Victory's Price

Wolf - Phoenix (Part Twenty)

Tentatively Wolf put a hand to his face. When he drew back his fingers they were sticky with blood. The cut was so shallow he hardly felt it, just as he had hardly even seen the blow that had dealt it to him.

Turning her back on him, Phoenix crouched over the water.

The flow of the river had washed away the majority of submerged red. Only a few tendrils remained and they seemed to clutch at her as she busied herself.

He was still alive.

The realisation had yet to sink in.

He had seen the real Phoenix behind her eyes as she fought. And after four hundred years the fire still burnt strong.

Somehow he had lived through it.

Wolf’s knees went weak. He had lived but he would never know how.

When Phoenix finished her business with the water and returned to him she found him slumped against a tree, head in hands. Wolf hadn’t even heard her approach.

“I saw it.” She said, and he noticed her voice was oddly gentle.

“Saw what?”

She could have killed him. Why hadn’t she killed him?

“The wolf.”

Something weighty and metallic found its way into his lax palm.

Wolf lifted his heavy head. He was cold, ice cold, and his knees were trembling.

Phoenix was smiling, actually smiling. He was used to her smiles by now: the odd little smiles at inappropriate times, the twisted smiles when she remembered battle, the knowing smile, even the sad smile he had seen cross her face when her mind was elsewhere. But this was different. It was just…a smile, like a normal human being.

“I didn’t think you had it in you.” She said.

“Me neither.”

He struggled to his feet but the heavy object in his grasp was too much of a hindrance. Looking down at his hand, Wolf realised she had returned the nicked blade to him. Somehow she had managed to locate its sheath.

“You fought well.” She said.

He hadn’t.

“It’s a good blade.” She reiterated. “Take good care of it.”

Wolf wasn’t so offended this time. He drew the blade.

It was clean. And a lot sharper.

“Victory is a lot like that.” She said.

“Your blade?”

Wolf knew of the weapon: he had seen it many, many times in the protective glass casing that held it displayed in the main foyer of House Callen. It was probably the most well used, battered and unimpressive of the named swords. But it had done the most. Killed the most.

“Yes.” She left him then but somehow, when her back turned, it was not so cold.

Wolf strapped his new acquisition around his waist, feeling a lot better. It was good to be armed again. He was about to remount the nameless mare when Phoenix’s movement caught his eye.

“What are you doing?” He asked, one foot in the saddle.

She held her injured hand cupped to her chest but she was using a combination of feet and her free hand to rifle through the belongings of their attackers.

“Going through the bodies.” She said.

She was back to her normal self again: so uncouth.

“Don’t do that.” Wolf said. “They’re just peasants.”