I close my eyes, clamp down on my rapid breathing, force my thoughts to slow, and finally stop them in their tracks.
Chaos will not control me.
Fear will not control me.
Losswill not control me.
No more.
As my heartbeats finally calm, I open my eyes and narrow them at the blue sky and the smoke wafting lazily across it. The fires burning within the village haven’t abated, thecracklingandpoppingof wood remaining sharp in my hearing.
“My lord.” Lilis’s voice cuts through, along with the footfallsof her wolf.
I don’t need to turn to know she’s on foot, her beast following her cautiously and hesitantly.
My other two warriors are nearby, keeping their distance, their breathing heavy and heartbeats quick in my hearing.
“I failed you,” Lilis says, her voice strained.
She did, but I will make her expand on it.
I ask, without turning, “How so?”
“The Oracle was within my grasp. I had her cornered. I didn’t know it was her, or I would have cut her down?—”
My hand lands on Lilis’s shoulder within a heartbeat, my fingers squeezing so tightly that I dent her armor. She chokes back a gasped breath at the sudden contact.
I rarely touch what I don’t intend to kill, and she knows it.
My question is sharp. “Cut her down?You?”
Her eyes are wide. I recognize the fear in them, a fear she only has of me. It’s fully warranted. I have proven myself crueler even than she is.
Beneath her fear whirls confusion. I read it in the pinch of skin between her eyebrows. Perhaps she doesn’t realize the extent to which she insulted me just now.
Perhaps it will come to her more quickly if I squeeze my fingers even tighter, allowing a trickle of ice into my hold, priming her armor to shatter and, beneath it, her flesh to freeze and her bones to break.
Her pupils dilate. More fear. But then the pinch in her forehead clears, and she goes limp in my grasp. Her eyes lower, and her voice becomes a barely perceptible rasp. “Forgive…”
I release her, but she knows better than to move away quickly, staying right where she is, as best she can, even though she teeters on the spot, while my hand continues to hover in the air above her shoulder, dangerously close to her neck.
I want to roar at her: As if she could cut the Oracle when Icould not. But my silence will frighten her more than a show of anger ever could.
I may have lifted her from a life of desperation many years ago, but I have made it clear to her that I am not her savior.
She swallows visibly, her eyes remaining lowered even as she tilts her head and offers her neck to me. “Forgive me.”
My gaze slides from her pale face to the nearest burning building. “Your penance will be to put out every flame in this village. A task I’m sure you’ll consider is beneath you.”
“Nothing is beneath me if you command it,” she says.
I lower my hand, and her back straightens. She stands tall once more, her cheeks regaining their color.
“And Lilis?”
“Yes, my lord?”
“Bring me whatever chieftain or ruler leads this village. You’ll find me at the northern boatyard.”
