The boy’s eyelashes smoked and curled back, black eyebrows singed as sweat clung to his forehead.
“Elora,” continued Bray, his weak voice meagre against the rush of the darkness, a thousand black voices screaming her name, demanding she kill.
She took a breath and withdrew the dagger a fraction, swallowed the excitement catching in her throat, choked down the fury that had built up over the passing moments and calmed her heart. She focused on Bray’s touch like it was a moral anchor in the black storm that she had become.
Her grip on the blade relaxed yet she held the mayor’s head back, staring into those petrified dark eyes and seeing her own reflection stare back.
“You own this town, so you bear the weight of responsibility for everyone in it,” she said, her voice coming out strained and gravelly and being all the more menacing for it. “You will redistribute your stockpile of food to those that are most in need of it. You will help the vulnerable and the weak and protect them from thugs like yourself. Do you understand?” She felt the boy’s head dip; his gaze never leaving her dagger and took that for a yes. “Good. I’ll not be far away and will be back soon. If anyone dies while I’m gone, if anyone gets hurt...” She twisted his hair in her hand. “If a child so much as catches a bloody cold, I’ll know, and I’ll pay you a visit. And you don’t want that, do you?” A shake of his head. “Good. Then you’re in charge. avertin is yours, as is the responsibility.”
She withdrew her blade and slipped it silently away, gave the boy a final glance then stormed out of the shop before she changed her mind and razed it to the ground in a pile of ash.
Bray followed her out and they mounted their horses in silence.
They were riding deep within the forest before he spoke to her.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
Elora thought for a moment, feeling cold and exhausted as she struggled for an answer. “I nearly killed him. Killed them all.”
“But you didn’t,” he said, reaching over the gap between the horses and resting his hand atop hers.
“I wanted to,” she admitted. “I enjoyed it, making them hurt, making them bleed,” she looked away, tears prickling her eyes. “I am a monster.”
“No. A monster would do all those things and not care, not stop themselves. You controlled yourself. Walked away and gave the town a chance.”
“What if next time I couldn’t walk away? I don’t know if I could control it again.”
“Best not find any trouble then,” he said, giving her a reassuring smile.
She blinked away tears and breathed deeply. “Trouble has a habit of finding me”
“Gorgeous,” remarked Otholo, as Elora stepped into the inn. “Like the golden nymphs from a Gosland play.”
Elora felt herself blush as everyone turned to her, gazing at the new blonde hair and blue contacts.
The dye had needed to be done twice, her stubborn black hair only going auburn the first try but was now matching her lock of hair which persisted to hang to one side.
“Remarkable,” offered her uncle, smiling. “You would easily pass as a Minuan, without question.”
She didn’t like the attention, but what could she do? They were all gawping at her, only Jaygen seeming to share a red flush to his cheeks.
“One more problem solved,” said Ragna, slapping a hand on the table and making a jug of mead bounce.
Diagus nodded approvingly at her, like a man who’s cultivated an apple tree and seen its first fruit. He turned his attention to Otholo. “How goes the gate, we ready to find this ship of yours?”
Otholo grinned. “Gate’s done, and the Necrolosis is on her way. How are we on the rest of the provisions?”
“Provisions?” asked Ejan. “We’re going to be travelling light. Carrying our own weapons and wearing decent boots and travelling cloaks. We’ve got dried meats, bread, oat biscuits and enough water for three days.”
Ragna shook his head. “We? You’re staying here woman. I thought...” Elora couldn’t keep up with the blur that was Ejan in motion, but saw the knife sticking erect from the table, embedded in the wood between Ragna’s fingers.
“We,” she growled, face like thunder, daring him to disagree. Ragna turned to Diagus for help.
“If she hadn’t already demanded that she come, Ragna, I would have asked her anyway. Her skill with the bow will be a welcome asset,” said the Shadojak.
“But the keep?” Ragna argued, his shoulders slumping as he resigned to the fact he had lost.
Ejan prised her knife out of the table and flicked it into the sheath below her wrist. “Jaygen’s staying, along with Norgie. With any luck we’ll be back in time to harvest the crops.” She grasped a woven tail of his beard and yanked it playfully. “It’ll be fun, Raggy, just like the old days. You never know, you may shave a bit off your paunch and become Ragna four-bellies.”
Ragna slapped his belly, smiling. “Never,” he laughed and planted a smacking kiss on his wife’s lips.
Elora sat next to Bray, his hand rested on her thigh and she grasped it in her own.
“You suit blonde,” he whispered in her ear.
“You’d suit a black eye,” she replied jovially.
Everyone seemed in good spirits, even the Shadojak as he drained a cup of mead. Maybe it was the fact that he was going back to Thea, or that they were on the brink of an adventure, all be it a potentially violent one, but she got the impression Diagus wasn’t a person whose top virtue was patience. She had to admit, she felt a certain excitement at the prospect of journeying to a new world. Seeing Thea with her own eyes, travelling through dangerous lands like a hero on a quest. There was a closeness to the people around her, more than friends, their lives all pitted together in a kind of fellowship and she felt humbled at being a part of it.
Bray’s hand suddenly tightened on her leg and she felt his entire body stiffen as Diagus slid a sword onto the table. It was Bray’s sword, the one he gave up when he left the path of the Shaigun.
“I can’t accept that,” said Bray, shifting uncomfortably away from her.
The Shadojak sighed. “I’m not asking anything of your boy. It’s a lump of metal, is all. Yet one you’ve been used to for the last few years.” He inclined his head towards the axe that was leaning against the empty chair beside Bray. “Think your hands would feel more at ease grasping your old sword than that tree splitter.”
“I dare say they would,” Bray replied, still not convinced.
“And I would feel more at ease knowing you was at my back holding it.”
