17. Emi
My arm ached with fatigue from holding up the long sword, and Julie’d sworn it was her lightest blade when she selected it for me. The moment I’d seen the wall of gleaming swords in the smithy, I’d asked Julie to train me. I’d begged with treacle pie.
“You’ll get used to it,” the blonde warrior told me while moving through the sequence she’d shown me with the grace of a soaring bird. “But it takes time.”
I tried it again and felt like a lumbering pack-lorcan on three legs. “Did you learn all this in Anterra?”
“Definitely not,” she snorted, then put on a prim voice. “A lady does not play with swords.”
“A lady? Or a Lady?” I arched an eyebrow at her rare revelation, causing her to pause with her sword elevated.
“Both.” She lowered the point and fixed me with a meaningful stare, deliberating before she spoke again. “I trust you, Emi. Maybe I shouldn’t but I do. My real name is Juliet. My mother was Lady Crestborn.”
“Oh. Oh!” I remembered the story of the terrible fire nearly four annums ago that had claimed the life of the Lady of Crestborn Manor, and the unbelievable tale of her daughter who had walked out unscathed. The daughter who had then been accused of witchcraft and murder. “Oh, Julie…er, Juliet. What happened to your mother was awful. I am terribly sorry for your loss, and for the way people treated you after. I can only imagine how that hurt.”
“Thank you. No one’s ever said that to me.”
“That’s why you know so much about witches.”
She nodded. “I’m no witch, but I shouldn’t have lived that night. It’s also why you can’t ever tell anyone my real name or where I am. I’d be killed if the Mont’Ag discovers me here given the longstanding feud between our families, and I’ll be tried for my own mother’s death if I ever return to Anterra.”
“It’s complicated,” I breathed, repeating our conversation from days ago.
“It is that.”
“Your secret is safe with me. I can never repay you for what you’ve done for me here, Juliet.”
“Just call me Jules. It’s safer, and that’s what Locke calls me. Now show me the cross cut-twist-and-block sequence again.”
I wanted to ask more, but I went through the move. It was my idea to learn how to fight, after all. I wanted to be worthy of the fight when I returned to Anterra, which I’d begun to realize I must.
My blinders had been lowered here, revealing how little I knew about my own world and family. I’m not sure when I started imagining my return to Anterra, but in the past twelve days that I’d been in Zocere, I’d shifted from never wanting to return to dreaming of it nightly. Or at least, dreaming about Wolf.
I told myself I needed to see my family and uncover the secrets that had been hidden from me, not that I wanted to know what had happened to Wolf. I kept that question relegated to the haunting dreams, scrubbing the ache from my breastbone each morning. The thought of seeing him again had nothing to do with my gnawing unease, it was only that I wanted to set things right.
Revenge for Grandma was a conflicted need now that I knew the truth. If my own kin was responsible for cursing Anterra with the Mist, then maybe I could do something about it. I needed to find meaning in this mess.
I stepped my foot in toward my weight center as I completed the twist and block.
“Better,” Juliet praised. “Your stance…”
I looked up to find her studying me. “What?”
“Just something I’ve noticed. You had some training before?”
I’d only vaguely mentioned it, not wanting to bore her with my troubles with Wolf or make her think I might bring difficulty to her door that she wasn’t willing to put up with. “A bit,” I hedged. “Is my stance wrong?”
“No, not wrong. It’s just…” Juliet’s mouth twisted into a rare smile. “It’s obvious whoever trained you really cares about you.”
“What?” I nearly swallowed my tongue. I did fumble my sword and it clattered to the dirt. “Why would you say that?”
“Well, you told me you wanted to learn to fight, but your natural stance is purely defensive. You’re strongest in protective moves. Most at ease. That tells me that your trainer was more concerned with keeping you safe than setting you up for your own attack.”
“That’s not…He said…Oh!” I grabbed up my dropped sword and stomped a circle while my mind raced. “That slippery, conniving, dastardly dog!”
“Um…”
“He lied!”
Juliet didn’t ask, just waited patiently for me to work off the fury with more stomping and pacing. For some stupid reason, Wolf’s words, “Don’t fight angry,” slid through my head. I could practically hear him tutting at me.
He’d said he was training me to fight. How had I not noticed that he was always the one attacking while I only learned to block and deflect? He even pointed out the times I should run whenever I got free. My only attacks on him were my own chaotic, emotional outbursts, all ones he had no trouble thwarting.
Well, I wanted to fight now! Wolf wouldn’t know what hit him.
Had he been mocking me the whole time? Was he, even now, having a good laugh with his friends about the silly witchling he’d bested? His stupid cinnamon curls would be flopping at his temple as he laughed in that infectious chuckle. His silver eyes would be sparkling, his slightly too-sharp canines gleaming in the light as he tossed his head back and exposed the little cluster of freckles on the column of his neck.
Had I been one big joke to him?
Wolf was the last person I should want to see, but ohhh sundogs, I wanted answers. “How dare he?”
Juliet cleared her throat. “How dare he try to take care of you? Or how dare he not tell you that’s what he was doing? And who is this mysterious he?” She looked far too amused for my liking.
Deciding sword lessons were over, I hung my blade on the rack beside her training area. Sharp edges were a poor match for my current mood. Shaking out my trembling arms, I took a few deep breaths.
“Have you ever wanted to kill someone? I mean, really wanted to kill them?”
“Several times,” Juliet confirmed, hanging her own blade and leaning against the rack. “My stepfather and stepbrothers on a regular basis, particularly after my mother passed.”
“Oh, they’re why you left Anterra?” In all my turmoil, I’d only thought of myself again. Of course, Juliet had a great reason to hate the men who’d forced her from her home.
“Fled, more like. But yes. And more recently, Locke has made his way rather high up my short list, along with Their Royal High-asses, the Mont’Ague especially, but tell me about this mystery man you want to kill.”
“Why do you hate Locke?” I asked instead. “I got the sense something was off between you two. Sorry, you don’t have to tell me. I’m being nosy.”
“Relax, Emi. You’re not half as much trouble as you seem to think you are, and we’re friends, right?”
“We are?”
“I think so.” Juliet gave me a warm smile. “You don’t?”
“No, I—I mean, yes. It’s—sorry, I’ve never really had a friend before.” I hadn’t meant to admit that, but once it was out, it didn’t feel as bad as I thought it would, especially when Juliet crossed the space to hug me. I couldn’t remember the last time someone hugged me, unless I counted the times Wolf had his arms around me while we trained or that one time he held me while I cried. And I definitely didn’t count those, no matter what warm, safe feelings they had raised.
“Give yourself more credit, Emi. Forget those people who could have had you as a friend and were too short-sighted to see your worth. Focus on the ones who see you.”
“Like Locke does you?”
She frowned. “He doesn’t have friends. He’s made that abundantly clear.”
“Can I ask what happened?”
Pain flashed across Juliet’s face, there and gone with a squaring of her shoulders. “He killed someone I loved very much.”
Shock punched through me. “He what? And you haven’t killed him?” I’d watched her and Locke spar once before he left. I’d seen her abilities every evening she’d spent training me. If she wanted Locke dead, he would be.
“I wanted to at first, but he didn’t do it without reason.”
“I can’t imagine forgiving something like that.” Grandma’s face floated up, stern as she sent me out to gather herbs for her. I’d loved her. I had. And I thought she’d loved me too, but all the secrets coming out had me doubting even that.
“There’s always another side to the story,” Juliet hedged.
I’d thought it simple, but she was right. Locke may have had his reasons, as Wolf had had his.
My side wasn’t the only one. I just hadn’t been willing to see the other. I could no longer discount Wolf’s stories of the people he called family. I could see his side, I just didn’t like what it showed me.
Now that I’d heard Juliet’s account of the Mist, and with the separation of another world to see how people should be living free from the oppressive weight of semi-darkness, I could see how a person would be desperate to end it. Anterra should have sunshine like Zocere. We should be able to grow crops like they did here and feed our families and have hope again. We should all be free, and that included the innocent people for whom Wolf fought.
If Grandma Ruby was really the Ruby Witch and had cast such an awful curse, and if Wolf truly thought he could break it by killing her—then did that change how I felt? I wasn’t sure.
I liked to think I would have found another way if I’d been in Wolf’s position, but he’d told me of everything they’d tried before. They’d lost people to their efforts. They’d been trapped for annums and annums, long enough to have tried more than I could possibly think of. If I believed nothing else, I’d seen the honest hurt Wolf felt when he spoke over meals of the friends and brothers they’d lost to the madness. The people he cared for had lost all memories of anything they’d loved before, and then lost even more.
My legs went weak.
A vision of silver eyes through the Mist sent a deep ache through my chest. Even as Wolf became the very monster I’d vowed to kill, he’d seemed to know me for a heartbeat. It had been long enough for me to flee. And Juliet claimed he’d been teaching me to protect myself. Why would he have done that? It shouldn’t matter, but it did.
Yet if I stopped blaming him, who did I blame? Was Grandma Ruby responsible for her own death?
Why had no one ever told me any of this? My mother had left us rather than be there to tell me the family secrets. Grandma had seen me every moon and never warned me. And Jade…did she know? Was my sister a witch?
My head spun.
Events, memories, glib comments and callous actions—the life I’d known back home crumbled and fell to dust. When the pieces reformed, the picture was one I’d been too afraid to see. I’d been too comfortable in my blindness.
Sunbeams, my whole family…
The lies…
I was still lost in swirling thoughts when the gate to Juliet’s yard crashed open. A man stumbled through the gap, bent double and barely able to stand. He was covered in blood, dark and wet and dripping. When he fell to one knee and looked up, his face was blanched, strained, and terribly familiar.
“Locke!” Juliet screamed.
“Keep pressure on it,” Juliet ordered as we lowered Locke to her settee.
We were both drenched with Locke’s blood from where it poured heavily from the gaping wound through his abdomen. My hands pressed into the slick heat of it. My stomach turned over at the sight of blood oozing through my fingers, the shift in pressure drawing an agonized groan from Locke.
“Weapon?” Jules barked, no nonsense, all action.
“Sword…” he grunted.
She ran for towels, and I peeled back the blood-soaked hem of Locke’s tunic to reveal the wound.
“Blue skies.” My words were a hushed oath.
“Bad...eh?” Locke’s eyes squeezed closed against the pain.
“You”re run through. What happened? No, don”t answer. Don”t speak.”
Juliet rushed back into the room. I grabbed a towel to press hard into the wound. Locke groaned loudly, his eyes rolling back in his head. When we tried to roll him up to his other side so we could see the back, his scream bit off into abrupt silence.
“Thank sunbeams, he passed out,” Juliet muttered. Her hands were quick over his skin, pouring spirits from a bottle over the wound while clearing the worst of the blood, all while I tried to keep the towel pressed firmly to the front. The wound emerged from the gore, jagged and gaping.
Juliet swore, her eyes meeting mine with a flood of resigned horror.
“No.” I shook my head at her. “No, he saved me. He saved both of us, and now we”re going to save him, Juliet. We have to. There has to be something we can do.”
A tear escaped over her lashes, and she shook her head slowly. “It”s a mortal wound, Emi. He had to know it. I doubt he”ll even wake up again.”
“What? No. I can’t…I won”t lose anyone else.” Everything was falling apart. My family had lied all my life, and Wolf might have been the only one telling me the truth. I’d lost what little love I thought I had, even Grandma’s memory tainted now, and I refused to lose one of the only people who’d ever been kind to me in return for nothing at all. “We have to save him.”
I grabbed another towel to press to the wound on his back and let his body roll down onto it so I could stem the bleeding from both sides. He had to live. He had to.
I couldn”t save Grandma, I couldn’t do anything about the curse or figure out what to think about Wolf or help the people he cared about, but I wanted to save Locke. I would save Locke.
I just wanted to do something good.
Hidden stars, was this what Wolf felt? He’d sounded so desperate when he told me his truth. He’d wanted to do something good, even though it meant doing something terrible to achieve it. I cared about Locke, and more than that, I cared about Juliet. The pain on her face in that heartbeat was something I”d do anything to erase, but the man was dying before our eyes.
I had no time to process this wild flood of understanding for Wolf’s actions because everything was unraveling. Tears flooded my eyes. My throat closed.
Juliet leaned over Locke and pressed a tender kiss to his forehead, then she smoothed the hair across his brow, giving him a look more fond than I”d ever seen on her face. Her eyes were full of unspoken grief. “I was always your friend, Locke, no matter what you had to say about it. You’ve been like a brother to me and I love you, you stubborn mule. I know you care about me too. If you can hear me, I forgive you.” She took his hand and squeezed it, then abruptly left the room.
I felt like I just trespassed on something terribly private between them, or like I walked in midway through an old conversation these two had been having for ages. My heart ached for whatever friendship there was left to salvage that would be lost if Locke died.
I couldn”t let this happen. “You have to live, Locke. Don”t give up. Please. For her. For me. For whoever you were trying to help by coming to my grandmother. Please live. Please don’t die.
“I wish I could help. I wish I could save everyone and end all this suffering. All I wanted—“ But I couldn”t say anything more because pain ripped through my middle as if I was the one run through by a sword.
Sharp spikes of fire shot across my skin, my whole body burning. The agony bent me double, and I knew I”d lost hold of the towel on Locke”s abdomen. I couldn’t hold on. I couldn’t save him while this blaze burned through me. Blackness clouded the edges of my vision.
Locke would bleed out, all because I wasn’t enough. My family were all self-serving, and I was no better, banding my arm around my middle instead of holding on to him, trying to hold myself together while I let Locke slip away. A scream stuck in my throat—pain or despair, I couldn’t say.
My last reasoned thought as cascades of blinding sparks stole my vision, and my hearing exploded in a deafening shriek, was that I”d never helped anyone, not really. Not back home, not in the Mist, not here, not now.
I”d been blind to the suffering of others. Whatever this pain was, it was a poetic penance for the harm I’d willfully ignored.
But I was a coward, and so I reached for the beckoning dark and let my mind conjure Wolf. I could embrace the agony and welcome the way it blocked out the fear and guilt, but surely I could allow myself one bit of warmth too, a piece of the desires I’d shoved down. Sinking into the fiery pain, I turned myself over to the burning flame of that kiss. I felt his lips against mine, more perfect than I’d dared to imagine. I let the binding pressure around my chest be the weight of his arms around me, not as they had been while he showed me how to escape him, but as they could be if I said I didn’t want to anymore.
I lost myself in the black, and there I found a pair of silvered eyes and I drowned in their tortured depths.
When I couldn’t take the sweetness and anguish any longer, I embraced him in return, and surrendered to the tempting oblivion. And wasn’t that just one more way of being selfish…