Chapter Text
Amberle doesn’t know how long she can keep running. Her thighs ache, each breath burns like breathing fire, and the stitch in her side is a knife twisting every time her heels thud against the hard ground. She grips the sword in its scabbard at her side as she runs, sure that, should she stop, there’s nothing behind her but a fight she won’t win. The Ellcrys’s visions flash through her mind as the trees flash by – blood, destruction, death. Things it seems she’s become very good at leaving in her wake.
She pushes the thought and growing exhaustion away and keeps running. She looks sideways, and catches a glimpse of Eretria between the trees, running just as hard for her life. Her dagger is out, and it reflects the failing light as she runs, ready for a fight and looking like she only comes alive in the heat of it.
She’s fast. Agile. She ducks around a tree so efficiently it’s like the tree dodged her instead. Her feet seem to barely touch on the nettle-strewn floor as she flies across it, and Amberle can see she’s earned the title ‘rover’ with more than just a quick knife and ruthless cunning.
Amberle stumbles as a fallen log materializes out of nowhere in the gloom, blocking her path. She clutches her side as the ground rises up to meet her, and cries out as it hits hard.
She shudders, trying to regain any rhythm of breathing as pain shoots through her, and struggles to her knees just as Eretria skids to her own by her side.
“Don’t go soft on me now, Princess,” she quips, dagger still out.
Amberle eyes it apprehensively, but there are much more terrifying things threatening her life than the possibility of another one of Eretria’s betrayals. “What are you doing?” she pants, breathing hard. “Keep running!”
“Not without you.”
Amberle’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Your grandfather won’t pay me a dime if you’re dead,” Eretria says, pulling her roughly to her feet. Her legs feel like they’ll barely hold her, but she stays up, massaging her side and looking skittishly around them. The sun has almost set, and the forest is painted the drab, uniform grey of twilight that plays with her eyes and makes her think every tree branch is a curved horn or sharp sword aimed her way.
“Do you think we lost it?” she asks.
Eretria snorts, looking behind her and hefting her dagger pointedly. “No. Not permanently. Even if Wil succeeded in distracting it, probably sacrificing himself along the way, it won’t stop ‘til it gets you.”
Her stomach drops. “Oh, god, Wil. We have to go back.”
Eretria snorts. “Predictable. Don’t any of you idiots have any sense of self-preservation?”
Rage rises in her throat, burning along with every breath she still takes with excruciating effort. “Wil is – ”
“ – beyond our help,” Eretria snaps with venom. “Let’s worry about ourselves first. We’re no use to anyone dead.”
Amberle swallows thickly and returns the glare, but then nods stiffly. “Which way?”
Eretria looks around, then points west. “There’s a fog rolling in. It might hide our scent and a fire, if we make it that far.”
Amberle nods and straightens, hand on her sword. “Let’s go.”
The fire crackles as Eretria rakes a stick through it and sends sparks into the chill air. Amberle strains to listen for other sounds in the forest, but without the luxury of sight to soothe her worries in the dark, every sound – a scuffle in the underbrush, a hoot of an owl, the distant howling of wolves – feels threatening.
“You know the point of making a fire is to sit beside it, right? Get warm? Rest?”
Amberle turns, arms still crossed tightly in front of her as she paces along the edge of darkness. “I can’t rest knowing what’s out there.”
Eretria lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Then can you please stop pacing? You’re driving me crazy.”
She turns again, eyes trained on the darkness around them, begging it to show her what it hides.
“You’re not going to be able to see anything,” Eretria points out. “Side effect of the fire. Unless elves have some super eyesight I don’t know about.”
They don’t. Amberle bites her lip. She can’t see a bloody thing beyond the reach of the fire. Eretria is right. She’s not sure what pisses her off more.
“How are they ever going to find us?” she asks, staring into the night and suppressing a chill.
“They won’t, most likely,” Eretria says.
“How can you say that so calmly?” Amberle replies, turning back. Eretria is sitting by the fire, poking the wood, like she’s at home camp without a care in the world. “We’re all alone. No guards, no Wil, no protection.”
“Don’t worry Princess, I’ll protect you,” Eretria says with a taunting wink.
Amberle scoffs and turns back.
“It’s nothing new to me,” Eretria says. “Plus, chances are dear old dad has flipped his fortunes and gotten pretty Wil gutted by the demon, so I’m good on reuniting with them for the time being.”
Amberle shakes her head. “We have to find him. Wil is too trusting, he’s going to get himself killed by that bastard.”
Eretria snorts. “I say let them fight it out. Congrats to the victor and good riddance either way.”
Amberle scoffs incredulously, looking down at Eretria over her shoulder. “Wow. Your loyalty is a fickle thing.”
“Loyalty for who?” Eretria says, poking the fire with venom. “The man who held me prisoner my whole life and patted himself on the back for his good deed while doing it? Or the boy who turned on me the minute my goals didn’t align with his?” She snorts and looks up, twirling the smoldering stick in her direction thoughtfully. “You know, you’re the only one that’s been upfront about your hate, instead of dragging me through the dirt on my knees to beg forgiveness for breaking trust you never earned.”
“I did drag you through the dirt on your knees, actually,” Amberle points out.
“Literally. Better than metaphorically.”
“Well, I’m glad to be of service,” Amberle says sarcastically.
Eretria laughs, a short, hard sound. She pokes the fire and gestures to the woods. “Go be of service to the fire and find some more firewood if you’re not going to sit anyway.”
Amberle scoffs. “No way. Knowing you, you’ll run off while I’m away and leave me to die.”
Eretria huffs and leans her elbows on her crossed legs. “I know you don’t trust me – it’s liberating, actually, keep it up – but not everything has to be a fight.”
Amberle sniffs haughtily. “You do it.”
Eretria scoffs and leans forward pointedly. “You know what happens to a fire without wood?”
Amberle rolls her eyes. “It dies, obviously.”
“Very good,” Eretria says like speaking to a child. “And do you know how to keep a dying fire alive long enough to get wood?”
Amberle’s stomach drops. She doesn’t.
“I’m guessing that’s a no,” Eretria whispers snidely. “I don’t know about you, but I’m liking the fire. Keeps the beasts at bay. Marsh wolves. Valley cats. Whatever else kind of trouble you attract.”
Amberle bites back the spiteful comments, because Eretria’s not wrong. Attracting trouble – her lover’s deaths, demon assassins, packs of rovers – has sadly become her specialty.
“So, Princess, still going to make a fuss about getting firewood?” Eretria asks like she knows exactly what she’s thinking.
Honestly, her self-satisfied smirk is enough reason to get the hell out of there.
“You better be here when I get back,” Amberle warns, glaring.
“Oh, I’ll be looking forward to your cheerful company,” Eretria returns with a sweet smile dripping with sarcasm. “Now get going.”
Amberle stops her departure short, turning back and jabbing an irritated finger in Eretria’s direction. “You know, just because you saved me back at your camp doesn’t mean you can just boss me around anytime you feel like it.”
“Really? ‘Cause so far it’s working,” Eretria replies without skipping a beat.
Amberle turns sharply back and marches out of camp.
Her mind churns as she searches for firewood, picking up broken sticks and smashing them into her arms with excessive force.
Who does Eretria think she is? It’s nothing but a series of coincidences she’s even still with her – even still breathing, actually. If Allanon hadn’t intervened on behalf of the Ellcrys, she’d still be rotting in Arborlon prison, nothing but a criminal. Rover turned traitor turned reluctant sidekick. For her quest. Her burden. Weren’t sidekicks supposed to support the completion of the quest? Not put it in jeopardy and raise blood pressures with sarcasm and snide comments?
She looks back to the fire, dim in the distance, and grits her teeth.
Eretria is using her, she knows that. She needs her alive to collect what’s essentially a bounty from her grandfather. She betrayed her own father for it. Amberle doesn’t doubt for a second she’d betray her just as quick if something better were to come along.
She’ll push for finding Wil tomorrow. Even if it’ll send them back in the direction of the demon, they’ll be safer together than separated and vulnerable.
Plus, they’ll be safer from each other, because she’s not sure how much longer she’ll be able to refrain from knocking Eretria out and leaving her the hell behind, Ellcrys’ wishes be damned.
She sighs in irritation and bends down for another stick.
The moment she looks back up, the fire in the distance goes out with a speed that can only be deliberate.
Her skin goes cold.
She can’t believe it. Eretria betrayed her – again. She left her. She actually left her.
She drops the bundle of sticks and rushes back towards the last place she saw the fire.
Something knocks her down twenty feet from her destination, and she hits the ground hard.
She breathes in deep, ready to scream, but Eretria clamps a hand over her mouth and leans over her, eyes wide.
“Sssh.”
She stills instantly, eyes just as wide in the darkness, as Eretria looks around them anxiously and slowly lifts her hand from her mouth.
“There’s something hunting us,” she whispers urgently.
Amberle’s blood runs cold.
The darkness looms around them, far more threatening than Amberle ever thought possible, and suddenly every sound is threatening. She stays absolutely frozen, barely daring to breathe, as her ears pick up the distant, measured sound of footsteps on the forest floor. It’s not the booming footsteps of the demon they saw, shaking the ground with each successive step. It sounds almost human – the snap of a twig, the scuffle of boots. Precise steps, but steps made with what seems like no effort at all to stay silent.
There are two reasons she can think of that the intruder doesn’t cover its approach. Either it wants them to hear it, or it’s powerful enough to expect no defeat and doesn’t care either way.
She holds on the former with unexpected hope. “Could it be Wil or your father?” she whispers.
Eretria shakes her head. “No. It circled our camp twice looking for you. If you’d been there, we’d both be dead.”
Despite the way her whole body feels heavy with fear, she slowly gets up to a crouch and draws her sword. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. Something humanoid, I think. Maybe a changeling.”
Amberle’s hand tightens on her sword instantly, visions of her own hand plunging a dagger into Lorin’s chest and memories of Wil aiming a sword at her heart returning unbidden. She shakes her head to clear it – but then she’s hit by a different chilling thought.
She lifts the tip of her sword to Eretria’s throat before the girl can even think to move. Eretria’s eyes widen in shock, and her hand inches toward her dagger. Amberle presses the sword forward, threatening to break skin.
“Prove you’re Eretria.”
“Damn it, Amberle, we don’t have time for this.”
Amberle tightens her grip, readying to push forward, should she need to.
It’s not her, she tells herself. It’s not her.
“Prove it.”
Eretria slaps the sword away with lightning speed, draws her dagger, and knocks her to ground with an efficiency only a rover or a demon could muster. Amberle breathes in sharply as the cold of the blade presses against her neck and Eretria leans down over her.
“I told you –” she hisses, voice low and irritated. “If and when I kill you, it’ll be my choice. It won’t be some changeling stealing my face again.” Her eyes flash, Amberle’s heart shoots into her throat, and she knows instantly who she’s face to face with.
Slowly, Eretria lifts the knife from her throat. “Satisfied?”
Amberle nods tightly, breathing hard.
“Then shut up and follow me.”
Eretria stays low, feet so silent Amberle has to strain her ears to hear any movement at all. She follows her lead as best she can, listening nervously for the footsteps of their enemy.
“Where are we going?” she whispers.
“Back to the fort.”
Amberle’s heart hammers in her throat. “What?” she hisses. “That’s where it probably came from!”
Eretria looks over her shoulder sharply. “I know. It won’t expect that. Outskirts of cities, forts, are always a maze, we can lose it in there. We’re sitting ducks out in the open.”
Amberle aches to turn back and head to Wil’s last known location instead. Like she senses it, Eretria pulls her close by the front of her shirt and whispers, “It’ll know where Wil is. It’ll use him as bait if we let it. We’re on our own, alright? The quicker you accept that, the better our chances will be.”
She’s right. She pushes the ache of losing Wil away, and nods resolutely. “I’m in. I’ll follow.”
“Good. Don’t run,” Eretria warns, tightening her hold. “Stay quiet. Stay low. We can’t survive a fight.”
Amberle nods again. Eretria lets go and starts forward.
She can’t see where Eretria steps, but somehow the girl seems to know exactly where to place her feet. Amberle doubts it would make much of a difference even if she did follow her steps exactly – the girl is so quiet that Amberle ends up grabbing hold of the end of her empty scabbard just to know she’s still there. She does her best, but she snaps twig after twig and rustles branch after branch. She’s just not trained for it. A lifetime of royal comforts do not a ranger make.
Maybe they should fight. She can stand her ground with a sword, despite the way her hands are shaking. But she looks over her shoulder and knows instantly that she won’t stand a chance like this – the night is as black as pitch, and she can’t kill what she can’t see.
She’s never breathed as shallowly for as long, or been as scared. The trek is downhill, mostly, not too tiring, but it’s long, dark, and winding. Obstacles loom out of the oppressive darkness with disconcerting irregularity – branches that mimic a demon’s reaching hands as they scratch across her side; the far-off thud of a loping predator that suddenly sounds completely human; the desperate scuffle of a rodent in the underbrush that stops her heart as effectively as if the demon had stepped out of the gloom. Halfway through her trek, the howl of a wolf – why does it sound so close, is it close? – frightens her so acutely that Eretria reaches behind her and grabs her arm.
“You’re making me twenty times more nervous than necessary,” she hisses.
“I’m sorry,” she says, voice shaking. Her heart kicks against the inside of her chest, bringing back thoughts she just spent minutes suppressing. “It’s just – it’s after me,” she stammers.
Eretria snorts softly. “I don’t think it’ll be picky when it finds both of us.”
Amberle swallows thickly. “I know, that’s the point.”
Eretria starts, eyebrows rising in surprise. “I didn’t think you cared.”
“About leaving a trail of bodies behind me? What do you think of me?”
Eretria shakes her head. “No, I meant – ”
There’s a sound behind them, and for once, she’s not the only one that jumps – because a shadow shifts in the darkness with precision, deadly confidence, and camouflage beyond any mortal powers.
Eretria jumps to her feet, dagger drawn.
Amberle follows, sword held ready and searching the dark around her fearfully. Eretria steps in front of her, arm coming up in the semblance of a shield. Amberle looks down at it in surprise, but then another shadow shifts, and she starts in terror.
“Show yourself, coward!” she yells, shaking her sword.
“Goddamnit, Princess. How about we not taunt it?” Eretria hisses.
The silence unfurls around them, blanketing the night until not an owl dares to hoot in its midnight perch. Amberle’s eyes and ears strain against the dark and silence feeding each other and growing stronger every second.
“It knows we’re here.” Her sword swings in a half-circle as she looks frantically around. “What’s it waiting for?”
“An easy target,” Eretria suggests – just as something races towards them. Amberle cries in alarm, but she’s too late, and it collides full on with Eretria and sends her sprawling into the darkness.
Amberle freezes as the shadow looms above her, and she looks up at what’s sure to be her end – vaguely humanoid, but as silent and unknowable as the shadows it steals from the darkness around it. Its edges are ragged, broken, and scaled, barely corporeal – an effect only enhanced by the two pinpricks of red light shining where its eyes should be and the dangerous glow haloing the curved assassin’s dagger clutched in its claw.
She knows what she must look like to it.
An easy target.
It raises the dagger and plunges.
Her sword, held in both hands, catches its descent millimeters from her throat. She staggers under the weight of its attack, and the dagger lowers, grazing across her armor and drawing a thin line of fire that she feels on her skin.
It pulls back and attacks again. She parries, barely in time, and feels the force of magic shaking along her arm.
She defends once again nonetheless, sword slashing through the air to meet the magical blade head-on as she hopes against hope that it – and her own hands – won’t shatter under the force of it. She barely stays standing as her hands shake on the sword.
She can’t hold it off. It’s too strong.
The realization hits her at the same time that she steps back, hits a rock behind her, and stumbles to the ground, sword dropping from her hands as she does.
“No,” she begs, scrambling backwards desperately.
The demon steps forward, making a noise like laughter.
“No!” she yells again, louder, as her feet kick at her attacker’s advance.
The demon raises its weapon, ready for the deadly blow, and Amberle can do nothing but wait for it to land.
Then –
“Amberle!” Eretria yells, and her heart soars with hope as the girl rushes forward, slashing her dagger at the demon’s extended arm. It retracts it with lightning speed, but it doesn’t matter, there is hope – Eretria is by her side, blade raised and a fight burning in her eyes.
The demon hesitates, dagger aimed at its last attacker, Eretria, before it swings around to Amberle instead. Eretria steps sideways, framing Amberle’s body with her legs, and throws her sword arm forward. Instantly, the demon’s dagger shoots out, and Amberle knows that Eretria’s attack and parry has missed. The red, horrid light of the dagger dims as it disappears into Eretria’s stomach, and she doubles over with a scream of agony.
“No! Eretria!”
Amberle scrambles through the dark for her sword – and almost misses the way that Eretria raises her own, arm shaking with pain, and slashes it down across the demon’s extended arm.
The screech that follows is deafening, and the demon reels back, severed arm clutched in front of it as it gushes shadows and fills the air with living smoke. It screams again, and flies forward just as Eretria staggers back and falls. Amberle crawls toward her, barely catching her and slowing her descent. The demon’s screams are all around them as it zigzags through the trees, enraged and confused and defeated, until slowly, thankfully it retreats far enough that its screeches fade away.
“Eretria, oh, God.” Amberle cradles her in her arms, hands fluttering uncertainly around the glowing dagger still protruding from her stomach. “What do I do?”
“Shut up,” Eretria answers through clenched teeth, and without warning, grabs the dagger and pulls it hard. Her face contorts in pain and she cries out, a sound that hits hard and nearly makes Amberle cry out with her. Eretria presses her hand to her frayed armor and drops the dagger to the ground with a hollow clank, where it slowly dims, like its work is complete.
“Ow.” She looks down at her fingers; they come back black in the darkness. She throws her head back, staring up into the night sky, before closing her eyes tight. “Damnit,” she murmurs around a groan. “This is just going to ruin my whole day.”
“Why did you do that?!” Amberle demands, voice rising half an octave.
“Just protecting my investment,” Eretria returns with a grim smile that quickly twists into a grimace of pain. Amberle presses her hand over Eretria’s, stomach turning at the way her whole palm is instantly wet with blood.
“It’ll be back,” Eretria says tightly after a moment. “You have to go.”
“We have to go,” Amberle corrects.
Eretria rolls her eyes, despite the way it seems to cost excruciating effort. “Look, I’m not being self-sacrificial here,” she snaps. “Like you said, it’s after you. Get the hell away from me and I might have a chance.”
“No! Look at you!” she yells, gesturing at the way blood still seeps through Eretria’s fingers despite the pressure she offers. “You’ll die here.”
Eretria smiles wryly. “I’m tougher than I look.”
“I don’t think that’s even possible,” Amberle says.
Eretria smile widens before it’s quickly dampened as she groans in pain again.
It makes up Amberle’s mind. “I’m not leaving you. Get up.”
“You are so infuriating,” Eretria mutters, but she doesn’t resist when Amberle slides her arm under her shoulders and drags her to her feet. She groans in pain and stumbles, but Amberle holds on.
“We need to move.” She sheathes her sword and hefts Eretria’s leaden weight. “Can you walk?”
Eretria grimaces but nods. “If you hold on to me.”
Amberle nods resolutely and looks forward. “I won’t let go.”
By the time the first house at the foothills of Fort Drey Wood comes in to view, Amberle’s trousers are wet with blood from where she’s held Eretria’s hip against her as they stumbled through the forest, and every step costs the bleeding girl excruciating effort and agony.
“We’re almost there,” she says, hefting her weight.
They step onto the cobblestones and leave two footprints of blood.
“I can’t wait,” Eretria murmurs, head sagging as she struggles forward.
Amberle leans Eretria against the first house she comes across and slams her fists against the door.
“Hello! We need help! Please!” she yells.
There’s no answer. The windows are dark.
Oh, damn it to hell. These are her subjects, aren’t they? They’ll forgive her.
She slams her weight against the door. It gives on the third try, and she rushes inside – only to instantly retreat, mouth covered. gagging at the smell of death, and desperately trying the banish the image of a family bloodily murmured and mutilated.
“Occupied?” Eretria says with a grimace.
Amberle pushes back tears. “The demon’s been here.”
“Of course it has. Why do you think the whole town’s dark?”
Amberle looks up, realizing it for the first time. The whole street is cast in shadow – not a candle shines in a single window. Her stomach turns.
“Come on,” she says nonetheless, lifting Eretria up again. They stagger through the street, peering into windows and pushing on steadfastly when they find nothing but death. Finally, Amberle notices a boarded up window and door tucked between two dark houses. She sets Eretria down and hacks her way inside with her sword. Thankfully, it looks like it’s been abandoned for quite a while.
“We’re good,” Amberle says, ushering Eretria inside. She leans heavily against a table, breathing fast and clutching her side. “I’ll get a fire going,” Amberle says quickly.
“Do you even know how?” Eretria says bitterly as Amberle bustles around looking for kindling.
“Of course I do, I’m not hopeless,” Amberle snaps, voice tight and sharp with fear. She breathes in to steady herself. Keep it together. She pulls a reasonably clean rag from a drawer and pushes it into Eretria’s hand. “Press down and hold on, alright?”
Eretria bites back the retort, and nods tightly.
The fire takes her too long, she knows that, but god damn it, everyone makes it look so easy. At least, once it’s started, it’s soon steadily burning in the fireplace, bathing the room in warmth and light. She turns back just as Eretria is stripping off the last of her armor, muscles tight and pained as she reaches for the clasp.
“Here,” she says, and rushes forward to help her. Together they lift her armor away. Amberle reaches for her shirt as well, but Eretria bats her away.
“I’m not a child,” she says sullenly.
“I know.”
She slowly reaches forward again, and though she tenses, this time Eretria allows it. She hisses in pain as Amberle lifts her shirt over her head, leaving her bare except for two straps of leather bound in an unfamiliar manner over her chest, and her arm sags to her side, half shielding the left side of her body as blood continues to trickle out of the wound a few inches from her bellybutton.
Amberle bends down, gently wiping it away and examining the damage. She’s no healer, but she can see it doesn’t look good. The edges of the wound are sharp, clean-cut, but dark. The blood that seeps out is nearly black, and the wound is deep. She quickly presses the rag back to the wound, sliding her other hand to Eretria’s back to offer counter-pressure.
“How does it look?” Eretria asks, brows furrowed.
“You’ll live,” she says tightly. “Once it stops bleeding.”
Eretria nods grimly and slides her hand onto hers on the rag, pressing down as well.
Amberle swallows thickly, mind racing. Black blood. Had she seen that before? She can’t remember anything in her meager medical classes about it. But, on the other hand, none of her classes had ever dealt with wounds inflicted by magical daggers.
She pushes the thought away and clears her throat. “Thank you for what you did.”
“Please don’t thank me for that,” Eretria snaps, hissing as Amberle moves the rag. “It’ll only piss me off more, because, if it wasn’t obvious yet, I am seriously regretting that decision.”
Amberle nods, chastised, and focuses on the wound. She doesn’t know what else she expected. Eretria’s best qualities are not bravery and selflessness – no matter how sporadically those traits might seem to manifest in heat of the moment situations.
She shakes the thought off, shifts her hand on Eretria’s back, and presses down harder. Eretria groans and grabs on to her, head sagging.
“How many kinds of demons are there?” Eretria asks through tight teeth. “Is there a manual I can read or something? How the hell do you beat this one?”
Amberle shakes her head forlornly. “I don’t know. A few weeks ago I didn’t even believe they existed. Now I’ve seen a fury, a reaper, a changeling…” A thought hits her. “You didn’t ask me if I was me.”
“What?” Eretria asks, eyes closed and breathing hard through her nose.
“When I thought you were a changeling. You never doubted I was me.”
Eretria snorts, then scowls in pain. “Because I, unlike you, am not an idiot.”
Amberle rolls her eyes. “Eretria…”
“I’d recognize a doppelganger.”
Amberle frowns. “How?”
Eretria cracks a smile and points at her face. “You have this annoying crinkle between your eyebrows that I’m absolutely positive no changeling could mimic.”
Her hand rises to her face just as her brow smoothes. “Gee, thanks,” she says, scoffing.
Eretria’s grin widens. “Anytime.”
Amberle pulls back the rag, peeking at the wound. She swallows thickly. “It’s not stopping.”
Eretria frowns. “What?”
“The bleeding,” she says, watching as the darkened blood continues to exude from the wound with alarming speed. “It’s not stopping.”
Eretria tenses. “It’s only been a little while, give it a moment.”
She catches Eretria’s gaze apprehensively. “Eretria…”
“Give it a moment,” Eretria snaps, voice shaking. She takes the rag from her roughly and presses it back against her stomach.
Amberle nods, acquiescing, and turns around, busying herself with her surroundings. The house is bare and a little dusty, but otherwise clean. The room is small, barely big enough for a couple, but all the better for them. It’s easy to overlook. She climbs the steep stairs and finds a simple room furnished with a bed, a wardrobe, and a side table. She glances back the way she came. She doubts Eretria would be up for climbing the stairs in her state, and with all the blood she’s lost, she needs the fire, whether she’ll admit it or not. She makes up her mind and drags the ragged mattress and blankets down the stairs.
As soon as she enters the room, she knows something is wrong. “Eretria?”
She shivers and shakes on the table, barely holding on to the blood-soaked rag, and a thin sheen of sweat covers her paling skin. “I don’t feel so good.”
Amberle rushes forward. “You’re losing too much blood.”
“It’s not stopping,” she says, gritting her teeth like admitting it is half the pain of it. “You’ll… you’ll have to cauterize it.”
Amberle’s stomach drops. “I don’t – I wouldn’t know how.”
“Stick a dagger in the fire, then stick it in me. It’s not intricate medical science,” Eretria snaps.
Amberle swallows thickly against the bile in her throat, but nods and draws her knife. Her hand shakes as she nears the fire, but she pokes the tip into the coals and turns back.
Her breath hitches when she catches sight of Eretria’s lower back. Her otherwise unblemished skin is crisscrossed with dozens of thin parallel scars that span from her ribs to the edge of her belt. Eretria tenses.
“Amberle…”
“I’m – I’m sorry,” she says quickly, shaking herself. She picks up the blanket and drapes it over Eretria’s bare back. Eretria pulls it around herself, shoulders hunched and jaw tight. Amberle stands nervously by her side, fingernail digging into the table as she waits for the dagger to heat.
She takes a breath. “Can I ask – ”
“Cephelo,” Eretria says instantly.
She drops her chin. “I can’t believe that man is your father,” she says softly after a moment.
Eretria swallows. “He’s not.”
Amberle starts. “What?”
“My parents sold me into slavery when I was a kid. He’s the one that bought me.”
Amberle watches her, frozen, as Eretria’s betrayal and the heartless comments about her father shine suddenly in a completely different light. “Oh.”
Eretria shakes her head angrily. “I don’t need anything that man has to offer me.”
A beat of silence falls as Amberle takes it in. “I get it,” she says finally, nodding, remembering the exchange she watched when she was tied to the tree. “You just needed the money.”
“Screw the money,” Eretria spits, face shining with sweat as she shakes with rage and pain. “I can survive without it. I always have. I wanted freedom.”
Amberle pulls back in surprise, brows furrowing and mind turning. “But… you had it,” she points out. “Why come back and save me?”
Eretria freezes like she’s been caught in a lie. Amberle waits, barely daring to move for fear of breaking the moment and sending Eretria fleeing.
“It’s not the first time I’ve had to listen to a girl’s screams in his tent,” Eretria says finally, slowly, like she’s piecing every word together. “There’ve been a dozen. More.” A beat; she scoffs and tilts her head bitterly. “Hell, I’ve been on the other side myself.”
Amberle breathes out sharply. “Eretria…”
Eretria puts up a hand, face contracting with disgust. “I don’t want your sympathy, alright? Just know that he deserved much more than my betrayal when I saved you.”
Her thoughts reel, twisting her heart into unexpected, uncomfortable realizations. “I thought you were doing it for the money.”
“Of course, because that would fit with who you think I am, wouldn’t it?” she says maliciously.
Amberle stays quiet, evaluating, one thought repeating in her mind like the thud of her nervous heart against the inside of her chest: Eretria saved her for her. Twice.
“I’m sorry,” she says finally. “I was wrong.”
“About this,” Eretria corrects. “Doesn’t change anything else I did.”
Oh, Amberle doesn’t need reminders about that – the attempted robbery, the ambush, the knife to her throat, seducing Wil. She pushes it away and remembers her own screams in the tent and the way Eretria was the only one who came.
“Still,” she says slowly, resolutely. “You have my allegiance.”
Eretria grimaces. “It’s not trust, is it? I’m not good with trust.”
Amberle frowns thoughtfully. “No, it’s not,” she admits. Trust implies expectations, and the way she’d still reach for her dagger if Eretria showed any sign of treachery tells her that she still doesn’t know what to expect with her. “But I – ” She pauses, frown deepening. “Well, I won’t expect the same in return, if that’s what you mean, but I won’t betray you. ”
Eretria holds her gaze apprehensively, like she’s afraid to believe her, before she scoffs and looks away. “Like no one’s ever said that to me before.”
Amberle’s frown smoothes affectionately. “Maybe they have. But I promise it.”
Eretria looks up at her again, and Amberle sees the same skittish, apprehensive look in her eyes, like a creature so perpetually hunted it expects nothing else. Her heart aches with sympathy, and she holds her gaze, offering nothing but the promise. Slowly, Eretria’s brows smooth, and Amberle sees a hint of honest, if uncertain, gratitude.
Amberle smiles at her and lays her hand on her knee, and instantly the moment is gone. Eretria clears her throat, jerks her knee away, and pulls the blanket around her shoulders.
“Okay, can we just get this over with already?” she says gruffly. “The suspense is killing me.”
Amberle nods, dispelling the unexpected emotions and trying to calm her jackrabbit heart at knowing what she has to do. She kneels at the fire. The point of her dagger glows red.
She stands and swallows thickly. “Are you sure about this?”
Eretria snaps her gaze away from the dagger and looks at her incredulously. “Okay, tip: don’t ask something like that if you’re the one doing the cauterizing.”
Amberle clears her throat and nods with commitment. “Right. You’re right. I can do this.”
She puts a hand on Eretria’s shoulder, holding both of them steady, and sights her target. Her hand shakes like a leaf, and the red tip of the dagger skitters dangerously around the gaping wound.
Oh god, what if she misses?
She pushes the thought away, takes a deep breath, and tightens her grip.
“Wait,” Eretria snaps. Amberle relaxes her grip instantly, but her hand clenches in surprise when Eretria grabs the front of her shirt and kisses her. She pulls her in close, and her other hand comes up quickly to the back of her neck and holds her in, but Amberle wouldn’t pull away even if Eretria hadn’t held her captive – she stands stock-still as Eretria kisses her, too shocked to even respond.
Eretria pulls back, shaking, shivering, and looking horribly the worse for wear despite the sly grin on her lips.
“Why did you do that?” Amberle stammers in a rush.
Eretria tilts her head cockily and grimaces in pain. “I’m about to be impaled on a burning hot dagger,” she points out. “Didn’t seem like a half bad idea.”
Amberle’s mouth drops open, eyes narrowing in rage. “You – ”
“Plus I hope pissing you off means your damn hands will stop shaking,” Eretria hisses, fist tightening on the front of her shirt.
Amberle grits her teeth, the sympathy of the last few moments instantly abandoned, and plunges the dagger forward.
She doesn’t miss.