The Vixen Trials

Him Again

"His eyes raked her but came up puzzled."

Keilah

As the door of her cottage smashed down, Keilah flipped the hood of her cloak over her bi-colored eyes and took up her sword. She had to make the soldiers pause long enough to hear her words.

Only one young man stormed in, his black muddy boots soiling the clean wooden floor. The long curved blade in his hand swiveled in her direction.

Keilah glared into his fierce hazel eyes until surprise made her blink. She knew him. She remembered the wild brown hair he had as a boy and the gentle playful way he'd tease her with his animals. Now his hair was cropped, his neck marred by a slave tattoo, and he moved with all the cold, dangerous competence of an experienced killer.

He sneered at her defensive stance. "Drop your sword."

She held steady. "Go away, Dakkoul."

He halted. His eyes raked her but came up puzzled. "Put your sword down, whoever you are, and you won't get hurt."

Keilah flicked back her hood so he could see her bi-colored eyes. Dakkoul flinched, not from fear like most people, but with recognition.

Hope spiked in her. Perhaps now he knew her, she could reason him away. "Killing my mother would hurt me. She's not to be taken before her time."

Dakkoul laughed, not the giggles of joy she remembered, but a short, bitter sound. "You cannot stop me, Keilah, and I have no choice about your mother. It's the way of the Fox."

"She's no longer one of them," she spat back, "and there is always choice."

His eyes, not so fierce now, met hers and for a moment she was back with him in the hidden valley, playing tag in the meadows, stuffing lilac wildflowers down his tunic and racing to beat him to the top of the cliffs. Then his eyes dropped back to her sword. "Your mother will die today. She herself summoned me."

"That's not possible," Keilah said in a low, horrified voice. He must be lying, though he never used to lie before. She would not back down. In their practice duels as children, he'd always been stronger but sometimes she'd been smarter. She needed all her cleverness now.

"Hurry up," a gruff voice called from outside the cottage. "Get the girl, too."

Her mother whispered Dakkoul's name and held her sweat-drenched hand out towards him. She didn't realize the danger, of course. She'd always looked on him as a son.

The tightness in Dakkoul's face softened. His blade fell to his side as he knelt beside her mother's bed and took her hand in his.

Keliah put her sword to his neck.