Page 32 of Lost Feather
“Your sister is in the stables,” he grumbled. “With Master Julian.”
She had gone into the stables with that man? A sick feeling twisted in my gut. “Can’t you call her out?”
“Nothing I did would convince her not to go.” His lips pressed together. “And I tried.”
I noticed as I drew closer that he had blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, and one eye was beginning to swell shut. “She did that to you?”
He shook his head. “He did when I tried to stop her. But she went anyway.”
“She went into the stables with a man who she saw hit you?” I wanted to hit him myself. “She doesn’t want to be in there!”
“She said she did,” Ashtad muttered. “She has free will. I can’t stop her.”
“Well, I’m going to,” I retorted. I ducked around him and ran to the back of the stable. There was a small door there for the barn cats, and at eight I was still small enough to squeeze through it.
I heard them before I saw them. They were in the tack room, just off the main stable room. The door was shut, but their voices carried. “Please don’t.” My sister’s voice was timid and shaky. She never sounded like that; even when the Sisters punished her for talking back, she had never let her voice sound so… small.
“Right then, I guess it’ll be your little sister after all.”
My heart pounded. On the wall by the door was a metal pick, the kind we used to clean out the horses’ hooves. Moving slowly, my feet muffled by the packed dirt and straw, I lifted it off its hook and stuck it into my belt.
Suddenly, the tack room door swung open, and Dina yelled out, “No, you promised. If I came, you’d leave her alone. I’ll let you—” At the same moment, the soldier’s eyes fell on me, frozen in the hallway.
“Looks like it’ll be both,” he said with a sneer. Before I could spring away, he had me by my hair, hauling me into the tack room. He threw me onto the ground and pulled the door shut, but it swung open again.
It didn’t seem to matter. He started unbuckling his belt, and I saw why Dina hadn’t run. He’d tied her wrists tightly with rough hemp rope. Her face was swollen from crying, her dress torn open. He had cut her, and she was bleeding from so many places.
The man growled out a “Don’t move,” and turned back to Dina. Her eyes met mine, begging me to run. To leave her to her fate.
I would never. My legs shaking, I stood behind the man as he held a knife at her throat and ordered her to lift her skirts. The blade dug into her skin, and she sobbed, but tried to obey.
Anger welled in me like I had never felt before. Anger and power. I was filled with the sudden understanding that I had the power to change what was going to happen here. To save her, save us both. I reached for the pick at my waist. He would never see it coming.
Ashtad’s voice at the doorway stopped me. “Tili, don’t!” he yelled.
I sighed with relief, grateful he had decided to help. Julian looked back over his shoulder and grunted to the boy, “Hold onto her and I’ll give ya a turn.”
Ashtad stepped forward. “Don’t,” he told me softly. “I won’t hurt you, but don’t kill that man.”
“Save her,” I hissed back. “Save Dina! She didn’t choose to be here. He’s hurting her!”
The boy’s eyes grew wild. “But I heard her say—she told me…”
“Ugh!” I whirled away from him and turned back to Julian. Dina was crying, while he fumbled with her skirts. The blood from her neck flowed freely now, and I knew if I didn’t act soon, she would die.
“I don’t know the right thing to do,” Ashtad mumbled.
“I do,” I snarled. “The right thing is almost always the scary thing.” I lifted the pick, knowing I would only have one chance at this. I was about to bring it down on the man’s neck when it was snatched out of my hands, my arm wrenched away, and Ashtad was pulling me out of the room.
“You have to get away!” He grabbed me by the shoulders. “This is your chance, Tili! I can’t save her, but I can save you!”
“You’re just going to let him hurt her?” I asked disbelievingly, my lips numb.
“I don’t know what to do,” he muttered. “I can’t… kill him.”
“I can.” I pushed him away. “I’d do anything for the ones I love.” He fell, and I ran back into the tack room, slamming the door shut and bolting it.
The room was strangely dark, but I could see well enough for what I had to do. I lifted the pick again and angled it at the base of the man’s neck. It went in like a hot knife in butter. It was far easier than it should have been.
