Fear Among The Shadows

Chapter VIII - A Weakness, Apparent

The next few weeks were utter chaos in preparation for Letitia's grand plan.

Too much needed to be done, and too many things were being made abundantly clear to Adilah; the glaring fact that she was grossly unprepared for such a venture. What could she possibly contribute? She had always been nothing! A plain girl from a plain mill with utterly drab, plain skills in everything. Yes, dear reader, that sentiment did stink of self-pity and bitterness, but at that moment, Adilah felt nothing but bitter. She'd never considered herself helpless, but being there surrounded by all those people with extraordinary talents and useful skills, the resentment grated on her.

These thoughts were strangers to Adilah as she'd always been too busy protecting her sister to really notice all these facts. For they were facts, weren't they? What could she do? Hands that were too rough for sewing, yet too weak for a hammer and anvil; legs that were too clumsy for dance, yet too weak to ride; eyes too small to seduce, yet too unfocused to aim; voice too coarse for song; fingers too stiff for art; mind too impatient for poetry and literature; arms too frail for a sword –her insecurities crowded around her, pulling at her clothes with their timid smiles. They were gentle in the way they handled her. Soft murmurs, quiet whispers –that's how they worked. A cold embrace that cocooned her so tightly with its lightness she didn't notice she was trapped. For that is how they get you humans; they caress you until you are too placid and mellow to fight. But Adilah didn't have time for such trivial entrapments, mind you, as Joah came to remind her one day as she stood in the practice room,

"You've been standing there staring at that wall forlornly for far too long. What heinous thing did those poor stones do to have your gaze fixed upon them?"

She'd just managed to lose her grip on her dagger for the hundredth time and had been seriously contemplating telling Lord Jonathan that maybe she was better off staying at Akhshe. She could imagine how that conversation would go:

"Oh, so you insult me to my face, and now you're disobeying orders, huh? Off with your head!"

Alright, so maybe he wouldn't say that exactly, but the last thing she needed was to get on his bad side once more. She hadn't had the time to apologize for her previous behavior, but thankfully, he seemed to have either forgotten about it or chosen to let it go.

She probably should have asked Eddie or Letitia, or even Eric for some help, but they were all busy doing their part to prepare. The only person that always seemed available and present in the practice room was Joah. And all the fires of the hells would freeze over before she asked him for help.
She shook her head out of the murky waters of thoughts and glared daggers at the back of Joah's head as he continued his previous lanky walk to the armory.

"You know," Joah's detached voice chipped in, "if you practiced more on throwing knives than staring at walls, you'd be able to dig that hole in my head you so desperately want"

He left the room and Adilah let out a loud huff. He was so arrogant! These past few weeks had done nothing to help the friendship between those two. Preparations for the plan had only succeeded in making the stark difference in their experience and skill as clear as the waters of the Isles of Ma'al.

One day, as they were turning in for bed and Adilah was silently groaning as she felt every muscle in her body protest to the new training regimen it was being subjected to, she asked Letitia the question that had been burning at her for a while,

"Why does Joah hate me? What have I ever done to him?"

Letitia merely raised an eyebrow. "Joah hates everyone. Besides, you hate him too, so why does it matter?"

"I only hate him because he treats me like I'm some kind of idiot!"

Letitia let out a small puff of air from her nose, which Adilah had learned to mean that she was laughing hysterically. While these weeks may have soured her relationship with Joah, Adilah has definitely warmed up to Letitia, even getting the other girl to talk to her more often.