LIRO || completed

• 8.2 •

Liro's head was a mess. Questions flitted between her ears as she stared at Kier. There was blood smeared across his cheek, from when he'd mistaken the liquid for rain. Her eyes dipped downwards. It covered his fingertips, too.

"Blood," she said, holding out her hand for him to see. "It's on you too. And the body ..." Liro felt her throat constrict so tightly it burned. "The body is up there." She pointed a single finger upwards.

Don't shake, don't shake, don't shake.

It was all she could ask for.

She could only let out a small grimace of satisfaction when her hand came back to her side, surprisingly steady.

Kier's eyes widened with alarm, and he shifted his gaze to the treetops. His nostrils flared and his throat worked. Liro wished she could be pleased that he was as disgusted as she had been. 

All she felt was a reverberating sort emptiness.

Liro didn't understand the way that her emotions worked. She had killed Hexley, and not felt a moment of remorse over his blood. She had lied to the Queen and Olenna and Kier, and she'd slept soundly through the night. And this body, the body of a complete stranger, had sent her stomach plummeting.

No.

Not her emotions.

These were human emotions. They did not belong to her. 

Liro shuddered. Every passing day that she was in this mortal body, she grew accustomed to it. Comfortable. The thought of being trapped for eternity in such lifelessness almost sent her staggering. 

Angrily, she shoved the traitorous thoughts from her mind with as much force as she could manage to muster.

"What do we do with it?" Liro said, stepping to stand beside him. 

Kier didn't look at her. "We leave it."

Liro turned, her eyes meeting his shoulder before she lowered her pride enough to look at his side profile. "We can't just leave the body here. Someone will find it."

A muscle in Kier's jaw flicked. "We were sent out, and are expected to return with bison. Not a dead body." His face portrayed no emotion as he continued. "And though they may seem like it, nobility aren't in the practice of consuming that kind of meat."

Liro's stomach revolted. She could picture it. The Queen, clasping a bloody heart in one fist and a fork in the other. Red, red, red. Everything was red. The Queen's hair, her dress, her lips and eyes and the blood, dripping from her fingers onto the scarlet of her shoes. Liro shook her head, banishing the image.

She clenched her jaw, tightening her fingers into fists. Her nails bit into the flesh of her palm. Liro knew that she would be left with little half-moon scars when she unfurled them.

"I'm looking for more." She moved towards the tree, securing her bow across her back and beginning to climb.

"More what? Dead bodies?" Kier couldn't keep the incredulity from his voice. "If there were any more, we would have noticed earlier."

"I would have noticed earlier," Liro corrected. "You didn't notice anything." She heard Kier's sigh of frustration, yet not even the corners of her lips lifted. "If you're still set on your bison, go ahead. I can take it from here."

"You are a hunter," Kier snapped, "not a guard, nor a knight. This is not your concern."

Oh, but it was. Liro had reached the branch just below the one that the body hung from. One side of the victims face had been completely eaten away, exposing the white cheekbone and jaw. The remaining skin clung to the skull like the Queen to her throne.