Fourteen #2
“Ahh,” Tofa shouts suddenly, falling to the side, a Nighturn arrow in her arm.
“Tofa!” I kneel down next to her, hands hovering.
“Stay still,” Beau says, and then a shadow falls over us, Beau being pushed out the way. Calian is there, eyes wide.
Tofa whimpers, and Calian’s eyes darken.
“Shh,” he says, looking at her arm as he gently pulls her hand away from it.
“It hurts,” she says between gritted teeth, tears tracking down her face, eyes falling shut.
“Shit.” Calian says, snapping the arrow in half and then gathering her into his arms, mindful of her injury.
“The healers’ tent,” Beau says, but then the king shouts.
“No one move or more will come.”
My heart pounds in my chest as I stand, hands trembling.
The clan stands tall, backs straight, waiting, even as some lay on the ground, holding their stomachs, legs, arms, and backs.
And then they slowly stop, because the Nighturn has taken hold and they become unconscious, bodies limp and bleeding from the arrows embedded in them.
I’m frozen to the spot, eyes wide while the clan goes to help the others once the Nighturn disperses, trying to stem the bleeding, turning those over that have just been knocked out.
They need help.
My eyes go to the front, and Rohan, Kaldar, Adora, and several others have weapons in their hands. The guards notch more arrows, aiming true and that’s when my eyes move to the side and collide with Melle.
She’s crying, giant tears rolling down her face and she screams over her mom, Nora, who’s laying on the floor, her little body trembling in fear. I can’t take it.
I can’t.
“Stop.”
My voice is loud, steady compared to the stuttering breaths I take in my lungs, and Rohan freezes, causing the others to halt too.
The clan watches, the king watches, and I take one step forward, then another.
They need to see to their injured, they need the king and his guards to leave and if the only way for that to happen is for me to agree, for me to go with him so the clan can get help, so Tofa can have that arrow removed, so Melle can stop crying—I have to go.
The clan watches me as I walk toward him, up the dirt path and it feels like forever, but I finally reach Rohan in the silence.
I go to walk around him, but he steps in my way, his back still to me.
“Rohan…”
“No,” he says instantly, firmly, and I stare at his axe, at the handle. When I notice that my hair is wrapped there. I swallow roughly.
His shoulders rise and fall with deep breaths, and I place a hand to his back.
“It’s okay.”
“You’re not going with him.”
Halen smirks, watching on and I avert my eyes from him.
“He’s hurting everyone, and he will hurt them more.”
Just like last time.
The fire, the bodies… the blood and death.
“You’re not going with him.”
A small ball of anger swirls in my stomach, and I sidestep around Rohan so my back is to the king.
I feel his slimy gaze on me, but I focus on Rohan and his furious eyes.
“This is my decision.”
“It isn’t safe,” he says between gritted teeth.
“I know, but we’re not safe anywhere,” I tell him, and then say to him quietly. “Look around Rohan, we can’t win this, you know that. He can use Nighturn to knock us all out and he will take me anyway.”
His jaw ticks but he says nothing because he knows I’m right.
“You didn’t let me make my own decision before about the deal with him.” His eyes flash. “Let me make it now.”
His jaw ticks, and he shakes his head. “You cannot expect me to let you walk out of here with him.”
“I don’t expect you to,” I say softly, and then steel my spine. “But I’m not asking.”
I’ve never spoken to him in this way, and the quick flash of surprise on his face shows that. There is reluctantly a hint of pride warring with his concern, but I want to do this, have to.
All I have in my head are images of Asseya on the ground, dying, of Melle’s little face. She’s still screaming, the fear in her breaking me and I can’t.
“Please, Rohan.” I say quietly as his chest heaves. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
I don’t want him to get hurt.
“The eyes don’t lie, remember?” His fingers twitch at that. “What do mine say? You see that I want to do this, that I’m sure of my decision.”
His nostrils flare.
“They’ll be hurt. You didn’t let me go last time and people died, you have to let me go now. It’s what I want, Rohan.”
“Little Whisperer,” he says gruffly, and I take a deep breath, trying to keep my voice steady.
“I know. Just one thing, that’s what you told me, remember?”
Fear flashes in his eyes, but then he’s hauling me closer, holding me tight. He’s shaking, and I know it’s partly because he doesn’t want to let me go.
“You have to be safe.”
“I will be,” I whisper, and we both know I can’t guarantee that.
“Do whatever he tells you to do. No matter what, Alara.”
“Are we done with this disgusting display of affection?” The king snarls, and Rohan tenses.
He pulls back and places a kiss to my forehead before slowly letting me go, peeling each finger from me one at a time.
He’s fighting with himself, and I know it’s taking everything in him to do this.
But he is.
For me.
Because it’s what I want.
To make my own decision because I couldn’t last time, because he didn’t tell me.
He knows this, and he knows he has no choice here.
He has to let me go.
But it doesn’t make it any easier.
A guard comes to me, a hand reaching out but Rohan’s axe is there, pressing into his neck, blood trickling down.
“Do not touch her.”
The guard snarls, but he must know Rohan isn’t joking when he says. “Follow me, elf.”
Rohan stares at the guard, but as soon as I move, his eyes come back to me.
We stare at each other for a moment, saying all the things we never did and then I turn and walk to the king, whose satisfied smirks sends dread slithering down my spine.
I don’t know why he wants me to go with him, but as I glance back at some of the clan watching me go, the others tending the wounded, one picking up Melle to comfort her, I know that I made the right decision.
My eyes go to Rohan, tension lining his body, fists clenched by his side while a guard points Nighturn directly at him.
You’re a part of the clan.
I turn and steel my spine.
I won’t let them down.