OathBlade (Wattys2015)

65. Under One Banner*

The bath was lonely without Cylphi. Even with the multitude of people there, silently cleaning themselves and their children, Elery felt isolated. Were Cylphi there they would have cleaned each other's backs and talked of plans to come. Plans far past the conflict when Leria was restored and they were home once again. Cylphi would have filled every possible silence with her youthful optimism as she always had.

Without her, Elery was subject to her own dark thoughts and the occasional glances of those with whom she bathed. She thought perhaps to start conversation but couldn't bring herself to speak.

Their glances traveled briefly from her face to her wrist, then away entirely.

By then the whole of Ortuna would have known of her transgression into the taboo. That thought alone made her feel all the more isolated. Despite all she was trying to do, her decision to remove the bondmark would forever be etched into the minds of the very people she worked to save.

Elery climbed from the bath with a weary sigh, seeking to take her mind away from personal problems. She could choose to lead an army or be the princess-no, queen-of Lyewryn, but she could no longer hold fast to both.

She took a towel from the nearby keeper and used it to dry herself, wishing the bath could have washed away her pain as well as the grime she'd accumulated.

"Where is my daughter?"

With the towel draped over her head, still in the midst of drying her hair, Elery bit her lip. She'd grown to know Cylphi's mother's voice too well to ever mistake it for that of another.

Footsteps drew closer. Once they stopped before her the woman repeated her question, though this time her voice trembled. "Where...is my daughter?"

Elery pulled the towel away and let her arm hang. The cloth dragged the ground, rustling against the stones underfoot. "She fell." Her throat clenched and forced her to stop for a moment. After a hard swallow she murmured, "We were ambushed and she has been taken by the enemy."

The older woman's hand raised faster than Elery ever expected a woman untrained in combat could move. The harsh sound of her slap hurt Elery's ears as much as the sharp sting of her palm across her cheek. The woman's eyes, filled with tears, narrowed as she screamed, "I begged her not to follow you! I pleaded with her to remain here, to...and yet she left with you and you did nothing to stop her!"

Elery raised a hand to her cheek. Her eyes grew wide.

"You've thought of no one but yourself! You brought that traitor among us, you've partnered with lycar and drakborne scum, and worst of all you sought out that mad beast and sold yourself to him!" Her hand raised again. "You are not our princess and you will never be a queen!"

Elery stood firm and awaited the second strike.

It didn't come.

Isandel snatched Cylphi's mother by the wrist. His expression was not the look of placid observation she'd come to recently know, nor was it the mocking, playful expression that at times seemed permanently affixed to his features. His brows were deeply furrowed. His mouth was set in a thin line. He moved to stand between them.

He may attack her. The thought twisted Elery's stomach and she reached out to him. "Isandel, please-"

"I am the one to blame." He released the woman's arm and knelt. "Elery held tight as best she could, but I could not keep them safe. If you are to hate anyone let it be me."

Cylphi's mother clenched her fist and swung, striking him in the temple. "If she hadn't brought you into our lives I would still have my daughter!" She struck him again, her breathing accelerating. "You are both to blame for this!"