Amo knelt next to Indirk and put their hands on her shoulders. “It’s okay. Breathe. You’re alright.”
“No!” Indirk surged up and flung her arms out, her carnivate strength throwing Amo across the plaza. She rushed to where Hado lay still on the stone, hands outstretched like it might not be too late to intervene. But she stopped and stood there, staring at the lions stillness. Hado lay on his side, sleek fur shining beautifully in sunlight, stirred gently by the sea breeze. His lovely face had been blown outward by a pair of metal slugs, low jaw intact and tongue lolling lazily, but everything between that and his ears shattered and thrown out beside him.
It was a horrible, grotesque sight, and Indirk reeled away from it, gagging, “No. No, I didn’t… I didn’t mean to do anything like…”
“Indirk.” Amo was there again, hands resting on her arm. “You were trying to protect me. It’s okay.”
She turned her gaze on Amo, quiet, shaking. “No. It’s not. No. He’s dead.”
“We have to leave before someone comes,” Amo was saying, pulling on her. “You’ll blow our cover.”
“I’m not…” Indirk looked down at the hands pulling on her. “I’m not going with you. You did this.”
“Blame me later!”
Indirk’s heart beat, then in a way that it never had before, a painful pressure that lanced through her arms and made her straighten. Suddenly, she didn’t feel her body. She didn’t feel anything. But she moved so deliberately, so efficiently, when she tore Amo’s hands off her arm and grabbed them by the collar, shouting, “You did this!” as she spun to throw Amo against the stone memorial she’d come to show them.
It was like throwing a rodent. Easy. Amo hit the stone hard and dropped to the grass under it, struggling to stand as soon as they could. They were saying something, but Indirk didn’t hear it. She had hold of Amo again, so fast that she almost didn’t realize that she was dragging Amo up and making a fist. “You did this!” The fist hit hard. So many times in her life she’d hit Amo, out of frustration or play, but never like this. “You and your war! Your addiction to this shit!” She watched her arm move. She watched Amo struggle, but her other hand was like an anchor holding Amo in place. “Your infection! I never wanted to kill anyone! Hurt anyone! Any of this? Any of it? Never! Never!”
With a flash of metal, one of Amo’s knives appeared and disappeared. The pain in Indirk’s arm was distant, but she saw Amo slip away from her and run. She didn’t follow them. Indirk stared at her arms in front of her, watching blood run down her left arm.
Once more, shadows teased the edges of her vision, and she waivered on the edge of fainting. She stumbled and leaned forward, crossing her arms to lean on the stone memorial. Blood from her wound ran down the stone, following the lines of the clawmarks she’d made earlier. She found herself staring at the name on the stone – Adroit Leisess – and, gasping for breath, she whispered, “I forgive you. I forgive you. None of you should’ve been there. None of us should have. None of us… none of us…”
She went quiet and closed her eyes.
The sea rumbled. The cries of the seabirds came back. Avie squirmed and chittered in confusion in her pocket.
A large hand fell on Indirk’s shoulder. She bolted upright, a shocked breath hissing into her lungs as she spun. She stood in the shadow of a large-shouldered man, his silhouette softened by the mane of fur around his head. His face was lost in shadow. Indirk wouldn’t have been able to face him otherwise. She didn’t question how he had come to be here, why he was here, nor was she even surprised. Indirk felt like it was the demand of some spirit of justice that she must face him right away, right here.
She found herself staring at the darkness of his silhouette, struggling to breath, stammering, “I’m sorry. He was… trying to protect me… I never should have been here. I’m sorry… Shouldn’t have… I’m sorry.”
There were voices behind the silhouette, men in armor and green tabards moving near where Hado lay dead. But the silhouette didn’t say anything. He settled large hands on Indirk’s shoulders. His big fingers gripped firmly, but not painfully. She was wavering, and he helped her stay up.
“Stop,” Indirk told him.
He remained silent, holding her.
“Stop!” She swung her arms up and knocked his hands away, still tired, still shaking, but managed a growl in her weary voice. “Don’t comfort me! Don’t you dare comfort me for what I just did to you!” She pointed past him at the body. “He’s dead! He’s all you had left and he’s dead! That’s my fault! So don’t you fucking comfort me for it!”
The large, soft silhouette stood back, still quiet, still steady, but eventually there came the quietest of whispers. “Please let me,” Mardo said. “It’s the only thing I know to do right now.” He stepped to a side and turned to look back on Hado’s body, and the light shone on her large form. He wasn’t wearing his uniform jacket, and there was blood on his chest and arms and hands, and his face was wet around his eyes.
Hado had been moved. Someone had picked him up, wrapped him so gently in Mardo’s large jacket, as though the dead lion might be cold, and then lay him comfortably in some grass nearby. Even with half his face blown away, he really did look like he was resting. He’d been tucked in with love and should be having soothing dreams. But there was no breath there. The music was gone.
Indirk stepped toward Mardo and leaned numbly against him. She leaned her body into the blood that stained him. He put an arm around her and left it there. He said, quietly, “How did this happen?”
She started to shake as though she was cold. She said, “I can’t. I can’t.” Because if she told him about Amo, about their fight, about what she’d done, even if she only told him part of it, she knew she would lose everything. She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t.
Mardo gently rubbed her back. He didn’t speak.
Indirk said, “It’s not fair,” because here Hado lay, half his head blown away, in quiet beauty but certain death. And somewhere else a serpent named Anbash was missing half its face, perfectly hideous, still horribly alive and hunting.
