Page 49 of Red Demon
“Mira.” His blow landed, cutting me to the bone across the chest.
I folded.
Asher froze, his blazing eyes going distant when I didn’t rise. “Sometimes … sometimes I do want to cut you a little.”
My hands soaked red. I tried to push past the pain, pulling my shirt open to study the wound. It was the first time I’d seen the white of my bones. “I can tell,” I wheezed out. “I yield, by the way. Point yours.”
He dropped the blade, kneeling in the dirt beside me. Before I knew what was happening, he had ripped the shirt off my back and was winding strips of it tight around my chest. He then removed his own shirt to do the same.
Pain pulsed above my heart, stinging sharp with each ragged breath.
Asher knelt beside me, the dying light of the sunset reflecting the worry on his face. “I’m sorry. Voids, I’m sorry.”
A tremor ran through his hands as he ripped the last of his shirt to close my wound, and I found it hard to sit up to make that easy. “I need to get you to a healer, fast.”
With a grunt of effort, he helped me to my feet. Once up, I couldn’t convince my back to fully straighten. But I kept my head afloat, leaning most of my weight on Asher as we stumbled through the darkening woods, dripping a trail of blood between the trees.
“About a week ago, I asked Mira if she’d go to the elders with me,” Asher said, just above a whisper.
My head lolled up, disbelief as sharp as the throbbing in my chest. “What? Fuck.”
Asher looked away. “She—she turned me down.”
“Ash,” I rasped, my voice weak. “She was always leaving. You knew that.”
He stopped walking to regain a stronger grip on my arm. “I know,” he admitted. “But I knew I loved her the moment I met her.”
My heartbeat fluttered. I was speechless.
“Her research is important… Sure, I can support that. I could open a forge anywhere and follow her around. She didn’t want me to—in her words—give up my whole life for her.”
A bitter chuckle escaped my lips until I cringed from the pain of even a little laughter. “Loving like that—the minute you saw her. That’ll scare any Chaeten, Ash.”
His breathing picked up beside my ear, and I wondered if he was crying. “She said she loves me, that’s what hurts the most. I’m not like either of you, though. To her, research is first. To you—killing someone is first. For me, the people I love are first. You don’t want my help with the Red Demon anymore. She doesn’t need me at all. So what good is that love?”
I wanted to stand up, to look at him, but I couldn’t find the strength. “Maybe she just needs more time.”
“There is no time. The post she’s taking, it’s not a civilian one. It requires a pledge after a few months, and Z’har can’t marry. So—” His voice broke, and a sob wracked his body. My vision blurred, a mixture of pain and a rising sense of dread.
“No Ash, there’s not… She… She can’t—” My words failed me as my vision spun, and the world tilted on its axis. “Ash,” I managed, my voice a hoarse whisper. “I love you, Brother.”
The words slurred out, a long breath of cool evening air. Then, the darkness rushed in as I fell onto the mossy path.
Chapter 23
Ghost’s Warning
Ican barely remember saying goodbye. It was probably the herbs the healer gave me for those gashes across my heart. Or maybe I knew better than to hold that memory too tight after all the pain I’d seared into my mind from Iden and Mal, whose blood still sprayed my skin in my dreams. I remember Mira’s disappointed face as she sat beside my bed, incessant throbbing when the wounds got infected, and nothing worked. I remember anger I could not let out, perhaps because I wasn’t sure who I should be mad at. Mira kissed my forehead wearing her travel cloak on the day they left. Ash saluted and walked her out. I felt abandoned, wishing they could just stay, but I had enough of my wits not to say that.
It took two months for those wounds to heal, leaving an angry pink scar over my heart. Galen hated to see it during practice, hated the reminder that his boys would be stupid enough to spar with new tech and no armor. That’s all we’d say. We didn’t want to trouble him further.
The only part of Nunbiren that still felt constant was my taam, although he was not the same man he used to be. Galen took a step back from morning training once I healed up, using his mornings to pray and light a candle in the temple for Ash’s safety, or speak with the ancestors in the woods. As far as I know, he got no sign or direction from these rituals. But it kept him calm, if not happier.
Taam was quieter, kinder, and never once in the next couple months did he suggest I go to the elders, plan my future for me, or rail about the new forge in the Bend. His acceptance of our situation scared me the most, but I kept my doubts to myself.
“A Galen has lived in this town for two thousand years,” he said one day, leaning in the near empty shop. We’d tried to expand into some woodworking, but it wasn’t catching on. “I can’t be the first to leave. And Amenirdis, the immortal Galen’s wife, might still be reborn. She’d know to come here for Istaran and the robe.”
“I understand,” I said, filing down the engraving on a chair I suspected no one would buy. And I did understand why he needed to believe that. For his sake, I did my best to believe it too.
