19
THE SWORD
Manticores have long been banished from this world, one of many creatures deemed too fickle and dangerous to be allowed to roam wild, hunted to near extinction. Like the Fae, in that respect.
Only one thing could have let this monstrosity back into this world. A god… or goddess.
We canter until the forest thins, giving way to farmland and rolling hills dotted with the occasional uncleared tree. A small town sits on one of the hills, and as soon as the path evens out, the horses stretch their legs long, canters turning to furious gallops.
“They don’t have much time,” Morrow roars over the noise.
He reminds me of someone I used to know, another of Lojad’s faithful from a different lifetime.
Morrow won’t stop until he’s dead or dying, and I can’t let that happen.
Kyrie needs him. She needs him, and Lara, and me, and whoever else is destined to fall in with us.
I sigh. Fucking Nakush. He couldn’t have given us more direct instructions, could he?
It doesn’t matter that the smoke thickens the closer we get, that the sounds of chaos and terror are louder with every hoofbeat on the packed dirt road. None of it helps lessen my frustration with the gods.
Which is how I managed to get myself in this desperate situation in the first place. Instead of airing my frustrations in the correct ways, I took them out on Sola’s followers.
I have never regretted it. My vengeance upon her was richly deserved.
Now, though, with Kyrie riding flat out in front of me, I feel the first threads of remorse. Her horse’s legs stretch long, eating up the terrain. Dirt flies in icy clods where its iron-clad hooves strike. Kyrie’s life—her destiny—hangs in the precarious balance… and shame snakes through me.
My lust for vengeance will extinguish every spark of life in her.
That is her destiny. Because of my choices.
I grit my teeth.
“Yah!” I urge my own horse forward and it snorts before reluctantly surging forward. Kyrie’s faithful pack mule brays, racing alongside us.
Kyrie pretends not to care, not to hurt; she pretends to be everything the Sisters of Sola raised her to be. Corrupted her into being. Or tried, at least.
Red hair streams behind her like a banner, coming undone from her long braid, as wild and unruly as the thief herself. Her green cloak floats on the wind. When she glances over one shoulder at me, that cocksure smile firmly in place, my heart skips a beat.
She smiles, but I see through her bravado. There is worry in her eyes, etched across her forehead.
She cares deeply. She hurts.
And not just for herself, but for others. Mushroom the mule, her friend Lara, the direcat, her poor long-dead family—for the people in this small forgotten town being laid siege to by a beast that should have stayed forgotten.
Life has taught her to wear indifference like armor.
I wonder what Death will teach her.
Knowing I will witness the result doesn’t bring me any joy.
I submit myself to the rhythm of the horse, to the sound of a woefully unbalanced battle being fought ahead, and to my fate.
It doesn’t matter who I am, or what I am—fate will have her way with us all.
20
KYRIE