“How the hell could you know what that’s like!?” Keir snapped at his sister. “They died, Akira!”

“Are the wounds on my back not evidence enough for you?” she growled. “Do you want to hear about the abuse, the torture, the starvation, the mutilation, and gods forbid the rape?”

Askel stared at his sister in mute shock. Never had she gone into much detail about what happened to her when she was with the nuns for those twelve years. Hell, she barely talked about why she was whipped in the first place. Keir had really pissed her off if she was finally talking about her experience there.

“Of all the people here, I am the only one who can relate to your experience! Yet, you push me away.”

Kira’s voice had turned sad. Askel hated seeing his sister like this. To him, seeing her like this was worse than his seizures and worse than his medicine slowly becoming ineffective. He stood, slowly, and made his way to where his sister stood. She was naked from the waist up so Master Arrhenius could restitch her wounds and still dripping blood on the floor. He took up his post at her right elbow. She was weakening because of the bleeding but still she stood strong. She took a shaky breath, one that only Askel heard, as Keir spoke.

“I am not pushing you away!” he spat. “If anything, you’re the one pushing me away!”

“Do you call turning away every man who came a-courting me, pushing you away?” she demanded. “Do you call this,” she held up a ring on a chain and Askel realized it was the same one she usually wore around her neck since the day Keir had been called to war, “pushing you away?”

Keir stared at the ring in shock.

“I thought Annika took that that night,” he whispered.

“She did but when it was revealed that only Loki could remove the curse, she returned it to me,” Akira replied.

Her hand shook as she held the ring between them. Askel watched the emotions flit across Keir’s face but when he turned to his sister, her face only reflected sadness. It was then that Askel understood what she was doing.

“Do you remember what you said to me that day?” she asked quietly.

“I told you to take that ring as my promise that I’d return to you,” he answered fingering the delicate band.

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Akira nodded, giving him permission to continue.

“I told you I’d always come back to you,” he continued. “That when I returned, we’d never be apart.”

Akira released the chain and the ring fell into Keir’s hand. He looked up in surprise.

“Had you come back two or even three years ago, I might have believed you,” she whispered. “But eight and a half years is a long time to wait, Keir. Gods, I was just seventeen when you made me that promise. I didn’t know a thing about life or love back then!”

“But I thought you said you didn’t remember much during those years!” Master Arrhenius exclaimed.

“And I don’t, but I remember him,” she said nodding to Keir. “And you didn’t ask about him.”

She turned back to Keir.

“I cannot keep holding on to something that only brings me pain,” she whispered shakily. “I loved you once, long ago. But I have changed; we have changed. And I no longer recognize the man in front of me.”

Kier recoiled as if he’d been slapped. Askel watched his sister from the corner of his eye. She took a deep breath before continuing.

“I am truly sorry for what you endured but now you are just as broken as I am. And as broken as we are we cannot hope to mend what is broken in the other before we mend what is broken in ourselves.”

Keir looked at her stunned. Askel hid a smirk at his expression. Keir composed himself then stepped up towards her. He laid a hand on her cheek.

“If this is what you truly want, Akira, then that is what you want. But know this, I won’t give up without a fight. I love you. I always have and I always will.”

With that he turned and left. Akira watched him go and Askel watched her. When the door shut far below them, Akira collasped against him. He caught her, of course, but could not support her as weak as he was. Before he could say a word, Ehren was lifting her into his arms and taking her into her room, where his uncle was waiting for them. Askel watched them go, then turned to the girl Keir had called Tara.

“Who are you?” he asked her.

“The woman your father caught Xanthior with, did he see her face?” she countered.

“If he did, he took it to the grave with him last night,” Askel replied sadly. “He never told anyone if he saw her face but I know for a fact it was a woman he saw.”

Askel sighed and rubbed his forehead. Nyneve whined at his feet. His other hand went to her head and stroked it absently. She wasn’t warning him of another seizure but she knew he was sad and in pain.

“What is an interesting dog that is,” Tara’s words broke him out of his trance.

“She’s part wolf,” he replied absently. “Her name is Nyneve.”

“Like the lady of the lake from Arthurian legend?” Tara asked fascinated.

Askel nodded, finally turning to her. Few, aside from his sister, knew of the origins of her name.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“I studied Arthurian legend in school.”

One of the men beside her unsuccessfully smothered a laugh.

“Niki,” he said. “You got your degree in Medieval Studies and are getting your PhD in Arthurian myth and legend.”

Askel started at the sound of the nickname. He looked more closely at the girl.

“You really are Princess Atarah,” he mumbled more to himself than to her.

But she heard him and looked at him in surprise.

“What gave it away?” she asked.

“I’m good with names, not faces,” he replied slowly. “But yours is a face no one can forget, especially after that day.”

“That day?” she asked.

“The day of your accident.”