Partisan - Book II

Come at Me (Again)

Painted across the evening sky is a pattern of purple bruises, a bright echo of the bruises that have bloomed under Lei's eyes. The dark circles linger, blotchy shadows that whisper in the sunlight and grow deep in the shade. Above them is flatness, dull, unseeing flatness, which holds only momentary sparks of anger anymore.

Lei isn't sleeping, and the scrapes of his fork against his bowl are slow, listless. He visibly flinches when she touches him—whether it's a hand on his arm to wake him in the morning or the long run of their torsos and limbs pressed next to each other in the night, huddled against the shrieking wind. He shrugs touch off, brusque and almost angry, but it's not angriness, not irritability that she sees first spasm across his face.

Allayria is concerned. And worst: she doesn't know what to do. They have been traveling for almost three days now—fleeing, in truth, since they are uncertain how far away those Spirit seekers can work.

The more distance, as Lei dully pointed out the first day, the better.

While the ceaseless, exhausting travel has distracted Allayria some from the situation, she can't ignore it entirely. Lei has never been a warm, inviting sort of person but this is...

She glances over at him.

This is a little alarming.

He's not a talker either, which leaves Allayria in no-man's land in terms of things she can actually do about the situation. She knows he's somewhere else, and someone else should be here to do something about it—someone who is better at these things, like Fae or even Hiran. Someone who knows what words to say.

So tonight she picks up a handful of pebbles and chucks one at his head.

It pings off the back of his skull, clattering to the ground and he turns around, something thunderous in his expression.

The next one hits him on the side of the nose.

"What," he snaps, but she doesn't answer and he swats the next one away. While he's doing that, the one after it hits him on the forehead.

She's prepared for the wave of tufted pine branches that shoot at her. The sea of pebbles slips right past them and hits its target.

It's a fight that lasts long into the chirping twilight, lit by shaded moons and the flickering whizz of fireflies. She's defending this time, absorbing blow by blow as they fall on her, rock and tree limb, water and ice, but his eyes keep that flash of aggravation in them and color is flushed back into his face. She knows the forms he flows through, and sweat glistens in sheens across his forehead as that careful, quick movement becomes jarred, breaking with the anguish that cracks along his features. Red splotches bloom on his face as he pivots and shifts, yanking out of one form into the next, twisting and flinging in a vain attempt to break free, to catch Allayria off-guard. She doesn't fake surprise because he will know, and he will hate her for it.

In the end, he catches her foot with a tree root and she stumbles back, flailing out and grasping for something to keep her upright.

She seizes his coat collar, so they both fall back into the powdery snow, and for a strange moment he looms over her in the moonlight, his breath whispering over her face as a peculiar expression crosses his.

But he only says "I win" and rolls off into his back, and she gives it to him.

Just this once.

A/N: Hola! Sorry for the delay this weekend. A lot is going on and I am not feeling exactly great (nausea, dizziness, blurred vision, it's been a great couple of days) so in repentance here's a couple of chapters. Barring my total collapse, the next chapter should be up at the usual time next week.