Her Revenge

  Faris put down a card. “Light 6 over your Wind 2.”

  “That’s overkill, dumbass,” retorted Korinna with a scoff.

  “Stop talking and play.”

  “Fine. Darkfield. Water 5.”

  “Earth 4.”

  “Earth 8.”

  “Dark 1.”

  “Tsk.” Kor slid the pile between her and Faris to the side, eyeing the two remaining cards in her hand.

  With a knowing smirk on his face, Faris put down two of his three remaining cards. “Lightfield. Fire 1.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Go.”

  “Light 3.”

  “Light 7. I win.”

  “Ugh.” Kor groaned and slapped her cards onto the table, slumping over in her seat. “Simple Fairakarta sucks. I wanna play the complete version. I would have destroyed you with that hand.”

  The victor propped his head up on his hand and looked around, eyes meeting Ty’s for a moment before watching Kor silently and unenthusiastically pick up the cards beside him. “Callie and Elias are out doing rounds, and the two people who are actually awake say they don’t know how to play.”

  Ty playfully kicked her feet from Theo’s bed on the top bunk before leaning back slightly to give her partner a sidelong look.

  He raised his eyes and lowered his book, revealing a wry smile. “All I know is that the order from strongest to weakest is Dark, Light, Earth, Water, Fire, then Wind, which lines up with the order of which Graces came first. There’s something to do with field cards or the other, forward and backward facets show up in the complicated version, too. He explained it to me before; I just didn’t pay attention.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “That’s considered not paying attention?”

  Theo returned to his tome. “Each card has its own aura that corresponds to each facet and does something different based on the field card in play. There are 10 field cards dispersed in a base deck of 72, 6 for forward facets, 6 for backward facets per element. Depending on the number of players, around 25 cards by default begin in the trash. 2 fields default in play. Generally, the more field cards you have, the more advantageous it is. In simple games, everyone wants the Dark cards, but in complete games, Earth is broken if you have the correct fields up. Want me to keep going?”

  “No, no,” chuckled Ty lightly, jumping off the bunk to check up on the other students. “I get it. You definitely don’t know how to play.”

  It was almost midnight. The cabin was dimly lit by two candles sitting on the narrow dining table in the center, where Faris and Kor were. Since it was their third night at the beach, it was Callie and Elias’s turn to do rounds. They were supposed to be back before midnight, but she had no reason to worry when she knew the support enjoyed her occasional nighttime strolls. Cyril, Darius, and Selene had turned in early, and Alex, who had spent all night worried sick about Callie, had somehow exhausted herself to sleep not soon after.

  And then it was her and Theo, whose back was against the wall on their top bunk, since they hadn’t ever slept apart since reconciling. In the set closer to the entrance was Callie’s empty bed on top, and Alex sleeping soundly under it; closer to the inner kitchen and cabin facilities was Elias, who had a full set to himself, likely choosing to sleep on the top bunk because of the sheer number of random items on the bottom. On the opposite side of the cabin was Faris’s bed on the bottom across from Elias’s, beside that Selene and Kor’s set—where Selene slept on the top—and then finally, mirroring Callie and Alex were Cyril and Darius sleeping soundly.

  “Where are you going?”

  Ty turned her head to the impassive voice and then checked her timepiece. There was a sinking feeling in her chest, an uncomfortable twisting in her gut. “I’m going to do one final round tonight,” she replied quietly. “I might be a while.”

  “Did you need me to come?”

  She blinked before locking eyes with Faris.

  Will you tell him the truth? Or will you shelter him, like you have all along?

  The moment passed.

  Her words felt heavy coming out of her mouth as she grabbed her coat from her bed. “No, it’s okay. You should get some sleep. Theo already said he’d come.”

  “Be careful.”

  Slowly, meticulously, she made sure she had everything she needed in her pockets before taking off her tactician’s ring and calling Theo’s name.

  “Ready?” she asked quietly when Theo hopped off the bed.

  Clothed in his Academy robe already, he took a good, long look at her before taking the ring she held out for him. “Ready.”

  After he pocketed the ring, the tactician crouched down and picked up her sword from under the bed, watching her hands tremble ever so slightly as she held it in its scabbard.

  Why was she getting scared now? She had done this more times than she could count.

  Flowers.

  She tightened her grip and stood up, an icy chill freezing over her wavering resolve. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  The feeling never changed. The silky, soft sand in the blinding whiteness. The nausea, the deafening voices trying to shatter her. The expectant looks weighing down her chest and sword-hand.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Steady. Unwavering.

  “How is it?”

  “M-my head hurts.”

  “Do you want to go back?”

  “No. I’ll…I’ll be okay.”

  Focusing on channeling her anima into him, Ty was feeling more lightheaded than usual. She had recently discovered that she could bring any commoner into the sanctuaries if she just held their hand and transferred her magic into them—she had done it with Luci, once. But for him, it was different. He hadn’t done any burning. He hadn’t been cursed with the burden she was trying to relieve Theo of.

  If only they knew.

  They don’t even need you.

  If only they could love.

  You created them, she replied stonily, used to mostly hearing the Earth Mother’s voice while she walked further into the white forest. You’re the one who did this to me.

  “Still doing okay?” They had arrived at its center, surrounded by the souls of the Earth Mother on all sides.

  Theo nodded, taking a shaky breath.

  Again readjusting her grasp on his hand, afraid of letting him fall again, Ty unceremoniously stabbed her sword into the sand and placed her hand on the tree in front of her.

  Okay, she said to herself, feeling the tingle of anima in her fingertips.

  I missed you.

  This is the easy part.

  Revenge?

  Yes. Revenge.

  Ignite.

  Almost immediately, the spark that left her fingertips tainted the white trunk of the tree, sinking deeply into the white, wiry fibers and infecting its core with a yellow, orange, and then red glow.

  Thank you.

  The Earth Mother’s voice faded after the two simple words, and so did the dull throb in her head as she dislodged her sword and headed back out with Theo before the fires could consume her. A quieter world. Closer to salvation.

  Once they were no longer walking on the warm sand, Ty let go of Theo and took a moment to steady herself on the wall of the hut, feeling fainter than she had expected.

  “That was…that was very different from the first time.”

  “Yes,” she replied in the darkness, rummaging in her pocket for a vial of Nate’s medicine that she had prepared beforehand.

  “How much time do we have?”

  “An hour.” She downed the drink in one go. It’s always an hour.

  “Do you think we’ll have enough time?”

  “Of course.”

  They walked back out into the community, its skies no longer black from the trees, but a glowing red she had become all too accustomed to.

  The shadows of Ancients—lined up. Waiting.

  Twenty. Maybe thirty.

  A sickening feeling.

  She steadied her hand on her blade and approached the first Ancient. They had a dark, muddy aura, its original color unrecognizable. They were old, like most. The tears in their eyes were the same burning red as the fire of their god.

  She knelt in front of them, meeting their height.

  “What’s your name?” she asked, like she always did.

  She nodded and told them her name, like she always did.

  She steadied her blade, like she always did.

  She asked one more question, like she always did.

  They nodded, like they always did.

  The color faded, like it always did.

  She moved on, like she always did.

  A shadow in the corner of her eye moved, like it never did.

  The Child of Hope turned around and stared at the shadow, silently taking in the look on their face before returning to her work.

  She knelt down in front of the next Ancient, and then the next, and then the next, until there was silence.

  Something wet trickled down her face as she turned back to the shadow. Blood or tears, she could not tell. “You look scared,” she whispered, looking into the shadow’s eyes, remembering that same look on Rivi’s face last year during the duel. The blood on her hands, the blood on the grass, the monster she was. The tragedy that was her birthright. Yes, she had heard it all now. She had seen it all. There was no going back. There was only her.

  “You did it,” he whispered, walking up to her and pulling something out of his pocket. “They’re gone now.”

  “Yes, I’m a monster. It’s okay to be afraid.”

  He wiped her face with his handkerchief. “I’m not afraid,” he replied quietly, lowering the cloth and giving her a light kiss before wrapping his arms around her. “You’re the one who looks afraid, silly.”

  Aching, like she never did.

  Despite the fires consuming everything around them, devouring the vestiges of the Ancients, their buildings and tents, the life that the Earth Mother had given them, the children stayed there. Not for a long time, but whatever they had left. They had time. Right now, they had time.

  * * *

  Hand in hand, they approached the beach by their cabin again. They hadn’t spoken the entire trek back, but as if the memory of the waters that first time had been conjured by the sound of the waves, Theo spoke.

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Hm?”

  He knelt by the moonlit water and pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket, dipping it in the water. “Our village had so many people compared to this one. Why were there so few? Where did they go?”

  Staring past Theo, the waters, and the sky, the Child of Hope wondered to herself for the second time that day:

  Will you tell him the truth? Or will you shelter him, like you have all along?

  “They left.”

  “What do you mean, they left? Why would they just up and leave if the whole point was to get rid of them?”

  “Revenge.”

  Silence.

  “Revenge?”

  She had to keep her face still.

  Don’t laugh.

  Go ahead, laugh. It won’t work out.

  You’ll fail, like you always have.

  “Yes, revenge,” she exhaled, staring out at the night sky and its multitude of stars.

  Without prying, Theo wrung out the cloth and turned back to Ty. “I trust you.” He had a sad smile on his face, and his words felt like they were more for himself than they were for her. “The voices are quieter now. They always get quieter after you go on your missions. I can tell. Thank you for taking me on this one. I think I understand it a little better.”

  She smiled and nodded. “Thank you, too.”

  He chuckled, and her heart felt lighter. “What for?”

  “For not calling me a monster.”

  “You don’t need me to tell you that.”

  “Still.”

  A door creaked open.

  Ty spun around, watching a classmate leave the cabin and feeling something strike her, grounding her back into reality as if the entire night had been a dream. “We…should head to bed.”

  “Yeah. It’s late.”

  After taking a few steps, Theo looked back one last time. “You should get cleaned up before coming back in. Don’t get into any more trouble tonight, okay?”

  “Yes, physician.”

  One by one, she laid down her sword on the sand, her books, the other trinkets she kept in her pocket, and then her boots and stockings.

  Shrugging off her coat last, making sure that it didn’t touch the sand, she slowly stepped into the warm water. It was up to her knees when she stopped to lay the coat gently on top of the water.

  “You were gone for a while.”

  Focused on the coat, not turning to the voice, the tactician nodded, watching bubbles surface as she submerged her precious mantle. There wasn’t much blood this time. She could never tell until she went to wash it. “Did you stay up for me?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  She let out a genuine laugh, rubbing whatever stains she could find off the fabric.

  Silence.

  “I had an older sister once.”

  She continued to clean the fabric, but he didn’t continue until she took the coat out of the water and turned to face him.

  “She died when I was barely in my teens. I wasn’t even home when it happened.”

  Clutching her coat, feeling the water drip all over her combat clothes as she held it close and dried it with what anima she had left, she walked out of the water over to her caster.

  “I remember the look on her face before I left.”

  Wavering, about to buckle like raindrops racing down his face from that one night. The night she saved him.

  “You have the same look. Like you’re going to leave soon. Like any day could be your last, and then that’s it. You’re gone.”

  The sound of waves overlapping. Fluid, moving, like time. An expanse, just two steps away, for as far as the eye could see.

  “Forever.”

  Her clean coat, falling onto the sand beside her. The sound of the sand displacing when her feet closed the gap, the last two steps. Filling in the emptiness that had always been between them. On the tips of her toes, arms open, reaching out, then closed, clutching tightly onto cloth. Resting her head in the crook of his neck, feeling the thrum of life beating, beating, beating from his chest. The undeniable proof of their existence.

  The slight, shaky intake of air. Swallow, to keep the feelings down. “I don’t need a hug.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  Silence.

  Arms open, then closed, clutching tightly onto cloth.