Of Whispers and Daggers ✓ [TLRQ #2]

Chapter 34 - Leavi

Shock, slowly settling like lead in oil, weighs down my bones as I walk. Kadranians could break in any minute. Illesiarr needs the straightboard. These thoughts keep me putting one heavy foot in front of another. There is no other concern. There can be no other action.

Get the straightboard. The Kadranians could be here any minute.

Vihnzeirre buzzes inside me, agitated as a hive of bees. Stop it. I don't need you teleporting me in front of any more soldiers. She only whirs harder, as if protesting that she also teleported me away from the soldiers.

My strides lengthen, and I try to think of home to calm her. Hotcakes and malt honeymilk on weekend mornings. Storybooks hidden beneath my pillow and schoolbooks on my desk. My dad, typing in his study and me, curled up in his armchair. A wave of homesickness sweeps over me, the strongest in a long time. In Erreliah, I knew death only as an organic concept. In Karsix, death surrounded me, but the plague was an impartial murderer. Here, death is foreign soldiers, and they kill with an aimed, malicious hate. I swipe hot tears from my face and lengthen my strides. I want my father, want wrapped in his arms one more time. I wonder how many little Morineause girls want the same thing and will never get it again.

Vihnzeirre flares silver on my skin and radiates down the hall. Where she touches, the torches and glow crystals die. Then she fades too, and I'm wrapped in the comfortable darkness of the corridor. Somehow, my steps are easier now than they were in the light. My hand skims the wall; I can make my way to the infirmary without my eyes, but I doubt the Kadranians can. I whisper Vihnzeirre a thick thank you and hurry down the hall.

The dying hearth throws long shadows over the infirmary as I enter.

"Elénna!" I call.

She pushes out of a sickbay, her brow knitted together. "What's going on? Is Illesiarr alright? The Queen?"

I hold up my hands. "He's tending her. I think he wants you to stay here, with the soldiers. But I need the straightboard."

She clips a nod and drags it out from behind a cabinet. The wood is heavy and awkward in my hands, and she helps me get it out the door.

I pause at the threshold. "Lock this. If it has a lock."

Her arms cross, eyes heavy with worry. "It does."

"Don't answer it for anyone you don't know. There's been a break-in."

Understanding and fear wash over her face, and she nods. The door closes and locks behind me. I half-carry, half-drag the board down the hall, stopping before every corner to listen ahead. Eventually, I make it to the base of the curving staircase and hoist the board over my head and back.

The soldier's body still lays tangled and bloody, but I force myself to block it out. It is nothing more than a clump of inanimate tissues, a heap of organic matter that will decompose—internal organs in the first seventy-two hours, the blood in the next ten days, the muscles and skin within the month. This life-giving fluid I'm tramping through is nothing but an expelled solution of cells, plasma, and water. There should be no more significance in the fact that it covers the bottom of my shoes than that dirt and dust does. I can't pick up the hem of my skirt, so it trails through the mess too. But it doesn't matter. The garment will need to be washed anyway.