Midnight Moon (The Bleeding Crown Book 1)

Chapter 23 - Faraway Sands

Tia sharpened her sword slowly and methodically, the rhythm lulling her into a semblance of relaxation for the first time in weeks. The fire crackled before her, its flames becoming more brilliant as the colour leached from the sky above the forest. For once, all was quiet; no jokes, no problems, no questions.

As her hands continued their practised motions, her thoughts betrayed the walls she had built within herself. Her mind drifted leagues away to warm breezes, sunsets over sand dunes, and countless stars in an endless sky. Memories had been tugging at her for days, weeks even. It was as though speaking of her tribe cracked open the internal vaults she had secured long ago.

She allowed herself to savour the fleeting sensation of being Tia'Qa'Lorai, reassured by the steady rhythm of life as a Sword Sister. There had been such security in having a role, a purpose. She had been with the same people for every day of her life, and she had thought she would be with them until she died.

But that wasn't to be.

Instead, Tia would die alone among trees and dirt, with no one to mark her passing. The rest of her days would drag by surrounded by godless peoples who obliterated their dead with flames rather than returning them to the earth to begin life anew, who could kill without bearing a mark of it. Each day that passed since she had executed the bandit made her skin itch to be tattooed as penance. Even the language here was ugly, a deformed successor of the mother tongue still spoken in the Outlands.

Some days she could bear the longing etched onto her soul, and others she felt she was dying while her heart continued to beat.

Some moments made the passage of time easier to bear. Most now revolved around Veanna: the younger sister in place of the family she had lost, the daughter she would never birth, the lost girl that she herself had been so many years ago.

Nobody had helped Tia when she was expelled from the Outlands - with her tribal tattoo destroyed, no Outlander would spare her a second glance ever again. She clawed out a place alone in this foreign country, dropped amongst the other outcasts and recluses; the dregs of society.

She became cold to loneliness, to selfishness, to killing. A death was just a death, nothing to dwell on; she would simply pay the price when the time came for the lives she ended - if she was not covered in vines before her life was over. Until then, it was about the next heartbeat, the next breath, the next sunrise.

And she would go all those sunrises without another flutter in her heart at the sight of her love. She knew that even after all the time and miles that stretched between them, one glance of those dark, sparkling eyes would make her fall once more. She was eternally enthralled by the woman who she longed to reach for, but who would slip through her fingers like sand.

Her one, her love, her Ruki.

Something rose towards Tia, and her hand jumped to the hilt of her sword before her eyes focused on Neyerith's figure. She didn't move her grip.

He stilled once on his feet, but there was a shine in his eyes that said he was about to start talking. Preemptive tiredness washed over her.

Neyerith lifted his hands slowly as if she were a startled horse. "Food?" he offered, waving a pair of bread rolls.

Tia gave a curt nod.

"Would you prefer cured ham," he continued, "Or a local speciality of cheese delightfully called 'Milky Green'?" The fire cast strange shadows across his face, and its shine was caught in his eyes and the jewelled hilts of his daggers.

"Ham." She held out a hand, eager for the conversation to be over.

He bowed his head and handed the roll over. "Here you go, gorgeous."