Week Twenty Seven: Write about parenthood

Garith touched the rising welt on his cheek as he watched Kaira stalk away. The girl can slap. Garith sighed hard and shook his head. Nearly killed and disgraced by his order, and now he was a cad for trying to act with honor. If this day had anything further to offer him, it certainly could be nothing in his favor. 

“I won’t be the one to tell her, but she’s more like her mother than she knows.” From the darkness beyond the campfire came Reeve’s voice, heavy with drink.

Garith sighed again. People tended to think otherwise, but Garith hated when he was right.

“And how is that?” Garith replied, stepping around the fire to the drunk merchant. “It seems to me that they could not be more different.”

“That lady’s a hell of a woman,” Reeve swore, reverently. “They both are,” he took another swig of his bottle, “in each their own way, I suppose.”

“I see. And is everyone getting drunk tonight?”

Reeve smirked. “I don’t think the boy is. Sit down, would you? Can’t enjoy the fire with you looming over me.”

Garith took a seat, and shook his head when Reeve offered the bottle to him.

“Just like your father. Gods.” The old man chuckled darkly and took another long drink.

Garith felt the familiar sting that came with any mention of his father. Anxious to turn the discussion elsewhere, Garith said, “Not to be indelicate, but I’m surprised you enjoy fire of any kind after…” Garith trailed off, seeing the flame’s shadows playing with the scarred flesh around Reeve’s hardened eyes.

“Well, you’ll notice I’m a fair distance from it,” Reeve finally said, nodding to the campfire. “One thing I’ve learned these long years is that beautiful things can burn yeh. I suspect that’s something else the girl and her mum have in common, though I wouldn’t advise telling her that, neither.”

Garith touched his still-stringing cheek and said nothing, suspecting for once that Reeve might have a fair point.

“The girl don’t know bad parents,” Reeve continued. “Mine would slap the piss out of me just as soon as speak a kind word, and that was on a good day. But they taught me something. Every parent does. Even the ones that ain’t around anymore.”

Garith grimaced. “I don’t wish to speak of my father tonight.”

“But I do,” Reeve grinned, “so where does that leave us?”

“With five hours’ sleep, if we’re lucky,” Garith said, starting to rise, when a large hand clamped his shoulder, forcing him back down.

“Your dad wasn’t nothing like what they say about him. That he led the prince astray, that he missed the signs that the prince was changing? We all did. Your dad was no different.”

“He was Prince Tirone’s tutor,” Garith responded, evenly.

“And I was his personal guard,” Reeve barked back. “I could have seen it just as easily, but the signs were too small. What prince isn’t arrogant? Reckless? Huh? How were we supposed to know that he was under the thrall of some powerful artifact and not just becoming an arsehole?”

Garith’s eyes searched the flickering dark for Darren, found him nearly outside the fire’s light… his eyes closed, his right hand draped protectively over the ornate bracelet shackled to his other wrist. Was that a faint smile on his lips, or a grimace of pain from the blow he took at the butcher’s shop?

“I won’t miss the signs,” Garith finally said, his eyes still on the boy. “I won’t make his mistake. Or yours.”

“Arrogant fecking…” Reeve muttered several more expletives and then spat into the fire, which snapped, loudly. Across the flames, Darren did not seem to notice. “The mistake would be to watch and wait, wouldn’t it? To let the trinket whisper to the boy that he’s powerful, that he’s special, huh? Until we can work it off him, we have to train the boy how to use that thing, or it’ll do that for us.”

“We do, do we?” Garith said, standing. “No, Reeve, we don’t.”

“No, not we,” the merchant agreed, looking up at Garith with utter seriousness. “You do.”

Garith said nothing.

“And when you finally come around to my side of things, which you will,” the merchant continued, “you’d better hope it wasn’t too late. Ach. Enough of this piss.” He tossed the last of the spirits into the fire, then stood to leave.

Across the surging flames, Darren was watching them now, his face expressionless. 

Week Twenty Six: Use objects instead of showing them

Kaira crept forward, her fingers quietly working a dagger from its sheath and into her hand. In the star-lit dark ahead, she could see the Lieutenant fumbling with his breeches. Kaira waited, stock still. The persistent patter of urine hitting dried leaves was her signal. Too easy. She glided the rest of the way to him, then took his long hair in one fist and pressed the dagger to his neck.

            The urine ceased. The Lieutenant drew breath and swallowed.

            “Hi,” Kaira whispered. “Remember me?”

            “Godwin’s balls, woman,” the Lieutenant muttered, not quietly. “Stick me and be done with it, then.”

            “But I’ve already made you bleed,” Kaira responded. “What I want now are answers. And softly, you idiot, or I’ll have both.”

            She felt the Lieutenant smile. “Alright then. What is it?”

            Kaira realized now that she’d thought only of getting him here, not of what she would ask him once she did. She hesitated.

            “Oh, girl, you’re far beyond your depth now. If you put the blade away I’ll give you a night’s start beyond I and my men—”

            “You and your men,” Kaira cut him off. “You’re here, carousing, when you must know very well that my companions and I broke out of your prison.”

            “Well, not all of them,” the Lieutenant said, smirking.

            Kaira gripped his hair tighter pressed the blade against his neck until he gasped.

            “Don’t do that. It won’t end well for you.”

            The Lieutenant said nothing. Kaira thought she had drawn blood, but it was difficult to tell how much. Irrelevant, anyway.

            “Tell me why you are here and not out looking for us. Did the Commander send you away for failures?”

            “If he had,” the Lieutenant answered, his breath ragged now, “we’d be awaiting the executioner’s blade, wouldn’t we?”

            “You’ve struck the heart of my confusion exactly. Well done, you. Now answer my fecking question.”

            “If you haven’t surmised the answer yet, then you’re even less clever than we credited you.”

            Kaira’s mind reeled. After months of relentless pursuit, no one was hunting them. What was different now? Either they had what they needed, which Kaira knew they didn’t, or—

            “You wanted us to escape.”

            “I didn’t. Not me personally. Had my druthers I’d have killed you all. But this one came from the top.”

            “The Commander. But—”

            “No,” the Lieutenant said. “The top.”

            The Arch Magus of the Arcane Order? Kyra’s mind reeled again. If they’d caught his attention... No. Not “they.”

            “Darren,” Kaira said, realizing.

            “Aye, they want the boy.”

            “You are never going to find him—” Kyra started.

            “No? He and your traitor are not skulking back to the keep right this moment?”

            Kyra said nothing. Feck. Feck. Feck.

            “I’d wager they’re relieved to find that I and my men are elsewhere, likely out searching for them. Certainly now would be the opportune time to strike, would it not?”

            Again, Kaira said nothing.

            “Like I said, not my call. My way would have been much cleaner. A more dignified way to die. But we don’t always get what we want, do we, Princess?”

            Slitting his throat would accomplish nothing, but Kaira did it anyway. It was too late for anything else.