34. Killian

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

KILLIAN

H ector was drifting. One day he would seem better, and the next, he'd curl up in a ball and sob for the pain in his limbs. No one was saying it aloud, but the illness had lasted longer than any of the others who had survived, and it wasn't ending.

He was going to die.

Oh, Paris kept saying he was going to be fine, but Paris was like a child who believed in the phoenix of legend. He said it was true because he wanted it to be true.

I couldn't blame him.

As with the southlanders, who believed that their gods would grant them a place of glory at their sides for eternity when they valiantly died in battle, I wished I could believe. I wanted miracles and magic and gods and love to be real.

The only one that might be real after all, wasn't nearly as beautiful as it was in stories.

Love, as it turned out, was messy and painful and frightening.

The rest probably would be too, if they turned out to be any less fairy-story than each other. Gods would be horrific selfish creatures who stepped on people like they were ants, and the phoenix would burn us all to death with a sweep of its fiery plumage.

Helena... well, frankly, Helena seemed to hate me. Paris had gotten over his anger after that first night, but then, he'd also gotten over any anger he'd held for Brett over infecting him without even warning him beforehand. Paris was a forgiving sort of lad.

Helena was more like Minerva. Like a particularly ferocious wolf. She sunk her teeth into a thing and wrenched it around, throwing her head back and forth until it was torn to bits. It was no wonder they were together.

At the moment, I was the thing Helena wanted torn to bits.

I wasn't sure if it was just worry over Hector, or true anger, but I tried to give her all the space I could. Unfortunately, that just seemed to make her more angry, because it meant I was outside with increasing frequency, practicing the spear and drawing my strange little crowd of baby Hawks.

I was a bit worried their fascination with the spear forms was going to lead them to romanticize the wall and the war. Send them all rushing down to spend their year on the wall instead of sending one strong proxy to cover years for many of them.

Get them killed.

It seemed to be what I was good at these days.

Hector's fever had spiked during the day, leaving him trembling in his bed, unable to eat or truly rest, so I... well, I hadn't been able to sleep at all. Helena was with him at the moment, so I couldn't be there.

Proving her irritation true once again, I'd gone out to practice that evening. I'd taken to tiring my body out to the point of exhaustion, just so there was a chance I would sleep.

It wasn't working all that well.

The Hawk village was a sweet place. Not built for tactical advantage in a war, but for the normal kind of advantage. Crane palace had been built for beauty back in its day, yes, but the Hawk's main village was built at the fork of a river, which I thought worked better to bring water to potential crops than to protect them from potential invaders.

The wide, strong stone bridges leading right into the town across both rivers didn't help. They didn't have a wall, or gates, or really, any protection.

It made me feel naked, like I'd forgotten my armor and gone to stand a shift on the wall.

Or maybe that was the fact that Hector was lying in a bed dying of an illness I'd given him, and I couldn't even be there with him, because ironically, his sister didn't think I spent enough time with him, so she didn't want me there at all.

I sighed and let my spear fall from guard position, rolling my neck back and forth, trying to expel the tension there. It didn't work anymore, but I tried. If Orestes were there, he'd have reached down with one giant ham fist and squeezed my shoulders. He'd always been so good at that.

A strangely accented voice drifted to my ear, and every muscle tensed.

No, I was imagining things.

I wanted to be back on the wall, so my body was assuming I was. I expected to hear southlanders, so I did.

But then it came again. Their strangely stilted cadence, over the sound of the nearby river.

An image invaded my head—the fight on the way back from Heron lands. The southlanders using a boat to go around the wall.

Without another thought, I ran.

The same as before, it was just one boat. Less similar, I was alone and unarmored.

Still, I couldn't allow them to invade this sleepy unguarded little village. Kill those innocent wide-eyed children I'd already been worrying about coming to the wall.

I kept silent, running on my toes, keeping to the grass instead of the cobbled roads. The moon was a sliver in the sky, so the shadows hid me well enough.

"Your father will be impressed," one was laughing to another. "We'll bring him back a bird as a trophy."

Bastards. I'd kill them before I let them lay a single finger on one feather.

Without another thought, I rushed in. The first was dead before they even realized I was there, my spear through his back. I yanked it back out and spun to face the second, who yelled and reached for his sword, but not fast enough. A quick sidestep and slash, and he was spilling his guts all along the grassy riverbank, hand falling limp from the hilt of his weapon before it even cleared its sheath.

The other two, though, had time to draw their weapons. Worse, they weren't unseasoned lads who came at me singly in hope of extra glory.

No, they stepped apart, flanking me, each trying to come around behind as the other distracted me. One had a wide scar down the side of his cheek and had the look of a seasoned warrior. The other was younger, but built like he was well-trained, and his steps were sure and steady. There was no weakness for me to exploit.

"Fuck me," the older one said to the younger. "Do you think they all look alike? He looks just like that bastard general of theirs."

He stepped in and slashed at my side, and I barely had enough time to parry the attack before the younger went for the back of my opposite leg. I spun forward fast enough to keep him from cutting my hamstring, but not fast enough to keep him from opening up the back of my thigh with his sword.

It burned, but that was good. That feeling meant it wasn't too deep, and his sword wasn't sharp enough to have hamstrung me without me immediately noticing.

I spun again and faced them.

The longer I let them draw this out, the likelier I was to make a mistake. To get myself gutted.

"I don't think they all look alike," the younger one said, and the expression on his face was shrewd. Knowing.

I spun again, whipping around the older one so that he was between me and the younger, and lashing out with my spear. It hit its mark, and a moment later a spray of arterial blood hit my face.

The younger, though? I hadn't given him enough credit.

He'd recognized me. Worse, he seemed to have seen my tactic coming. He came around behind his compatriot, who had dropped his sword in favor of a fruitless attempt to hold his neck closed, and lunged at me.

It was artless and blunt as tactics went, but also, perfectly executed. Perfectly thought out.

His sword stabbed into my gut before I could leap back, and a feral light glinted in his eyes. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think, beyond the sharp memory that this, this was in the same spot as the wound that had eventually killed my mother.

"Maybe I'll still bring Father home a bird after all," he said with a smile. "A dead one."

The ridiculous whirling movements of some of my spear drills came to me as easily as breathing, after so many years of enacting them. It didn't matter that my lungs were frozen and my brain as sluggish as honey in the winter. My hands moved without needing orders.

My spear swished around behind me, since it was on the wrong side and I couldn't slash through the dying man to get to the other. Bringing it from one hand to the other and pulling it upward with all the strength I had in me, I cut him from groin to neck.

We both fell.

My last thought as the world darkened around me and shouting started up in the distance, was that at least the Hawk children were safe. Also likely, any romantic notions they'd been forming about the war would be wiped away by this gory mess.