Abby was the last to leave. “I want to stay with her,” she announced.
Emma looked to Kate for support.
“We should probably take turns with her until she wakes up,” said Kate, suggesting a compromise.
Tyrion broke in, “Kate can stay, everyone else out.”
Abby refused to give up that easily, “She’s my sister. You may think we’re all just puppets for your games, but we aren’t. We’re human beings. I want to make sure she’s alright. Let me keep watch over her.” She stopped for a second, her eyes welling with tears but her face determined. “Please,” she added.
Emma opened her mouth, thought for a second, and then closed it again. Finally she turned to Kate and Tyrion, “Actually, I agree with Abby. I want to stay too. Could we take turns?”
Kate glanced at Tyrion, unsure of his mental stability. He had shown a poor record for negotiation in the past. She worried he might explode at the girls’ resistance, but his response surprised her.
“Fine,” he told them. “I’ll need to rest eventually. You can come and go, but only one of you at a time. If the others feel the same, you can share the duty with them. Everyone else will do as Kate says. I don’t want to be bothered while I’m watching her. Understood?”
They nodded.
“Abby you stay first, Emma you come with me. You can help me organize the others. We still need to eat, so we need to get dinner started,” said Kate.
The two of them left the room, while Abby sat on a small stool beside the bed, on the opposite side from Tyrion. He was kneeling on the floor, his eyes on the dark haired girl. Looking up, he met her gaze once before closing his eyes and focusing on his other senses.
Silently, he watched Brigid’s heart and followed the movement of her lungs. It would be a long day.
Chapter 25
“You saw what happened to her,” said Ian. He and most of the other teens were gathered outside. They were supposed to be practicing, but Layla wasn’t with them at the moment, and Tyrion was preoccupied, so they had fallen to talking amongst themselves.
“He’s been different since we went to the arena,” replied Abby. “Less cruel.”
“Less cruel?” responded Ian in disbelief. “He tried to kill Brigid yesterday!”
“That was an accident,” she answered.
“Were my ribs an accident?” said Ian.
Ashley spoke up then, “Nobody’s saying he’s nice, Ian, but he seemed pretty upset over what happened. I still think he’s a terrible person, but Abby’s right, he isn’t evil.”
“He used that whip on you just two days ago,” pointed out Ian. “Were you thinking, ‘oh he isn’t evil’, while you were screaming in pain? Only a sick bastard tortures his own children.”
“I hate him as much as you do Ian, but you haven’t been in the arena yet,” said Abby.
“You mean the arena that Jack and Gabriel didn’t come back from? The arena they died in, that arena?!” he shot back.
“Yes, exactly, Ian! How many of us do you think would have died if he hadn’t been so hard on us?” she said, rebuking him. “Do you think it was easy for me to kill someone? It made me sick!”
Sarah moved closer, putting a hand on Abby’s shoulder in a gesture of sympathy.
Ryan broke in then, “Listen Ian, nobody here loves him, but I don’t think he’s doing this because he wants to. I think he’s trying to keep us alive.”
“Shut up,” growled Ian. “Nobody wants to hear from you. You’re just his little toady. You think you’re special because he put you in charge of building our crappy house.”
“If he had put a moron like you in charge of it, it would just be a pile of rocks with a shit-hole cave for us to sleep in,” said Ryan.
“Why don’t you say that to my face?”
“I just did, dumbass! Are you trying to prove my point?” responded Ryan with a sarcastic sneer.
Ian took a swing at him, which Ryan didn’t bother trying to dodge. Ian was much larger, but bare knuckles didn’t mean much when you had a shield up.
A moment later, Ian was swearing and holding his injured hand, but then he fell backward. Ryan had shifted the ground beneath his feet. Ryan brought his hand downward in a purely symbolic gesture as he hammered the other boy hard in the chest with his aythar.
Ian gasped for air and struggled to get his wind back.
“The rules have changed, Ian. You just got your power a few days ago, so you need to learn. It’s not about this anymore,” Ryan pointed at his bicep for a second before moving to point at his own temple, “It’s about this. You haven’t been in the arena yet, but I have. I’ve killed. If you keep thinking like that, you’re going to die when they toss you in there next week.”
Ian sat up, but didn’t reply. Violet helped him back to his feet before turning to Ryan. “How did it feel?” she asked.
“What?” said Ryan.
“How did it feel to kill somebody? How did you do it?” clarified Violet.
He looked at the red headed girl for a moment. Of all of Tyrion’s children, she looked the most like Kate, despite the fact that the two women were unrelated. “I hated it, but I did just what he said,” answered Ryan. “I fought carefully, and when I had my chance, I pretended it was him.”
Abby nodded at his comment, “Me too.”
David had been listening, but at that point he spoke, “You can all say what you want, but he didn’t just hurt us. He’s hurt Mrs. Tolburn too. What kind of man abuses a woman like that?”
“That’s why she’s in love with him?” said Sarah. “Come on, David. He’s never really hurt her.”
“She is not! I was there,” said the boy. “I saw him drag her into his room, and I saw her face when she came out. She was crying.”
“You think that’s why she’s always watching him?” asked Sarah.
David nodded, “Of course. If you see a snake, you don’t take your eyes off of it.”
Sarah’s eyes grew sly, “Why don’t you ask her then?”
***
Tyrion woke feeling stiff and groggy. He had been sitting by the edge of the bed, and in his fatigue, he had leaned over and placed his head and arms on the mattress. From the soreness in his back, he must have stayed in that position for some time.
Emma sat across from him on the other side of the bed. “It was my turn, so I swapped with Abby. I didn’t know whether to wake you or not,” she said in response to his unspoken question.
“Has she woken?” he asked.
Emma shook her head, “No. Nothing has changed yet.”
Turning his attention to the raven haired girl in the bed, he watched her heart beat for a long minute. It was different now. It had been regular before, but it seemed steadier now, and her breathing was more regular as well.
“You should go lie down,” suggested Emma. “I doubt anyone is using the other bed.”
“I’ll stay here,” he replied. Besides, I doubt Kate would take kindly to me commandeering her bed.
They sat in silence for a while, but it was not an uncomfortable one. Emma watched him as much as her sister, and eventually she could restrain herself no longer, “Why did you do it?”
“It was an accident,” he said automatically.
“No,” she said, “I know that, I meant something else. Back then, before I was born…”
“Oh,” he said, unsure how to respond now that he understood. “You mean when I raped your mother.”
“That’s not what she told me,” returned Emma, her soft brown eyes were uncertain as she spoke.
Tyrion sighed, “Look, no matter what she told you, it was worse than she might have thought. If you’re looking for some reason to forgive me, to try to understand, or just to reconcile yourself with it—don’t. I’m not your father. I’m just the man who forced himself on your mother. Fathers love their children. I’ve never done anything but bring pain to you, or any of the others.”
Emma looked away, her mousy brown hair falling over one eye as
her head moved. “Mother said it was like a fairy tale. She never expected it, but that when she saw you, she knew she…”
“It was a mistake.”
“She said I was her best mistake,” insisted Emma.
The implicit forgiveness in her tone made him angry, but he had shown enough of that lately. Taking a deep breath, he answered, “No. It wasn’t a mistake on her part, Emma. Your mother had no choice. I took that from her, and I did it so completely that she wasn’t even aware of it. I used my power to manipulate her mind, her feelings. I made her think she wanted me. It was still rape, no matter how you sugar coat it.”
They lapsed into silence again, though this time it was not so comfortable. Even so, Tyrion preferred it to the questions. He hoped that the girl would surrender the topic, but she eventually found her courage again.
“You still didn’t answer the question,” she said at last.
“What was the question?”
“Why? Why did you do it?”
“I was horny,” he said bluntly.
She didn’t say anything to that, but her eyes were sullen.
“What?” he said, irritated. “What did you expect?”
“The truth,” she said softly.
“That was the truth.”
“That was part of the truth,” she corrected.
Where does this stubbornness come from? he wondered. Her mother was an easy going girl. “If you ask too many questions I might lose my temper,” he suggested. “Aren’t you worried what I might do?” He kept his voice gruff, hoping to frighten her.
“No.”
“Why not?” he asked, somewhat exasperated.
“You’ve spent the last day and a half sitting by this bed worried about Brigid,” noted Emma. “I don’t really believe you want to hurt me anymore.”
“I did that to her.”
“It was an accident,” said Emma, repeating his earlier response.
He blew out a lungful of air in frustration. “What will it take to shut you up?”
“Just tell me the rest,” she insisted.
Looking at her, he was struck by the sudden urge to hug the girl. She was so earnest, so young, and far too stubborn. More than anything he wanted her acceptance, but he knew he would never deserve it, no matter what she herself believed. This is a mistake, he thought, but then he opened his mouth anyway.
“I was broken. When I was fifteen someone hurt me so badly that I knew I could never be worthy of the girl I loved,” he admitted.
“You were in love with her?”
“Not your mother,” said Tyrion sadly. “Kate.”
Emma frowned, “But Brigid is Kate’s sister… If you loved her, why would you…?”
“An older woman took that decision from me.”
“Oh,” said Emma, but it was clear that she didn’t understand. She stared at Brigid for a moment while her mind worked, then she sat straighter, “Oh!”
He nodded, “Brigid was the first, and because of that I deserted Kate.”
“Was it your fault?”
“I thought so then,” he told her. “But it really wasn’t my choice.”
Emma looked toward the door, “Does she know?”
“Yeah, she figured it out on her own.”
“Is that why she hates you?” asked the girl.
“No,” he admitted. “She is an exceptional woman. She forgave me for that. She has her own reasons for hating me. After I—after what happened with her mother, I told her I didn’t love her. I pushed her away. Then I began hunting the women of Colne. I was empty, lonely, and horny. I knew it was wrong, but somehow I convinced myself it wasn’t rape. It was much later before I finally faced the truth about myself.”
“And that’s why she hates you?”
Tyrion laughed, “No. She forgave me for that too. She’s angry because I hurt you. She is angry because I hurt the others. She doesn’t agree with my training methods.”
Emma nodded, “It was pretty awful. Last week was the worst week of my life, until the day in the arena.”
“It isn’t over,” he said quietly. “You’ll have to do it again.”
“Killing was the worst thing I’ve ever felt, even worse than the red whip. It felt like my soul was dying,” she paused. “But I’m still alive.”
The world seemed to darken as she spoke. Tyrion put his head in his hands. He kept his magesight on Brigid’s heart, letting its steady rhythm swallow his other perceptions. He didn’t want to face the world anymore.
“So how do you feel about Kate now?” asked Emma curiously.
“I still love her,” he said frankly. “I always have. She was the one bright moment in my life, before everything went to shit.”
“Maybe you should tell her,” suggested Emma seriously. “It isn’t too late.”
“It’s better this way. Brigid is a perfect example of what happens to people close to me. She’s safer hating me.” Tyrion stopped then, realizing the girl was baiting him. His awareness expanded to its normal range, and he found an eavesdropper just outside the room. He had left the door open so that they could come and go. Kate stood in the hall.
He gave Emma a hard look, “How long has she been standing there?”
“Since at least, ‘does she know?’, but that was just when I noticed. It could have been longer,” said Emma.
Standing, he stepped around the bed and took her by the elbow, pulling her to her feet and ushering her unceremoniously to the door. Emma didn’t resist. Kate started to step inside just as he pushed the girl out. He held up a hand to stop her from entering. “No.”
Then he shut the door, and this time he sealed it. There would be no more intrusions.
I should never have let her get me to talking.
***
Brigid was nauseated.
It wasn’t something she was aware of at first. Her eyes were closed, and the world was dark, but gradually it was coming into focus. Her magesight was showing her the room whether she wanted to see it or not, but now that her awareness had returned, she began to focus on things.
That was the mistake; as soon as she attempted to guide her perception, to resolve something in better detail, the nausea pounced on her. A groan escaped the lips that she was just beginning to feel, and her eyes opened. Perhaps she would have better luck using her actual eyes to see.
The room wheeled around her in a colorful blur while her head was filled with pain. She closed her eyes again. Let’s not do that, she told herself.
Her thoughts came as a surprise. She was alive. Brigid’s memory was fuzzy, but she was pretty sure that she wasn’t supposed to be alive. I died. He killed me.
The brilliant aythar that radiated from the man next to her belonged to Tyrion, her father—her murderer. Why is he here? She still couldn’t resolve him very well with her magesight, so she risked opening her left eye a fraction of an inch.
He was beside the bed, his arms folded on the mattress to form a rest for his head.
Several facts made themselves known to her then. First, she was definitely alive, second, she was lying in Tyrion’s bed, and third, none of it was fair. I thought it was over. I didn’t want this. Why am I still here?
There might be an upside to her situation, however.
Fighting past the nausea and pain, she forced her magesight to show her Tyrion in better detail. He was definitely asleep. He had no shield. There was really only one thing she wanted still, and that was to kill him. Her last hope had been that she could accomplish that, before he had nearly killed her instead.
Apparently he failed, she noted.
Where was the sword? He had given her his magical wooden sword, with instructions to kill herself if she was unable to face her duty in the next arena battle. She was certain she couldn’t muster enough aythar yet to take advantage of Tyrion’s current vulnerability, but if she had something sharp, she could possibly manage to inflict a mortal wound before he could wake up.
She found it.
It was l
ying on the floor a few feet from the bed against one of the walls. Someone must have brought it in with her and left it there. That was problematic. She couldn’t see herself using magic to pull it to herself, not in her current state, anyway. Maybe she could slip out of bed and walk to it?
She scooted sideways. Her body responded perfectly, but shooting pains echoed through her skull. It was an intense agony that made her hiss through her teeth. She stopped before she cried out. The pain faded, leaving an uncomfortable nausea in its wake.
Tears of frustration leaked from the corners of her eyes. There was no way she could make it. A golden opportunity was being wasted, and there was little she could do about it. She lay still and opened her eyes more fully, giving herself time to adjust to the light.
It was painful, but after a while her headache faded. Movement was still out, but at least she could look around. Brigid studied the man leaning on the bed next to her.
Tyrion’s hair was dark, as dark as hers, almost a raven black, though it was beginning to show a few gray hairs here and there. There was no denying the resemblance between them. In coloring, she had taken entirely after him. Brigid’s features were fine boned and delicate, like her mother’s, like her sister Kate’s, but her hair, eyes, and skin, were entirely his. Kate’s skin was fair but sprinkled with freckles, while Brigid’s was unblemished, white in the winter and darkening to a smooth olive in the summer months.
A shade identical to his bronzed shoulders now.
It made her sick. She had never hated her own body more than she did then. If she could have chosen, she would have looked like Violet, who somehow had been born looking more like Kate and her mother than Brigid herself, even though they were unrelated.
The scars that had marked him when she first met him were gone. They had vanished after the freak storm when they had just arrived at the Illeniel Grove, but his body was still covered in strange tattoos. The symbols were tools, and she knew that when he used them, he was invincible. She had seen it often enough already. The shields the tattoos created were far superior to anything she could make, or anything that he could make without them, for that matter.
If I just had a knife.