Happily Never After

11. Hester.

First I go to Tedros, who's fighting three soldiers by himself, like the conceited idiot he is. Pighead. Ani's words echo in my mind and I chuckle despite myself.

Sneaking up from behind, I manage to kill one right away.

"Did you have to do that? I've got this!"

"No, you didn't." I thrust my sword forward to block that of one of the soldiers, reversing until my back presses against Tedros's. He doesn't pull away.

Tedros kills his soldier first, then leaves my back to help fight the third. After only a few minutes I manage to stab him in the gut at the same time Tedros does. Tedros laughs.

Despite myself, I do too. I mean, I'm Evil, so I'm supposed to kill. But that isn't what brings me pleasure right now. It's that Tedros and I, despite being total opposites - Good and Evil, supercilious and standoffish, over-friendly and antisocial - we have the same fighting strategies, the same defenses and offences.

This makes me wonder - if the two schools train their students to fight the same way, how is it that they're training us to fight each other?

Looking around, I see Hort and Nicola, now fighting three soldiers. One of them is the brute that put a hole in my best friend's shoulder.

Friend. What a strange word. Somehow it no longer seems right to describe what Ani is to me.

There is no time, though, to find the perfect-fitting word. What matters now is now. This battle. This mission, to save Camelot and perhaps the entire Endless Woods from Rhian and his master schemes, whatever they may be. This quest, to escape the holding cell of our own ally's former castle. What matters now is now.

So I don't stop to prepare myself. I don't take a deep breath, grip my sword with a stronger hold, put myself into power pose. I don't waste a single second.

I just fight.

I don't care about the fates of any of the soldiers standing on this staircase, except for one. I don't know anything except that whatever happens to me, I'm going to get my revenge on the soldier that stabbed Anadil.

Right now he is facing away from me, which will give me an advantage, but I know that if this soldier managed to beat Ani single-handed, it will not be as simple as that - even as I think, he has moved about several times, swiping and dodging and swiping and dodging. I study his movements for a moment, and soon I find a pattern.

This soldier never swings forward without dodging back almost instantly. Though he may be a strong defender, this man is no warrior. He is a coward.

I wait only a few seconds longer before I see the soldier lunge forward at Hort in a threatening way, but not a dangerous one - to him or Hort - only to whip back almost immediately, just barely striking Hort's upper leg but not injuring him at all. As soon as the soldier leaps back, I leap forward, stabbing his thigh with every ounce of power I have, every ounce of anger boiling up my insides like a fever, every ounce of fear for Ani's life that may be in danger, and every ounce of love I have for the one she is holding on to, the one where she and I are together.

The soldier cries out in agony, but he is not finished yet, just as I expected. He whips around, leaving the other two soldiers to fight Hort and Nicola alone, and swings at me viciously. I hop backwards quickly, and then lash out again. He does the same and our swords meet at halfway. Our swings are matched perfectly to the other's long enough for him to think he's winning and for me to come up with a plan.

Once I know he is convinced we will not break our matching streak, I switch my pattern from one that is easily predictable to a much more random, jerky collection of movements. The soldier is clearly not expecting this and it only takes me three swings to stab him in the gut.

I hold the body, already going limp, with just my sword, hanging him in the air. I sigh. It feels so good, so genuinely good to have paid for Ani's pain with this man's life. And I know that his life is not gone just yet, so I lean right up to him, sneering, and hiss, "That one's for Ani."

I drop the man onto the floor and pull my sword out of his stomach. It is red with blood, the blood of the man who tried to kill my Anadil.

I see that Hort and Nicola have left both of the soldiers they'd been fighting on the ground and writhing in pain, off to fight two more. Scanning the room, I see Ani on her side, eyes closed in pain. There's Tedros, fighting two more soldiers with Dot trying and only partially failing to help. And then there's Dovey, fighting a final two soldiers by herself, with only a weak fingerglow for a weapon. I rush to take on one of them for her.

He is clearly well-trained and fighting hard. This is the hardest fight I've had all the time we've been here on this staircase - how long could it be? The cell with the meager plate of leftovers and Ani's head heavy on my shoulder feels ages ago.

I wonder why none of the other soldiers I've fought have been nearly this difficult to beat. Most of them were dead within a few minutes, which I admit to myself can't just be because I'm a good fighter. But why?

It doesn't matter. I must focus on this fight, this soldier, this swing, this lunge, this dodge. All that matters now is now.

So I lunge forward, I dodge backward, I swing hard, I stab harder, and slowly I can feel the soldier weakening under my persistent pressure.

Suddenly there is a burning pain in my thigh but I keep fighting, because I cannot lose this fight, I cannot, and anyway I can't tell what the pain is from because I see nothing there, no sword, no arrow, not even blood.

"Hester!" As if I'm in a dream, and someone is calling from the waking world for me to wake up, I hear my name being repeated over and over. "Hester! Hester!"

Why would they call my name while I'm fighting? Do they want me to die? I ignore their calls and keep fighting, fighting, fighting. I fight until the soldier is on the ground, no longer putting up a fight.

"Hester!" I hear my name one more time. I can tell now that it's Nicola, and though she sounds a little annoyed, I sense something else behind the words. Fear?

"What?!" I whip around to yell at her for distracting me and realize everyone is gathered together, and no one is fighting. I have just ended the battle.

Then I see that everyone is crowded around a body lying limp on the stairs. Is it Ani? My heart starts to pound, but then I realize Ani is somewhere else in the other direction. The person on the floor is Dovey.

"Oh my god," I say, barely able to say it at all.  I rush over and realize I'm limping from the throbbing pain still burning fire in my thigh. I look down and realize I am bleeding, that I must have been sliced through without my realizing.

"It's going to be okay," I tell Dovey instinctively, but even before she shakes her head weakly I know it's not true. She's been stabbed in the gut, just like the soldier I killed only minutes ago.

"Get Anadil," Dovey whispers.

And so I hurry over to Ani and attempt to lift her. I nearly fall right over, and Ani winces in pain. Tedros comes to help, and I tell him, "I can do it."

"No, you can't," he says, and I know he's right, so I let him help me - or moreover, I help him - bring Ani over to Dovey.

"Ani, I'm - I'm sorry," I manage to say as I set her down. Then I collapse on the floor in exhaustion, deep sadness, and pain.