The Mirror and The Sword: Chapter 3 (2,220 words)
Shyla could not feel her body against the floor. She was paralyzed by the words that had flown about in the library, where she still sat under the table staring straight forward, confused, and utterly dumbfounded.
How old was she again? Fifteen?
She was going to be married? Why? She did not even like Marrin very much - she never really had.
And Mirr said yes? Why? What would Tanir say? Oh Gods, would he stop it? Shyla hoped he would.
She slowly crawled out from underneath the table, bracing herself against the wood as she stood up. Her legs felt like they might give out from underneath her, as she wobbled towards the door of the library.
Marrin is much fonder of other things besides myself, unfortunately.
The words hit her like she had been struck over the head with a heavy book. Oh Gods, that was what Cait had meant.
She leaned against the door, feeling her head thump against the wood. Although to Shyla, the sound and slight pain from it seemed so far away like a dense fog had settled in her mind. What would she do - what could she do? If Mirr gave her consent (and Shyla prayed quietly that she misheard her) then there would be nothing done about it. If anything, whatever quiet dissention would die in the tumult at the very idea of a wedding. ‘How darling,’ people would say. Shyla felt bile rise in her throat. There would be no easy escape from this-
Ah, that was it: escape.
That was why Cait seemed so suddenly keen on the idea of her setting off on adventure. Perhaps she already knew about Marrin’s intentions before. It would have been nice perhaps, if Cait had been a little more forward about it, Shyla thought. Certainly, she did not need to be put through this.
She felt a sudden swelling of resolve rise in her chest. This was it. If she were to set off, she’d need to do it now, before she could be stopped.
She turned back to where Mirr had turned up the carpet and knelt down. Carefully, she pulled back the rug, and felt around the grout of the loose stone. It took her a bit of effort to push the stone up and away so that she could reach in and when she did she reluctantly put her hand in. Her arm was in far past the elbow before her hand felt the pommel of the sword. Somehow it had not seemed so deep when she saw Mirr reach in. She slid her hand underneath the crossguard and hoisted it, scabbard and all, out of the hole. She replaced the stone and rug quickly, then gingerly picked up the sword and held it in her hands.
She pulled the blade out a bit from the scabbard, pursing her lips together as she studied it. Firelight from the brasiers glinted off the sharpened blade brilliantly - it certainly seemed to Shyla that this was a fine sword, even though the grip was worn, and much of the metal exposed on the crossguard and pommel was deeply tarnished.
Was it hers? She had not seen if Mirr shook or nodded her head when Marrin asked… at least the sword had some sort of relationship to her. Although Shyla could not tell what that was, or even what such a connection meant. She had never before held a sword once before in her life. It felt like such an odd and weighty thing in her hands. Perhaps to the right person it was a great, sharp and powerful blade, but to her it was dull, heavy, and completely useless.
Still, what was the harm in bringing it with her? She held it close to her body as she stood and pushed open the doors to the library. She bounded down the corridor, up the stairs to her room with a sudden spring in her step. She entered her room, quietly shut the door and put the sword on her bed. She opened her wardrobe and scrounged around the bottom until she found it. It was a large canvas sack, although she used it mostly for hauling books to and from the library, it struck her as a decent traveling bag, at least temporarily. She threw it, along with a few pairs of cotton leggings, traveling tunics that were still too big on her, and a few undershirts that she knew fit her decently as well. She pulled out a pair of boots (also too big) from the bottom. She shrugged off her dress and put on an undershirt, one of the tunics, and a pair of the leggings, then quickly slid her feet into the boots. The rest of the clothing she stuffed haphazardly into the canvas bag. She knew she needed to go down to the kitchens before she left as she had not had anything to eat after her breakfast.
Lightening flashed in the windows and thunder came rumbling against them, causing the panes to shudder. The door flew open - behind it was Marrin, smiling with triumph and Shyla jumped. When she turned to him she did her best to hide her bag behind herself.
“Marrin!” She half-yelled nervously. “What are you doing here, at this hour?”
“Oh,” he said sweetly, “I wanted to see you, that’s all!”
“Oh, uh… w-well, now’s not really a good time,” she stammered. “I was about to go to bed , you see.”
He cocked his eyebrow. “In a tunic?”
“Well I… don’t exactly have much else to wear right now.” She wrung her hands. “I suppose I forgot to send my dirty clothes down to be laundered!”
“And with an undershirt and leggings on?”
“… Um, it’s a bit drafty in here.”
“And boots?”
“My feet get cold sometimes, you know?” She laughed nervously. He eyed her suspiciously, his gaze lingering on her face as if she were some sort of amusing toy. His eyes fell off her face and to the bed, where the sword lay. Shyla saw them widen, panic stricken, and she moved defensibly closer to the sword.
“Where did you get that?” He asked, his voice quiet and hoarse. She did not answer, her nerves drawn tautly now like the strings of a lute. She saw him lunge towards her and she responded slowly, but the distance between them put her at an advantage as she peeled away from him with the sword firmly in her hands. She pulled it once, twice, to get it fully out of the scabbard, and pointed it squarely at his neck.
He laughed at her standing scared and holding the sword lamely in her balled fist.
“Please,” he said, throwing up his hands mockingly in defeat. “Do you even know what you’re doing with that thing?”
“No!” she shouted, her teeth bared. “But I can still cut you pretty badly anyway!” She lunged at him with the blade. He side-stepped around her easily, and she felt his arm slide up around hers, hoping to twist the sword out of her hands. Suddenly Shyla felt it - a sudden breaking and surging in the back of her mind that threatened to tear her apart and away from the whole scene. The power ran free from her, pulsing out into the air, and easily wrested Marrin away from her. Away from her hands, far away from the sword, from her. Shyla could not feel the coldness from the absence of his touch, but saw him, however distantly it seemed, fly into the wall with a sickening crack, and watched him fall to the ground where he did not move again.
Shyla kept slipping away and no matter how hard she tried to grasp at the walls or floor, she fell into darkness.
She could hear the rain throwing itself full tilt at the window panes when she woke. She could feel dull pain in her arm, having fallen on it awkwardly, and in her knees, as well as her neck and head. She could still barely feel the grip of the sword in her fingertips from the arm splayed out away from her. Her mouth felt dry as if it was stuffed with cotton.
She gave out a low, miserable groan. Her mind was swimming in pain and muddled thoughts. What had happened? The only time in her life where anything remotely similar had happened was some summers ago, when she thought that it would be a neat idea to rearrange the furniture of her room. She did not realize how poor of an idea it was, until she woke up in the infirmary with a set of stitches in her scalp. Even then, she did not have the same throbbing in the back of her skull like she did now.
She got to her knees, slowly, still feeling sudden pain as a roll of thunder and lightning cracked across the sky. She saw Marrin across the room from her, crumpled in a languishing heap, and felt her heart leap up into her throat.
The fluttering of her heart only eased a little when she saw his body rise and fall in deep breathing in the flashes of lightening. She jumped to her feet, and picked up the sword.
She grimaced at the sight of him, sliding the sword back into its scabbard. She felt pity for him, at least a little, until a thought that said “serves you right” rose in the back of her head. The rest of her mind could not help but agree. She did not want things to come to this, and yet here they were. All that was left to do was to leave as if it never really happened, and hopefully someone would find him in the morning - Shyla nearly prayed for it. So, Shyla slung the canvas bag across her back, and left, sword in hand, politely closing the door behind her.
She proceeded down the steps at a quiet pace, taking care not to let the heels of her too-big boots hit the floor too loudly. Although she would have been surprised if anyone heard her over the din of the storm outside.
She made to leave through the front doors of the Castle when she saw shadows move out of the corner of her eye. She panicked and drew the sword clumsily out of fear and sheer incompetence. The shadow she saw did not seem to mind her standing there, scared witless, naked sword pointing in the air. It rolled and boiled over the floor rising out and above it until it split itself a pair of legs, arms, and even a head out of its liquid blackness. It shuffled towards her, moving fluidly with its legs until, it seemed, that it was close enough to asses her. It gazed over her, though as far as Shyla could tell, it seemed to have no eyes. After a moment, it gave a curt nod, as if it were greeting her.
Shyla stood frozen to the spot.
The shadow stared at her. It tilted its head in curiosity, but made no effort to move any closer. She saw a cut split across its face, as if it had been sliced open with a knife where a mouth would have been, and saw the open, dark wound curve gently upward like a waning moon.
It had smiled at her, at least in its own way, the best it could. Although it seemed benevolent, she could not help but feel as though the smile meant something mocking. It had smiled at her as if it knew a rather nasty secret about her, or heard a petty piece of gossip about her and made no effort to hide the fact it knew. Shyla shuddered.
The smile disappeared from the head of the shadow, and it continued on its lumbering walk across the floor, finally sinking back into the darkness. Shyla threw herself at the main doors of the Castle, thrusting them open, not even caring who heard, saw, or even caring to close them. She flew out into the night across the ramparts, her legs pumping against mud, the rain striking and stinging her face like thousands of needles. She ran past the gates and into the very forest she saw Tanir disappear into not more than a few weeks ago.
Branches that hung low whipped at her face, and Shyla felt more than one cut her cheek as she ran, leaping over rocks, roots, and fallen trunks. It was not until her lungs threatened to collapse did she stop under the canopy of a low-hanging myrtle tree. She curled up as best she could at the roots, still wet and miserable. Although the rain had stopped some time ago, droplets still fell from the leaves and onto Shyla.
She was tired, miserable, hungry, afraid… but worst of all, she did not know where she was going, and could not go back to where she had run from the one home she had known her entire life. She felt hot tears mix with the rainwater that dripped from her hair, and sobbed until sleep claimed her.
By then, the sun started its ascent in the sky. A new day had begun.