10. Poisons #3
“No,” she cried, “No, you’re—”
“Get out! Get out!” Imalroc thundered.
Stark white rage speared through Imalroc’s rigid body before Rerdas hauled Etiana clear of the threshold and shut the door.
His cousin leaned against the wall, her jaw slack. There was no time to say anything to her before Rerdas heard running footsteps, and a pair of servants rushed into the hall. They carried what looked like makeshift clubs.
“Master Toriem, is everything all right? We heard shouts.”
Rerdas waved his hand, hoping they couldn’t see him trembling.
“It’s alright; that was me. Lost my temper.
” He stood and took Etiana’s elbow. “It quite startled my cousin. I’m taking her back to her rooms now.
” His gaze fell again to the cudgels in their hands.
“Be so good as to escort us?” He wanted them as far from Imalroc’s door as possible.
With Etiana clinging to his arm and the servants trailing, he got them all into the guest wing. Ushering Etiana into her chambers, he dismissed the servants with another attempt at reassurance and shut the door on their retreating backs.
His cousin slumped in a chair in the sitting room that led to her bedroom. Rerdas lit a lamp on the nearest table and sat opposite her, only half-aware that one of his knees jangled with unconcealed nerves.
Etiana knew him better than anyone. He ought to have known she’d catch on so quickly. She’d seen through him like glass, even after Imalroc had warned him.
Worse than that, he did not know how to overlay his understanding of what Imalroc saw in Etiana and what he himself knew was there.
His cousin had always been like sunlight driving through the rain, hurtling into the silent home his father preferred and trampling down the walls Rerdas drew tight around himself.
Always, she had been the part of life that would not let him lie still and drown in the silence.
She was noise and light. His daring cousin was constantly embarking on one adventure or another that would undoubtedly get them both into trouble.
His childhood could be mapped in Etiana’s schemes.
But the plans were not cruel, back then, they were grand and surging with delight.
He had never minded that his father and aunt disciplined him for Etiana’s ideas.
It was worth being fished out of a creek, and singing part of his eyebrow off, and surrendering the kerrtail kit they’d found and attempted to hide in the house.
It was worth it when he looked over and saw his unrepentant ally in all things grinning back at him.
“I think,” he began, studying his boots, “that we are so surrounded by threats that I missed one, Etiana. The bloodsport—this is what Aunt Uralta warned about. Another kind of poison.”
His cousin made a muted, defiant sound.
“It kills its participants, swiftly or slowly. And maybe it kills some part of the people who watch it, too. I don’t want to be around people who can gleefully watch death and not see the cost, not even to themselves.”
He looked up at her and had another shock. “Are you crying? Eti, please, there’s no call for this. I know you’re upset, or… or angry with me for—”
“I’m not angry!” She wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “I’m scared.” Her hands flopped into her lap.
Rerdas stopped hunting for a kerchief and gripped the arms of his chair. He hoped she meant she feared whatever it was she was becoming. A person her mother would have despised. He tried for comfort, but all that bubbled up was impatience. “There’s no call for that.”
“Rerdas, I’m not scared of what he’s going to do to me; I’m scared of what he’s going to do to you.”
“Stop,” he said through gritted teeth, but she didn’t listen. Etiana never obeyed anyone.
“I can’t hold you together and hide my mother and evade the queen and pretend everything is alright to everyone else, and I can’t believe you’re stupid enough to risk this.
” She glared at him through tears, mopping her jaw.
“Have you thought for a single sane moment about what happens if Umber finds out? If the bookers and owners hear even a rumor? They will crush you both, and I can’t block every blow everyone in this family brings on themselves! ”
“Is that what you think you’re doing? I should tell you it feels more like you’re spitting in my face.” He stood sharply enough that the chair skittered a little behind him.
“Where are you going?”
“To see Imalroc.”
“You can’t! Don’t you see this can’t possibly end well?”
“It’s enlightening to know you think I’m so weak and in need of your rescue. Kindly stop defending me. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
She gaped at him.
“And Imalroc was right. This isn’t some hare-brained escape plan or plucky rebellion against Aunt Uralta’s rules, Etiana. There’s a cost to this. You chained up a person, you’ve risked his life—”
Her hands curled into fists in her skirts. “So did you.”
It landed directly in his gut, radiating with nauseating certainty. Rerdas wrenched the door open and fled.