Vengeance · Volume III

Prologue

Tavian screams as Evia gently pulls out the blade, dropping it on the ground quickly. It had slipped from his grasp during a training session and had gone straight through his right wrist, cracking the bone as it came out the other side.

"It's alright," Evia whispers, pulling a bandage right around the wound. "It's alright-"

"Mela-" he shivers, his hand violently shaking in pain. "It hurts- it- it-"

"Shh..." She hushes, "It's going to be alright."

He looks up at his mother. She gives him a hopeful smile before getting back to work, wrapping the cloth tightly around his entire hand, and half way down his arm.

"Do you get hurt fighting, Mela?"

She looks up. "Sometimes."

"Then... who bandages you?"

Evia stops for a moment, unsure of what to say. "I have to bandage myself."

"But aren't you in pain?" Tavian whispers. "Doesn't it hurt?"

She sighs, fastening the cloth round a final time before tying it in a tight knot.

"One day, Tavian, you'll be on your own. You've just got to remember that if someone kicks you down, you have to get back up. Sometimes you have people who help you get to your feet, but sometimes you don't." She smiles as she helps him stand. "And one day... I'm not going to be there to help you up."

Tavian nods, as if in acknowledgement, and tries to flex his fingers. He can't.

"But... what do I do when I'm alone?"

She turns and picks up the dagger that caused the stab, and hands it back to him.

"You keep on fighting."

The blade shifts in his weaker hand uncomfortably. He is not used to using his left, and now it is his only option. But instead of dwelling on the pain pulsing in his arm, he grips the blade in determination in his left and runs at her, and she smiles and draws her dagger to meet his with scraping sparks of steel.