My stomach is somersaulting out of control. My hands tremble…tremble…with my bow shaking in perfect rhythm with them, except they are useless and lifeless. Lifeless. Like Soot. Soot. Soot is dead. I keep replaying it in my mind.
Anger shoots through my body like bolts of lightning. Soot is dead. Soot is dead. She was talking a few minutes ago, and now she is dead. I take a fleeting look at the two distinct pieces of her body and hate for the Destroyer…for all Destroyers and Siv Gareth himself, rise up inside of me like an inferno out of control.
Thann. Thann. Thann. Thann. I say his name over and over in my head, as if I need to hear it to thrust me into action. He is still standing, immobilized with a blank stare on his face like a slate that has been wiped clean.
The sole Destroyer releases another roar, so loud my ears buzz. He lunges forward, one precise step after the next, swinging his crimson stained sword back and forth, poking and jabbing as he moves methodically, terrifyingly toward Thann, a crazed expression overtaking his face.
My hands are still shaking, trembling as if I were freezing from the cold. I nock anther arrow into my bow, the string vibrating from my own quivering. Odd, I think…quivering. I just pulled an arrow from my quiver and I am quivering. I shake my head. Why would I be thinking such things now? Everything before me seems to slow down…to move with exaggeration. Each step the Destroyer takes, each swinging of his sword takes a minute, an hour, a day…I can’t be sure.
But then I think of Thann…I see Thann before me…motionless, expressionless, and helpless, the Destroyer advancing, perhaps slowly, but definitely advancing. If he reaches Thann…I know what will happen. I breathe deeply, narrow my eyes, aim, and pull the string back. I let the arrow go.
I close my eyes, then, because I know I can’t watch Thann die. I can’t witness his spectacular head separate from his body. Like Soot’s. I keep my eyes closed tightly, hearing the arrow hiss through the air, knowing deep down that I have failed Thann, like I failed Soot.
Someone else needs to look...to see where the arrow went. Because I can’t. I cannot do it anymore. I exhale. And inhale. With a chest so tight it feels like it might explode, that each breath I take is an earthquake, a storm, a hurricane.
But it is deathly, strangely, eerily quiet for several seconds…the only sound a hiss and then a resounding whump.
Could it be?
Slowly, I open one eye, just barely enough for the grisly scene before me to unveil. The arrow has hit the Destroyer directly in his left eye – it is no surprise that my aim was off. He shrieks then, a loud, horrible sound, like an animal wailing. He drops to his knees and pulls both of his hands to his eye, yanking at the arrow. Fat, thick sheets of blood spurt out of his eye, washing his face in a scarlet liquid that pleases me in a way I never thought possible. My lips curve up in response.
I narrow my eyes and bite my lower lip as I grab another arrow and nock it into place on the string. I feel my target as I aim…the beating of his brutal heart. My eyes pierce his black cloak as my hands turn to ice, frozen in place. The trembling is gone now as I focus on my kneeling subject…the man who just cut off a young girl’s head, killing her because she had Light Skin. Like Thann’s. Like mine.
I breathe in and out, focused…focused…focused on two things. His heart. The Destroyer’s still beating heart. And Soot’s heart that will never beat again.
I pull back and release the arrow. It flies in a solid arc and lands with a sickening thump in the center of the Destroyer’s chest. He is motionless for a split second, then falls over as if he were a bowling pin being hit suddenly by a heavy ball, his hands still trying to grasp the arrow in his eye.
I lower my bow, and for a moment I am rooted in place, like a tree that wants to move but can’t. I have killed again, and it seems wrong on some level, despite all of my training…in spite of the fact that Soot was killed, and Thann was about to be. She was annihilated, broken into two distinct pieces. Destroyed. But Thann…my lips curl up in response. Gloriously, Thann is still alive.
I am shaken from staring at the ghastly scene before me by a sniffling sound, familiar yet strange. I slowly turn my head in the direction of the sound. It is Reese. Blood has sprayed over his red cloak and is misting his once dark face as he continues to sob like a snotty two-year old. Hate like I have never known bubbles up inside of me. I march over to him.
“I should put an arrow through your head, you coward.” I spit out. “You…you bagger.” I can’t think of enough words to hurl at him, so instead I blaze my hand out and slap him across the face. My hand leaves an almost perfect print on his cheek, a pink print outlined in traces of red blood. Echo’s blood mixing with sprays of what can only be Soot’s.
My hand stings from the strike, pins and needles poking at it like a nagging wife. This is nothing I learned in Weapons. “You are a bully of the worst kind,” I shout at him. He brings his hand up to his face, as if he has been burned, poisoned, or worse. Just for a fleeting moment we stare at each other, the years passing between us… and for a split second I wonder if we could be friends again, if there is any goodness left in Reese.
But his eyes turn black, cloudy storms that glisten with a darkness I will never understand. He gradually brings both of his hands up then, and a grin appears on his face, so nasty and evil I know that he is getting ready to use his Power.
At that moment I know for the first time that his Power is dark - as evil as Siv Gareth’s, the Destroyers...and the entire Alliance. He splays his fingers, pointing them toward me.
I am determined now…that Reese will not get the best of me. Ever again. I concentrate, deeply, thinking of a canyon…blocking him, desperately trying to stop him from hurting me. Like he has so many times before.
Suddenly, I am lifted off my feet, but just for a moment. I fight against it – his dark Power. I blaze my amber eyes into his black ones, and we tangle on some level that cannot be explained…it is beyond physical.
With a soft thud I land on the earth, my feet settling with a surety I didn’t know I had. I leer at him, taunting him in my own way, and he scrunches up his face into a tight ball. I wonder how someone can be so handsome and so ugly at the same time.
Reese crouches and holds his hands out in front of his body – a perfect hand-to-hand combat position. But before he can attack, I lunge forward at him like I did with the Brown Cloakers – an animal out of control. My arms are flailing… I am kicking, screaming and hating him more than I knew possible. Spit flies from my mouth as I scream his name over and over again. “REESE! REESE! REESE!”
If Bello were here she would discipline me harshly for not following proper procedure. But I am beyond that now. I have killed, not once, but twice, and I know it wouldn’t take much for me to kill Reese, too.
Reese stands transfixed for the slightest second, his dark eyes wide, and just like the Brown Cloakers, he retreats. He turns and runs, like the coward I know he is…into the trees and rocks and whatever else is beyond. As his fleeing body disappears from view, all I care about is that he is stays away from me. And forever wouldn’t be long enough.
Chapter 20