Page 15 of The Eye of the Fifth
Her eyes fractionally opened, and within a second there was a pale face looming over hers. ‘Thank fuck,’ Rosary breathed, letting out a little nervous laugh.
Blinking through the sunlight that beamed through the dirty window, her surroundings finally came into focus.
It might have been as though they’d never left. The damned mouse was still there, eating Goddess-knows-what in the corner of the dusty room; a wine bottle lay on the side with two empty goblets next to it, and Rosary-
Rosary was sat on the end of the rickety bed, her mousy brown hair pulled clumsily back from her face, her amber eyes filled with concern and exhaustion.
But she was unharmed. Untainted. Unbroken.
The memory of Lilion’s threat to Rosary’s life suddenly hit her. She tried to sit bolt upright but the movement sent a sharp pain through her head. Her hand flew up to it as if she might relieve the pressure.
‘Slow down, Ky!’ Rosary slowly guided her shoulders back against the pillows.
‘Why am I alive?’ Kyra whispered, eyes tightly closed as dread coursed through her. ‘Oslan should have killed me, that's what I… where’s my brother?Why am I alive, Rose?’
Rosary grabbed her wrist. ‘Calm down! He’s alive. Lilion called off the fight just before Oslan could…’ She trailed off and looked away, as though the words refused to form on her tongue.
‘Kill me,’ Kyra finished for her.
Never had Rosary looked so disturbed. ‘You gave up, Ky. You just… gave up.’
Kyra said quietly, ‘It was me or him. I chose me.’
Rosary ran a hand through her messy hair, and Kyra had the impression she was trying to remain calm. ‘What did she say to you, Ky? What did Lilion say to make you fight? I saw her talking but couldn’t hear her.’
She wanted to lie. The threat Lilion had made on Rosary’s life was already making her own blood boil with simmering rage, and she knew it would only fuel Rosary’s hatred of Lilion. But under her friend’s intense and somehow knowing glare, she buckled. ‘When I refused to fight Oslan… she threatened to kill you.’
Rosary’s expression darkened.
‘It was me, him or you,’ Kyra continued unaffectedly. ‘I chose me.’ If she had to make the choice again, and again, and again until the end of all times, it wouldalwaysbe the same.
‘You’re a fucking idiot,’ Rosary said in a thick voice as she shot to standing and paced the small room, floorboards creaking underneath her furious feet. ‘I willnothave you forfeiting your life to save mine!’
‘So, I was supposed to just let you die?’ Kyra said angrily.
Rosary gave a sour laugh. ‘I can handle Lilion cunting Perdy.’
‘How?You have no magic, I’ve never even seen you fight-’
‘How many times do I have to tell you?I don’t need protecting.’Rosary stopped pacing then. ‘Oslan was going to kill you, Kyra. Your brother did not hesitate. He knew it would be you or him to die and he choseyou.How is it you were the only one who refused to be that selfish?’
Kyra fiercely shook her head as she recalled Oslan’s eyes sliding out of focus. ‘It wasn’t him.’
‘What does that even mean?’
‘It means it wasn’t him, Rose!’ Kyra cried. She sat up again, ignoring the pains that shot through her head, her ribs, her stomach. ‘He wasn’t going to fight me. He beggedmeto killhim.He said he was done. He said he couldn’t do it anymore. I don’t know what changed and I don’t know why, but when he attacked me… he wasn’t himself.’
After a moment, Rosary sat back down on the edge of the bed. ‘You’re saying he was being controlled?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kyra said with an exhausted shrug. ‘I didn’t think that sort of magic was even possible.’
‘It shouldn’t be,’ Rosary said, disgusted.
Something else was still bothering Kyra. ‘Why did Lilion stop the fight?’
‘If you’d died, there would have been a lot of angry gamblers. She doesn’t care aboutyou,just the loss of revenue it would cost her,’ Rosary said bluntly.
Kyra was surprised to find herself stung at those words, no matter how true she knew them to be. Lilion had made it abundantly clear that she was not a friend. She viewed Kyra like… like she owned her.
