14 – 2
Juliana's words affect Merigold for the worse: her wide, pleased smile manages to lose those qualities without changing at all; her clasped hands tighten into a bloodless clench; tension crawls into her shoulders and neck; and her eyes fill with a flat annoyance that I've only recently become acquainted with. She swallows the words she would've spat at me, forcing a breathy calm to say, “I see you haven't quite been brought up to speed.” Her eyes flick to Clarke, then to me. “What – have – you girls been doing up there all this time?”
“Saving my life,” Juliana answers, drawing the attention back to herself. I'm glad for it; there is something in how Merigold spoke to us that I dislike. She doesn't imply or accuse us of anything, but there is a hint of both in her words. I don't know how to answer that; or if I even should. “Thank you for that, by the way,” Juliana says, pride and affection glittering in her narrowed eyes.
“Yes, of course,” Merigold relaxes her hands, smooths them down her front. “Of course, we should be thanking them.” I realize now: the room is silent; every eye in it fixed on her and Juliana. She takes a breath, “I'm afraid I can't grant your request. Until the – vicious – criminal preying on these good people is caught and put behind bars, the decision was made to seal the city. That means no one leaves without permission.”
It would seem that Juliana likes the news less each time she hears it. Her nod is a short, sharp jerk, her brow the menace of a thunderhead. Her voice is soft and quietly foreboding when she asks, “On whose authority was this done?”
Merigold lifts her chin. “Mine,” she declares, “and Captain Vance's.”
Lightning flashes in a pair of narrowed, blue-dark eyes, “You reinstated Vance.” Juliana hisses a breath through her crooked nose; thunder, in the growl-and-rumble of her voice, “I – arrested – him, he's under investigation! He – can't – be reinstated, none of them can!”
One of Merigold's Guard escort lurches forward; ugly hatred in his eyes and the sneering twist of his mouth. The side of his face is painted with a bruise that, from the sickly yellow-green that fades into a center of ugly purple, is less than a week old. “You – bitch –!” he snarls. “You attacked us, you were the one who–!”
Three things happen then: Juliana's hands curl into fists, each one a rough match to the bruise on his face; icy light erupts from a pale star, reflecting a feral gleam in blue, blue eyes; and Merigold holds up her hand, not breaking from Juliana's gaze to do it. His charge is ended before it could truly begin, and all I did was stand here like a stump on the roadside. Didn't do so much as pick up an empty mug and aim to throw it at him.
I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. In that Guardsman's single stride, he became Flint. I could feel the weight of his knee on my chest, the grip of his hand on my head, and the way his fist blocked out the world. The bruise he gave me throbs. Merigold speaks, but I can't pay attention to it, not over the roar of blood in my ears and the painful drum of my heart.
I know what this is. Gasp in a short, shuddering breath. It's the wet, chilling touch of fear and the fever-sick rise of panic into my throat. That's all it is. I'm not dying.
That is all it is. My knees weaken and I reach out blind, flailing for something to hold onto. Find the back of an empty chair and lean; my weight sends it skidding a few inches across the floor. The groaning scrape of wood-on-wood and its smooth-sanded feel in my hand help remind me: he hasn't got me, he's not Flint, and I'm not back there.
I blink, and there's Clarke. The pale star is dark in her piece of ice; the feral gleam it reflected gone from her eyes. In its place is care and worry, empathy and affection. She knows what this is because it happened to her first. It woke her in the dead of night with deafness ringing in her ears, the stench of death in her nose. I held her and kept her hair from sticking to her flushed, sweating skin. I told her again and again: it was over, she could breathe. She didn't die then. I won't die now.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
She waits until I nod to touch me, her hands a cool slide over my heated skin. She swipes her thumb along the bone of my cheek and curls her palm around my nape. For the first time since it started, I take a long, deep breath. She kisses my brow and whispers, “It's over.” I nod and fall into her embrace. Her mouth slides across my temple to my ear. She kisses that, too.
I'm calm; exhausted, but calm. It was this way for Clarke, too, in the aftermath of her own attack. She's the only thing keeping me upright. My nose brushes her collar and for a blessed moment, I don't care about anything else. Another long, deep breath. Breathe her in; ignore the staring and the silence.
From far too close, Merigold asks, “Is she alright?” and my eyes snap open.
- - -
It's not me she asks, but Clarke; her first insult. The second is the look in her eye: a maternal concern as false as the smile she's still wearing. The disdain beneath it is real enough and returned in kind. “I'm fine,” I answer, voice run raspy and dry from the panic. I squeeze Clarke before pulling away from her embrace. Mostly, she lets me go; catching my hand in hers as she turns to face Merigold alongside me.
“Are you sure?” the gilded Mayor prods, “whatever it was that ailed you, it looked awful.” She lowers her voice; makes it soft and reassuring, “There's no shame in admitting you need help, you know.”
So much for that calm. I flare a breath through my nose and trap my first response behind my teeth. I already have a mother, it would've been, and you don't compare. This is not the place or time for anger or pride. It cannot come to violence, and I don't doubt the willingness of her or hers. I lift my chin and narrow my eyes, “I'm fine,” I flatly say.
Merigold's smile wavers; threatens to become a sneer. “Wonderful,” she snarls, then turns on her heel and away, back to where Juliana's mask of strength slips by the moment. Shoves herself right back into the argument she must've aborted when I wasn't paying attention. “I cannot – believe – the irresponsibility,” she hisses up into narrow, blue-dark eyes, “You want to take someone in her...delicate...condition into the countryside, into – danger –! How can you call yourself a knight?!”
Those eyes flash. Lightning strikes. “I've served these people, done better for them than you – ever – will!” Juliana rumbles; the following thunder. “I've protected them for – decades –, it's what knights do! We give; we don't take.”
“I won't be spoken to like this,” Merigold says, tossing her head. At least that damned smile is gone. The Guardsmen behind her gather close, looking for all the world like hounds at bay. It's clear enough who holds the leash. “It's clear your injuries are affecting your temper; you'd know better otherwise! Now,” she takes a deep, soothing breath, “I have other matters that require my attention. Maybe we can revisit this after you've had time to calm down and recover.”
Juliana says nothing. Her mouth is pressed thin, her bite flexed, and her crooked nose flared. Beads of sweat dot her thunderhead brow and drip down the nape of her neck. She's shaking; barely noticeable tremors in her knees and hands. Her furious eyes flit to Merigold's escort, to the beating she painted onto their bodies, and how eager they are to return the favor.
It costs her greatly to say, but say it she does, spitting the word between her clenched teeth. “Fine.”
Smug satisfaction curdles in Merigold's smile. Her voice is worse as she says, “The correct form of address is –”
I interrupt her. How could I not? “You're not a queen,” I hiss, the venom of my disgust on my tongue. She whips her attention to me, outrage flashing in her eyes. Clarke's free hand lifts to the hollow of her throat; fingers playing along silver wire.
“You mind your tone, young lady,” she scolds. “I don't know how they raise children among your kind, but here we raise them to respect their elders!” She rouses in me an anger so bright that it almost feels like joy. To Clarke, “I don't know how you can associate with people like this.”
“A failing of character.” answers Clarke, cold as Icewall crags. “Madam Mayor.”
Merigold peers at her; searches for something that she doesn't find. Then she sniffs down her nose at us all and gestures for her escort to follow her out, which they do, but not before the aggressive one leers at us one last time.
It's only after they're long gone that Juliana sags. She has strength enough to pull a chair from a nearby table before her legs give out from beneath her. Her hand is shaking as she wipes the sweat from her gray-pale face. “Shit,” she breathes; shakes her head.
Clarke pulls me over to her by the clasp of our hands. “What are you feeling?” she asks, hushed and hurried by concern. “Pain, nausea, fatigue?” I slide into a seat as Juliana nods, her lips thin. She waves away the hovering Clarke and breathes through it; long, slow, and deliberate. Once it's gone, she says to us, “I'm sorry, I thought I could...I don't know,” A slow shake of her magnificent head, “Is she always like that?”
Clarke and I share a look. “So far,” she answers quietly.
Juliana nods, then sighs. “Shit,” she says again, “I hate this.”
A sentiment we all agree with.