A Little Swagger in her Stride

Taliette’s eyes flickered open. The brightness was dazzling. A quiet sound of water rushing over stones. The ground beneath her face was soft sand. She gripped it, she squeezed it. The sun sparkled on a calm turquoise sea.

But then the pain hit her, a sharp agony in her hand that carved its way up her arm and left her gasping. She rolled up, wrapping herself around the pain, squeezing her hand in her other hand, squeezing both into her stomach.

"Agh, let it stop, let it stop."

"Be thankful she still lives," whispered her heart.

"Fuck you, heart. You did this," she muttered, but her heart didn’t reply.

She tore a strip of fabric from her undershirt and wrapped the stump of her finger tight. She squeezed until the blood stopped pumping, and the pain lost its sharpness.

She found her bow a hundred yards up the beach. It had washed in amongst a great mound of seaweed. She snatched it up and carefully brushed every speck of sand from it. Then she unstrung it and folded the wet bowstring carefully into her pocket. Her fingers touched the scrap of parchment with the map of the mouseholes. Piece by piece, she shredded the parchment and let the wind take it out to sea.

She had no arrows for the bow. Hal had... She stopped herself. She didn’t want to think about Hal.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she muttered. "Stupid, stupid boy."

He could have stopped her. He had taken her arrows and held her on the roof. Why hadn’t he stopped her? Now he was dead, and she was here. Wherever here was.

"Find the heir of Erin," whispered her heart.

There was a range of dunes behind the beach, pricked with long scrubby grass. She climbed one of the larger ones, wincing at the pain in her hand. Rabbits hopped away as she crested each rise, scrambling down into their holes.

She found him lying face down in a little valley. She rolled him over onto his back. He had a great purple bruise on one side of his face, as though he had been painted. He was still shining. Did dead Aden still shine? She didn’t know. She touched her cheek to his lips and felt the breath there, shallow but regular. She propped him up against a rock and built a fire out of driftwood.

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There was a big piece of netting down by the waterline. She stalked a rabbit, then tossed the netting over it. She watched it kicking its legs for a while, getting more and more tangled. After a bit, it got tired and just lay there, staring up at her with wide brown eyes. She had no knife, so she stomped on its head until it went crunch, then tore it in half with her fingernails. The wormy guts stuck to her skin. She flicked them into the fire, scrubbed her hands with sand, avoiding the stump of her little finger, then jabbed stickers through the two halves and set them up to roast.

It was nightfall when he awoke. The stars were shining. The meat was still warm.

"You’re here," he said.

"Yup."

"You saved me."

I didn't save anyone, she thought, but her heart gave her a little nudge. "Yup," she said again, not looking at him.

"My mother?"

Taliette tried to ignore the biting pain in her hand. "She is alive, but I don’t know where she is."

"Fen?"

"Still in the tower. She'll be fine." Taliette didn’t know if this was true or not, but the boy would never know.

"You cooked for me."

"Yup. You want some?"

He fell silent. He seemed to be thinking.

"My lady, I have lived all my life in a ring of stone, but you have brought me out of it. I will ride to the White City, slay my Grandfather and reclaim the throne of Erin, then I will send riders for my sister. It will be dangerous, but you are the bravest woman I ever met. You are beautiful and wild and I would have you by my side. Ride with me, help me reclaim the throne, and I will give you your coin, make you my queen, and together we will open the Ways and defeat the Shadow Lord himself."

He knelt before her in the sand, head bowed, one hand lifted up towards her mouth.

Her heart waited expectantly. "Take it. Take the hand," but she felt no compulsion.

"He's proposing to you," said her heart. "You will be queen. You will rule the worlds."

Again she ignored it.

"This is everything we wanted," her heart screamed. "Everything we planned for." She could hear Gintas' voice now right in the core of her, raging, but still, there was no compulsion.

"You released me from my bindings," she said. "Before I went into the ring, you released me."

"I will bind you into a tomb of stone," screamed her heart. "I will bind you right down into the blackness unmade! Take the sodding hand!"

"You’ll have to catch me first," she replied. Her heart continued cursing her, but she ignored it.

The boy Llandred, still kneeling, was looking up at her, confused.

"My Lady?"

She took his hand and pulled him to his feet, careful with her finger. He towered over her. She took his hand in her own, warming it.

"Llan, you’re a good man. Thank you sincerely for the offer. I do hope you’ll remember me fondly, but I have other things to do."

He stared at her open-mouthed, then she turned and walked away. She put a little swagger in her stride.

The End