Chapter 33 #3
He feels Elegy next to him. Even in the chaos, she’s obvious to him.
Cold and clear as water. One of the others—-the tallest and broadest of them all—-has Elegy by the collar of her jacket, and she’s fighting him off as hard as she can, clawing at his hand and screaming into gritted teeth.
Theren picks up her fallen spear, rolling on the dirt, and swings it at the Talusar’s head.
It hits the man hard in the shoulder, startling him enough that Elegy pulls away. Parekh screams for help deep in the woods, and Elegy shouts “Go!” at Arias, who takes off running. There are two Talusar left for Theren and Elegy to deal with, and both are advancing on Elegy herself.
Theren throws himself in front of her, and realizes he recognizes one of his attackers.
Her hair is bright red. He just dreamed about her. The guard who caught him eavesdropping on Ykev and Rava’s conversation. The one who asked him if he was Rava’s.
She’s Primary Avka Becken, direct report to Ykev Talus.
Just what she’s doing here, on a mission everyone assumed was planned by Rava, not Ykev, is unclear. But there’s no time to wonder.
Becken rushes toward him and slices, clean and neat, across Theren’s arm.
He grits his teeth as he lunges to the right, to thrust his sword at her right side.
As he does, he hears a grunt; Elegy, who’s still behind him, moved left when he moved right, and is now slamming the spear into the other soldier’s leg.
Something buzzes next to his head—-not an insect, but an Eye, likely a Cedre military surveillance device drawn there by the fight. Theren ignores it.
Without hesitating, he and Elegy trade opponents. Theren moves left to counter the tall, broad soldier’s longsword, the impact shuddering down his blade and rattling his bones. Elegy stabs right with the spear, keeping Becken at bay. Theren’s focus narrows.
He keeps moving, his muscles burning as he shifts back and forth, countering one blade and then the other, and he can feel it as Elegy responds in kind, moving behind him, around him. Becken carves a line into his armor as he twists away from her, and he kicks back, missing her knee by inches.
Becken shoves him into the other soldier; he falls, and rolls, recovering fast to strike Becken from the side. She’s too quick, too reactive; she blocks him, once, twice, as Elegy wards off the tall soldier with the point of her spear.
Then he hears a gurgling scream from the tall soldier as he collapses to his knees, revealing Arias behind him, sword in hand. Theren faces Becken, the last one remaining, and they fight in earnest, now.
Becken is at the center of a pinhole of focus, shifting in and out of the patches of sunlight on the clearing floor.
She moves with ruthless efficiency, no flair to her technique but few weaknesses to it, either; she fights like someone to whom killing has become routine, and he is just another in a long line of bodies to put at her feet.
They trade attacks and parries, filling the air with the sound of metal on metal, Theren making good use of his height and reach, Becken outmaneuvering him. He buries himself in the feeling of her, attunes himself to the spark of decision in her that comes right before she attacks.
Then he swings hard, so hard he knocks the rapier out of her hands; it topples to the earth, and he touches his blade to her throat.
“I know you,” Becken says, in a low, quiet voice. “Do they?”
He grits his teeth, and turns the blade, about to press in and end her—-
“Stop!” Elegy orders, and he does, going still. “I have questions for her.”
She’s reaching into her bag for something. She takes out a vial of clear liquid.
“Swallow this,” Elegy says to Becken. “Or die.”
Becken eyes Elegy for a second, and then smiles a peculiar smile.
She holds out her hand for the vial, and Elegy gives it to her.
Theren is expecting Becken to do something—-to grab Elegy, or to drop the vial and crush it beneath her boot.
But instead she just unscrews the cap and pours its contents into her mouth.
It only takes a few seconds to work, whatever it is. Becken collapses like a puppet released of its strings.
Theren goes still, his ears ringing, his hand tight around the sword hilt.
Elegy turns toward him, probes at one of the cuts on his arms, her eyes frantic with concern.
He must look wrong, the way he did when Arias first rescued him from Specialist Gylle.
A dissociative episode, that’s what Arias called it.
When she sees that he’s all right, she puts a hand on the back of his neck. He’s startled by how good the contact feels, and how much he doesn’t want it to end.
“You did well,” she says. The rising sun is shining directly into her eyes, green as ivy. “It’s done now. You’re done.”
He releases the sword, and covers her fingers with his, holding her against his neck for a moment. He nods. Her hand is cool and steady. She is cool and steady. And maybe that’s the most startling thing of all: what a relief she is.
Over her shoulder, he sees Parekh limping out of the forest. Behind her, bruised and unsteady with her arm cradled to her chest, is Julia Martin.
“It’s a long walk back to the ship,” Elegy says, looking down at Becken’s unconscious body.
Theren drags a hand across his forehead to wipe off sweat. “I can carry her.”