Page 26 of Fate's Bane
“No one in Clan Fein has claimed the attack.” Though I knew the truth, and it thickened my throat.
“Then Clan Fein are liars and cowards both.”
I turned on her in rage, then, tearing my eyes away from our brothers. I wanted to shout, but I could not look at her without seeing the girl she once was, kissing me in the spring and giving me her oath. Pain stole my breath, and all I could do was whisper.
“Do not speak of my family so, Hadhnri.”
The rebuke silenced her and we turned at Lidwul Clan Pall’s shout. The duel had begun.
Relief that my father did not choose me grew with each exchange. More than one warrior had been maimed for the good of their clan’s honor or their own. More than one had died. Though Garadin Clan Fein made me keep closer to the blade than Pedhri Clan Aradoc, I was no prodigy, not so strong as Gunni, nor so quick as Onsgar.
There was a wind that morning, and it rose the hair upon my bare arms. I thought of the wind in Bannos’s chimes, and hoped it was a sign of his favor.
Hadhnri’s breathing slipped. “Are those—your bracers.”
I nodded grimly. If I could not wear them in battle, then Onsgar would, and may the luck-hound protect him.
“I made those for you.”
“I thought I was not the girl you made them for?”
We held our breath as Gunni’s mighty downward blow made to cleave Onsgar’s head like a harvestide squash, but Onsgar slipped around, his own blade darting under Gunni’s arm. Gunni spun his blade back in time to knock it away, and they reset again.
I twitched to reach for Hadhnri’s hand, clenched tight at her side. I folded my arms across my chest instead.
Hadhnri gasped each time Onsgar’s blade came near to Gunni, and it echoed in me. I hated myself for it. But how was I meant to forget wrestling with Gunni outsideof the Aradoc roundhouse? It was as clear to me as my memory of fighting Onsgar for the first time: of all of Clan Fein, Onsgar had accepted me first and most readily.
Sister, they both called me.
The end came swiftly. I leapt forward as Onsgar slammed into the ground. I heard the breath rush out of him. Hadhnri grabbed my arm, holding me back.
“Do you, Onsgar Second-Born Garadin Clan Fein, yield to me, Gunni First-Born Pedhri Clan Aradoc?” Gunni’s voice was low and clear.
I held myself tense in Hadhnri’s grip, no longer fighting her but not easy in her embrace.
“Yield,” I begged Onsgar under my breath. Clan Fein had surrendered once to Clan Aradoc to bide its time; I was proof of that. “Yield.”
Hadhnri’s fingernails dug into the flesh of my naked forearms, and I sank into that pain. Onsgar opened his mouth and I stopped breathing to hear his words. We all did. And so, when he swept Gunni’s legs from beneath him, sending the bigger man down, the only sound was our great intake of air as our hearts began to beat again.
My brothers scrambled to their feet, reclaimed their weapons, and circled each other anew. The energy was different now, the outcome no longer sure. The wind itself seemed riled, cool against my sweating skin, buoying the mounting tension as we watched. One exchange, another. Modin-father-sister paced behind my father, whileLaudir-father-sister was so like a boulder she could have grown moss. If only the fight would last long enough.
That was the only hope I had now, for both brothers to survive.
Hadhnri did not let go my arm.
I wished, then, that I had never been taken in the raid—not the first raid, from Clan Fein, but the second, from Clan Aradoc. I wished that I was still Agnir Ward-Aradoc and that I had stayed at Hadhnri’s side. That I had never gotten to know Onsgar or Garadin Clan Fein. With my life, I had bought peace. And I had never felt so trapped as I did now.
“Agnir, you should know, my father—”
I hissed her quiet. I could not focus on a lecture.
Gunni thrust, and Onsgar parried. Onsgar’s counter, and Gunni’s cut. It was so simple to watch, even to me, even from this distance: testing blows to lure Onsgar into a mistake.
It was the wind. Jerking my braids, tugging my tunic, whipping a flurry of dust into the air. It caught Onsgar in the eye, and he winced, squinting against the debris. He didn’t even see the thrust that took him.
Onsgar slid off Gunni’s blade, clutching his middle.
“Brother!” I ran.
