“And you want my help to do it.”
“Yes,” she answered bluntly. “You and Lia are the fiercest warriors I have ever met. Innocent people are dying; I cannot let personal matters stand in the way of our best chance of salvation. It is not me that needs you, but the—”
“Don’t say it,” I cut her off abruptly. “Virram needs me. You need me. That’s what this is, nothing more.” Every word lashed through the air with disdain, though they were directed at myself as much as they were at Val. “If you think I’m taking Lia anywhere near Kaldan ever again, you’re out of your fucking mind. You’ve caused me nothing but pain for the entire time I’ve known you.” I took another step forward and rotated my blade to sit across the front of her throat, leaving the width of the weapon as the only thing separating our faces. “You should thank your Primes that I’m even considering letting you leave here alive.”
“You are letting your personal feelings cloud your judgement,” she said quietly.
The statement sent me into a rage, and my arm shuddered as I resisted the urge to open her throat from ear to ear. “The only reason you’re alive right now is that I couldn’t bear the thought of telling your sister that I killed you.”
For the first time in our conversation, Val’s mask broke; for a fraction of a second, her face retracted with pain. “Marin is...here?”
“That’s right,” I hissed. “She’s here because I saved her life. Right after your man Savitz put a bolt in her chest.” I leaned forward, pressing my throat against my own blade. “You will never see her again. I’m not sure you’d like the result if you did; she’s stronger than you now.”
Another wave of emotion flashed across her face, this time a mix of concern and fear. “Marin is not a warrior.”
“Oh, but she is, Valandra. We’ve trained her how to fight more fiercely than any man in your pathetic army. Do you want to know why?” I fought back a lump in my throat as my eyes began to water. “It’s because she begged me to do it. She begged me to teach her to fight, so that if the day ever came, she could protect us. From you.”
The forest fell silent around us as the words echoed away. Tears fell onto both sides of my trembling sword and ran down along its length, merging together at the tip to drip into the dirt at our feet. Our eyes never broke their connection as we stood together, one savage motion away from death. It took every ounce of strength within me not to falter, to turn and run away from the words I had spoken. When the silence grew too powerful to bear for a second longer, I took a ragged breath and blinked away my tears.
“Leave. Don’t come back,” I whispered. “If I ever see you or your men in this forest again, I swear on every god you know that I will make Kaldan suffer every injustice inflicted upon me tenfold.” My blade vanished from between us, and I suddenly found the closeness of our faces suffocating. I took two steps backwards, then stood statue-still as I stared her down.
Val wiped the tears from her face before kneeling down to retrieve her shield. After refastening it to her arm, she stood and unflinchingly met my gaze again. An eternity passed in every second of silence until she turned in place and began to walk back in the direction from which she had arrived, saying nothing. I watched her go until she left my vision, continuing the vigil until she disappeared from the edge of my Detection, at which point I promptly collapsed into the dirt and began to sob.
Lia found me a few minutes later, curled into a ball on the forest floor. When she arrived in the partial clearing of devastated trees, she sat down beside me and tugged on my shoulders until my head rested in her lap, facing into her stomach. I hardly noticed the movement as I continued to weep in an attempt to purge the venomous hate that had risen in my gut.
“I—I feel so empty,” I managed to choke out between sobs. “It’s just anger and darkness, all the way through. There’s nothing good inside me anymore.”
“That’s not true,” she said tenderly. “You’re a good man.”
“No, I’m not,” I cried, shaking my head. “The things I said to her...I just wanted to hurt her. To cause her as much pain as I could.” I buried my face deeper into her lap, holding my eyes shut to try and stop the flowing tears. “She wanted our help. She was willing to die for it.”
“How did she find us?”
“I don’t know. I...didn’t ask,” I admitted. “I couldn’t think straight. I came so close to...to killing her.”
“You were trying to protect your family,” Lia answered. “That doesn’t make you evil. I fought her in the throne room, and I would have done whatever it took to keep you safe.”
“That’s different. You’re good inside,” I said in a small, weak voice. “You’re not like me.”
“Stop it, Lux. I know you better than anybody; you can’t convince me that you’re some monster.”
I pawed at the leather glove on my right hand, eventually pulling it off to reveal the black scars that ran down past my wrist. “You didn’t see what I did to those men in Attetsia. You wouldn’t say that if you had. You couldn’t...love me, if you—”
Lia roughly spun my head around until I was looking straight up into her eyes. “I will never stop loving you, no matter what happens,” she declared. “If there truly is a darkness inside of you, then we’ll fight it together. Nothing is stronger than us.” She gave the words a moment to sink in, then climbed to her feet and pulled me up along with her. “Let’s go home.”
My mind was too overloaded
