Chapter 43
No.
My head is still spinning with confusion and regret, and this can’t be happening and why did I think it wouldn’t, when a step echoes through the cave.
Followed by several others.
Before I can get the sheet over me, three human men step into view. I recognize them. Questral challengers.
One of them has a long line below his jaw, as if someone almost killed him but didn’t.
It bleeds when he raises his head. “Well, look at this. She’s already naked for us.
” He turns to the others and laughs. They all look hungrily, disgustingly, at me, as if they’re going to have me and there’s nothing I can do about it.
“What do you want?” I demand, my voice sharpened with pure anger. They’ve picked the wrong fucking time to find me.
The one with the line below his jaw just smiles.
“We watched him. We watched him leave you, with your sword in hand. But that’s not what we’re here for …
No, we’re here for you.” He looks at the others.
“The god didn’t specify in what state she was to be delivered …
Perhaps he’ll take you in pieces.” He looks me over and smirks.
“It’s been a while since I’ve had a woman.
You’re going to see just how starved I’ve been. ”
I pull the sheet over myself, but it might as well be nothing.
Nothing.
My sword is gone.
He took it.
But that doesn’t mean I’m defenseless. Because I have not gone on this great journey and survived both physical and emotional perils for three men to stop me.
I stand, letting the sheet drop, falling into my fighting stance. I ignore the heat of their stares.
“You don’t have a sword,” the man with the bloody mark says, laughing at me.
“You’re wrong,” I say, looking at the ones they’re holding. “I have three.”
Three glimmering blades. Won by these monsters. Or gifted by the God of Death.
Great swords can betray their wielders if they encounter someone stronger. By the end of this, these blades will answer to me.
This will not kill me.
Stellaris.
I hear her faint echo far away, and my pulse races. Where are you? Her song is muted, and that’s when I realize my scabbard is gone. Stellaris must be inside of it, impossible for me to summon. Raker took that too.
He took … everything. And I let him.
I practically begged him to.
A deep, twisting sadness strikes me right through the chest, but I bury it. I won’t think of him for another second. Not now that he’s left me here to fight and die alone.
The men are still staring at me, reveling in my naked body in a way that makes fury pound through my blood. It’s that distraction that costs one of them.
I lunge right at him and his sword, tackling him to the ground. I barely move out of the way of his blade.
I pin his wrist down with my knee, then grab his head with both of my hands and slam it down against the stone with all my might, over and over and over, my thumbs curling into his eyes, nails digging, popping.
This rage is blinding. It’s unrelenting. Those eyes that looked upon me with the promise of violence are now in tatters.
His scream pierces the cave like a blade. I turn to see the other men standing very still, as if temporarily shocked by my brutality.
The one with the blood across his neck finally grins. “I like them with some fight.”
The other races forward. “You crazed bitch!” he roars, and I spin off his friend’s lifeless body just in time to miss his metal. It goes through his friend’s chest instead, burying itself in his rib cage. He pulls and pulls at it, but of course he’s too weak to get it back through the bone.
“You weak idiot,” I say, kicking him from the side, watching him stumble back. He watches me as I force his own blade out of his friend’s chest cavity.
Mine.
It glimmers in my palm, claiming me as I have claimed it. The connection is nothing like me and Stellaris, but for now, it’s everything. The metal is recently sharpened, long and curved.
He races toward me with a dagger this time, roaring, and I duck, then turn, slicing hard and wide—cutting his legs clean off. He falls forward, screaming, blood shooting out of him.
The marked man watches me slowly rise from my crouch, gripping his friend’s blade. He’s still smiling. He’s still looking at my blood-covered body with relish and the promise of cruelty.
He raises his sword—and I throw mine right at his arm, pinning him to the wall with the force.
I aimed the blade high, so it didn’t completely sever the limb.
No, I want him trapped. Just like he thought he had cornered me.
He screams, his blade now on the ground, his arm only attached by a few nerves and threads of skin.
He watches me stalk toward him.
“What was it you said you were going to do to me?” I say, turning the sword in my hand.
“No—nothing. I wasn’t really going to do anything.” He isn’t smiling anymore. No … he’s trembling.
“Right,” I say.
He changes strategy. As if maybe he can say something that might pull at my heartstrings. “The god—he said he would take me straight to the Land of the Gods. He said I would get two immortal cups. I have, I have a family, and—”
“I don’t give a shit,” I say, grabbing the other blade from the ground and burying it in his chest. He bellows.
I drag both swords out of him, and he falls forward. He’s able to gather enough strength to crawl. I let him. I let him make it a few feet. I let him hope.
Then I flip him over and pin him to the ground with my legs. His words run through my head, his promises. Then memories. Three men pinning me down. Carving their names into my skin. They spoke similar words. Made similar promises.
I’m blinded by rage as I stab him over and over, with both blades, wailing, screaming. I stab him so many times that I’m covered in blood when I’m done.
I thank the person that made it easy for me, who traced the line across his neck that I now run across with my blade until I hit bone.
Only then do I let both swords fall to the ground.
Dripping blood, I walk out of the cave.