Sara had never smothered someone with a pillow before, but she imagined that it would be more difficult than it looked unless they were a baby or in a coma. Daniel checked one of those boxes, meaning that she could kill him without ligature marks or foreign magical signatures. Since he was in a coma, the guards on the other side of the door wouldn’t be the wiser. Daniel would just pass away in his sleep. Slightly suspicious timing, but there was no sign that she was there.
Sara placed the pillow on his head. Push. She just needed to push, and the nightmare would be over. So why… was it so hard to kill him?
Confirmation was part of it. She technically didn’t know if it was him, what his plans were, or what he wanted. The moment she killed him—in cold blood—without learning any of these facts, she would never know. Another part of it was guilt. Putting aside his obvious attack on her, he saved Emma’s life. He saved Raul’s life. He saved Edico’s life. Hell, he probably saved her life from bleeding out on Agronus’s ballroom floor. Now that she was dating Kyritus and Tiber was completely healthy (something he also made possible), she appreciated her second chance at life. Since bringing Emma back was part of his motivation (Sara was convinced of that much), it felt as though Sara accepted his gifts and would kill him before at least asking him what the point of it all was. But Sara knew those factors weren’t the real problem. The real problem was breaking everyone’s trust. Raul and Emma made it clear that Sara wasn’t going to kill Daniel, at least until he woke up, and she couldn’t exactly refuse them. Edico was spending his resources on keeping Daniel alive as well. If she were to kill him, she would have to carry that compounded guilt for the rest of her life. It would be a permanent barrier to their friendship—a breach of trust no different than a spouse cheating on their partner. As for Kyritus… she desperately wanted to bring him home, but just admitting the circumstances felt terrible.
Turns out, you can come home immediately, Kye, Sara thought. The guy holding us up just wouldn’t die, so I murdered him five minutes ago. Isn’t that something? Not many men can say that their partner’ll kill for ‘em, so count yourself blessed. She took a deep breath and chuckled bitterly. What? Was he dangerous? Sure he was. Looked like a wax-dipped skeleton, and everyone thought he’d wake up a wheelchair-bound vegetable, but don’t be fooled. If I left for three months, this guy would’ve killed you.
Sara closed her eyes and gripped the pillow in her hands. But he really is…. He was dangerous. But….
Trust. It all came down to trust. What was the point of keeping Kyritus, Tiber, Emma, Raul, and Edico safe if they hated her? Sure, they’d be alive—but didn’t Sara deserve to enjoy their company after all her sacrifices? And what about their wishes? Sara wasn’t alone anymore. If Emma, Raul, or Edico was wrong and Daniel went on a rampage—they’d be the ones responsible, and they accepted that.
Sara took a deep breath. I’ll let Kye decide, she thought. If they signed off on it, then she would just be selfish to refuse them. Yet if Kye and Tiber decided they wanted him dead—they came first. They’d always come first.
Sara took the pillow off his face and carefully placed it beside him. After a moment of reflection, she walked out the window and left Daniel to rest—
—praying he’d die.
2
Sara dipped her pen in the inkwell and penned the rest of her letter.
-
As for when, I’m not sure. There’s someone here who really scares me and… I don’t want to risk your lives. So long as he’s alive, I can’t bring you back. I’ll just keep pushing for everyone to take him off… life support, or whatever you call it… until he dies. Oh, yeah…. He’s in a coma. It’s a miracle he’s still alive, and even if he wakes up, he’ll go on trial for execution. Other people want to keep him alive and see what he has to say. How long will that take? I don’t know. He could die tomorrow—it could take years. So waiting for him to die is one option.
The other is that I can just use my authority to have him taken off life support, then you’d be safe, and we could be together. I would only do this if you think it's the right thing to do. Just know that I’m not offering this out of convenience—it’s a matter of security. He knows who you are, Kye. He knows about Tiber. He’s only one of a handful, but he knows—and he’s my enemy. I don’t mean to put you in a hard spot, but I’m just letting you know why you’re not here and the options. If you don’t want to date a woman who’s actively pushing to kill a coma patient who could die any day now… I’ll let it go. Otherwise, I ask you to have patience until he does.
Either way, I’ll come visit soon. I’m going on a quest, but when I finish, I’ll visit. I promised we won’t be apart for long. So wait for me, kay?
Love, Delina.
-
Sara sat on the letter for a few hours until the sunset painted the world with purple hues, giving way to the red moon—a gruesome sight that now seemed normal. She waited longer still, sitting at her desk until she could hear leeksa bugs giving their nightly symphony, and she could see stars streaking across the sky. Then, she put her head onto her forearms, agonizing for another twenty minutes before lighting a mana crystal, heating white wax, and stamping the Trellen equivalent of “D” on the letter. Then, she dropped it in her spatial ring like it was a mailbox. Then she waited.
3
Sara didn’t remember falling asleep, but she did feel Reck scratch her face and scream Get to bed, woman! in leeta speak while Tilly played good cop, cuddling Sara’s face with enough force to push her off balance. “Okay, okay….” She got up and staggered to the bed, where she collapsed and had leetas jumping on her back for recompense. Then, they curled up on her face.
4
Sara awoke to a knock on her door. “My Lady,” her servant Tamon said. “King Escar requests your presence.”
“Is it important?” Sara asked groggily.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Not particularly, My Lady. It is just that it’s noon and—“
Sara’s eyes snapped open. “Noon?”
4
Sara’s day sucked. For the first time since she came to Reemada, she slept in. It’d be one thing if she had an excuse, but she spent the first three years in a politically respectable drunken stupor, staying up using body-tempering resources and then waking up early for her training. Now, after a ten-hour sleep, she had missed work—as in running a kingdom. Naturally, she played it off as a test to see if the government could run without her, as she’d soon leave for a quest, and people half-believed her. Yet she felt ashamed and hated lying, but in politics, it’s the job.
Six hours later, she found herself at Lilli’s, sitting at the bar, soaking bread in a hearty stew absent-mindedly, taking small bites.
“Okay.” Lilli dropped full mugs of beer on the bartop with a clang and put her hands on her hips. “What in the hell’s wrong with you?”
Sara shrugged and then soaked another piece of bread. “I’m sick.”
“Sick don’t look like dyin’. You look like someone’s run a blade in your guts and left ‘em spewin’ out.”
“That bad, huh?”
“That bad.”
“Hey, barkeep!” a butch woman yelled from the table in the far corner. “Where’s our mugs?”
“One minute!” Lilli snapped with uncharacteristic ferocity.
Sara loved Lilli.
Lilli looked back at her. “Well? Out with it.”
Sara shook her head genuinely. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, you~know”
“Yeah, probably,” she said, equally genuine. The mind was strange like that.
“Well?” Lilli asked.
“Well,” Sara chuckled. “For starters, I told my partner that I kill people.”
Lilli’s face relaxed into a frown. “If he ain’t know that, you’ve been lyin’ sweetie.”
“No, no…. He knows. Adventurer, military… politics. But I gotta personal enemy. A bad one, Lil…. I’m scared.”
“Ah, so you dealt with it?”
Sara shook her head. “I didn’t. I just told him… I would.” She fell silent and looked at the mugs of beer in front of her, bubbles trapped in amber, rising to the frothy surface.
Lilli waited patiently, only to learn—rather abrasively—that Sara had already ended her statement. “Annnnnnd?”
“And what?” Sara asked.
“What do you mean, and what? What’d he say?”
Sara bit her lip. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I’m afraid… to find out.”
“Unbelievable. Yer gonna tell me you can destroy empires, but ya can’t face—”
“Barkeep!” the woman screamed.
“Woah!” a local said, turning to face the woman. “You gotta calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down. Our beer’s on the counter. It’s gettin’ warm, and she’s just standing there.”
“Look, lady. You’re growlin’ at a janter right now. If Lilli’s talkin’ there’s a reason.”
“Fine. Then I’ll get it myself.”
The adventurer walked over to Sara. She had a crew cut and a modest bosom, only mentionable because she had wrapped cloth around it a dozen times to make her breasts into a solid object. From the looks of things, she wasn’t in her right mind. She was limping on one of her legs, probably from a fresh wound, and the group with her wasn’t even talking. A hard day requires booze—and everyone expected she’d need a lot of it soon.
Exercising basic common sense, the woman didn’t look at Sara or Lilli. She just grabbed the twalla like it was a business transaction, exasperating her limp at the end to prove that she wasn’t just being unreasonable. That said, reason doesn’t justify rudeness.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” Sara asked chillingly. She released wisps of solid mana that licked the woman’s skin.
The adventurer’s spine straightened, her arms pimpled with tiny white goosebumps, and she shivered like a dog shaking water off their fur. She swallowed as the room fell silent and then shook her head. “No.”
“Then you should probably listen to the locals,” Sara said, looking her in the eyes. “Nobody thinks they’re going to die when they wake up. But it happens all the same. You understand?”
“… Yes.”
“The beer and the tip’s on me.” Sara released her mana wisps and flicked her hand. “Now fuck off.” The woman nodded a few times and limped away.
Lilli turned to Sara with a sarcastic grin. “’Beer’s on me,’ she says, treatin’ herself like an axe-wielding murderer.”
Sara went to dip her bread in the stew but found the bread dissolving from being saturated too long. So she dropped it.
“Listen, hun. Yer who you are, and you ain’t gonna change that.” Lilli touched her hand. “And that’s okay. There’s nothin’ in there you needa change. The only thing you can do is finda man who’ll understand. If this one’s the one, then he’s the one. If he’s not, he’s not. Either way, yer gonna have to find out.”
“Yeah….” Sara nodded a few times, put a few silvers onto the bar, and looked at the woman in the corner. “Get ‘er another round.” The adventurer and her group were staring at their mugs with frozen expressions. They probably went through hell, and it got worse. “They look like they need it. Bye, Lil.” Sara got up and walked through the door. As she left, the toned-down tavern raised its volume a few notches, reminding Sara how much pressure she put on people just by existing. That made her feel even less marriable, but…. Lilli was right. She needed to find out.
5
Sara sat at her desk for a few hours before gaining the courage to look in her spatial ring. She did and found two letters. Instead of reading Tibers, she looked at Kye’s for a long while, swallowing hard. Then she melted off the wax and opened it slowly. The first lines read.
-
Dear Delina,
I don’t know what you should do but just know that I’ll accept it and wait for you for as long as it takes. So don’t worry about me.
-
Sara felt like she was locked in tight iron chains, and they were loosened for the first time.
-
If you’re afraid, there’s a great reason. To be honest, I’ve expected it from the start. It’d be pretty weird if the most powerful person in the kingdom shipped out their lover to a desert for no reason. You know?
-
“Well, there’s that,” Sara laughed.
-
As for dealing with the situation, you’ve made it sound like they’re almost dead, and you feel bad just for thinking it. I don’t like that. It pains me to see you second-guessing yourself. If waiting will prevent you from, you know, feeling bad, that’s what I want. Not because I’m bothered by your decisions but because I care about your happiness. I’ll wait for you until the end of time if I have to. So do what you feel is right.
Love, Kye
P.S. Tiber’s response doesn’t count.
-
Sara laughed at the last sentence, but her eyes became hollow as the rest of the message settled in. “What I think is right,” she muttered. Right came in flavors of ethics and practicality, and the two were fighting. But as a matter of trust, everyone but her had agreed to let Daniel live. She wouldn’t break that trust. Just knowing that the decision was over made her sigh in relief. Then she opened Tiber’s letter—and laughed her head off.
-
Is it true that if you kill a dying person, you’ll get to come here faster? If so, why’d brother say no? Take me to them! I’ll do it!
T
-
Sara smiled and shook her head. Then she penned her replies, opened a leather-bound journal, and got to work.
5
Sara awoke before morning’s light and cuddled with the leetas, who had slept with her the night before. Then she got up, got ready, and performed her duties with vigor, dropping Alecov’s stress levels considerably. Once her shift as advisor had concluded, Alecov looked at her. “Thank you. I thought that they’d never… what’s this?” His relief turned to confusion when he saw a journal in her hand.
“It’s a vision statement,” Sara said.
He opened it and saw twenty pages of things that Sara thought were best and some nuanced points about them. It outlined all the things he could rule on with absolute confidence before the war. “Thank you,” Alecov said. “This will help a lot.”
“No problem,” Sara smiled. “You’ll need it.”
The relief on Alecov’s face turned to horror. “What does that mean?”
“I’m going after the artifacts,” Sara said. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”