By day six on the farm, Llew was getting into the rhythm of rural life: feed and milk the cows, feed the chickens and pigs, practice sword-play, collect the chicken’s eggs, snack, practice hand-to-hand, lunch, plant seeds to turn the cart-way into an Ajnai avenue, help at the forge while Hisham and Jonas made lead-coated Ajnai pellets under Braph’s instruction, dinner, chat around the kitchen table, sneak off behind the chicken shed with Jonas, sleep in a real bed …

Jonas’s bruising hadn’t spread, but the color around his nose had deepened to a rich purple. Llew still couldn’t understand why he’d let things go so far with Braph, but any mention of it was met with a wall of silence.

And he was different at night. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what, but he laughed less, and was less forthcoming with, well, everything. Llew had to ask him to hold her, to kiss her. It had been fun the first night, but it was already wearing thin. Surely, he knew what she wanted by now.

Day seven went much the same, but instead of making so many pellets, Hisham and Llew helped make duplicates of the wrist stake launchers Braph had developed. And as the larger chunks of wood dried, they whittled them into smoother stakes so they could be relied upon to launch when required.

Ard returned to Hinden for a few items he hadn’t been able to get on the first day, and by the end of the day, Llew’s Ajnai seeds were already saplings about ankle-height. Jonas’s bruising had turned gray with a greenish edge.

Eight days at the farm and Llew was getting anxious. They had made no move to head for Duffirk. Of course, there was no point riding to face Aris unprepared, and they didn’t even know if Aris would be going straight from Peria to Duffirk. Maybe they had more time than they thought, but Llew wasn’t prepared to gamble with her ma’s life. Much as she loved Merrid and Ard, she hoped they could leave soon.

The saplings were nearly knee height already.

Jonas’s bruising was turning to yellows and grays and shrinking. He was more relaxed when they went behind the chicken shed that night, but Llew had hoped he might talk a bit more about futures. After all, the end of theirs was rushing up so fast. But he didn’t.

While Braph and Jonas finished work on one of these newfangled weapons, Hisham spent the morning making pile on pile of pellets they didn’t know for sure would work to weaken Aris, while Llew cut leather circles, punched holes, and threaded thin leather straps. By midday they had pile on pile of leather bags filled with pellets they didn’t know for sure would work. Llew tried to shake her skepticism. The pellets without Ajnai wood inside had slowed Aris down. At the very least these pellets would do the same, hopefully more. And she was almost certain the Ajnai stakes would work – assuming a steel coating wasn’t required. The difference there, of course, was that at least one of them would have to get close to the Immortal man to find out.

The Syakaran knives were covered in engraved designs. Was there more to it than added beauty? Was it steel from a particular source? Had it had anything mixed with it? Or did it just have to be Ajnai wood, no matter the package? Unfortunately, if it turned out the metal played a role in their effectiveness, they were out of luck. They had only two knives, both of which Aris would be expecting. They didn’t have the resources to create steel pellets, and certainly not the knowledge to carve magic symbols.

Llew hoped it had all just been for hardiness and decoration.

She was over-thinking things, she was sure. Probably a side effect of having spent time with Anya, and suddenly not having the blonde girl around to do her thinking for her anymore.

Or maybe, more likely, she was terrified of facing a man who was clearly more powerful than them. Anya had responded with a brief message of joy to know they were in safe hands, but that she had so far failed to find a way to remove Aris’s power without Llew exploding. Pls dnt meet hm, she pleaded. Llew wasn’t prepared to honor such a promise, so she didn’t make it. Not facing him wasn’t an option. He’d left Llew alive once. She doubted it would happen again. And her ma wouldn’t get a second chance.

After lunch, Jonas took up the mantle of being Llew’s fight instructor, saying he wanted to see how she was progressing. He’d commented on how fast her body was changing several times over the course of the week. It seemed her body made the necessary changes she asked of it that much faster than most. No matter how much she probed, though, Jonas refused to comment on whether he preferred her toned or a little soft. Regardless, he reminded her all this work was so she would be prepared for what might come. He hoped she wouldn’t come face-to-face with Aris. It would be a hopelessly mismatched fight, and she would lose.

Jonas invited Llew to open proceedings, but all the awkwardness that had plagued them since Braph took her to Duffirk had returned. Jonas was with her, but he wasn’t with her, or anyone, now. She didn’t think she’d known him to be quite so locked in. And it was affecting her ability to practice. She didn’t want to hit him, not if they weren’t going to laugh about it later. She didn’t want to throw him over her shoulder … well, actually, that would be quite fun. Of course, she expected things to go the other way most of the time.

She rushed Jonas, but he was prepared and caught her, flipped her, and controlled her fall so she didn’t hit the ground too hard, then helped her back to her feet in one smooth move. She pulled her hand free immediately and took up her fighting stance. She threw a punch and he ducked. She punched air again, again, and again. She gave up and ran at him, head down, arms spread. He let her catch him round the middle and laughed while she tried to pull him off balance. That was better. Still, it was hardly preparation to face Aris.

“You’re right,” Jonas conceded. “If you face-off against Aris, or another Syakaran—”

“Karlani.”

“Yeah, Karlani. But Karlani also came from somewhere, and we can’t guess where the loyalties of other Syakara could lie.”

“Heh. They might like Aenuks.”

“If Karlani is anything to go by, I doubt it.”

Llew had to concede the point.

“And they’d have no reason to be loyal to Quaver.”

“Hey, Quaver killed me and imprisoned you. I have no loyalty to Quaver. I’m surprised you still do.”

Jonas shrugged. “Where else do I belong?”

“With me.” Llew smiled.

Jonas laughed, pulled her into him and kissed her head. “Thanks.” He didn’t look totally reassured when he pulled back, though, and Llew’s heart ached. She was used to making her own home wherever she found herself. Jonas was still lost.

“Come on, then. Show me what I’ll be facing. Hit me.” Llew beckoned him to attack.

He shook his head at first, scowling like he was in some internal battle. Probably he was having the same trouble as Llew. They needed to practice fighting but fighting each other didn’t come naturally. Yet, anyway. The long-married couples that survived the pressures of Cheer usually fought pretty hard.

“Problem is, you won’t survive facing Aris or a Syakaran. Your best defense is going to be to get a hand on them, and let your reflexes do the rest.”

“The Aenuk grip …”

“The Aenuk grip.”

“Which I can’t practice on you without possibly killing you.”

Jonas shook his head.

They couldn’t leave Aris out there, either. Llew had to cling to the belief that her mother still lived, but for how long? And Aris would hunt Llew for the rest of her days.

“Shit, Jonas. I’m scared.”

“Good.” He took a step towards her again. “Now we’re dealin’ with reality. We can’t go up against Aris believin’ we’re evenly matched. We go against him as the underdogs. But we can increase our chances. We’ve got the Gaard pellets, and the Ajnai stakes. And … your blood.”

“Well, yeah, but we wouldn’t have time. Filling the syringes alone—”

“I’m not talkin’ about the syringes.”

“Then, how?”

He lowered his gaze again. “Braph’s … made a new device.”

“What?” Llew’s stomach plummeted. “No.”

“What would you have me do?” he pleaded. “Get you, me, and Hisham killed to achieve, what? Our deaths, for nothin’? I want to go in with a chance.”

“We do have a chance! You said yourself. We’ve got the pellets, and the stakes. And you survived him last time.”

“Barely. And only because he was already halfway worn from attackin’ your tree.”

Llew reeled, her mind barely able to grasp a clear thought. In her gut, in her very soul, she knew that Braph having a device again was bad news. He’d traveled with them as a companion, even been helpful, but only while Jonas clearly over-powered him, only while he needed them. But he did still need them. His device was useless without Llew’s blood. He needed her to power it. She began to breathe easier. She could say ‘no’. She could refuse.

“How would he make it work? He can’t make the crystals, can he?”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“No. It won’t be as powerful as his last. He can’t make the crystals, only use fresh blood, so it won’t last the same, or boost him as much. But it’d still be more power to fight Aris.”

Braph in possession of all that power again. Maybe not quite as much, but it hardly mattered if he could control her mind.

“Why can’t you wear it?” she asked.

“Not for me.” Jonas shook his head vehemently. “I can’t use your blood like that.”

“Can’t?”

“Won’t.”

Llew didn’t know how to feel about that. If anyone needed to drain her blood, the one that would give her the least pause would be Jonas. But he looked dead set against it.

“If it’s a weaker design, would you still be stronger than him?”

Jonas looked down, shifted uncomfortably. “He’s only got one arm.” He didn’t look up when he said it.

“What he did to me, he could do with no arms.”

“He won’t touch you again, Llew.” Again, the awkward shuffle. “Besides, he can’t draw the kind of power he could last time.”

Llew watched him. He still wouldn’t make eye contact.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’s wrong,” he muttered between his teeth, full-fledged anger barely contained. It was the first thing he’d said with real conviction. But he still seemed jumpy.

Something was wrong. But probably it was just him being scared, too. As far as she knew, he’d never walked into battle with doubts in his own ability before. Aris presented a new challenge. She was scared. Of course, he was scared, too.

Llew pushed a hand through her hair and blew out her exasperation. “I can’t stop you, can I?”

He risked an amused smile. “Well, we still need your blood to make it work.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Just think about it, Llew. We got time between now and us facin’ Aris. Just think about it.”

Llew nodded, though she still fumed. She shouldn’t even have to consider it. But, when it came down to it, this was the only way she could fight Aris – by providing the fuel to boost the strength of her friends, or, at least, her associates. Jonas was right when he said that if Llew was left to face Aris, she would fall. This was the only way she could help. Didn’t mean she had to give in straight away.

Jonas leaned like he was about to kiss her, and she brushed him aside, turning from him and walking from the paddock. She needed some time alone.

The only way she could be more useful to them than as a blood donor for Braph’s horrid device, was if she got pregnant with Jonas’s child, giving her his strength and speed again, effectively making her as powerful as Aris on her own. But that couldn’t happen, not since Aris destroyed her womb, forcing the doctor to remove it entirely. Jonas’s words Can you save it? and the answering shake of the doctor’s head replayed in her mind, yet again. Everything else around that question and that head shake was a blur. Can you save it? No. She had seen and heard it almost every time she closed her eyes that first week. Then it had been nightly, then two to three times a week. Now it was once a week. The Ajnai tree had healed her, but her magic could not replace what was no longer there.

Can you save it? and the responding head shake played again. This time, some other part of her mind asked: What if? What if Jonas hadn’t been asking about her womb, but instead had been querying whether their second, untouched child could be saved? Can you save it? Shake: No.

She walked along the cart-way, numb, between her rows of Ajnais. Already, they stood halfway up her thigh. She wondered about the tree in Quaver, the one planted over her children. How big would it be now? Big enough to save someone’s life? And that second voice, the one that belonged to the child not killed by Aris’s strike, would that voice age with the tree, or forever be a baby?

Can you save it? No.

She stepped from the path, between two saplings, leaned back against a fence post and slid to the ground.

Can you save it? No.

She wept. She wept for the child she hadn’t known to mourn in those earliest days, the child who, she now realized, had been the “it” the doctor couldn’t save. And she wept with guilt at the flash of joy she’d had at the realization that she was whole.

Was this what life was all about? Striving to live, striving to create a life, then either suffering the devastation of failure, or the guilt of succeeding while others failed? While she was free, her ma sat in a Turhmos gaol, and her child’s soul lived inside a tree.

A song she hadn’t heard in thirteen years came to her lips.

Fly, sweet bird

Fly high, sweet bird

You may always come back

To me, sweet bird.

You’re loved, sweet bird

But not bound, sweet bird …

As her ma had done before her, she hummed as if there were a couple more lines before finishing with a shaky: Sweet bird.

And she thought of her child’s spirit, or whatever it was, and how it was very much bound to the Ajnai tree in Quaver.

You’re loved, sweet bird

But not bound …

----------------------------------------

Well, that went about as well as he’d expected.

Jonas watched Llew until she exited through the gate, then he walked after. Not to follow her. No, he would let her have her space.

He scuffed his heels through the damp, dead grass of the training field. He paused at the gate. Llew had seated herself against the fence, among her trees. She seemed to find solace there. Maybe these saplings could speak to her, give her guidance. He didn’t know how it all worked, but he believed in the connection she had with the Ajnais.

She would come around.

Not that he liked it either, but it was less scary having Braph in charge of that kind of power than Aris. At least Braph’s power could be taken again, his access to Aenuk blood restricted. The only way to stop Aris was to kill him.

The thought didn’t give him a great deal of pleasure. Aris had, after all, been like a father to him. He had also killed Jonas’s children, and would kill Llew if the chance arose again.

“That good, huh?” Braph asked when Jonas’s soles met the corral’s coarse sand.

“She’ll think on it.”

“What’s she got to think on?” Hisham asked, jolting his right arm to make the stake shoot out and smiling with satisfaction when it made an appearance across the back of his fist.

Jonas and Braph shared a look. Braph was keen to share his news, Jonas less so. He couldn’t shake the feeling he was letting everyone down allowing Braph to have a new device. Worse. He’d helped him construct it, even helped feed the tubes under the skin.

Perhaps it was better they all knew about it, then. At least it meant they’d all have eyes Braph’s way, keep him honest.

As for his own secret, he still wasn’t too sure they were ready for it yet. It would come out. It had to. But it was one of those revelations where timing was important. Problem was, he didn’t know when the right time would be. He kind of hoped he’d know it when it came.

He nodded the okay at Braph who, with a little more than the minimum of flourish, unpinned and pulled up the hanging end of his right sleeve.

As soon as the first tube poked out, Hisham’s face darkened. He looked to Jonas, something akin to betrayal in his eyes.

“You helped him build that?”

“Aris is Immortal,” Jonas stated flatly.

Hisham’s eyes rested on the device awhile. “You shouldn’t’ve done it.” He met Jonas’s eyes. “To atone for my sins, I’ll follow you to the end of days, but this … This is wrong. He—” He looked up at Braph, hatred in his eyes. “You would provide him with Llew’s blood?”

“Only if she chooses to.” Jonas spoke through gritted teeth, his anger flaring. A part of him still worried he’d done the wrong thing. But Braph had offered a solution to their problem and Jonas was desperate. Maybe he should have refused. Maybe he should have discussed it by committee. But they had little time, and Hisham and Llew didn’t understand the full picture. He’d made the best choice he could under the circumstances. Hisham and Llew expressing their doubts and disappointments only fueled his own, and his anger.

“I hope she doesn’t, for all our sakes,” Hisham said.

Braph chuckled. “There are other Aenuks.”

Jonas silently pleaded for his brother to tone down the arrogance. It would do no one any good.

Hisham rushed Braph, knocking him to the ground before Jonas could react, following up with a barrage of punches. Braph shielded his face with both arms. When Jonas finally managed to pull him back, Hisham’s knuckles bled where he’d struck the mechanical bracelet. Hisham shimmied his shoulders forcefully, shaking Jonas’s grip free, and stalked from the corral. Jonas followed, jogging to catch him up.

“We need this.”

“No, uh-uh.” Hisham spun to face him. “You need it. To relive your childhood, or somethin’. No one needs Braph getting his powers back.”

“Someone has to face Aris as an equal.”

“Yeah. You, or me.” Hisham splayed his hands, indicating Jonas’s lean figure that, normally, would have given the illusion of weakness. But there was no longer any illusion. “Why couldn’t it be you? I mean, that would make sense, wouldn’t it? You’re already our greatest chance.”

“Not anymore.” Jonas was almost surprised how easy it was to say. But then, this was Hisham. He hadn’t kept a secret from his friend in his life.

“What are you sayin’?”

Jonas opened his mouth to tell Hisham the truth.

“Shit.”

Hisham and Jonas spun to face Braph. His attention was focused on the farm gate. They followed his gaze.

A troop of perhaps thirty riders milled about the farm gate. Merrid stood before them, stalling their entry to the property. And Llew still sat among her trees.

“Shit,” Jonas echoed his brother. “Get Llew. Bring her to the bunker. Get her now!”

Hisham ran, leaving Jonas to curse repeatedly under his breath. Hisham was barely faster than an average horse at full gallop. He was too slow. But Jonas was slower.

Hisham reached Llew as one of the Turhmos riders knocked Merrid aside.

Ard, pausing on his way back from checking the chickens, made a pitiful sound in the back of his throat and took off at a getting-on farmer’s run.

Hisham got Llew to her feet, but she wasn’t in a hurry until the riders started down the cart-way. Then she let Hisham sweep her off her feet and start the run back.

“Let’s go.” Jonas ran to the bunker door, getting it open as Hisham arrived with Llew. They got her inside first, then Hisham. Jonas turned back to where Braph still stood, watching the riders. “Come on!”

Braph glanced at him but didn’t move.

“Come on!” At a loss of anything else to do, Jonas gestured wildly at the opening.

Braph turned back to the riders. By the sound of hoof falls, they were nearing the front of the house now. They must have seen Braph.

“Shit!” Jonas scrambled through the hole, closed the trapdoors as silently as possible and dropped to the concrete floor.

“Where’s Braph?” Hisham asked, already armed with a bow and arrow, and a sword hastily strapped to his waist.

“Not comin’.” Jonas stalked into the darkness.

“He’s dead?” Hisham sounded genuinely concerned.

“No. He’s just not comin’,” said Jonas. “Not yet anyway.”

Hisham cursed under his breath.

Probably, Jonas should have been arming himself and joining Hisham by the trapdoor, but he would be less than useless. He was weak. Worse than that, he wasn’t used to being weak. Every move felt like it was in slow motion.

He was of no use to anyone.

Braph had turned. And Jonas had given him the power to.