Page 22 of A Kingdom of Lies

“All I know,” he began, lips curling into a cruel smile, “is I could’ve gotten far more coin for you in the first place. Whispers say that the Hunters favour those with magic. You are dangerous. I did the village a favour by trading you off the first time. It will be the same again.”

I sighed, disappointed at his reply. In a different world, during another time, a kinder choice of words may have saved this man’s life. Now, all it did was solidify the taste for blood that had settled within me since Father’s death.

“Don’t stop,” I encouraged him, arms wide in welcome. “Tell me just how you feel. Come on, I can take it.”

“If we had the chance, you would’ve been driven out of this place years ago, you and your scum-fucking father.” James sucked in a disgusting gargle of snot and spit then gobbed it to the floor at my feet. I looked down, stomach churning, like the splatter of green and yellow liquid dribbling into the grooves of the slabbed floor. “Believe me,boy, you are nothing I have not seen before. Do not think you’re special, for I’ve traded many of your kind for coin over my years. The only difference is you made it back. Your tricks do not scare me. Know that.”

“I don’t wish to scare you, James.” Even with the knife now pointed inches from my chest I felt calm. Calm knowing that the blade would do little to stop me. It felt like I’d won before I’d even made my first move.

“Where’s Henry?” The way James said Father’s name made my skin shudder. “Sent his little creature to battle on his behalf, did he?”

My chin lowered to my chest as though a sudden weight on my shoulders was too heavy to bear. I looked up at James through narrowed eyes, fingers flexing at my sides.

“You have brought this on yourself,” I said. “Sealed your fate the moment you picked me as your next trade. This is the path you choose to walk, I am simply ensuring you meet that path’s end–”

“James, enough! Leave the boy and go.”

I turned my head to look at Mable as she pleaded from across the bar a final time. Her voice was an unexpected anchor, dragging me out of my darkened thoughts. Her face, although stern, was soft and familiar, a face I had looked upon for years, one that had lined with compassion for me and my father during that time.

She was different to James Campbell. Mable was kind. The way she looked at me now with furrowed brows and lips pursed with concern reminded me that not everyone had the same thoughts as James.

But the moment shattered when James’s sloppy shout revealed his next move.

I turned as he lunged the final inches towards me. It was selfish of me to pinch my eyes closed so I couldn’t see what happened next. I exhaled a powerful breath; conjuring a wave of frozen air that spread out before me, ensnaring my attacker in thick mists.

The piercing of James’s knife never made it past the charcoal grey tunic I wore.

It was the screams of those who watched that had me prying my eyes open. Before me, encased in jagged blades of ice, was James Campbell, frozen in place with his mouth captured in an eternal cry, the sound still echoing in my mind.

I stumbled back a step, a hand pressed to my chest.

Come on.My inner voice was a screaming storm.Come on.

Where was the feeling I had expected? The relief. I expected this revenge to piece my heart back together. Yet it still rattled in pieces within my chest. I waited and willed it to return to me. To make me feel something. Anything. It had been part of my plan from the moment I left Farrador.

If I couldn’t avenge Father’s death by ending Doran’s life, then I wanted to go to the man who had started this all. But as I looked on upon him I still felt the same endless hollowness within me.

“You’ve killed him…” Mable’s voice shook as she walked towards me. I barely heard her over the ringing in my ears. I watched as she reached out to James’s body to touch the encasement around it. Could she see how James’s skin had turned a dark, bruised blue beneath? How his final breath seemed to have caught in a pocket of ice beyond his frostbitten lips?

As her finger touched James, he broke apart.

It wasn’t exactly Mable’s touch that shattered the ice, but me.

My fist clenched and James Campbell broke apart. I almost felt bad.Almost. Mable’s gasp of horror itched up my spine as the crack spread wildly across James’s body.

I couldn’t move as he crumbled at my feet. His limbs and body cracked as though his skin and bones were made from glass, spreading out in small pieces across the tavern’s floor.

Someone gagged, followed by the splattering of vomit across the stone floor. Others cried out in revulsion. And all I could do was watch as the bloodied, shattered mess of a man smashed into countless pieces. I studied the smattering of ice, blood and flesh, finding it impossible to believe that a body had even stood before me.

“Get out, Robin.” Mable smacked her fist into my arm, pounding over and over. “Get out! Get out!”

I didn’t know it then, but her hearty sobs would haunt me for a lifetime.

“I’m not sorry.” My lips hardly moved as I spoke. “He deserved this. He did.”

I was trying to convince myself, repeating my words over and over as Mable continued slapping and hitting me. My feet began to move as my mind was completely numb. Even as my boots trampled over the crunching of ice and flesh, I couldn’t truly register what was happening. What I’d done.

Where is the relief I desired?

---