All's Fair in Revenge

Chapter 3: She Knew

Mook on my heels, I skipped the main road in favor of a barely used shortcut and charged through thicket and brush, gnarled limbs and barbed vine, ready to warn the Watch at the South gate as I arrived. With the amount of blood covering me, some of it my own since I'd forgotten to grab my boots, the warriors at the gate didn't hesitate. Three pairs of Heerth women took off the way I came while one other, a messenger, headed into Srisset's center to alert the Council. I followed her inside, skirting around villagers going about their daily lives carrying wheat, repairing their homes, and shepherding their children.

Barefoot and missing most of my clothes, I skidded to a halt before the Cresset Guard who stood at either side of the sacred pillar, their gazes fixed forward in unbreakable stares. Long golden robes with wide hoods draped over their eyes.

"Light it," I demanded. The warrior on the right shifted her weight. "Dorsi forces approach. Light it!" In my mind, the Dorsi king had already dispatched a fleet over the Ortusalis and sent an army of thousands marching up the Crag. Of course, both notions were preposterous; traders would have spotted the fleet long before it reached our shores, the Crag was a narrow isthmus hardly able to accommodate an army, and the woodland had hundreds of watchtowers. In truth, I didn't even know whether the figures had come from Dorsette or not. As our most regarded enemies, some assumptions were made.

Tears soaking my trembling chin, I shook one of the Crescent Guards. I screamed at her. Spit flew. I pleaded, "Don't just stand there! Do something!" As if I hadn't just stood there while Arin had died. To her credit, she only blinked.

So I took things into my own hands. I decided grabbing a bow with incendiary arrows from the armory across the way was the best course of action. Who cared if the Crescent Guards were armed? Not I. They could cut me down where I stood with impunity, but that wouldn't stop me.

Thankfully, Eyr placed a hard, muscular blockade in my way before I even stepped into the street.

"Bröd?" I gasped. The second I met his eyes I crumpled into his arms. The man said little; not that he ever spoke much to begin with. Then there in Srisset's forum, I unleashed a flood of unfettered grief until a commanding voice I didn't recognize called me from behind.

"Hana?"

Bröd wrapped around me like a cloak, and I pivoted. A shorter, stalkier woman forged of muscle stood before me. Her black hair was sheered on two sides and left longer on top. The color accentuated the deep glacial blues of her eyes rimmed with unshed tears. Two Heerthian warriors waited a step behind her. "Are you—" She cleared her throat. "Are you the Golden Healer's daughter, Arin's sister?" Her thick brows opened with concern.

My lip quivered at the sight. I'd seen this woman before, here and there around Srisset, around Arin. "Tolly?"

She nods. "We were just in the Spire when I overheard something." Her gaze searched the ground. "They—the priestesses—said something happened by the Bryn. That you were there and that—that Arin was with you. But they wouldn't say more. We were going to check the infirmary when I saw you. Is Arin okay?"

Is Arin okay?

Is my sister okay?

In Tolly's mind, Arin might still rush through the crowd, embrace her, wipe her tears and fears away with the touch of her hand. They'd laugh about how their armor always caught when they kissed, or she might slap my sister for making her worry. Until I answered Tolly's question, everything was as it should be and anything else their love could handle, blood, broken bones, broken promises. Any of it so long as Arin was there. But the moment I answered her question, the moment reality crashed down upon us, Tolly's entire world would implode never to be the same again. If I paused, if I gave her a second to hold onto that hope, hope no one offered me, would it ease her pain? Or make it worse?