle threat, that I never would hurt her and neither would my family, but for her to have that knowledge would be detrimental.
In the span of a heartbeat, she grabbed the Sartious bar connecting our two ankles, raised it about six inches, and slammed it back down. Her foot hit the mattress while mine crashed into the wooden floor.
“Bastial hell, that hurt!” I sat up to nurse my heel.
“Good.” She humphed and turned away from me to lie on her side. “You didn’t even thank me for saving your life, and now you talk about hurting me.”
She was right! The thought hit me like a brick. She’d warned me about Exo.
I was so busy and distracted with everything that had happened after, I didn’t even realize it. She’d saved me, but why?
“How did you know Exo was going to come back?” I asked.
“He told me to wait quietly so he could sneak back and finish you off. Threw me into the wall as well.” Still facing away from me, Lisanda brought a hand up to rub her shoulder.
I didn’t know how to thank her. It felt as if the words weren’t enough, especially because she’d had to remind me. I was truly grateful, and I wanted Lisanda to know that. We remained in silence while I thought.
Eventually, she gave a long sigh to express her annoyance.
“I’m trying to figure out how to word it,” I explained.
“A simple thank you is all I expected,” Lisanda replied. “But you don’t even give me that! Then you talk about hurting me. I don’t want to hear anything else from you.”
She felt betrayed. I could hear it in her voice. I rubbed my tired eyes, trying to figure out what to say. I sat up and gently pulled her arm.
“Lisanda.” I tried to have her face me. “Lisanda, look at me.”
She turned halfway, going to her back.
I hovered over her face.
“What?” Lisanda demanded.
“I’m so thankful for your help, not just with Exo, but with the guards as well.”
We stared at each other in silence, her eyes steady on mine. I noticed the anger melt from her face.
“I saw what you did to Exo,” Lisanda whispered. “Would you really do that to me?”
I shook my head. “Never.” It came out before I had a chance to consider whether or not to reveal it. I felt relief, though. It would’ve been too hard to lie about something like that.
She tilted her head lower, her eyes remaining stuck to mine. “Your eyes are such a dark blue,” she told me. “They make me feel lost at sea.”
It seemed like a bad feeling to have, but the way she’d whispered it made me wonder if it really was. We held each other’s glance for a few silent breaths. I had nothing more to say, but I waited there nonetheless, just in case she did.
Finally she flipped back to her side and muttered, “Don’t look at me like that.”
I had the idea I was frightening close to being slapped. Relief swam through me.
We were on the horse again, heading into the forest. Lisanda’s arms were tight around my stomach.
Without a kick, the horse started into a gallop. We sped through the trees, Lisanda laughing in my ear with her infectious giggle. I slowed the horse and turned to see her smile.
“Do it again,” she told me, brushing the hair from her face.
I faced forward and gave the horse a kick, but he didn’t budge. “I don’t know how,” I said, continuing to try.
“Jek!” Lisanda was shouting my name with panic. I turned to find her on a different horse with Kalli. They were galloping away from me. “Jek!” Lisanda continued to call.
“Stop! Lisanda, come back!”
I tried to follow, but my horse wouldn’t move. Suddenly I realized someone still had hands wrapped around my stomach. I shivered with fear when I knew it couldn’t be Lisanda.
My eyes fell, and I saw pure black limbs holding on to me.
I slipped out, tumbling off the horse. I ran with a look over my shoulder. The darkness floated off the horse, wafting after me like a ghost. A serrated dagger was part of its right arm.
I couldn’t get away fast enough. My legs were numb, causing me to stumble and eventually trip. My darkness grabbed me by my shirt collar, lifting me from the ground to face it. A black outline of a hooded man, with no face and body, only limbs. In a rapid burst of thrusts it drove the knife in and out of my chest. I screamed in pain, incapable of moving.
I awoke sitting up, the real world swirling back into focus. My hands were on my chest. I peeled them back to find blood.
There were three fresh wounds around my heart, each thin slits. I started to stand to make my way to the bathroom to cleanse myself.
“Jek,” Lisanda said, startling me. I forgot I’d bound us together. I was glad she’d said something. Otherwise, I would’ve tripped.
I didn’t want to get blood on my wand, so I focused and broke the bar that held us together with a wave of my hand.
“I’ll be right back,” I told her, still catching my breath from the nightmare.
She rolled off the bed to follow me. “Do you know what it looks like when it’s happening?”
“I’ve heard,” I mumbled. Apparently I writhe and groan. Then green light explodes from my body, ripping my skin open. I didn’t like to think about it.
“You were…talking,” she said cautiously, giving me the impression she was uncomfortable repeating what I’d said.
Feeling embarrassed, I didn’t ask. She stood in the doorway when I entered the bathroom.
“Since you’re here, can you help me with the pitcher?” I motioned to it with my head. My hands had enough blood on them to make me want to avoid touching anything.
She nodded and filled it with clean water from the basin.
I held out my hands, rubbing them together under the thin stream she poured. I cupped my hands around the water and rinse
d my chest next.
Lisanda set down the pitcher and carefully tugged the cloth from between my elbow and body that I’d carried downstairs to the bathroom. She started to wipe off the water and streaks of blood remaining on my chest and stomach.
I started to feel shy about her being so close to my naked chest. “You should go back to bed,” I said, calmly taking the cloth from her hand.
“Go back upstairs, Lisanda.” I twisted around to find Kalli leaning against the doorway with her arms folded low across her stomach.
Lisanda’s shoulders stiffened. She gave a nervous look to me and then walked out, avoiding eye contact with Kalli as she passed her.
Kalli came toward me and sighed. She took the cloth from me, wiping some drops of water around my neck I hadn’t found yet.
“I’m sorry this happens.” My sister’s voice was tired.
“Nothing for you to be sorry about.”
“I always hoped it would go away on its own, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.” She paused, finishing up with the cloth. Then she studied my body.
“You’ve gotten a lot stronger since working with Drent.” Taking my shoulders, she turned me for a better look at my wounds, sighing twice. “But these are worse than I remember. I’m going to make sure you get the cure.”
“Kalli, you shouldn’t be involved at all.”
“Too late for that.” Kalli handed me back the cloth. She peered out the doorway, poking her head around to make sure no one was there. Turning back to me, she whispered, “You have to stop trusting Lisanda.”
“Kalli…”
She lifted her hands to interrupt me. “Just listen to what I have to say.”
Kalli waited for me to respond before continuing. I hated when she did that, but I held back a look of impatience.
“Fine.” I said as plainly as I could.
“Lisanda is nothing but a means to your cure, remember that. She’s not your friend. She’s definitely not your girlfriend. She’s the daughter to the man who sent that mage who killed all our animals. What if Sannil was responsible for something like that? Would you stay idle? Would you let it happen?”
“Of course not, Kalli, but—”
“I wouldn’t either. Lisanda may pretend to care about you now, but if she really cared about people like us she wouldn’t have let her family get away with years of injustice.”
Kalli always had a grudge against the Takary family, ever since she and I started going to The Nest to pick up supplies for the farm when she was twelve and I was ten. We had a few incidents with the people there, and the guards were no help. We even had a few incidents with the guards themselves.
Kalli was somewhat chubby when she was younger, and the guards seemed to put more effort into making that painfully obvious than in helping us.
I tried to force a smile, knowing my sister was only trying to help. “Thank you for your concern,” I told her. “But don’t worry about me.”
“She’s using your trust against you. I can feel it.”
“Then why did she save my life?”
Kalli squinted, unsure what I meant. “When?”
“With Exo. She warned me he was coming back to kill me.”
Kalli’s mouth tightened. “That’s simple. She’s more scared of him than she is of you. Anyone who meets you knows within a handshake that you have a gentle heart. With that mage it’s the opposite. He reeks of cruelty.”
I didn’t want to believe my sister, but I couldn’t find the logic to disagree, either. I decided to say something to ease her worry, to show her I was listening, while I figured out what I really thought later.
“Maybe my gentle nature was why the King took advantage of me. He thought he could get away with it.”
“But we’ll make sure he doesn’t.” Kalli squeezed my arm lovingly. “We’ll get you the cure. As long as you don’t let the pretty girl distract you.”
I returned to my bedroom with a lot on my mind. I had begun to trust Lisanda, whether I wanted to or not. And the thought of going back to how we were when we’d first met was painful. It felt like I would be losing a friend, which reminded me of the slaughtered animals I’d already lost.
My entire body clenched from the tight pinch that death created. I missed Rubble dearly. Literal pain hit my stomach and swelled into my chest.
Lisanda was on her back, dead asleep. She had one hand up beside her head so that it was resting on her wild black hair strewn across the pillow. Her other hand moved up and down on her stomach with each breath, bobbing like a boat in the middle of the ocean.
The moment I saw her, I forgot everything Kalli had just told me.
Chapter 19: Bonds
In the morning we took four bags, two wheelbarrows, and a wagon, filling each with food, jugs of water, and all the valuables we could fit. Although we left some belongings in the farmhouse, they were only what we didn’t mind losing if the house was raided by guards.
Most of what we took were clothes. Kalli also took her lute and some books, while Sannil took all the portraits he’d made over the years, neatly stacking them on the wagon that our horse pulled. Most were paintings of Kalli and me throughout childhood, along with two older ones of Sannil’s late wife, Janie, who I knew little about besides the way she looked.
Sannil had told me that Janie had a fever a few days before Kalli was born and never recovered after the blood loss from the birthing. Kalli is two years older than me, so I never met Janie.
In the few instances Kalli or I asked about her, Sannil’s eyes would look inward and find old memories that must’ve become scars. I could see him reliving the pain. He’d wear a smile and try to answer us amiably, but Kalli and I knew better.
The discomfort those conversations created was stronger than my curiosity. So I’d stopped asking about Janie long ago.
After breakfast, the four of us were ready to make our way into the forest. As the horse was most comfortable with me from our trip to the farm, I led him while my father and sister each pushed a wheelbarrow.
Lisanda’s bag was the same size as the rest of ours, but it looked big on her small frame. She seemed unused to caring a heavy load, constantly using her hands to shift the bag to various positions on her back, sometimes hopping to straighten out the sagging straps.
“Kalli, where are you going?” Sannil set down his wheelbarrow to ask.
Kalli had veered off toward the pigsty. “We have to check on him before we go. What if he escaped?”
Sannil put his hands on his hips. “He couldn’t have. He’s wrapped in chains.” Sannil lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the rising sun as his glance followed her. “Kalli, he’s dangerous even without a wand.”
“Then come protect me,” Kalli called back over her shoulder.
Sannil sighed and walked after her. I turned to Lisanda and motioned with my head. We followed.
As I came to the door of the small brick building, the stench of rotting flesh invaded my nose and eyes with a slight burn. Lisanda coughed, covering her face with both hands. She shook her head and went back the other way.
“Come on.” I waved her forward.
“No,” Lisanda said through her hands, still shaking her head.
“I need to go in,” I told her. “And I can’t leave you out here. It’ll be quick.”
Her shoulders slumped, and she turned to follow me.
Kalli and Sannil were inside already. I expected to hear Kalli yelling at Exo, but there were no sounds, not even a murmur.
The sight I saw when I entered was so shocking I hardly noticed how much stronger the stench had become.
My sister and father were staring at the broken chains as if they were watching the world beginning to shatter, a moment of terrible discovery and astonishment.
“How?” Kalli whispered to anyone who could answer.
I went to investigate the chains, lifting them into the light coming through the high window.
“He heated them until they melted enough to break.
” I shook my head in disbelief. “He must’ve been burned severely by the amount of heat needed to melt the metal, especially since he didn’t have a wand or staff to direct the Bastial Energy from a single point.”
I dropped the chains back into the pile of pig blood and entrails and walked out so I could think straight.
Even if I could put up with the terrible burns, I didn’t have the strength for all the Bastial Energy needed to melt through chains. The power and determination that it took was frightening. And where was he now?
The rest of them joined me outside. Confusion was shared by all, though Kalli’s face held anger as well. Her eyes were twisted as she looked back at the pigsty.
“Why didn’t he attack us once he got free?” Kalli wondered.
Sannil glanced quickly in each direction. “He was probably barely alive when he finished burning himself to get through the chains. We need to move before he recovers and comes back.” Sannil went back toward the wheelbarrows.
“We should’ve killed him,” Kalli muttered.
“Kalli…” Our father gave her a sad look.
Normally, Sannil had a warm smile. With a wide mouth and thick lips, a grin from him caused deep lines to form high up his cheekbones. But I hadn’t seen one of his smiles since I’d returned.
I missed them.
I knew Sannil to be a handsome man. His graying hair still had streaks of dark brown along the sides with some strands mixed in atop his head as well. His eyes were brown and youthful. Above them were eyebrows that were still dark. Sannil never let his beard grow out, but he usually had sandy gray stubble that accentuated his smile—when it came.
My father was big, about a forehead taller than me and with wide shoulders. He never complained of a sore back or a lack of energy. Instead, he’d often mutter how there weren’t enough hours in the day, waking up early with the sun and staying out until darkness made the simplest task impossible.
Sannil was looking at Kalli like she was plagued with a disease. “You’re upset,” he told her. “But this isn’t you. I know you don’t really wish to take another’s life.” His tone was accusatory.
