Balance and Wind

Chapter 9

Jysmn’s lungs squeezed harshly inside of her, but she had been learning the passed few days to push through the pain. She remembered a time were she could not use her powers at all. Being able handed on a boat had changed that. Down in the water, she could hold her breath for more than she cared to admit. But that wasn’t the point of why she teetered around using it.

            Smoothing out her black dress, which was a single layer that Marvella had brought her that morning, she stepped out of the abandoned temple. Her hair was styled in a tight, messy bun. Marvella was not the best at hair, but Jysmn hadn’t complained.

            Her rusted cutlass, the one she had saved up to buy roughly a year ago, was extended to the Palace guard, which looked up at her from the floor.

            “We meet again,” she said, jaw clenching. It was none other than Roman. His presence was like that ghost hand was back around her mind, squeezing until she collapsed. But there was no hand, she reminded herself. “Roman, wasn’t it?”

            “Lady Jysmn Graceline,” he said, pushing himself up, swatting her sword out of his face. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, but lowered her sword none the less.

            Jysmn nodded her head to the sailors and fishermen behind her, who too, lowered their weapons. Sheathing her weapon, which she knew needed serious attention and cleaning, she offered the Guard her hand. He refused it, instead, stood on his own, keeping a great distance between them.

            “What are you doing here, My Lady? If I am permitted to ask?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. They both knew how this looked. Days after the Palace was invaded and her father was murdered, she was in an abandoned temple with her friends… Who were supposed to have left days ago.

            “It’s not safe for Jys to be here,” one of the fishermen, Duo, piped up. He was the first mate of the Little Coral, and had always been fussing over her.

            “Why would it not be safe?” Roman pushed, eyes daring to wonder away from her, passed the sailors, to the woods around them. Jysmn couldn’t help but allow the flash of disgust contort her face.

            “You’re ambushing me, aren’t you?” she demanded, her voice harsh and face angry. She couldn’t help but scoff at him. Especially as his hand rested a little too close to his sword for anything to be coincidence. “You think I had something to do with the attack on the palace. The attack where my father died.”

            The words burned her hotter than any flame. Harder and more painful than not being able to breath for using her powers. Her father was dead before she got to speak with him. The third strike was forever unable to be had.

            None of her family dared see her. But from what Marvella told her, she shouldn’t take it personal. None of the other ladies in the house were talking to one another. They had locked themselves in their rooms to mourn. Jysmn didn’t know how to feel. Other than that spit of pain that she got from thinking about it.

            “I just thought I’d check out a ship that has been signed to have left the docks of the City, which should be sailing to another continent, that hasn’t left the shore,” he said, in that innocent, yet accusing, tone. Jysmn had half a mind to draw her sword again.

            “They were just leaving, actually,” Jysmn said, her voice clipped. She sent the fishermen behind her a pointed look. Her words emphasising a point she has been trying to push for the past few days.

            She couldn’t leave at a time like this. She ran from her family once, it was time to face them. Especially now one of them was dead, and there was a war.