Page 35 of The Eye of the Fifth
‘It is though,’ Rosary said with a hint of sadness. ‘And it has to be. You can’t… you can’t somehow pretend orhidethis part of you now just because you’re afraid of it.’
Kyra’s heartbeat spiked. ‘I’m not-’
‘Yes you are, Ky,’ insisted Rosary. ‘I know you. Better than you know yourself, I think.’
Letting out a great breath, Kyra unconsciously ripped a few bits of grass from their roots, then paused.Some Earth Warden. ‘I enjoyed it, you know,’ she said, staring at the decapitated grass in her hand. ‘Killing them. I enjoyed every second of it. It wasn’t like in the pits. It wasn’t a game. It was like this… insatiable hunger. And it was magnificent.’ She looked up at Rosary. ‘That’swhat scares me. I’m glad they’re dead. I’m glad that they suffered as my parents did. But that frenzy… that was my power. I was completely out of control. And… I liked it.’
Rosary did not flinch or recoil at her words. Nor did she try to justify them. ‘You can’t hide from this,’ she said simply. ‘It will only continue to find you, Ky.’
Kyra’s bottom lip quivered. ‘Will you come with me?’
Grabbing Kyra’s hand, Rosary said with a regretful smile, ‘It’syourpath. Not mine.’
‘But I need you,’ Kyra replied thickly. It was only Rosary who she would let see this side of her. This vulnerable, childlike person that she didn’t like to acknowledge was there. ‘Rose, I… I don’t know if I have the strength to do this… to be this… thispersonwithout you.’
It was more than she cared to admit. Rosary was quiet for a moment, but then she said slowly, ‘Even apart, you’re not losing me, Kyra. I’m not going anywhere.’ She cocked her head to one side, a slight smile beginning on her lips. ‘Anyway… I think it’s probably a good thing our time drinking, killing and thieving has come to an end. I think I’ll still go to Taru. Find me there, whenever you feel like you need a slice of home.’
Reluctantly, Kyra nodded. She peeled her hand from Rosary’s and unhooked one of the hoops at the top of her left ear. Falthor Daeiros had once promised to pierce her ear himself when she came of age, but her father never got the chance to carry out that promise. So, Kyra had taken a hot needle, a slice of apple, and an icicle snapped from her bedroom window to the arch of her ear and pierced two holes through the cartilage. She stole two hoops from the untouched dresser of her parents’ old room to hook through the tiny, fresh holes. One for mother, one for father.
Win had been furious upon seeing the rather raggedy and bloody job she’d made of it. But Kyra was fast, and always ran swiftly away before her grandmother could catch her and force her to take them out. She’d been much too young to wear such jewellery in her ears, but nothing about her childhood had been a normal fae upbringing anyway.
It felt right, somehow, to give Rosary a piece of her before they were parted, so she planted the little golden hoop into Rosary’s palm. She looked up, one eyebrow cocked. ‘You know I don’t have my ear pierced, right?’
It was an inherently fae tradition to wear jewellery that broke through skin, yet Kyra gave her human friend a devilish grin. ‘I could do it for you if you like?’
‘I think I’d rather do it myself,’ Rosary said with a wary look at Kyra’s ear, at the wonky hoop that now sat alone. ‘Thank you,’ she added sincerely, and dropped her own hoop into the leather pouch at her hip.
Then she prized the recently stolen signet ring from her middle finger and held it out for Kyra to take.
‘Oh good, another reason for the Union to condemn me,’ Kyra mocked, plucking the ring from her hands.
‘Shush. I got it inscribed.’ Sure enough, on the inside of the ring, delicately scratched into the flat gold, was her initials.
‘R.T,’Kyra read. ‘Are you calling me a reckless twat?’
Rosary laughed. ‘Always, but in this instance, the initials stand for me.’ Her smile faded a little. ‘I want you to keep it. A memento. So you don’t forget me.’
‘The day I forget you is the day the world ends, Rose.’ Kyra placed the ring on the exact finger Rosary had worn it, then she swigged a skin of water, leaned back on one hand and wistfully sighed, ‘I wish this was wine.’
With a soft snort, Rosary said, ‘Maybe you’ll meet the Water Warden and he’ll turn all your water to wine for the rest of your days?’
‘What a gift by the divines,’ Kyra mused. ‘Speaking of wine, I know why you want to go to Taru. You’ll never be without a Sarlalian red there.’
Rosary put a hand to her heart, feigning offence. ‘You think I’d move across the continentjustfor the wine?’
‘Am I wrong?’
After a beat, Rosary grinned. ‘No.’
Despite everything, Kyra laughed. That joyousness was fleetingly replaced with a melancholy ache as their looming farewell hit her. She took Rosary’s hand again but stared straight across the river, knowing if she looked into the amber eyes of the woman beside her, it would be far harder to say the next words without weeping like a child: ‘I love you, Rose.’
Rosary linked her arm through Kyra’s and laid her head on her shoulder. ‘I love you too,’ she whispered. They’d never spoken to one another like that, though the sentiment had always been known. To hear it out loud, from the mouth of her chosen sister moments before parting, had her not wanting to leave at all, to run away to Taru with Rosary and completely forget the power that had been awakened within her.
But then Rosary said softly, ‘You’ll be alright, Ky’, and Kyra somehow believed that it was true.
Chapter Eleven
The Augur’s Warning
