Chapter 130. A Single Touch Is Not a Victory, but Tell That to My Ego

Chapter 130: 130. A Single Touch Is Not a Victory, but Tell That to My Ego

She was silent for a moment.

"There is a song," she said, in a very different tone. "An old one..."

"My grandmother used to sing it... It tells of a man who lifts what no one can lift and weeps without shame."

I turned my head.

She wasn’t looking at me... She was looking at the fire.

But I saw the muscles in her throat move, and I saw a flush creep up from her collar into her cheeks. She stopped abruptly, as if she’d realized what she’d said.

She cleared her throat. And then she stared fixedly at her knees.

"It is just a song," she said.

"Okay..."

"It is a very old song... It means nothing."

"Okay," I said, as gently as I could. "Is the rock really bigger than a house?"

"Yes."

I let it go.

The fire had burned down to a few red coals before she spoke again.

I’d thought she was asleep. She’d gone quiet, and her head had dipped against her knees, and I’d been about to get up and leave her to it.

But then she said, very softly, in a voice that I hardly recognized, "I will tell you what happened at the Red Gate..."

I stopped.

"I have never told anyone." She was staring at the coals. "Not the Council... Not Elysandra... and not even my mother."

"You don’t have to."

"I know."

She drew a long, shaky breath.

When she began, her voice was level and flat, with no inflection at all, like a person reading out an old and terrible list.

Twenty years ago, a town in the south had been destroyed by hunters. Almost three hundred survivors had walked for weeks to reach Elarune.

They were mostly women and children, exhausted, starving, and half frozen. Her sister had led them.

"Orsa," Magnara said.

She said the name as though it were something fragile.

"She was five years older than I... She was a scout... A good one at that."

’She found them on the road, and she brought them north, one step at a time... She was not strong enough to carry them all."

"She did it anyway." Her voice didn’t change. "I rode ahead to ask the Council to open the gate."

"And they said no."

"They said the refugees might bring soldiers... They said it was too dangerous."

"They said the law forbade it." Her hands had tightened around her knees. "I stood at the gate for two days... I could hear them."

"Out in the snow... I could hear the children crying."

I said nothing.

"On the third day, I broke it."

She made a small motion with her hand, a short, hard, downward chop.

"Six blows... I counted... The iron bands bent on the third."

"Then the oak cracked on the fifth..."

"On the sixth, the whole thing came down." She breathed out. "I ran out through the gap..."

"I ran along the wall... I was looking for Orsa, and I thought she would be at the head of the column."

Her voice dropped.

"I found her twenty paces from the gate... She was lying in the snow."

"She had a baby in her arms... They were both cold." She stopped. "She had been dead for a few hours."

"She died before I broke the gate."

The coals ticked in the dark. And I... couldn’t speak.

"Two hundred and ninety-one people lived," Magnara said. "I was told that, afterward, many times..."

"I was told that I had done a great thing... The Council put me on trial for it anyway."

"They called me reckless... and they called me a disgrace." She looked down at her hands. "My tribe was ashamed of me."

"My mother never said a word of reproach... Not even one."

"She has not spoken to me, except about duty, since that day... I do not know if she is angry, or grieving, or both..."

’I have never dared to ask."

I wanted to reach out. But... I didn’t.

I stayed where I was, with my hands in my lap, and I listened.

"It is the only thing I have ever wanted," Magnara said, "since then... Not to be a leader, and not to be strong."

"Only never to stand again in front of a locked door, while people die on the other side of it."

I turned that over for a long while.

"That’s why you ran out with the axe," I said, finally. "At Hearthfang... And in Elarune, when the beacon went dark."

I swallowed. "You couldn’t stand at another door."

She was still for a long moment.

"Yes," she said.

I looked at her. She was sitting very straight, with her chin lifted, and her eyes were wide and steady and dry.

She wasn’t crying... But as I watched, a single tear slid out of the corner of one eye and rolled down her cheek and dropped onto the back of her hand.

She didn’t seem to notice. She rubbed her knuckles against her thigh, absently, the way you’d brush away a crumb.

I didn’t say anything else. I just sat beside her until the last of the fire died.

We reached the second night and the second camp, and she couldn’t sleep again.

I’d given up trying to... I’d been lying in my tent staring at the roof, listening to the wind, and when a shadow fell across the entrance and a great hand pulled the flap aside, I was almost relieved.

"Fight me," said Magnara.

"What...?"

"Now! Outside!"

"It’s the middle of the night."

"And who cares about that?"

"Magnara... I have been on a horse for ten hours."

"Fight me!"

I’d have argued, but I knew that look... I got up anyway, and I pulled on my boots.

I followed her out into the cold, across the frozen ground to a flat stretch of grass at the edge of the camp, where the snow had been trampled down by the horses.

She tossed me a wooden practice sword and picked up a thick staff for herself.

"No axe," she said.

"Thank God then."

"I do not want to hurt you."

"That’s very considerate for you."

After that... We fought.

I won’t describe the first part, because it’s not flattering.

She hit me. And then I fell.

She hit me again. But I got up, and she knocked me down.

Three times she sent me flying.

Twice I landed on my backside and slid. But something had changed since the lesson in Elarune.

She was still stronger than I was. She was still faster, but she wasn’t angry.

There was no brutal, desperate edge in her blows. She was just fighting, steadily and cleanly, with her breath coming even and her eyes calm.

I was getting better at reading her.

I saw the shoulder drop before the swing. And I saw the weight settle on her back foot.

I took the next blow on the flat of my wooden sword, in the low stance she’d drilled into me, with my elbows tucked and my knees bent, and let the force run into the ground.

It rang through my arms... I held it.

On the fourth exchange, I stepped.

I did it clean... I chose a point, just over her left shoulder, and fixed on it, and the world flashed silver.

For a heartbeat, I wasn’t anywhere. Then I was standing right at her side, inside the swing of her staff, with my sword extended.

The tip of it touched her shoulder.

It touched it lightly, with no force behind it.

It’s like a tap... A single, quiet contact.

We both froze.

Magnara stood there, rigid, her staff still raised. She turned her head slowly.

She looked at the wooden point resting on her shoulder. And then she looked at me.

Then she lowered the staff. She turned her face away and lifted her forearm and hid half of her face behind it.

"Do not look at me when I am sweating," she said.

"I... uh... am not looking. "I tried to look away, but goddamn... now that I think about it, she’s a tomboy with perfect muscles.

When she’s sweating... that just turned something on in me.

"You are looking..."

"I’m admiring the form," I coughed. "Professionally, of course!"

"That is not funny."

"It’s a little funny for a human like me."

"A single touch," she said, from behind her arm, "is not a victory."

"Tell that to my ego." I smiled smugly.

She dropped her arm. And she was breathing hard.

Her face was flushed, and her amber eyes were bright, and she was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t read.

For a moment, we just stood there, a couple of yards apart, in the frozen starlight. Then, very slightly, the corner of her mouth twitched.

She coughed hastily into her fist.

In the nearest tent, someone made a tiny, strangled noise. I glanced over.

A flap had been pulled back an inch, and a pair of violet eyes was visible in the gap, along with a hand clapped over a mouth.

Sylvara withdrew. And the flap fell shut.

I distinctly heard muffled, ecstatic giggling.

"I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that," I said.

"Please," said Magnara, with great dignity.