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Something breaking
And then I was flat on my back, and Naji’s knife was at my throat, his knee digging into my stomach.
“Ana
“What the fuck are you doing?” I shrieked. My face was hot and I could feel this weight behind my eyes and I told myself I wasn’t going to cry, not over this. The memory of the kiss was sweet as spun sugar on my tongue, but the rest of me burned with humiliation.
He slid back, dropping the knife away. “What did you do? I felt someone attack me–”
The manticore started to laugh.
“I was just walking by!” I shouted. “And you jumped out at me.”
“Jadorr’a,” the manticore said. “The girl-human kissed you.”
Apparently manticores knew as much about keeping a secret as they did about humans –not a damn thing.
Naji’s face didn’t change. I wanted to throw up.
“You can feel it, can’t you? I know you can. I can smell it, the change in the curse–” whispered the manticore.
“Shut up!” I scrambled away from Naji. He was still staring at me, but now something had changed in his expression. I couldn’t read it, didn’t want to read it.
He didn’t move except to let his knife drop to the floor. The weight in my eyes built and built, and I jumped to my feet and turned and ran out of the entrance of the cave, into the dark rattling woods. It was cold as the ice-islands, but I was so hot with humiliation – I gave him a kiss and he thought it was an attack – that I didn’t feel it except in my lungs, burning ’em like fire as I ran into the chiming forest.
I tripped on a fallen tree trunk and went sprawling into the ground, wet from the recent rain. The gossamer dust of the leaves coated my palms, and when I sat back and pushed my hair out of my eyes I could feel it sticking to my skin.
The forest was chiming like crazy, as though a storm was on its way, and I let out this scream cause it was the only thing I could do. I screamed and slammed my fists into the ground. The dampness crept in through my clothes and I didn’t care. I just screamed.
“Ana
Naji’s voice was soft and hesitant, blending in with the forest’s chiming.
“Go away.”
He materialized beside me.
“Go. The. Hell. Away.”
“No.”
I wiped at my face, smearing mud across my cheeks. The powder from the leaves came off on the back of my hand. “Fine,” I said, and tried to stand up. He grabbed my arm.
“Look at me,” he said.
“Let go.”
He didn’t, and his grip was stronger than I expected. I tried to wriggle away from him but he held me tight.
“Will you stop it?” he said. “I’m trying to thank you.”
That stilled me, the kindness in his voice. I slumped against the ground, and he dropped his hand to his side. My arm burned from where he touched me, and not cause it hurt, neither.
“It worked,” Naji said. “Your ki… what you did. It worked.”
I didn’t say nothing, just drew my legs into my body and curled up tight like I could disappear into the shadow.
“It wasn’t impossible,” Naji said.
“Course it wasn’t,” I snapped. “What’s impossible is somebody loving me.”
He didn’t answer. Part of me had been hoping he’d tell me I was wrong, that he’d at least try and comfort me, but when he didn’t my chest got tight and painful. I turned away from him and my skin prickled the way it did when the air was full of magic. But there was no magic here Just another reminder that Naji didn’t love me back.
“Thank you,” he said after a few moments had passed.
“Whatever.” I stood up. He didn’t stop me this time. I couldn’t stand the closeness to him. I kept thinking about the way his mouth had felt. “I have to go.”
“Thank you,” he said again, like those were the only words he knew.
I walked away from him, away from the forest and the cave, toward the sea.
I woke up the next morning covered in sand, my head pounding like I’d spent the night tossing back rum in some Bone Island drinkhouse. The sunlight, weak as it was, hurt my eyes, and I rolled over onto my stomach and pressed my face against the cold beach.
I thought about Naji. Jackass.
I thought about myself. Idiot.
It took me awhile to work up the willpower to sit up, and longer still to get myself to standing. I didn’t know where I was. I couldn’t see the smoke from the bonfire, which was a bad sign, but one I chose not to dwell on for the time being.
Somebody said my name.
At first I thought it was Naji, that he’d been lurking in the shadows waiting for me to wake up so he could humiliate me again with his thank yous, but then whoever it was said my name again, and I recognized the ice in the voice.
The Mists lady. Echo.
“Hello again,” she said, curling into existence beside me. “I heard you experienced a bit of a disappointment last night.”
I couldn’t speak. I was too blindsided by her sudden appearance. She slid closer to me, the edges of her body blurred and translucent, as if she wasn’t completely in our world, and I skittered backwards a little, not daring to take my eyes off of her. She was after Naji at the behest of her lord, who Naji’d stopped from taking over our world a few years ago. The lord wanted revenge for it, wanted to see Naji dead or enslaved or worse. Naji had hidden himself from the Mists, though, so she always came to me instead.
Except Naji had cast new magic when we came here, magic that was supposed to keep me blocked from the Mists, too. It was supposed to keep me safe–
Unless he’d dismantled it while I slept last night. Like the thought of me loving him was enough to leave me soft and vulnerable out there on the beach. Like it was worth the pain it caused him.
“What do you want?” I asked, pushing myself up to standing. My legs wobbled and the world spun around me like I was drunk. I didn’t want to let on that I was supposed to be hidden from her sight.
“My lord would be willing to extend his offer to you a second time. Power. Wealth. Magic.” She leered. “All you have to do is hand over the Jadorr’a. It’s an excellent arrangement, if you’re so inclined.”
“I ain’t.”
I took a few steps backwards across the beach, hoping I was headed in the right direction, hoping that my ru
“I know what it’s like,” she whispered in my ear. “To be hurt by a man. It must be hard for you. It’s not the kind of hurt you can heal with violence.”
A starburst of anger exploded in my chest, and for a moment my thoughts were filled with an irrational white-hot blaze.
And then I whirled around and punched her square in the face, right at that point where her eyes met her nose.
Pain erupted through my hand like I’d punched bone, but then my fist slid straight on through her head, and she dissolved into smoke, disappearing completely
For a long moment I stood there, my anger consumed by astonishment, and waited for her to return. But there was just the waves crashing up against the bottom part of the island, the wind rattling the pine trees. Nothing.
After a while, I set off down the beach, although I did pull out my knife. Just in case.
I walked for a good hour, working off the soreness in my legs and the ache in my head. I’d split open my hand when I punched Echo, but after a while the sting of that disappeared too.
“Girl-human!”
I stopped. The blaze of anger made a sudden, violent appearance. The damn manticore. She’d started this all, hadn’t she? All for a meal.
“Leave me alone!” I shouted.
The manticore trotted out of the woods, flicking up little sprays of sand with her paws.