Heirot

Tenara sucked in a breath, grinding her teeth to keep from shouting. It wasn't his fault, she told herself. The pain he was making her feel, it wasn't his fault. H-Havitharon... Please. Let me go. Fight her.

*I ddon't knnnow how,* he shuddered. Jace was looking at them like she was enjoying a hysterical play.

He needed to give Tenara a way to outmuscle him. *L-listen. Take your ffree hhand and grab mmy horn,*

She knew he was trying to help her escape, but Tenara couldn't. She couldn't be separated from the sword yet. They hadn't tested the theory, and if she was still connected enough to Havitharon to speak to him like this, then chances were, if she got too far from the sword, her chest would cleave open and she'd bleed out.

But if she could get free of him for a second, she could get to Jace and melt her face off. Tenara reached up and grabbed his horn.

Havitharon made a sound that bounded awfully close to a yelp. He's asked her to do it, but it was still a shock to his system. He released her on pure, submissive reflex, leaning where she was pulling him. It gave her a second or two, at most, but it was all he knew how to give her.

Tenara held him by the horns. A second passed like an hour, and she thought about how useless and awful she was. To have the power of gods in her veins and be unable to wield it as she wished, unable to call on it to save herself or Havitharon. As the bitterness of that thought settled, a voice called to her in the back of her mind.

Stop holding back, it said. Stop being afraid of what you are.

She thought of the people she’d hurt or killed since her tether broke—of Edan, Prince of Arken, and the bandits in Sinead’s palace. Of Jacob. Of the innocents slaughtered by her ill-fated magic as a child. Child of monsters. Descendent of a dark god. Killer.

Tenara met Havitharon’s eyes as she held him that second by the horns.

Protector.

And in that second he gave her, her eyes glowed a brilliant, terrible red—the color of blood and nightmares, and she released him, turning her whole body towards Jace and her men.

She swept her hands up, like she was calling something from the earth, and blue fire and black shadow sprang from a crack that rocketed towards them.

In the same instant, Tenara felt the holy wound rage a black curse stretching up her arm, a spiderweb of poison. She grabbed her arm as she fell, landing on her side and clawing at the lines growing under her skin.

One of the hunters who had gathered behind Havitharon to help him subdue her sprang forward when she landed, and stomped his boot down on her head.

The world flashed white and then darkness sucked everything away.

Jace's glee at discovering Havitharon was hers rapidly transformed into fear. "What the hell?" She backed up, clenching the sword in both hands.

"PUT IT DOWN!" Havitharon snarled at her, desperate to be released. This was totally different from the way Tenara wielded the sword. He hated Jace's grip around him, hated her commands hauling on his sanity.

Jace took the threat as a warning, and threw the weapon on the ground. Around her, her men were being swallowed by blue fire, sucked into the horrifying crack in the ground. She screamed as flames began to catch on her clothes. She swatted them desperately as she turned tail and ran into the forest, away from the blaze as fast as she could manage.

The man stepping on Tenara's head had the same idea. He started running when something kicked his legs out from under him, fast enough to break his shin. He screamed and collapsed, catching ablaze. The man looked up at Havitharon's figure, warping in the immense heat of the flame. "Mercy!" he screamed.

Havitharon raised his boot above the hunter's head. "No." With an awful crunch, he brought it down on the man's skull. He coughed through the terrible heat of the blaze and turned for Tenara, who was lying unconscious on the ground. Her immediate vicinity was relatively unscorched, himself included, but there wasn't enough air to breathe. He scooped her up in his arms and picked the cleanest path out while there still was one.

They were a few hundred feet from the smoldering wreckage of her spell when he finally stopped and lay her carefully on the ground. "Tenara!" he called, trying to tell if she was breathing. It was impossible not to notice the terrible web of scars spreading up her arm. "Tenara!"

Tenara heard a garbled sound that seemed so, so far away. She tried to remember what she'd been doing. Briefly, she was on the porch of the cottage, watching the sun set over the lake. She was drinking tea. Then, the house was on fire. Someone was shouting. Havitharon was hurt. Someone was still shouting. What were they saying?

Her eyelids fluttered, her eyes rolling open for a half a second before shutting again. Back to the cottage. The sunset. The tea. She blinked her eyes open again, and she saw blurred half-focused lines of smoke, and the last tendrils of blue flame fluttering out somewhere the distance. She smelled charred flesh. Was it hers? Her hand felt like it was burned away. Her eyes rolled closed again, willfully. Much better to be dreaming. She was back at the cottage, sitting next to Havitharon. They were drinking tea. Someone was still shouting, shouting, shouting.

Shouting her name.

Tenara's eyes rolled open, and her head twisted dizzily towards the voice. He was a watercolor wash of color before her, but impossible to mistake. She knew no one else with horns stretching to the sky. "The sword..." she murmured, trying to sit. The act made her nearly vomit. She needed to get the sword, get it back and never, ever let it go.

Havitharon gritted his teeth. Of all the things to be worried about. "No one survived that. It's safe for the moment. You're not," he said, reaching behind her neck to cradle her head in case she collapsed again. "Take deep breaths. Tell me where you're hurt."

Tenara snorted, dizzy and amused. Where wasn’t she hurt? “I think a horse kicked me in the head,” she said, not quite focusing on him yet. She looked around, and then finally at him. Then, she lifted her arm. It shook violently and looked frightening, and she wondered, for a moment, if it was killing her or becoming a more accurate reflection of what lurked beneath the surface of her skin. She settled her hand in her lap with a groan.

She began to grow more aware of her body, of the gashes from her sword fight the night before and the way his hand curled against the back of her head. He was helping her—had helped her. She didn’t understand him. Why did he help her when he didn’t like her? Because of the sword? Because she was marginally better than that other woman?

She reached a shaking hand up and smeared the blood out from under his nose. “You… you know I wouldn’t do that to you, right? What she did.”

She probably shouldn’t have touched him, she thought. He didn’t like her touch. Of course, he was holding her up. He liked her enough for that. Or, maybe he was just concerned because he needed someone to carry the sword, and if she died it would leave him stranded in the woods.

Havitharon's hand paused above her arm. At a time like this, she was worried about that? "It's not important. Right now, you need to focus on-..."

His words cut off as he looked, really looked, at the expression on her face. He shouldn't just brush her off when she was this serious about it. Did he trust her not to do that? "You have never treated me like a puppet before," he said. It was a half answer, and he knew it. It was actually astonishing that he was even considering trusting her, but he doubted she would be satisfied with that. "If you did, I would feel betrayed," he admitted to her, and himself. He wondered if she would understand him. Only a person he wanted to trust could be capable of betraying him. "I don't know if I trust you, but I have grown attached to the idea that I might."

Tenara’s dizzy head wondered if she’d heard him right. She felt a stinging in her eyes. After his words earlier, she was almost certain he disliked her. “I was beginning to wonder,” she said, eyes growing heavy again. “If nothing short of a life was payment for trust on your world.”

"You're close, but no," he said, "There is no such thing as trust on my world." He lifted her carefully to sit in his arms and scanned her pupils. What did normal pupils look like for these beings? He wouldn't know how to pick out food for her, let alone provide first aid. In all this time, had he really learned so little about her? She asked him about himself nearly every day. Read him books, explained this world.

Maybe if he'd asked more, he would have some clue how to help her. The thought felt extremely strange. "Don't fall asleep just yet. I'm still not sure what's happening to your arm, or if you have a head injury. Try to stay awake." He didn't dare shake her, so he just met her eyes dead-on.

Tenara's heavy eyes dragged open to look at his intense stare. She felt his arms around her, holding her up, and it was so comfortable. How could he possibly expect her to stay awake?

What was going on with her arm? She lifted it again, it shuddered at the effort, and she stared at the black lines branching out from beneath the bandage, and how the tips of her fingers were blackened as well. It wasn't rot or decay like she first thought. It looked like her skin had been stained with ink, and that roots of black were growing up her arms.

"It's a curse," she murmured, eyes drooping closed again. "The black lines are the burn’s reaction to dark magic. Stronger magic, stronger reaction. It's essentially an infection." She wondered if, like an infection, when the lines reached her heart, she would die.

If she died... what would happen to Havitharon? Mild grime on the sword caused him so much irritation, what would be the effects of lying in the elements for years if no one found it? Would he be in agony for eternity? Would he go mad?

Tenara wondered if she should try and teleport them again, but didn't think she had the strength or focus. Perhaps she could just send the sword, and Havitharon with it, and he would be with her family. It would likely kill her, but if she was already dying... Her mother would take care of him, be the carrier she couldn't be. He would at least not be alone, rusted, or driven mad.

Havitharon's eyes grew wider. An infection? He was familiar with what happened to untreated infections. Strategies raced through his head, weighing the odds for each option. The answer was pretty clear. "Then, I'll carry you to a city." He gathered her bruised form up against him as gently as he could and prepared to lift her. "How long will it take if we run?"

"I... We can't run..." Tenara's head swam a little at the thought of being jostled around. She was trying to imagine where they were. She was lost compared to the cottage. If they got back to the lake, she could tell him where to go. "There's a town north. Closest one. A days ride on a horse, two days on foot, maybe?" She swallowed. "But I sent a letter to my family. I told them we'd head to the border with my home. If we can get there then we'll be safe. There will be guards and..." Her words were a weary, mumbling ramble. She pressed her cheek against his chest, fighting the urge to just slip under. "The sword. We can't... We can't leave it. I can hold it."