Threads of Fate

Chapter 70 ~ Beads of Blood

    All the air within the chamber seemed to be sucked away as she watched Talarion stagger backwards, one of his hands flying up to the crimson stained hole in his chest. Her lips were still parted, but if she was screaming or calling his name, she couldn't hear her own voice. Only a high pitched ringing filled her ears.

    Her lungs tightened with lack of breath but she couldn't seem to pull any down, and her heart was a violent battering ram behind her ribs. Talarion dropped to his knees and doubled over with a haggard cough, blood dripping from between his teeth.

    A shudder racked Tissaia's body, even as her brother raised a burning defiant glare towards their father. Their father! The male who was supposed to have been their protector. The male they had needed protection from. He towered over her brother with a wicked laugh that managed to cut past the steady ringing.

    Fury sparked into a roaring furnace within her gut, and air suddenly flooded her lungs once more. She would not sit here helplessly and watch her father take her brother's life. Tissaia let the book slip from her hands as she silently pushed herself to her feet. Roshan was still prowling towards Talarion, oblivious to her movement.

    Tissaia raised her hands, amethyst flames crackling from her palms, and drew one more steadying breath. Her gaze fixed on the back of Roshan's head as he raised his sword anew. Before he could let it fall, flaming tendrils wrapped around his forearms. He gave a howl as the scent of burning flesh curdled the air, but the cry was short lived.

    Tissaia collided with his back and locked her legs around his waist, a feral scream bubbling up within her as she dug her scalding fingers into his flesh. Roshan stumbled under her weight and his cries grew louder as she ravaged his face, gouging deep lines anywhere she could find unprotected skin.

    Blood misted across her face and hands, but she paid it no mind. Not when he had spilled so much from herself and her brother. She had vowed to spill just as much of his, and she was going to. Tissaia ceased her attack long enough to unhook one of her legs and throw it over her father's shoulder instead.

    His hand clamped down on her thigh and blistering pain lanced her veins, but Tissaia only gritted her teeth and with one sharp movement, hurled them both onto the ground. She was on top of the male before he could recover and pinned his arms down with her knees.

    A knife that had been discarded nearby found its way into her grasp and almost without realizing it, Tissaia ripped the blade across his sternum, over and over again. Slicing through layers of leather and fabric. Tearing open skin until blood slickened the hilt in her grasp. But she didn't cut deep enough to kill him.

    All those hours she'd spent being tortured to encourage her brother to advance in his own training, she had learned a few things herself. She had learned exactly how to angle a knife beneath a layer of skin and pry it free of the others. Slowly. Excruciatingly.

    She knew exactly where she could cut without endangering his life. Exactly how deep she could leave her marks. Because of all the marks that had been left on her, and her brother. And her hand was unpracticed, making it all the worse.

    Roshan was still screaming and struggling beneath her with every blow she dealt, and it only fueled her anger further. He had never stopped when she screamed as a young child, and he never stopped when she wept as a teenager. He never stopped even when she no longer reacted as an adult. He. Never. Stopped. And neither would she.

    Tissaia just held her father's gaze and screamed right back in his face, feeding all her rage, all her pain, into it. There were no words that could convey it, and no words her father would ever understand. He only understood violence, and had made sure his children were well versed in it too.