Chapter 13 Trouble at the Halfway Point
Trouble at the Halfway Point
Brioni
The moon hadn’t set by the time Brioni burst from the path into the barn’s clearing.
She could barely believe she’d made it after so many hiccups in her tasks, yet when she ran through her mental list of things to get done, it was complete.
Brioni knew she did good work, but rarely did she feel so proud.
“Ragnar!” she called as she skipped into the barn. “I have something for you!”
The demon stepped out of a stall, empty pail in hand. Oh, he was just going to be so happy to not have to carry water up from the pond anymore!
She thrust the mended rune stone overhead and rushed to him under its dim blue light. “Look! The crack’s gone and it’s all glowy again. I might not know much about magic, but that must mean it’s working now.”
“Did you…did you do this?” His face went slack as the bucket slipped out of his grip and thunked softly in the hay.
“No, no, no.” Brioni let laughter bubble up, and after a day so fraught with annoyance, her giddiness was nearly overwhelming.
“I mean, I guess I did convince that blue guy to give me the rune and then I took it to the Scholar’s Hall and found a demon who was willing to help, but I didn’t even have to fill out any paperwork, I just did some silly chores instead that I’m not even sure he really needed—he might have just been trying to get me out of there, but it doesn’t really matter because somebody with magic actually fixed it!
I just carried it around. Good thing that’s what I’m good at.
” She landed a fist on her hip and stood tall, presenting the rune in her other hand like a still-warm cookie that she hadn’t baked but had the gumption to deliver to someone who desperately needed it without eating it herself.
Ragnar’s face was so soft then, Brioni thought she might just kiss him if she could reach.
She’d thought about kissing Ragnar plenty of times, when he knelt down and she sidled in close or when he twisted his lips up in annoyance or when he stared thoughtfully at a minor wound on one of his charges.
She’d imagined kissing away his crankiness with peppered smooches all over his cheeks and then pulling back and giving him that look, the one that begged to be taken with the hope he would grab her and give her a real kiss, one that was deep and hard and told her for certain that he wanted her.
Because being wanted was the real dream, and he didn’t even have to say it, she understood it might be too hard, he could just show her instead with his mouth and tongue and teeth.
But first, she supposed she needed to show him she was worthy of being wanted at all.
“Come on, let’s see if it works!” She darted through the barn, Moar on her heels as she skidded around the corner to the spigot sticking up out of the ground.
A pipe was set into a larger stone, and the place the rune had been was empty, dull, and just waiting to be brought back to life.
Tongue sticking out between her teeth, Brioni eased the rune stone into place and carefully turned it le—no, right until there was a chime just like the curious lavender demon said.
She flicked her hand over the pattern and a brown sludge erupted, followed by cool, clear water. She squealed with delight and spun around to beam at Ragnar, fingers splayed in presentation of the repair, mind, body, and soul ready to be showered with praise for her illustrious deed.
There was no pending commendation in the black eyes that glared down at her.
“This,” he said, voice hoarse, “was very dangerous.”
“Huh?” She wavered on her feet, only realizing then she had pushed up onto her toes as if in anticipation of needing her lips as close as possible to his.
“This,” he said quicker, gesturing offhandedly to the clean water he’d not had for weeks as if it was nothing. “Dangerous.”
Brioni stammered, gaze flicking to the puddle forming at her feet. She hurried to turn off the rune, and when the sound of rushing water stopped, the silence that filled her ears was deafening. “I just thought—”
“You didn’t think. You berated Felgon until he gave you that rune, didn’t you? He hates humans—you’re lucky he didn’t report you for trying to steal complex magic from him to do sorcery.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“And you went into the Scholar’s Hall without an escort too, didn’t you?
Scholars consider that place sacred—you could have been detained by the guard.
” There was vitriol in his voice, but if it was for the guard or for her, she wasn’t entirely sure.
“Then you carried hazardous magic all over Heck without using a shroud.”
Brioni flexed her fingers, but they felt fine. “I didn’t know there was anything wrong with doing those things,” she said, hearing her own voice as if it were far away and quickly shrinking.
“Everything you did was wrong,” he spat, dragging a hand down his face. “Without being anchored or shrouded, the magic in some runes can make you ill or worse. Though none of that would matter if you’d been arrested for stealing or trespassing.”
Brioni’s mind spun. All of that seemed so catastrophic, and couldn’t he see that it never even crossed her mind? “But it worked out.”
“What if it hadn’t?”
Brioni worried her clasped hands, her natural inkling to tease buried under actual guilt. She didn’t think she would mind Ragnar listing off all the ways she could have gotten in trouble, but this didn’t feel like a fun game. This felt much, much worse.
She swallowed thickly and shrugged. “I just wanted to help you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
The knot of dread that had been forming in her chest pulled taut, and Brioni’s next breath got stuck.
There was no playfulness in his irritated tone, only disappointment and anger and something else, something she couldn’t place but wanted so badly to take away.
I’m sorry tickled at her throat, but the tightness there wouldn’t let the words come.
“You should go.”
Go? Where? Brioni wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed. That should have felt better, she’d hugged herself many times over the years, mostly in bed, alone. But this time it was just an unkind reminder that she had to hold onto herself because no one else would. “I really didn’t mean…”
Ragnar closed his eyes and shook his head. He didn’t need to say anything, that was enough to drive the tightness in her throat down to her chest where it shattered.
“Fine!” The word exploded out of her as she threw her arms off herself and stood straight.
Brioni hadn’t really cried since she’d arrived in Heck.
In fact, she’d woken up laughing, and she’d resolved to carry on the same way, so letting tears fall now felt like a betrayal of every time she’d wanted to break down and hadn’t.
“I’ll go, and you won’t ever have to say thank you, not that you would have anyway! ”
“Brioni—”
She shook her head hard, squeezing her eyes shut against traitorous tears. “It doesn’t matter. No matter what I do, it just doesn’t matter.” Her breath came back with vengeance, pulse racing with every deep inhale. “You’re not going to like me.”
Ragnar reached out a hand, but she stepped away. He didn’t mean it. He was just reacting to her outburst, so she brought her arms in tight to her sides and tried to squash the bitter sadness back down inside.
“I just wish I knew why,” she whispered, gaze falling to the puddle beneath the faucet and her distraught reflection. “Why doesn’t anybody just…like me? What do I have to do?”
“That’s not what—”
“No!” She strode around him, blood rushing past her ears as embarrassment flooded those same veins, blocking him out. Ragnar’s footsteps were right behind her as he said more, but the words were too pitiful, too humiliating.
“Stop it!” she shouted and took off at a run. “Don’t follow me! Just leave me alone.”
Brioni’s arms pumped at her sides, and her legs took her faster than they’d ever taken her before. She sped through the barn and burst out the other side, barreling down the path between the trees. With each exhale, a sob threatened to choke her into stillness, but she refused, only running harder.
Gods, she had been so stupid. Of course Ragnar didn’t need her help: no one did. She probably was only making up the problems she solved just to feel useful. To feel needed. Wanted.
But it was a lie, a game she played and always lost, that anyone needed her.
She’d never figured out the sorcery her father had tried to teach her, so of course she was just as pointless and incompetent here too.
And of course she’d shouted and run, and it was all so dumb and childish, but what else could she do?
The fear and frustration came so naturally, and she had nowhere else to put them, so it was inevitable they would come pouring out and flooding any semblance of good she’d made.
The last time had been worse. The last time she had screamed until her throat was raw and begged on her knees while she sobbed. Please, Father, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to—I’ll be good from now on, I promise! Don’t let them take me! Don’t you want me here? Don’t you love me?
She had sounded so pathetic, so weak, so sorry, but it hadn’t worked at all.
All the tears and beseeching hadn’t even earned her back the spot just outside a family she never belonged to anyway.
She always thought that was the worst thing that could happen to her—that she wasn’t accepted no matter how hard she tried—but at least there had been a place.
A little bedchamber, consistent meals, clothes, warmth, the protection of high walls keeping the bad outside things at bay in trade for the not-so-bad inside ones.
Brioni knew then she shouldn’t have longed for more, and it had been her worst mistake to go after it.