Strange New Eyes

Chapter Fourteen - Liar

"Answer me, Enrick," Aysel said. Her voice was low and dangerous. "You were never going to help me, were you?"

He stayed on the ground, still hunched, still smiling wide. His eyes, though, were full of panic.

"Answer me!" Aysel yelled. Somewhere in the distance, wintering birds took off into the sky, cawing over the wind. Aysel barely noticed. It felt as though she were falling into a black tunnel of despair. She'd been betrayed. All had been for nothing.

Her brother would die.

Enrick stood upright as much as his twisted body allowed. In Aysel's eyes, he had never looked so monstrous, but his voice was quiet and calm. He spoke slowly and carefully. "Things are... different now."

"Yeah? How?" Her own voice shook with rage, at him and at herself. How could she have ever trusted him? How could she have trusted someone she barely knew with her brother's life?

"When I first met you, I thought of you as nothing more than something that I could use to my ends. I didn't even see you as a person. But the more I got to know you, and the more Dunya gave annoying speeches about respect, I started to realize that--"

"That's shit," Aysel said bluntly. "You're still lying."

He held up his hands. "I swear I'm not."

"Then why didn't you say something to me once you 'got to know me'?" she asked angrily. "Once you realized you couldn't actually heal my brother?"

He flinched as if her words hurt him. "Because I didn't want you to leave. If you found out I was lying, you'd leave for home, and Dunyasha and I would be stuck in a hostile land with no Letter to guide us through."

"You seem to be doing pretty well on your own. Why do you even need me?"

He looked up at her in confusion. "Ay, we just--"

"Don't call me that," she said harshly.

"Aysel," he corrected. "We've always needed you. You got us into Beyrn. You saved my life there; I would have died if not for you. You helped us escape. You led us through Westbridge without suspicion, until I ruined it. You're the most valuable member of this team. Without you and your blood... I'd be dead."

She hesitated. "That doesn't change the fact that you lied. You let me think--" her voice crumpled, and her knees did too, as the weight of what was happening fully hit her. She had thrown away her last days with her brother on a hopeless quest. She would never see him again. She wouldn't even be able to hold him as he died. "You let me think Elkin had a chance," she whispered, her voice wavering. Tears flooded her eyes, but she would not cry. She would not cry in front of this liar she had once let herself trust.

"But he does."

The dark clouds of her rage and sorrow and guilt cleared for a moment as hope shined through. "What do you mean?"

"It's true that when I first started out, I had no intentions of helping your brother. I was going to use your skills and leave you to rot. I'm ashamed of that now," he said, lowering his head. "At the time I thought you weren't even capable of thought or feeling, so I didn't care. Like I said, that's changed."

Aysel dropped her eyes, remembering the way she had viewed the People before she had met Dunyasha, and the cruel, untrue thoughts imprinted in her brain that still tried to push their way out.

"And my plan has changed too." He took a deep breath. "It's true that I had forgotten about the specifics of my commitment to you, but ever since we became friends--"

"We're not friends!"

"I think of you as my friend, Aysel," he said evenly. "I still do. And ever since I started thinking that way, I knew I would do what I owed you, even if I couldn't remember it and I couldn't ask without breaking your trust."