Kvir
Three days after I found myself telling Lizaveta about--well--me, I found myself having to go outside at "teach" her again.
I swear, I think she just liked to hit me. I never gave any notion that she hurt me--or bothered me, for that matter. I'm pretty sure that she saw through that mask, though.
I walked down the hallway quickly, racking my brains for something that we could work on. Her magic skills had evened out, or even surpassed mine, not that I'd admit it out loud. She worked wonderfully with swords, using them as easily as she could. It was daggers and knives that there was a problem with.
It's not that she was bad with them. Her movements were just always jerky and not smooth. She left spots unguarded.
So knives it is.
Lost deep in my thought, I wasn't paying a bit of attention to where I was walking. There was a hard collision, like riding on a horse that suddenly stops. My breath exited through my mouth with a huff. Still standing, I looked down to see what I had hit.
A little blonde head rose up from the floor. My mind went blank for a split second, the name of the small girl escaping me.
Lia, isn't it?
She stood up quickly, snapping to attention. Terror flickered in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Sir!" she cried despairingly. "I wasn't watching where I was going, it's all my fault!"
Is she afraid of me?
I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder, feeling her flinch away from me. "It's fine... Lia. Go on your way."
I obviously got her name right, because her face screamed "Surprised!" She stared at me in disbelief until I began to move away. I heard her footsteps skittering away as quickly as she could go.
Wait a minute.
"Lia?" I called after her. I could hear her breath suck in as she stopped. I turned around. "Where is Raul?"
She kept her back to me. "Um, Sir, he--he told me to take over for him today."
"Why did he ask you?" I couldn't keep the nervousness out of my voice.
"He said he wasn't feeling well, Sir."
"Oh. Be on your way, then," I ordered quietly.
A soft thumping made its way up to my ears. I looked down at my hand grasping the cane. Unknowingly, I was bouncing my arm up and down, making the cane hit the floor.
Don't panic. Nothing's wrong. He's just not feeling well. That happens to everybody.
A traitorous thought entered my head.
But does it? I've been this castle long enough to have suffered multiple illnesses, but haven't been afflicted by one yet. The days the creature would go outside in the bitter cold didn't bother me one bit.
That's just it--the creature went outside, not you. If you had, then you would eventually have not felt well either.
Not entirely convinced, I started to walk toward the door again. I could hear Lizaveta humming softly, waiting to go.
"Finally!" She exclaimed as she saw me. She crossed her arms and grinned halfheartedly. "Took ya long enough."
Forcing the thought of Raul from my mind, I rolled my eyes. "No, I'm not late. I arrive whenever want to. You," I pointed at her, "are early."
She shrugged. "Considering that I use that one, I can't say you're wrong..."
"See?" I proclaimed. "We agree."
She shook her head, tightly hugging herself. "Keep telling yourself that."
****
Five hours later and I still hadn't relaxed.
My thoughts were still all over the place, ranging from Raul to the lesson to Lizaveta to any and everything I could think of.
She wasn't any better. We had gotten outside in mid-afternoon, and since, the sun started to set, and she was still trying to learn the move I was teaching her.
"Lizaveta!" I cried. "No! Arm goes down."
She looked at me and bit her lip. "I'm trying, okay? My mind is--elsewhere."
Join the club.
I waved my hand at her. "Try the whole thing. Maybe you'll get it that way."
The grass crunched beneath my feet as I moved towers her and pulled a knife from my coat. I got behind her and pressed the knife against her throat gently. I could feel her body tense up beneath me.
"Ready?"
She shook her head. "No. I don't get a choice though."
"Just move through it slowly--" I started to say. Too late.
She had already tried to flip around and grab the knife, succeeding in grabbing the blade instead of the hilt.
"Yeowch!" she cried, dropping the blade. She brought her hand up and looked at it. Although I couldn't see her palm, I saw the line of blood falling down the side of her arm.
"You okay?"
She looked at me like I had lost my mind. "No, Kvir. I just like cutting my hands."
With a flick of her wrist, Lizaveta turned her injured hand toward me.
That's not a little cut.
A long, deep gash ran across Lizaveta's hand. There was no bone showing (amazingly), but it was close enough.
"Come here," I beckoned.
She did as I asked.
I pointed at the ground, already lowering myself into the grass. "Sit."
Once she sat next to me, I grabbed her arm and brought it close. With my right hand, I made a fist, but kept my thumb out sticking up. I turned her hand cut-side-up and pressed my thumb against the wound.
Kerasma.
I was careful not to speak the word aloud, otherwise, Lizaveta would no doubt hear it and try to copy me. It was interesting to see if the spell would word or not, seeing as I had never tried to use it without speaking.
It did work, however. With my thumb still firmly pressed against the cut, I could feel it closing up. Pain flared in my own hand as a gash identical to the one I just healed appeared on my palm.
Lizaveta pulled away, surprised. "What did you do?" she asked, amazed.
I smiled, although she couldn't see through the mask. A wave exhaustion washed over me. "It's a spell. I healed your hand."
Her eyes fell down to my fist. Blood oozed from between my fingers. "But now you're hurt."
I shrugged. "It'll go away. I'm a fast healer."
"Can't you just heal yourself?" She turned her head to the side curiously.
"No," I sighed. "It doesn't work like that. If I heal someone, it gets transferred to me. 'Equivalent exchange,' I think is what it's called."
"Oh." She stood and held out her hand. "Getting up?"
This'll be fun.
Holding back the dizziness and exhaustion that came with magic, I took her hand with my non-bloody one and stood. "Let's run the move again."
Her mouth dropped open. "Don't you want something for your hand?"
"Nope."
We ran the move another two or three times, each time getting more and more aggravated at it. Finally, Lizaveta threw her arms in the air.
"That's it! I give up! I'm done! It's not working!"
Whoa, chill.
"Calm down, Liz--"
"No!" she yelled. "I will not calm down. And my name is Zara."
I picked up the knife that was on the ground, feeling it slip a bit from my hand as blood ran down it. I looked at my hand. It still hadn't stopped bleeding.
I went over to the small pond that was at the edge of the maze and stuck my hand in it, all the while staring up at the sky. The sky was a brilliant golden yellow, along with purple and pink streaking across it.
"Fine!" I called back. "We're done. It's time to go inside anyway!"
I twirled around, shaking the water from my hand. Lizaveta stood with her back to me, facing the trees.
"Are you coming?" I demanded.
She didn't move. Both of her shoulders shook lightly. "Could we stay out, just for a minute longer?"
I opened my mouth to shoot down her request.
"Please?"
Her voice was so small and laced with so much pain, I stopped.
No. We can't stay out. We need to go in. You're stupid for wanting to be outside past sunset, remember what happened last time?
"Alright."
Inwardly, I groaned. Ugh.
She started walking toward the woods. I followed her, asking, "Lizveta, what are you doing?"
She stopped at a spot that had no trees blocking the view of the sunset. She kneeled down and sat on the grass, patting the ground next to her. "Sitting. So are you."
I bit back my sarcastic remark of No, I'm fairly sure I'm standing up, and joined her on the dirt. Everything was completely silent; no birds chirping, no crickets, nothing.
I opened my mouth to say something, wanting the quietness to go away, but Lizaveta spoke first.
"Back at ho--at the village, there was always some type of noise that would prevent silence. There was never a dull moment." She laughed quietly and plucked at the grass below her. "I would have to go into the woods for this type of silence."
I looked at her, and without thinking of the next words that were to come from my mouth, I said, "I hate it. Quietness, I mean."
"Why?"
"When you're in a castle for over two-hundred years, silence seems to be the only thing that is constant," I spat bitterly.
She nodded. "I can see that."
She picked at the grass blades some more. "There was only one person in the village who knew of my place in the woods. He was..." she hunted for the right words, "never told where it was. I'm a little glad he found it though, because it gave me someone to talk to on the worst days. "
I lowered my head. "Is this Vadik?"
She nodded.
The next question was one I didn't think about before speaking. "Were you two a couple?"
You did not just ask that.
Lizaveta stared at me. Yep. You just asked that.
"Uh, no, he wasn't a boyfriend of mine," she answered, holding back a grin. "We were--are just friends. I think." She sighed. "It's complicated."
I nodded. Just stay quiet so you won't say anything else stupid.
In one quick motion, Lizaveta brought her knees up to her chest. "We didn't always live in the village we were at. At one time we were a part of the Upper Kingdom."
"Don't you have to be noble to live there?"
She bobbed her head up and down. "Yep. My father--"
I heard a strain in her voice when she said 'Father'.
"My father," she continued, "was a knight. My mother was descended from a long line of dukes and duchesses. I guess I'm distantly related to the king in that way."
The duke. So she is related.
"When they got married, my mother was forced away from her family because she married a lower rank. My parents eventually moved farther away from the castle, but were still in the Upper Kingdom. That's when I was born."
She swallowed. "After me was my brother, Joshua. He's--he's the reason I came here in the first place. The king threatened to put him on the front lines of a non-existent war, and Joshua had already lost a leg."
Oh.
"Anyway, my family was happy. Then, a little before I turned eight, I heard my parents talking. Apparently, my father did something to anger the king. He wasn't arrested or anything, but we were warned that if it ever happened again, there would be consequences."
She took a shaky breath. "About a month after that we were attacked. It was at night. A group of men set our house on fire." A shiver racked her entire body. Her eyes reflected the memory of the flames that burned her house.
"My father, brother, and I got out safely. My mother was supposed to be right behind us."
Lizaveta reached up and wiped at her eyes. "She wasn't."
"I went back into the house. My father didn't notice. He was too busy keeping up with Joshua. When I went back in, the house was still burning. I couldn't find my mother. I ran through the whole house and finally came to my parent's room. The men that set the flames were in the room. With my mother."
A feeling of dread fell over the two of us, with Lizaveta knowing what about to be said, and me already guessing it.
"She was already dead when I got to the room," Lizaveta mumbled. "Her clothes were ripped. She had been stabbed... among other things. When the men saw me, they were delighted. I remember the leader of the group the best. He had this really deep, husky voice. The thing that he said to me that stood out the most was a song. It was the lullaby that Mom would sing to Joshua and me."
She gasped, sobbing. I sat next to her, not knowing what to do next.
"Um, if you don't want to say this, then you don't have to," I mentioned uncomfortably.
Her head went side to side. "Just before they started to do to me what they did to my mother, the leader was shot." With one finger, Lizaveta pointed up to her head. "Through the forehead. He died instantly."
"That's when I ran. I ran as fast as I possibly could, away from the house, away from my dead mother. A few days later, they found the bodies of two of my rescuers and three of the four men. The last one was never discovered."
With one hand, she reached up to her neck, grasping for an object that was no longer there. "The last thing my mother said to me was my name. She was the only person who would call me Lizaveta and not Zara. Lizaveta was my name in my old life. Zara was my name in the new one. And now..." She sighed, "You call me Lizaveta. You are the only one who is allowed to call me that."
She was quiet again, then spoke. "The last thing my mother and I did together was watch a sunset. Now, every year, on the anniversary of her death, I sit and watch the sun sink into the trees."
With one last wipe at her eyes, she stood up. "The men I see from the vespers are the men who killed her that night. The nightmares I have ask me why I couldn't save my mother. And when I lost my mother, I lost my father."
"About a month after Mom died, Joshua and I were looking for some type of shelter. Since my father was just a knight, and a retired one at that, we were being kicked out of the Upper Kingdom. There was a baker across the street who let us work for him in exchange for food. When we got home, excited at our success, our father was drunk."
"He claimed the next day that it wouldn't happen again, but that night was the same way. He never harmed us. He just was never there either."
She turned and started to walk back to the castle. I stood and followed her.
"People would ask me and Joshua why we didn't leave. We did we put up with our father. The answer was simple to us: he was our father. He was the only living family we had left. We loved him. I guess that some part of us thought that he would put down his drinks and come with us, but that never happened."
We reached the castle doors. Lizaveta stopped, then suddenly turned around and wrapped her arms around me tightly. "Thank you for listening, Kvir. You didn't have to."
Pain erupted in the small of my back at her movements.
LET ME OUT, PRINCE.
No. You don't need to be let out.
YES, I DO. THIS IS EMOTION, ISN'T IT? YOU AREN'T ALLOWED TO FEEL ANY IF THIS. THAT GIRL NEEDS TO PAY.
No! She doesn't. It's not her fault. You don't need out.
YES, I DO.
No. You. Don't.
With one final inward shove, I pushed the creature down. Carefully, I wrapped my arms around Lizaveta.
"I'll tell you my name when you tell me who those men were."
I grinned and spoke that word aloud. "Brennen."
Inside, I could feel the creature scream in agony as the word left my lips. Ha, Beast. I win this one.
She pulled away, but didn't let go. "What?"
"My name," I said. "We made a deal a while back that you'd tell me your past, I'd tell you my name. My name is Brennen."
She smiled. "That's a nice name. Much better than 'Kvir,'"
Slowly, she unwrapped her arms from my waist and walked to the door of the castle. It opened with a powerful creak.
I walked in after her, only lingering long enough to see the top edge of the sun slip beneath the trees.
______________________________________
Hello again!
So were the things in this chapters too soon or all at once? I really don't know. The chapter I was originally going to do was a lot like a--was a filler chapter. Nothing incredibly important was going to happen, so I scrapped it and put this one here instead. After the book is written, I'll add it in as a bonus.
Thank you for reading! If you liked it, please consider voting.
Noa.