Chapter 95
Time passed.
What was time?
Goodbyes passed.
Heartbeats ended.
The wind sheltered the boy’s body from the flames. The Smith fortress burned. The wind protected him, gusting and shoving the fire back as it licked closer. It would not leave the boy while the inferno greedily grabbed for him.
The wind would not let the fire have the boy’s last embrace.
It was the wind’s right to carry the boy north. He would want to be sheltered under the giant hemlock trees, listening to the wind rattling their needles. He would not want to be cremated by the solemn one’s fiery rebellion.
It pushed and it shoved, still pulling itself inward. It hadn’t had enough time to spiral all of itself back to the boy. There were still thin tendrils with the girl and the solange-eyed one. The trickster and his sister. The rocklike one and the innocent one. The solemn one.
The wind lifted itself off the boy’s chest. The solemn one was close.
He struggled, hunched and holding his arm over his cracked ribs. One of his lungs had deflated, punctured by his broken bone.
Then the solemn one straightened and threw off his pain like tossing off a coat. He twisted his hand and spread illusion over himself. The wind had seen him do this before. It was a shifting illusion, so his movements blurred, and his form became almost wind-like.
It was how, with just a sprinkle of illusion, he managed to disappear without truly disappearing.
He wasn’t strong enough to make himself appear as someone else, or to become invisible. He could only smudge and blur his outline.
Yet when he wore this weak illusion, he could cut down a roomful of men without receiving a scratch.
They would swing or conjure at the place he was moments before.
His illusion made him almost invulnerable.
The wind had always thought he was a cunning man to create a strength from what most considered a weakness.
The thin tendril of the wind inched close to him, helping him breathe.
He pulled two long knives from his body armor. The steel of them glinted a hungry red. These knives were like claws. The darting, dashing, slashing kind. The solemn one was expecting a close, brutal, catlike fight.
His heart pounded. It worked quickly, trying to push more air through his blood.
When the solemn one stepped from the shadows to intercept the battle-hardened brother, his pulse rocketed even more.
The wind moaned.
Would the battle-hardened brother kill another man tonight?
The solemn one would never be able to stand against him. The brother was a Smith. The heir. He was uninjured.
The battle-hardened brother’s eyes narrowed.
The solemn one was dressed in black. His scars lined his face. His long hair was tied back. His short beard had a spray of blood.
He looked nothing like the man the battle-hardened brother had seen during the games.
Yet he tilted his head and studied the streetlight hitting the solemn one’s face.
They were stuck between the river and the burning fortress, pinned in a narrow, tree-lined street.
“I know you,” the battle-hardened brother said.
The solemn one smiled. “No. You don’t.”
He lunged. His form blurred.
The battle-hardened brother shouted and leaped back as the solemn one’s knife sliced the air. The knife missed his abdomen by a hair.
The Smith cousins surrounded him, prepared to attack, but the brother waved them off.
“No!” he shouted. “One of the last things my father asked me to do was to kill this man. It looks like I get to grant his wish.”
The solemn one darted left and sliced. The brother dodged and conjured a fire sword.
“Do you always do what your daddy tells you to?” the solemn one taunted.
“In this case, yes.”
The brother attacked. There was no finesse. No grace. There was only brute, pounding force.
The brother’s sword had a longer reach. The solemn one could only leap out of the way. He darted and swiped, dodging and trying to find a hole.
It reminded the wind of a battle between a dragon and a gnat.
Maybe the solemn one could hide his injury from the humans, but the wind could sense his pain. It could feel the struggling shudder of his lungs.
The brother laughed. “You’re injured. Two more minutes of jumping around, and you’ll kill yourself.”
The solemn one threw a knife. The brother smacked it aside. He threw another. Again and again, his hands moved faster than rain. His movements blurred, and the knives flew in a violent barrage.
But the battle-hardened brother was a Smith, and he’d been raised to be the Smith.
What could the solemn one do?
He coughed, and a spray of blood leaked from his lips. Then he palmed his two last knives and faced the battle-hardened brother.
“Were you the one who lit up my home?”
The solemn one smiled.
“Why?” the brother asked.
“Because you burned mine.”
The brother laughed. “Good answer.”
That wasn’t the reason. The wind knew this, but the brother didn’t.
What had the rocklike one promised the solemn one if he did everything he asked?
The solemn one must want whatever it was very badly.
He lunged. The brother kicked him in his broken ribs. The solemn one’s breath rushed from him. There wasn’t even enough left for him to scream.
He was launched backward. He landed against the ground. Somehow, he was still conscious. The wind skipped over his fluttering pulse. It shoved air into his one struggling lung.
Across the river, there was another muted roar.
The brother stalked toward the solemn one. At the roar, he stopped and turned.
“The Smith,” one of the cousins said.
The battle-hardened brother’s eyes flickered with worry. His jaw hardened. He stood over the solemn one and held up his sword. The solemn one’s eyes were closed. It looked like he wasn’t breathing.
The monster roared again.
The brother flinched. “Finn. Hang on.”
The solemn one opened his eyes and lunged.
He was slower than usual—that was the only thing that saved the brother. On instinct, he kicked out, slamming his boot into the solemn one’s gut. He flew across the street and hit a car window. It shattered. He rolled to the ground.
The wind cushioned his fall, keeping the shards of glass from slicing his veins and his arteries.
The battle-hardened brother began to sprint down the street. “Make sure he’s dead!” he shouted over his shoulder.
All the Smith cousins followed but one. A square-shouldered woman in black crouched over the solemn one. She pressed her fingers to his neck, checking for a pulse. Then, after a breath-held moment, she nodded.
She jumped up and ran after the battle-hardened brother.
The wind’s tendril hid underneath the car, tinkling the bits of broken glass. After a moment, slipshots slipped out of the shadows.
They stole the solemn one’s last two knives. They rifled through his pockets. The only thing they found was a small glass vial with a dried flower inside. Worthless. They dropped it on the ground, and it rolled across the pavement, falling into the sewer.
Then, shouting and shoving, they ran off to see what they could steal from the Smith fortress.