Chapter Twenty-One #2
“Survived, did you,” he said. He was not going to give them the encouragement of sounding relieved about it. Their kin might have helped him in Durov, but this particular
horde had still been the bane of his life for four years.
The first sprite buzzed closer at his voice, then suddenly flitted straight to his shoulder. It grasped a lock of his hair
to anchor itself and tilted its head, staring intently at him. He could sense its concern.
“I’m fine,” muttered Cyrus. It was unnerving, being the subject of such thorough inspection.
He pulled the last of the turnips, then sat back.
After a second of hesitation, he held his hand out.
The creature hopped onto his palm and smiled at him.
Through his new, strange awareness, Cyrus felt the sprite’s concern for him morph into happiness that he had returned, though its chattering remained incomprehensible.
“No idea what you said.” The sprite frowned at him, then stamped its foot against his palm in frustration. Ooh. This one had
attitude. It said something else, so high and fast it almost made his ears itch. “Going to presume it was a compliment, though.”
“What compliment? Are you talking to yourself again?” Max appeared around the corner. He stopped when he saw the sprite. Cyrus
quickly stood and dusted himself off.
“Nothing,” he said. He expected that the sprite would zoom back to its companions, but instead it returned to his shoulder
and sat down.
Max raised his eyebrows. “Made yourself a little friend, have you?”
Embarrassed, Cyrus tried to flick the sprite off his shoulder. It swiftly dodged his attempts and settled back down, grasping
firmly at his hair to anchor itself again.
“Well,” said Max. He looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. “As long as it doesn’t try to kill me again, I suppose
I can share you.”
“Don’t be such a baby.” As if Cyrus hadn’t found them coming after him with a pair of scissors. “You’re not sharing me—go
on, go back to your family.”
But the sprite wasn’t having any of it. When he tried to flick it away again, a minuscule hand gave his hair a surprisingly
hard tug.
“Ow!”
“It seems you’ve met your match,” Max commented.
“You’ll have to name it. Not something like Soulripper or Gutgrabber, ideally.
You might give it ideas.” He held out an arm laden with Soulripper’s spare reins and saddle.
“Speaking of. Found these.” With his free hand, he tapped his pocket.
“And you’ll be pleased to know I managed to rescue a single bottle of peppermint oil.
Not that we have a usable bath, but still. ”
They gathered their belongings into the saddlebags, the sprite finally relinquishing its grip on his hair to cling to Gutgrabber’s
reins instead. Cyrus ventured to stand by his door one last time, looking out across the familiar sight: the lush greens of
the leafy north, the Bek mountains throwing up a spiky barrier to the southlands. There, the Federation would be plotting
their revenge. Champions would hate them; wrongdoers too. Their types were not supposed to mix. Any semblance of peace in
Athaca would be hard to come by.
What was left for them? His thoughts veered towards a future he hadn’t expected to face, one where they had to lie low and
live a life out of the public eye. Not a wrongdoer and a champion, equally infamous. Just Cyrus and Max.
He expected to baulk at the thought of it. The reputation he’d worked so hard to build, the lifestyle he’d honed so carefully.
He would lose them.
But he would have Max.
“Ready?”
Cyrus turned. Max was waiting for him by the horses, threading his fingers through Soulripper’s mane. Cyrus thought suddenly of the first time Max had come to his lair, wary and unsure, but ready to suggest a ploy that would change everything.
Who would have thought?
“Ready,” Cyrus said. He joined Max, ghosting a hand over his arm in passing and giving it a quick squeeze just because he
could.
Cyrus led the way down the mountainside path. His thoughts were on the future, trying to sketch out the shape of it. He was
not expecting to round the final corner and come face-to-face with a stranger.
It was Max’s turn to bump into him as Cyrus froze. The stranger froze too, a red-headed youth of about twenty with a spattering
of freckles and a Federation tunic. And a sword in his hand.
His eyes widened and darted between them. Then, without warning, he lunged for Cyrus.
Max was on him in an instant. Cyrus hadn’t heard or seen him draw his sword, but it was there in his hand, knocking the youth’s
weapon flying across the path. He grabbed a handful of red hair, wrenched the young man’s head back, and shoved him to his
knees, a sob squeezed out as Max forced him to stare up at the sky. His sword had already come up to rest against the man’s
jugular, a thin red line beading along the edge of the blade.
“Who the fuck do you think you—”
The rest of Max’s furious words were lost under a wild yell as somebody else lunged out of the trees, making both horses rear in surprise. Cyrus whipped round, startled.
A woman a handful of years younger than him with short silver hair and the tattoo of a snake winding around her neck came careering down the path towards them.
The weapon raised above her head, a mess of spikes protruding from a machete and a mallet melded together, looked alarmingly homemade.
Cyrus barely had time to take that in—that, and the look of malicious glee twisting her face—before he realised with a rush of ice that he was not the target. Max was.
There was no time for thought, to unsheathe a dagger. It was fortunate that Cyrus’s magic did not require time or thought,
now so tightly wrapped around his being that it flared instantly in their defence. Before the wrongdoer could get that spiky
mess anywhere near Max, the nearest yew sprouted new branches from ancient boughs, hurtling out with deadly accuracy to seize
the attacker by the legs. She yelled as she went down, though she clung to her weapon with grim determination. The branches
extended further, ruthlessly efficient, trapping her arms by her body.
Once the wrongdoer was well and truly ensnared, Cyrus turned to share a look with Max. Max was staring at the wrongdoer with
such astonishment he’d forgotten how much pressure he was applying to the young man’s neck. A red line welled up against the
milky skin.
“What,” Cyrus said, “the fuck just happened?”
Max glanced at him, then at the youth, whose throat convulsed around a swallow. Hastily, he loosened his grip.
“Who sent you?”
“Nobody sent me,” the boy whispered.
Max arched an eyebrow. “Sorry, did you prefer it when I—”
The sword pressed tighter again. Blood welled once more. The youth squeaked and Cyrus watched in impressed silence.
“Nobody had to,” the man choked out. “The Federation won’t rest until the two of you are brought to justice, everyone knows—”
Cyrus’s eyes travelled between his flushed face and the wrongdoer, who stared at him with such intense dislike that she still
managed to look faintly intimidating despite being trussed up by a tree.
“You’re working together?”
“I’m not working with her!” the Federation youth cried, flushing with revulsion. “She’s a wrongdoer! I’m here to bring glory to my family and to the
Federation by killing a wrongdoer!” His wide eyes found Cyrus, blinking hard. “You!”
The wrongdoer sneered. “And I would never sully myself by partnering with a champion,” she hissed. She looked Cyrus up and
down. Her dirty look could have given Soulripper a run for her money. “Some of us have standards. I’m here to kill a champion.” She jerked her chin towards Max with disdain. “He’ll die by my axe, and
everyone will know that champions are not welcome among the ranks of wrongdoers.”
“Oh,” said Max, looking at the fallen weapon. “That’s what that is.”
If Cyrus didn’t have two pairs of equally hate-filled eyes fixed upon him, he would have ground his knuckles into his temples to try and ease the bubble of hysteria rising within him.
So aside from the Federation bringing their considerable might against them, they could also expect to contend with young champions with notions of glory and lone wolf wrongdoers who had taken umbrage to the way Max and Cyrus had blurred the lines between their camps. Great.
Cyrus was, abruptly, really quite done with it. All of it, champions and wrongdoers alike.
He blew out a breath, turning to Max. “Any suggestions? I have an idea, but . . .”
Max shrugged. He looked a bit like Cyrus felt. Half bewildered, half ready to close his eyes and pretend they weren’t here.
“Go for it.”
Cyrus turned away, nudging the horses back so that he could touch the yew’s trunk in silent instruction. His magic pulsed
beneath his fingertips, pleased. The wrongdoer couldn’t stifle a furious yelp as the branches suddenly twisted around her,
dragging her back against the trunk and binding her tightly. The champion received the same treatment. His panicked squeal
as the yew enthusiastically secured him beside the wrongdoer wasn’t very dignified.
The sprite, watching with wide eyes until that moment, suddenly flew over to the tree, buzzing in their faces and examining
how tightly they were tied. The champion spluttered; the wrongdoer snapped her teeth at it. The sprite just retreated to perch
atop Gutgrabber’s saddle with a satisfied nod.
“You know,” Cyrus said idly, as though this was a daily occurrence for him, “Maximillian here just betrayed the Federation.
Athaca’s all in a tizzy over it. Caused quite a lot of chaos, he has, so I’m not sure that killing him should technically
be a wrongdoer’s priority.”
Max’s mouth twitched, catching on. “And Cyrus just saved thousands of people in Durov from being crushed,” he informed the red-faced Federation youth. Cyrus rolled his eyes at the blatant exaggeration. “Not very noble of you to reward such selflessness with brutality, is it?”