But even my dizziness couldn’t mask how his body stiffened at the sound of carriage wheels on stone. “The invalide has a bit of fire in her, non?” He leered at me, at my unsteady legs my pulse crashed in my throat. “And what, pray tell, are you planning to do with that?” I brandished it, doing my best to mimic Papa-fierce, strong, unflappable-even as my legs trembled, even as my vision narrowed. And with the movement, a wheeze of breath.Ī man loomed in the doorway, so very tall. My focus slipped, foot sliding along the loose floorboard with a creak. Make him think twice about sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.” We could gut them and leave the remains for de Batz to find.
“It’d be better if the wife and their little invalide show. “Probably nothing.” A different voice this time, not as strained, oily and smooth. My heart lurched at the unfamiliar voice: raspy, as if it was being used for the first time in weeks.
Please, Maman, please stay where I left you. He wouldn’t have seen us his view was of the main road, the one we hadn’t taken. We’d taken a shortcut home from the market. Two men, cloaked: one riffling through the desk while the other kept watch by the window. The only option.įingers vise tight on the iron, with my eyes closed … with the feel of metal against my palm, I could almost pretend it was my sword. My eyes scanned the room, finally locking on the fireplace. A kitchen knife wouldn’t do any good, unless I was in close combat … or somehow managed to throw it, but the very thought curled my stomach. There wasn’t any time to go to the barn, to draw my sword from the weapons rack. “Dammit-check again.” Voices floated short and sharp from the shadows. The table, the countertops, everything was dusted in flour. Pots were scattered everywhere my gut wrenched as I took in the spatter of red along the cabinets-no, not blood. Once the cloud lifted, I peered around the door.
At the door, dizziness overtook me in an onslaught of gray and black waves. My fingers passed over the smooth, worn stakes. “Tania-” my mother whispered, but I was already headed down the twilight-stained cobblestone that led to the front of our house, my fingers clasping onto the fence Papa built me four years ago, right after my twelfth birthday-something to hold on to for balance when the dizziness became too much. A shadow angled across the threshold, spilled into the falling night, then disappeared. EVEN IN THE darkness, we could see it: the door half-open.
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