Three hundred years ago, the Earth split and the sky trembled. And then the monsters came.
The island of Lowynn is cursed. The Veil between worlds has torn, and now, monsters come with vengeance. They can only be placated by the blood of sorcerers...
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Somehow, the dagger embedded in his arm wasn't the most painful thing the Skaara faced that day.
The dull ache where Dom had haphazardly bandaged the wound could be ignored. But memories-- those stung with a sharpness that burrowed deep within him. A pain that was much harder to just ignore.
The Skaara wanted to ascribe his sudden emotionality to blood loss. Dom had nearly fainted when he helped pull the dagger out. But the two of them worked quickly to staunch the flow, and now he was out of danger, though one scar richer. Why couldn't memories be staunched so easily, strangled the way blood flow was strangled by a bandage?
He didn't know if he hated Ciara or felt sympathy for her. He hated the way she had confused him, perhaps. That was the best answer. He hated the way she had scrambled from his grip once more--
The Skaara adjusted the sling where his arm rested, cursing softly under his breath. He wished the dagger hadn't attacked his sword arm. The Skaara had learned to fight with his right hand, of course. He was too cautious to discount the possibility of an injury. But he needed every bit of his skill as Ciara fled from him, and the last thing he wanted was a disadvantage of any kind.
He had always taken comfort in the fact that he'd never killed anyone. But Ciara's words echoed what Alana had said. Perhaps it didn't matter who did the killing.
The Skaara had been called a monster by every conceivable tongue. Villagers, soldiers-- his very title meant Our Monster in Old Lowynnian. But he hated to hear those words from her, because they actually meant something.
He hated to hear that insult from his own heart.
I serve the King because I never had a choice, the Skaara thought. Those words were surprisingly honest. Once he boiled away all the meaningless excuses he had spent an entire life memorizing, that was the truth. A truth that he had admitted to his worst enemy. A truth so honest he hadn't recognized it until it had been beaten out of him.
There is always a choice, Ciara had said.
What did she know? Ciara looked down on him for his service to the King, but she would have done the same in his position. She had lived her entire life in wealth and luxury, and, if their situations were reversed, she would have done the same. Ciara would have betrayed her people too, if her life hung so tenuously, so close to a sword or pyre. Though her eyes were kind, and her sympathy true, she was just like him— every inch as cowardly and lost.
She was a girl raised on romances and myths. He had been raised on the cold, hard bread of reality. And in reality, there were few heroes. There were men that lived, and men that died.
In reality, sometimes surviving was enough.
The Skaara remembered the paleness of her face, and the way her enormous brown eyes widened at the sight of him. She was the terrified one.
