A Thousand Heartbeats

The weather was not changing. I didn’t know if it had been hours or if it simply felt like that, but either way, the waiting was torture.

I had no stars or sun to guide me. I had attempted counting seconds just to keep track of passing time, but it had only made me tired, and I couldn’t risk falling asleep.

Across the cave, Annika was clutching her knees to her chest, clearly as cold as I was. That wind had chilled me to the bone as well, and the rain wasn’t helping. But I at least had my riding cape, so I was better off than she was.

She picked at a hole on her dress, looking as if she was thinking about something more intently than she wanted to.

So was I.

Why had I gone back for her? Why had I clutched her to me when the winds came in the cave? Now, hours later, I tried to come up with an excuse. I knew her; she was resourceful. I couldn’t leave her life in the hands of a storm. No, in the end, if she was going to die, it had to be at my hands. I couldn’t trust it to anyone—or anything—else. Anyone would agree that I’d had to save her.

A shiver ran through me, and I finally stood.

“Please tell me you carry a flint.”

Annika looked up from her corner of the cave. “What?”

“It’s showing no signs of easing up out there, and you look colder than I am, so if you want to survive, a fire would be a good place to start. Do you have a flint?”

“Even if I did, what would we build a fire from?”

I rolled my eyes. That didn’t sound promising. I bent down and picked up an overflowing fistful of debris blown in by the wind. “This?”

She surveyed the ground, seeming to see for the first time how much we had at our fingertips. Sighing, she drew herself up.

“Leave your sword in the corner. I’ll do the same.”

I smirked, walking my weapon back to my side. “I could kill you with my bare hands if I wanted to.”

She held her hands out wide. “So could I. Not the point. Drop your sword.”

I wiped my smile away before I turned around to face her. I felt confident that she was bluffing—her hands were more suited for a ballroom than a fistfight—but I appreciated that she was bold enough to lie. I cleared my throat as I grabbed another handful of wood to build a fire. She started building a pyramid out of the larger pieces while I shoved the smaller bits of leaves into the center.

“This cave looks man-made,” I commented. “Or at least modified. It isn’t a natural shape. And the texture of the walls . . . they’re too smooth.”

She nodded. “I keep looking at those marks on the wall, trying to figure out what they mean.”

“Well, if either of us could guess, I’d suppose it would be you. This island is yours, after all.” I finished my work, looking around once again. “It was nice of whoever made this cave to leave it here, but would it have killed them to stock it?”

She sighed. “Let’s not make jokes about killing today.”

I probably should have held my tongue, but I was far too on edge. “Whyever not? Your father mocks my people and is intent on slaughtering the masses, so you ought to be comfortable with the topic.”

“You really have no room to make comments about slaughtering,” she replied sharply, refusing to look up at me as she reached into her belt. “Have you no shame?”

“No,” I answered quickly. “It was beaten out of me years ago.”

At that, I saw her eyes dart sideways, uncomfortable. Yes, I was saying far too much. The last person on the planet I wanted sympathy from was her.

Her hands paused on her belt, debating. Eventually, she caved, hands trembling from the cold as she pulled two small pieces of rock from the pouch. It took several hard hits for the sparks to fly far enough to hit the bits of straw and needles at the base of their fire. She pursed her lips, blowing gently, willing the fire to live.

In all, it took very little effort, and it bothered me that she was so regal that even the flames obeyed her.

She’d have no such luck with me.

She moved around, sitting her back against the bottom of the wall, and held her hands out, taking in the heat. So tiny. Formidable, but tiny.

I, too, wanted to sit against the stone, but there was no way I was getting any closer to my target than necessary, so I sat with my back to the rain and looked across the growing fire at her. Her eyes were burning into mine. Such hatred there, such disgust. Even with all I’d done to keep her alive, it wasn’t enough to undo the fact that I’d taken her mother.

I wondered what she saw in my eyes, if they looked as angry as hers.

She shook her head. “Why?”

“Why what?”

She swallowed. “Never mind.”

I knew. Of course, I knew. “I told you when we met that I had information you wanted. I would have handed it all over then if you’d merely cooperated.”

“And then you would have killed me.”

I shrugged. “I could kill you now. Or later. Eventually it will happen. So, you should have taken the offer while it stood.”

I saw the muscles in her face tighten. She wanted to know so badly, but I sensed she wouldn’t allow herself the weakness of asking again.

“For what it’s worth,” I started, “I didn’t know she was your mother. I didn’t know she was anyone’s mother. I was given a task, and I had to complete it. It was as simple as that.”

“Simple.” She shook her head. “You uprooted my life. There was nothing simple about it.”

I stared at this selfish, foolish girl. “You hold on to our kingdom without a second thought. It’s simple for you and ruinous for us. Don’t act like you’re innocent in this.”

“I took nothing!”

“Oh, then do tell me about your plans to give it back,” I snapped.

“We’ve been over this. On what grounds is it yours in the first place?”

“It was always ours!” My shout echoed in the tiny cave.

The following hush was bigger than the space allowed, and we sat in an uncomfortable silence for as long as I was able to contain myself.

“There weren’t six clans; there were seven. For a very brief period my ancestors were chosen to lead the clans as a united front against Kialand. We were placed in a royal position by a majority vote among the chiefs. And someone in your family decided that wasn’t good enough for them. Not only did they kill who they could, not only did they take what was ours, they erased us from your history to cover what they’d done. And now you eat off porcelain while we sit in the shadows.” I scoffed, looking over her pretty little dress with its delicate embroidery. Who wore something like that into battle?

“Don’t pretend your hands are clean,” I told her. “In the end, one of us will fall and the other will rise.”

“Well, aren’t you lucky, then, that I had a flint, and you get to live one more day?”

“Aren’t you lucky that I held on to you so that you could, too?”

She shook her head. “Don’t speak to me unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Done.”