Chapter 22 #2
He’s toying with me. He knows something, like always, acting like he holds all the cards. And I’m sick of it. If he doesn’t want to tell me, fine, I’ll take it for myself. I have no issue in doing so with him.
Touch. I need contact with him for this.
I hold his gaze as I head towards him to leave the tent.
He turns to allow me space, but I grab his wrist as he does, gripping hold with all my might.
The rush of energy hits me, and I let it awaken my power.
The turbulent thrash of our energies fight for a second, still keeping a separation, refusing to mix.
After what the Usher said, I wonder if it’s because our magic has come from different sources—two sides of the same coin—a living symbolism of the warring God and Goddess themselves.
With our connection burning, I concentrate, look for an in, and I latch on to his thoughts with everything I have.
I push my power at him, and for a moment, I’m back on the ship.
A memory. Something Fenix was thinking about.
He’s been travelling. Not far. There are more people.
He’s speaking with people. He’s back at the table in his cabin.
Looking over maps and schedules. And Kamari is with him.
How? I snatch my hand back and watch as my brother’s eyes narrow and scowl at me. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“Touche, Brother.” I hold my arms out in a mock bow around the confines of my encampment.
“Training. Now. You’ve had your fun. Now it’s time to work. And before you protest, I know what you can do when you want to. That little trick with the people in camp last night. I know it was you. Forcing thoughts and images into someone’s mind isn’t nice.”
“You’re lecturing me on that?” I shake my head at him. “Besides, I don’t know what you mean. I was left in my tent all afternoon.” My voice is level as I lie through my teeth. I even hold his gaze, ignoring the colour of his eyes and how familiar they look.
There is no proof of what I did.
He shoves me, and I stumble forward, before picking myself up to march the path along to the training area. At least I’ll see Ten. The memory of his words last night gives me comfort—comfort that’s laced with steel to give me the will to continue. To keep fighting.
Fenix being in a bad mood doesn’t play to our advantage, and it’s only the morning—the sun won’t set for hours—so we’ve no chance of overthrowing him now.
“The Usher tells me you’ve been practising your sword skills. Good to know. You’ll demonstrate today.” His voice is flat and icy.
“Only for a day!” I scoff. Fenix doesn’t look back at me. He just stops on the lip of the training ring. Two swords are speared into the ground at the centre of the ring. But Ten and Crimson aren’t anywhere to be seen.
“Are you still in the cave?” I push the thought to Ten.
“No. We’re here. Can’t you see us?”
“What have you done to me?” I demand from Fenix.
“Interesting. You know they are here, even though we’ve cloaked them. How?” He chooses to turn to me then.
“I can feel them, that’s all. Is this part of the training? You want me to fight blindfolded?”
“I don’t think you’re ready for that. But I do expect you to actually fight this time.
And listen to me very carefully—” He grabs my wrist and yanks me toward him, no care if we have contact or not.
“I have offered you every possible chance to do this the easy way. Together. Like family. And you have fought and vested me at every step. No more.” His words cut my confidence and reduce me back to the girl who was left trembling on the floor of The Court on her first visit.
But I was also the girl who stood up for herself and refused to back down.
I am his weakness. We know this, and his words are just more confirmation of this. More ammo for me to use against him, so I take the hurt and brush it away like the dust clinging to my clothes.
Fenix signals across the ring, and several of his men suddenly become visible, hidden by their own magic, perhaps. They step aside, revealing Crimson and Ten.
One of them pushes Ten forward, and I mirror his steps into the ring.
“Show me how you’ve improved. If you’re no good, your friend’s skill as a teacher will no longer be needed.”
Crimson’s retort is cut off, and I watch as she’s lifted, just a little off the ground by an invisible force that is Fenix. The tips of her boots drag and struggle for purchase in the sand.
“Fenix. Leave her alone.”
“No. We’re done. Now, fight. You need to learn the consequences of your actions.” Fenix keeps his stare on Crimson, but raises his left arm, and I watch as Ten is dragged towards the sword.
“Don’t do this,” I plead.
“Be grateful that they are still alive. After your little trick in camp, I should have punished you and let these two rot in their cell. You’ve seen what I can do, even to people who work with me, or have you forgotten Micah?
These two are my prisoners, and it would be much easier for them both to be dead. ”
“No!” I step forward and turn my back to Ten.
“Don’t forget that while I would like you by my side in our plan. I do not need you, Sister. Something the Usher is always so quick to remind me. Now, pick up your sword and fight him.”
Enduring this once was too much. But as I watch Crimson dangling from an invisible noose around her neck, I can either fight Ten or risk fighting Fenix, while both Ten and Crimson are under his control. There’s too much at stake, so I swallow down my fear and grab the blade at the edge of the ring.
Ten’s movement forward isn’t jittery or stuttering like it was before. It’s swift and easy, and he’s coming straight at me.
“Ten!” I lift my own blade, gripping the hilt in both hands, just as Crimson taught me, to shield against the strike.
I catch his blade, my arms tensing and struggling to hold him off, but I do, and I swing the blade to one side, pulling his sword with me.
But he doesn’t rest. He rallies and moves to strike again. To the left. To the right.
There’s no holding back. I’m forced to swing my blade at him to meet him stroke for stroke, to try and push him back. Only he doesn’t move. His feet are planted, and his swordsmanship is as if he’s fighting of his free will.
One glance at the strain around his eyes, the haunting look in his eyes, and I know it’s not him. This is Fenix and his vengeance against me.
How dare I do as they want and use my own magic? My power, gifted from Aslendrix. My own will. How dare I do something they haven’t meticulously orchestrated for their benefit?
I raise my sword and catch the next strike from Ten, but he’s too quick, and he pivots and glides the blade through the air at a lower angle, right against my thigh.
The metal slices through my trousers and deep into my skin.
I look down and see a red-ish stain leaking through in a matter of seconds, but the pain is more of a numbing sensation radiating down my leg.
“Ever!” Crimson calls out from across the ring, but she’s soon cut off.
With my attention on her, I don’t see Ten as he attacks again.
I’m stationary this time, and his aim is set on my arm, offering a matching wound to the one he inflicted last time.
This isn’t a little nick, though. It slices deep and seizes everything along my left arm.
Heat and pain explode at the cut, and seep down to my elbow.
I’m losing this.
I’m defending, and I’m losing.
He’s fighting harder. Faster. I didn’t have time to build my skills with Crimson, and I am no match for Fenix. He has both his own intent and Ten’s skill against me.
I lift the sword with my right arm, but the weight of it feels like it’s doubled in size.
My ears ring with a funny whooshing noise, and as I look at Ten, heading back towards me, I wonder if Fenix will do it—if he’ll command Ten and use him as the spear to cut me down and leave me bleeding in the dirt.
At least it isn’t in the snow.
I smile at the thought.
The clang of swords rings out again, and in a sloppy but frustrated cry, I swing the blade widely and catch Ten’s left arm across his muscle.
It doesn’t stop him like last time, and I wonder if Fenix’s magic has been strengthened by the full moon, as with all Kirrians.
My leg gives out, and I crumple to the ground, avoiding another swing of Ten’s blade, but it was close, the air ruffling the loose strands of my hair.
“Arghhh!” A strangled cry rips from Ten, as if he’s fighting to even speak.
I look up as my leg continues to trickle blood into the dirt. “I love you, Ten.” He might not be himself. Fenix might have violated him in the cruellest way, but I can still tell him that my heart is his, even if it might not be beating for much longer.
Ten looms over me, the sword raised above his head, but the silhouette he cuts against the blazing Novandia sun shakes with every motion of his body.
He’s not fluid and smooth anymore. And regardless of his own injury, he’s resisting.
“Fenix, please. Don’t do this,” I beg. “I’m sorry.” I will say anything to get him to stop this.
“I suggest you get used to a few scrapes. They won’t kill you.”
“Maybe I should fight you, instead, Brother. You do seem to bring out the best in me.”
Ten lurches forward, and the tip of his blade lands at the junction of my neck and shoulder. The pain spiderwebs out and over my skin as it pierces farther into my flesh.
I look up at Ten, but his eyes are closed, his jaw tense, and his whole body is vibrating.
“Fenix!” I scream.
My instinct is to grab the blade, to stop it sliding deeper into my shoulder, but as soon as I grip it, it cuts through my palms, too.
“I’m so sorry, Ten,” I whisper the words as the blood spills down my chest, running quickly from the slow stab wound.