"You will sit here until the earth eats away at your bones, and for you, my dear sister, that will be a very long time indeed ..."
*
After the use of dark magic, Liro is outcast from the sisterhood, stripped of her immortal grace and lifespan. Lef...
She waited for every twinge of heat to fade from her body before moving. Every spark that had been lit at her sisters touch burned out, dying like embers in a fire.
Then she moved, drawing up to her full height as easily as donning a coat. Her instincts were almost animal as she surveyed her surroundings, the body of the man in front of her. She couldn't kill him, that much was certain. Especially as she'd fought so hard to deter her sisters from doing the same.
Leaving him was her only option. And as much as she wanted to reach out and press her fingers to his neck to search for a pulse, she wouldn't. She couldn't. Whatever was burning in her veins was living, had a mind of its own.
Wether or not the power was there, lying dormant until her blood sang with fear, or if it was active, escaping through every touch, was a mystery. It was new and raw, and surprised herself more than her sisters.
Laying hand on her own skin didn't cause any reaction. Yet laying hands on someone else, feeling their skin against her own, caused an inferno to ignite. If she even brushed the huntsman's hand with her foot, she suspected that he would jolt awake to such pain.
Liro pressed her hands to her chest, revelling in the continuous beat of her heart, wondering what it would take to make it stop. To make it all stop. Every breath, sound, touch ... what would make it extinguish like a candles flame in the wind.
With the heat that flowed inside of her, would even her sisters be able to halt her life like they planned?
She shuddered. There were no false pretences between her and her sisters; they would not simply give up, and Liro's power would not deter them.
Wind rustled the leaves, blowing her hair so her neck was exposed. Goosebumps covered her flesh, and she stood without warning.
She had to walk away.
She wasn't a ministering spirit, and her heart lurched at the thought of waiting for him to stand. If her sisters hadn't just been hunting her, she would have hidden in the trees, keeping an eye out from afar. It could have been a debt repaid, after Emina had injured him.
Yet her own survival was priority.
He'd seen her, interrogated her whilst pointing a weapon at her heart. He knew her face, would be able to recognize her if he gave their encounter enough thought. And that was another thing about hunters; they rarely set out alone. There was no doubt that an entire collection of them was roaming different parts of the forest.
When they found their comrade unconscious in the dirt ... it was not something that Liro wanted to be present for.
But he would know the difference. He had been looking into her eyes when the arrow had brought him down. If other humans came, she could find her way out of the forest, under the protection of numbers.
Her fingers rose to her cheek. She was the spitting image of her sisters. If he didn't remember exactly what happened, he would be able to spin something for himself that it had been her. And if he recognized her innocence, she would be pressured to reveal what had happened. Who had hurt him, and why.
Liro had told him that she was being hunted, yet refused to reveal names. There would be no doubt in his mind once he woke that the ones who'd wounded him were looking for her. That he'd just been something in the way of their true prize, which had evaded them.
Liro bit her lip. If no one found him, the chances of infection were much higher. If he died, it would be blood on her hands. Especially as all the cards had been in her hands and every option had been open.
She didn't want to think about the weight on her heart that would increase if she left him.
Liro moved quietly across the forest floor, avoiding sharp rocks and hardened leaves as she went. All the while she debated, weighing the risks. It was foolish, and completely unnecessary.
And if he died, it would be almost entirely her fault.
She scaled the tree, perching high in the branches. Every time heat rose to her palms or limbs, she raised them to the cool night air, balancing until she was sure that she wouldn't be in danger of causing an inferno.
Her power was not something to be toyed with.
The huntsman did not move for a very long time. Her heart slowed as fatigue began to take over, and she blinked rapidly, trying to keep herself awake. Yasri and Emina wouldn't stay burned forever, and only she knew how quickly they were capable of recovering. Every second, every breath that the huntsman wasted lying on the ground was time taken out of her pocket.
Stars winked out at her, sparkling like flakes of silver against a dark tapestry. Liro gripped the bark of the tree harder as she stared, her mouth falling open. It had been the first time that she'd witnessed the stars without the blanket of the illusion.
It was breathtaking.
There were larger stars and tinier ones - mere flashes compared to their siblings - and yet she counted them all. Inside her head, she was building a map of them, an image that she could return to.
So enraptured, she missed when the huntsman was removed from the forest by his comrades, stumbling with fatigue in his eyes. They never looked up, never saw a larger problem then their brother wounded by unknown others.
When Liro's eyes slipped shut and her fingers merely grazed the bark as she let go, the stars were still twinkling beneath her lids.
Hands that were considerably rougher than those retrieving the huntsman gathered her up, carrying her almost begrudgingly to the lip of the forest. She did not writhe in his arms, did not recall the horrors of her sisters, only watched her map of stars continue on and on.
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