Ortai Legacy: Arrival

7.5 - Grassland (L)

Everyone fell silent. I scrunched my eyes shut, refusing to look at whatever destruction I'd wrought on my body this time. My butt was sore again, but what really disturbed me was the lack of weight on my right leg. It was at least half as heavy as it used to be, and it wasn't hard to guess why.

"Prit." Raeve's curse broke the silence.

"Shut up." Mar'kost let go of my arms, and I reluctantly opened my eyes as he moved toward Pretty Boy. My disembodied leg was hanging from Pretty Boy's stirrup, and the part that used to be attached to my knee dragged on the ground until Mar'kost grabbed it.

Cadmus dismounted and held Pretty Boy still while Mar'kost carefully slipped my foot out of the stirrup.

Raeve appeared in the corner of my vision. "Are you... okay?"

"I'm so sick of that frigging question. Just back off."

She stepped away, which was lucky because I was about five seconds away from punching her and shattering my arm.

Mar'kost crouched by my knee. [Weylan, tell me how to mend Liza's leg.]

[Collect any broken pieces and hold them in the correct place for a centiblink. Then prevent Liza from putting weight on her injured leg for at least a myriblink.]

[Thank you.] He sprouted four more slender arms with tiny hands to hold a dozen shattered pieces between my leg stump and my disembodied lower leg. Aloud, he said, "I'll carry Liza to the ranch. You can both go back without us."

"You sure?" Cadmus asked.

"Yes."

With a nod, he collected the reins of all three drykons and led them off.

Raeve started to follow him but stopped. "Are you s-"

"I'm absolutely certain that neither Liza nor I require more stress at this moment—and your presence is currently causing us stress."

"O-okay. Sorry." She flew after Cadmus.

I stared at Mar'kost's many hands as the silent timer slowly ticked down. "Sorry for flipping out. And pissing off your friends. And just generally being a mess. You probably wish you didn't take that oath, right? I'd ask Weylan to undo it, but he'd probably just say that you know too much, so you'd have to stick with me or die." I gave up on holding back tears. My voice was probably too warbly to understand, but it didn't matter. It wasn't like he actually wanted to listen to me. "Why'd you even do it, anyway? 'Snot like Weylan can actually shoot you. He made that up. All he can do is make me miserable. Even if you didn't take the oath, you still could've done whatever on the ship; I wouldn't've stopped you. How- how could I stop you?

An image of him on the floor, torn and bloodied, made my stomach lurch. "I wouldn't set Butcher on you. I never- never wanted him to hurt you. I'm so sorry you almost- you almost died because of me—because of my sick control-freak ancestor. Why can't we just get rid of that oath thing? Just live your life. Be happy. At least then one of us can be-" My throat was so tight that I couldn't get any more words out.

"Liza?" Mar'kost asked after a moment.

I still couldn't speak, so I attempted to make a noise of acknowledgement.

"I didn't take the oath because I was afraid of Butcher or Weylan. I took it because I wanted you to feel comfortable around me."

I wasn't sure if I believed that. "Hmmm."

"It's true, whether you believe me or not." His tail curled at his side as his arms returned to normal. "There's a ritual my father discovered that severely weakens the bond between a Tivom and their Shiel--so long as they've never used telepathic communication, and they perform the ritual before age 21. It doesn't prevent the heritage oath from being passed to one's offspring, but it effectively disables all other elements of the oath. He insisted I perform the ritual. I told him I did." He carefully let go of my leg, and his large, pale eyes met mine. "I was determined to be a better Knight than he was, but when I tried to strengthen my connection to the divine, I didn't find Ortai Shiel. I found you—and I'm so glad I did."