Page 27 of Fate's Bane
Onsgar stared up at me, doe-eyed, as I pressed together the wound in his middle. “Sister.” His hands fumbled to press mine. My bracers were bloody on his wrists.
Above me, Gunni sputtered. “Is he— I didn’t mean— I thought—”
Hadhnri knelt beside me and I shouldered her away. This was not for her. This was her fault.
“Onsgar.” I kept my voice calm and reassuring. “You’re all right. You’re all right.” Above him, I called frantically, “Father!”
Garadin Clan Fein was already at my side, cloth in his hands to stanch the blood, and he held his cheek against Onsgar’s, kissing his brow.
“Well done, my child. Well done, Onsgar Second-Born Garadin Clan Fein.”
A slight smile, dazed, cracked my brother’s frightened face.
“Well done, brother,” I echoed.
My father sobbed like a babe over the boy in his arms, and I buried my head into the crook of my father’s shoulder.
Eventually, my father stood, lifting Onsgar in his arms. I saw then how the circle lingered, closed in on us. Pedhri Clan Aradoc stood behind Gunni, whose freckles stood starkly against his bloodless wet cheeks. Gunni’s bloody sword hung heavy at his side. It dragged him down to his knees.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. To me, or to my father, I didn’t know.
Without a word to Clan Aradoc, my father carriedmy brother away and left me kneeling on the blood-slick grass.
I didn’t realize that Hadhnri still knelt beside me until Pedhri Clan Aradoc frowned down at her. She shook her head, stubborn as ever, and he led Gunni away.
“Agnir?” Hadhnri said softly, when we were alone in the bloody grass. As alone as we could be amid the onlookers of the other clans. “Agnir, I am sorry. Forgive me. Forgive Gunni.”
I said nothing.
“Please, Agnir. Look at me?” She tried to lean into my blurred vision, but I angled my head away. She would have had to crawl through Onsgar’s death stain to meet my eyes.
She did not, and I said nothing.
“Agnir, please. There will be war. Can we not stop it, if we speak to our fathers?”
There would be no stopping this war. A child of Clan Aradoc had slain a child of Clan Fein. Our clans had fought for less. Right then, the burning in my heart called for vengeance, a wolf-howl of rage that dragged on and on within me, but I could not let it out. Not here, in front of Hadhnri. Only a choked whimper escaped.
Hadhnri glanced over her shoulder to where Pedhri beckoned sharply.
“Please, Agnir. Meet me at the spring at the full moon. If we can find it again, I know we can stop this.”She took my bloody hand in hers. “I wanted to tell you, my father—”
“Why didn’t they protect him?” I whispered.
“I—I’m sorry. I only made them to protectyou.”
I pulled myself out of her grip, but she clung to me.
“Agnir, will you not hear me? He’s going to send me away. To marry the Prince-Beyond-the-Fens.”
I faced her, then, stunned by this new blow.
Tears stained Hadhnri’s freckled cheeks, her eyes now hazel, now brown, glowing under sunlight and dimmed by the shadow of my body. The hard shell she had made for herself cracked open, leaving her turtle-soft. Here was the girl I’d made love to on Gunni’s wedding night. Still there, and perhaps, still mine.
I stood as my father did, and left her kneeling in my brother’s blood.
THEDEATH-OATH
We bore Onsgar home to Fein land on a litter of wood and skins. Onsgar’s mother, who was not my mother, keened beneath the burning sun when she saw him. Biudir’s hairless chin trembled and he looked to me for an explanation. I turned from him and carried the litter with my father to the roundhouse while the pyre outside was prepared.
