Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
( three daggers are better than one )
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
THE SNOW HAD FALLEN AT FIRST LIGHT-the abstract flakes flurrying down into sumptuous mounds all around the small village in Fjerda. Children scurried about their winter wonderland with faces of bliss and glee as the hint of frostbite nipped at their noses.
A boy ran around with his friends, all no older than the age of thirteen, they laughed heartily and threw snow that would surely give someone a vicious cold and built structures that their wildest dreams could ever conjure. Then came a girl-she was younger than the group of boys, shorter and full of the naïveté that any ten-year-old would have and her hair had been tied up into a pathetic ball of curls at the top of her head.
She ran up to the boys to join in on the fun of embracing the chilling weather and beginning to throw snow at them with a grin that reached each ear while they stared at her in awe and disgust. "What are you doing?" the boy asked stepping quickly to her snatching her wrist and pulling her away from his friends.
"I was only playing with you!" she defended as steamy tears rose to her eyes and blurred her vision. She didn't understand why he never let her play outside with his friends. When the heat was blazing down on their village he would rush out of their home without warning to her so she wouldn't come out. In the dead of winter, he forbade her from doing anything apart from learning ladylike qualities.
The boy tugged at her harder as they stomped through the powdered snow on the ground. This was splendid weather for outdoor activities and her brother was stealing her away from living her childhood in bliss. It wasn't fair.
When they approached their humble home he swung the door open so hard that she feared he would break something. "You aren't supposed to play with me, Irena," he spat slamming the door behind them. She yanked her wrist from his slender fingers and crossed her arms over her chest in a pout. "You're meant to stay here, inside, away from the snow, not throwing it around as the boys do."
"And what if I don't want to stay inside?" Irena asked challenging her brother. "I want to play outside with the boys and it isn't fair that I can't."
Her brother feigned sympathy while placing a hand on her shoulder. "Maybe when you're older," he lied.
Irena was older now. She had grown into her large eyes, her hair was longer with braids, and the face of her brother was long forgotten in her memories-she must have been dead. That could have been the only explanation for her mind to be reminding her of such a banal day of her childhood. There was no proper explanation for the feeling that reverberated through her ribs like a stream leading into a boisterous waterfall.
Yet she woke up with a jolt, her eyes springing open only to be shut instantly at the blinding light that shone into her eyes. Her hands quickly replaced the light to shield her eyes. The sun finally seemed to have won the war against the rain for dominance over the weather though the clouds still threatened to storm. The soothing rock of the ocean waves assured her she was far from land but what triggered an edge in her eyes was the sight of multiple sets of eyes staring down on her.
Her last moments of known consciousness had suddenly dawned on her and it was evident in her fragile features-those people jumping overboard, the ship turning over nearly trapping her under, the woman-that dreaded woman trying to put an end to Irena's life after trying to save her. Irena was pleased to know her body would be shark bait sooner or later. She believed it was deserved.
Then the sound of fingers snapping in front of her face brought her back to her present. She was on a ship, she felt it with the rhythmic rocking felt beneath her. "Perhaps she's gone deaf?" A voice asked and unanticipatedly Irena had come to her senses.
She was quick with her actions knocking over the closest person to her, that being the person who asked the question. Her abrupt movements ended with the pinning down of her capturer-right knee on their left wrist and her left hand clutched their right wrist after unveiling the blade hidden at their waist and holding it to their jugular.
While gaining consciousness on the floor with the sun burning through her retina, Irena hadn't taken the time to analyze the faces of her capturers, astutely by the fact that she had come to be surprised at the sight of a man with eyes comparable to mud with grass peaking through. His hair was messy too, there were strands of orange pointing every which way but it was red for the most part reminding Irena of a flame sparked in a forest to create a wildfire.
He stared up at her, the two remaining people had been standing back because they knew their captain could handle himself. "Afternoon, sunshine," he spoke tentatively, grin glinting sharply. Ravkan. His voice caught her off guard. There was something about it that had seeped its way through her still soaked white blouse and through her skin, until it reached her silken skeleton where it would build camp to live in. It was dreadful.
The Fjerdan pressed on his throat more, a prick of blood following suit to her satisfaction. She got closer to his face, more threatening. "Who are you, where am I, and why should I not spill your blood on this ship right now."
His expression hadn't faltered at her words, he had been threatened before. It only made sense to Irena. He had flirted with the woman who pressed a blade to his throat and threatened to kill him on his ship and didn't even bat an eye. His eyes left her for only the minuscule of a second before tracing back to her glare that compared to having three blades traced on him rather than one.
As Irena's eyes narrowed to slits she could feel the mechanisms of her own gifts being used against her. He had Grisha on the ship. The girl knew what her abilities were capable of so she knew that anyone else like her could do just the same.
Determined to threaten him for as long as possible, it was as if she were holding in her hands the last breath in her lungs held to keep it safe. But her heart was slowing rapidly fast and Irena could feel the oxygen slipping through her fingers.
Finally, she collapsed on the red-haired captain who held a grin on his face comparable to one of the many foxes that Irena had seen in her childhood. The mystery man had caught her in his hands careful to not let her head hit the deck-with one hand around her waist and the other moving to support her head as he flipped them over to where he was now on top of her with a leg in between hers for support and she was laying nearly unconscious on the deck.
The man stood up from her, the other two coming to stand by him as he watched her fight the feeling of her heart nearly going still beneath her lungs. "I like her," he finally said. There had been more conversation to he heard but Irena was long unconscious before she could listen to any of it.
