Ștefan’s mind was aswirl with the words of the Petrovich boy as he stalked the streets of Polocarija. The horror he felt in its face was scarcely coherent; he a spring lover, and his spring love found, then taken and damaged in a heartbeat by the designs of a cruel man. In an afternoon, a horrible afternoon, the truth of near a week of sorrow and concern was laid horribly bare; the assailant’s son had come and confided in him the truth, but moreover that now, in some horrendous twist, he had stolen her away from him.
The others had gone, even Zriyne, with the gruff promise she would be their line of communication. So, the son was the only one who shadowed his steps now. A perfectly terrible little boy-- Ștefan realized this, the moment they’d met-- but Ștefan was too far gone to care. The fear was in him and not like to leave. Neither did he want it to. He didn’t want what came after the fear. So Polocarija, muse for his spring, lay unfurled before him, with deep afternoon shadows and haunts and malaise. He missed the beach, the smell of the sea which might have set his gut nearer to ease, but home would speed him to Zriyne and the victorious Djesdeona; she’d await with his beloved and he’d soothe her ills and they’d forget, or rather he’d take the son’s advice, another haunt and another malaise.
The dreadful son had a cocksure walk. Ștefan could hear it and know plainly the quality of man it supported; though how terrible it was to charge a son with his father’s crimes the translation was plain to him. How insincerely he had found him, found Zriyne, told them. He’d promised aid. Vengeance, a dream of vengeance which would be next to delight. They’d plot.
“Hold,” the son said. Ștefan looked where he directed, at the street ahead, which was bare and lined with summer homes. “Here comes my father now.”
Ștefan’s world grew dimmer still. Distantly, he felt doubt, doubt at the strangeness of the son’s account, but he was a swift sword, and Polocarija was largely without gendarmes. The son had said that this villain’s honor, once wounded, might be held to account. His footing came easier now. Dimly, he wondered, in his whirling mind, where the idea of the duel had come from.
A man emerged from through an arch, a shorter woman with lighter hair in tow, both Zedarjr. Owing to the son’s description, Ștefan recognized Markov Petrovich. Ștefan did not see the son-- Sorin-- share a look with the daughter, Viktoria.
A beat slow.
Markov recognized him, that much was obvious in the leer her received. His lower face was split by the angry purple wound that was his mouth, which tinged worse and he said, “Look, and here comes the jilted lover of my dear reluctant mistress.”
Jilted. Dear, reluctant. The words struck like hailstones. Ștefan’s world was free from daughter or son. Just Markov. Crossing that short stint of street between them felt like it took an instant, just forward. His feet and mouth decided for him. They planted; he said, “On the town, after what you did, and unattended, too. I have a mind to teach you regret.”
Ștefan was faintly aware that he had lost sight of both terrible daughter and dreadful son in the brief moments between, but he would not, in that moment, do himself the cruelty of tearing his eyes from the object of his hatred. Markov moved nearly to pass him by. Still not a chance. Markov snorted derisively when he turned.
“Don’t teach me,” he said, “Learn it yourself. She’d come now, if I called. You, though? Leave it and crawl back to your paints. The horned thing is mine.”
How could a paltry word like rage describe it? Ștefan exploded: “Dog! For her abduction alone, I would call you to stand, you ravener.”
Markov’s sneer passed into a bemusement which Ștefan did not understand. Nor did he make an effort. Markov stopped somewhere in the slow circle he had been making, Ștefan tracked his turn. He took a bullish step forward and said, an eyebrow peaking, “Dog? I would have thought you desired nothing more than to lay down with dogs.” His face grew cruel. “And for the conquest?”
“Either would be cause enough,” Ștefan said, bile beating down reason under its torrent. He wagered his good reason would agree. “Now, where did that girl crawl to? Bring her here, I won’t waste another word on you. My darling’s sister will set the arrangements. I want them to see me choke you on those words.”
Markov had said something then, but stubbornly, and by great effort, Ștefan had succeeded in paying it no mind, pacing long around that stretch of street. Markov was incensed, he would not leave now, not without seeing him silenced for good. Good! Let him rage, and let him drown in it.
The world whirled as an hour proceeded from that point, one spent leering bitterly at Markov, and pacing, until Zriyne returned. The better part, the harder part, was convincing her not to take up the sword herself. He’d seen it dance in her hand, the classical full-edged saber; it danced as light as an Argonnaise rapier in the hand of an acrobat. But the thought of standing on-side, as another went to account for the capture of Cantata washed over him each time he considered it, and the despair in his heart compelled him to stand.
Zriyne acquiesced, at the promise Markov would bleed. Ștefan relished that oath. When the daughter, Viktoria, came forth with a priest, likely Xokorx’xtratyme, it didn’t matter. Djesdeona would heal Ștefan, when she returned with Cantata. They could have their priest, and also shove it. No, what the bringing of the priest signified was that the square would be drawn. Viktoria withdrew from their huddle, by a line of trees; they hadn’t moved far from the street by the arch where they had met. Zriyne had left just after Ștefan had convinced her to let him duel, and perhaps reached Djesdeona. But now she’d returned.
They’d all relocated, since dueling was not to be tolerated on the open street, to a park outside the high city. His surroundings were the subject of little mystery for Ștefan, whose mind had shut out most of the details since raising the challenge. Viktoria and her dreadful brother had suggested it, or Zriyne had. They were cruel in a thin way, or otherwise bored, but they did not act as though they feared their father’s demise*,* Ștefan reflected. It made his lip curl.
Viktoria sauntered out into the open. “Who will speak for you, Vedova?”
“Zriyne of Mežižan,” Zriyne said, and she sneered. Viktoria’s eyes fell upon her. There was an unnerved twinge at her lip, one Ștefan was eager to credit Zriyne with. “The talk will be short. Tell your rat fuck father to stand to fucking account.”
“Excellent,” Viktoria said, her voice light and airy. Ștefan had scarcely hated the sound of a voice so much as he did hers, in this moment. “Provincials.” She continued, her tone dripping with sarcasm, “How might we avoid this sad affair?”
“Tear his entrails out yourself.”
Viktoria’s teeth gnashed behind her lips, though through great effort, she kept a canned smile. “Then let the Threefold Three witness, in defense of his honor, the Patriarch Markov Petrovich.” She tipped her head, baring mocking expectation. Her eyebrows and expression said, horribly, and…?
“For my sister, Ștefan Vedova,” said Zriyne. Her voice sounded bored, but Ștefan could see her hand, tight by her side, was trembling.
“By custom, first blood shall mark the proof or settlement of honor, and the first to lay a wound on his foe may consider the matter settled. Otherwise, this proceeds to the concession,” Viktoria said, and a great weight fell from her as she finished, and turned towards her father. “Now,” she said, and spread her arms, unable to conceal a hard hint of mockery, “Stand to account.”
Only when Zriyne placed a saber in Ștefan’s hand did he revive. Viktoria withdrew a handful of handkerchiefs, each golden and decorated with stars and triangles. She met Zriyne by the turn of Polocarija’s wall. “We agree on the bounds. Understood?”
Zriyne sneered in response, then took off her own scarf, brilliantly red, by the wall. Viktoria marked opposite, and Ștefan watched as Zriyne glanced at his sword, then nodded. She took out a handkerchief of her own. It was grey. She deposited it just by a tatty wooden scaffold. When Viktoria let another scarf drop, Zriyne stormed up and kicked it a few feet away.
Ștefan could only make out a few choked words, but he heard Zriyne announce she would show Viktoria ‘fucking square’, before she took off one of her shawls and cast it down. It was blue. Viktoria had already begun to turn away when she did this, and all that Ștefan couldn’t read on her face was announced by a bemused snort. Zriyne spryly climbed onto the scaffold. All the while, Markov paced. He had escaped the kind of stupor Ștefan had been left stumbling through. Of course he had; he was the cause of Ștefan’s. Markov tilted his head and stared straight at Ștefan. It was a horrible, proud face. His lips parted, and he rolled his own sword, behind Viktoria’s sole remaining gold handkerchief.
Markov held the look until Ștefan’s face pinched and his teeth gnashed together and he had to turn part away. Viktoria climbed up onto the scaffold herself and tugged the priest aside. They were grinning like spies, Ștefan thought. Ștefan turned back and marched up to Zriyne’s grey scarf. He glanced to her over his shoulder. She nodded the sort of nod which made him press his lips into a hard line, with what resolve he could muster. He stood stopped a moment, then looked dead at Markov.
“Leave Polocarija. Crawl back to Zedarja, you filth, and nevermore cast such a shadow over mine or my love’s,” Ștefan said.
Markov sat his hand on his sword, cocksure. By the cut of his mouth in his face, Ștefan could see the resemblance to the terrible son. “You won’t win my craven with words, dandy,” he replied. “Turn tail and leave me my spoils, you privateer. Or, keen as you are to piss me off, come and prove your yellow.” When he’d said all, he drew, and rolled the sword in his hand. The high sun made its edge a hard line of white.
Ștefan exhaled hard through his nose and passed the scarf. He drew, pointed at the ground, and saluted. In an instant, Zriyne was shouting, and the people on the scaffold, there a moment before, faded from his mind.
There were four corners. There was Markov. Ștefan saluted, swinging the blade through a trio of points-- a reference to a religion he was far too wise to follow. He took the center.
Markov bulled forth, his face a fury. Ștefan’s hindbrain fought for control, to get him to dash aside, but Markov was-- stupefyingly-- merely walking. Ștefan was dumbfounded until the moment he brought the blade up. He chopped. Ștefan seized himself and faded to the side. The sabre whistled by his ear. Ștefan scampered until he had the space to point his sword. His foot nudged the side of the scaffold.
Markov leered. “Stupid boy,” he drawled, finally answering Ștefan’s salute with one of his own. He circled, coming to toe Zriyne’s shawl, by the stands. “I might have let you have her, when I got tired. But you’ve supposed you’re my equal, brought me here,” he said, and a low venom edged into his voice, “to waste my time.”
Ștefan threw himself at Markov, and threw the tip of his sword a little farther. He looked; the thrust had been close enough, because Markov’s sword came up and his point batted it away.
As much as his hatred for Markov dominated his mind, his heart sang as he bound swords. The rhythm-- probe, bind, break, cut, parry riposte-- felt like dancing. He laughed, laughed until Markov’s teeth grit and he couched more force behind his blade.
“Makes you feel big, doesn’t it?!” Ștefan wrestled Markov’s guard from between them to shout in his face. The laugh still burbled up from the hollow of his neck. It made him want to scream. “Defenseless,” he said, dropping the bind. “Innocent. Immaterial to you. Makes you feel fucking big,” he said, “The power to hurt someone like that?”
Amazement leeched into Markov’s face, or something like he’d bit his tongue. “Keep talking,” he said, and real hatred drew into his voice. He lowered his hand-- an early opening! Ștefan rewound and lunged for it, blade diving like a corkscrew.
Markov’s sword drove his into the scaffold’s handrail, then Markov was by him, pulling towards the square’s center. Ștefan had moments to dip past a counter, Markov’s sabre passed inches from his eyes.
Too close, he thought, and picked his guard back up. He neared the wall and found his foe again. He was already panting.
Ștefan passed the red scarf, and dispossessed of himself, roared, “I’ll see you regret laying so much as a finger.”
“Yes, yes,” Markov snarled, as though the burden of consideration was agonizing. “On your woman.” He laughed, and it was hideous. “Mongrels,” he continued, “laying down with animals.”
“Kill him!” At last Zriyne’s shouts coalesced into a single sentiment. One that made sense in his screaming mind. His thoughts ran one and all towards a precipice beyond which they were lost to him, beneath all the hard white steel and the laughter. For a bare moment, he felt safe to spare a glance, the sword stretched forward three paces from Markov like a ward. Zriyne was unrecognizable under an anger which resounded too in him. The son. The daughter. The priest was gone.
No time. Markov’s confidence left the far greater wound, as in a score of strikes, Ștefan hadn’t won an inch. “Confess, you ravener!” Ștefan bellowed. “What honor have you left to blacken?” He stole the center of the square, with Markov lingering back towards Viktoria, towards the garden walk, and Zriyne’s shawl.
Markov’s face went grim, and the movements behind his eyes no longer made sense. Suddenly, Markov was upon him, and his sabre was bearing down for center mass. A twitch brought his guard up, and Ștefan avoided his own bisection, just as Markov brought the sword around again.
Ștefan leaned into his defense, working around the blade. His own point flew like a dart, but Markov shut him out, and the attempt cost him another narrow brush.
Blow by blow, every one leased with killing force, scraping down Ștefan’s sabre in his desperate guard, Markov pushed him to the far corner. Ștefan realized he was worse, far worse. Markov had hardly had to try. Another blow; Ștefan closed his other hand around his grip. The window for riposte vanished.
Ștefan was suddenly terribly conscious of how near he had drawn to the city wall. He stepped for space, pre-emptively parrying to keep Markov back. Like a hammer, Markov struck his blade-tip to the dirt. Ștefan scrabbled back, pressed tighter to the wall as Markov reclaimed the center. Then Markov was upon him again, and he stumbled and suddenly the red scarf was at his feet. He’d nearly lost his balance.
It ought to have been the end when Markov’s sword came down again. Some hindbrain prowess had whipped his guard up, even as he wavered, bucking both of their swords clattered into the wall.
When Markov cut again, Ștefan had regained his balance. Even with his guard set, the blow nearly toppled him. It pounded up his arm, like steel bars shot through his skull. Slinging his weight, he let it propel him under and out, back towards the center, then towards the lump of blue. He rounded again at the far corner.
Then, there was movement on the scaffold. He looked, and caught Djesdeona’s arrival. She came to stop by Zriyne, and with her-- Ștefan’s heart pounded-- shrouded like an invalid in a blanket, was Cantata. He could have fallen to his knees at the sight of her, in red and stony blue, eyes soft as still water, and shaken as though by an unseasonable chill.
Even as she ached, clinging to the blanket and watching with the most horrific expression, an expression which Ștefan could not escape blame for, her face was delicate, lips bowed, with plum ringlets which slipped the gap between blanket and pallor-brushed skin. Ștefan longed--
“Ay!” Markov’s shout fixed him in place, like a pin through a trophy corpse, and he struck the ground with his sword. He spat. “You deign to call me a brigand, and then show me your yellow, you cur of ill breeding?”
--to leap from the square, to answer the sorrow and fear he felt with love renewed.
“Ill bred,” Ștefan said, or rather, his mouth did. His brain hadn’t caught up. Hatred did not describe the feeling he felt next. It fell short of describing the animus that twisted his face into knots. “The name I wear is a noble one. Vedova. And once I have taught you this,” he said, flashing the worst smile he could, “so too will she wear it.”
Ștefan heard, for a bare moment, the sound of Cantata’s voice. It was thin. He turned aside, raising his guard. “Zriyne,” she said.
“She’ll wear a welt for every presumption you’ve made,” Markov riposted.
Cantata continued. Ștefan raised a finger, his jaw tightening. “Why does he have the sword, Zriyne?”
A cackle erupted from Markov. His sword came down like an axe and Ștefan darted short. He passed in front of the scaffold. Markov was still turning. Ștefan’s mind swam, but the opportunity was clear. He planted and lunged, desperate for reach to win before Markov could recover.
It was far too late to avert when Markov straightened his back, revealing a sword already couched. It came rising up, his blade twisting to full extent. Ștefan was far too committed to dodge, his blade far too weak at this range-- he seized, and bat lamely at the
blade.
Fortune alone kept Markov’s from puncturing him through, the fact that when the blade had arced inwards, he had twisted behind his own sword, and Markov’s skipped just aside when his sharp hit Ștefan’s. Ștefan stumbled forth, and jerked his blade once more, into the bind. His sword-tip bounced off of Markov’s guard and came away blooded.
Ștefan’s heart nearly seized. He glanced agog at the red tip, and Markov’s own horrified fury. “Blood!” he bellowed, and his throat went ragged. “Blood, man,” he stumbled, and danced a few paces away to keep Markov at swordpoint. “Yield.”
No sooner had Markov bulled through his guard again. Ștefan had scarcely had the chance to recover his guard as he fought for space, finding the grey scarf by his foot.
And Cantata screamed. It was a sound that transfixed him, and threw his heart somewhere between despair and revenge. Sweat beaded on his chest. Not sweat. Blood, blood from a gash. He danced back, turning around Markov at range to remain in the square, then raised his sword again.
“Yield, I’ve had your blood,” he said.
“Concede,” Markov’s voice returned, like a sliver of ice.
“Dishonorable dog,” Ștefan shouted, and horror carried him back within Markov’s reach. He brought up the sword, seeing Markov’s guard jump in step, and swung. Markov made no attempt to parry; he swat it down, as though Ștefan had merely raised his sword. Both sabres bit into the wood of the scaffold. Cantata leapt back with a frightened cry. He could hardly hope to go on like this. He could hardly hope, but what else was there to do?
Desperate for purchase, he twisted his blade. He felt the steel bite into Markov’s. He battled for leverage, to sling Markov’s blade aside, but he was rewarded with another careless swat. It lashed across Ștefan’s fingers, and he fixed Markov in his eyes, praying to the Witch or the Wavemother or Cantata’s gods to cut Markov’s rictus from his face and leave it a ruin. He panted. Sweat pricked at his temples and under his arms.
Another series of blows left him dazed.
He saw Markov plant a foot. He watched on, his muscles feeling like steel, as the sabre-tip corkscrewed. It was a killing blow. It ate his hope. It bore down on his chest. Markov’s hand started to rise, the cruel corners of his mouth twitched. Ștefan’s body moved unbidden. It was the untrained impulse which saved him, as the stab dove through the outer meat of his arm and scored his back.
His sabre bit the false edge of Markov’s sword as it arrived, far too late to have been the thing to save him. As he pulled it back, Markov’s preemptive flourish slipped apart.
It made sense now why his defense had been careless, how Ștefan had been able to steal first blood. He had no mind to respect it.
Ștefan’s mind went out in a flash. With more strength than he knew existed in his arm, he bore down. Every slash was a perplexity. Springing and deforming metal, used to hack against Markov’s guard, around and around again.
Twice his mind returned to him. First, it bubbled up when Markov waited a beat before bringing his sword ripping through where Ștefan’s head had been moments before, barely able to avoid its path even with the cocksure hesitation. To better present Cantata his mangled corpse. Ștefan’s horror waxed.
It was everything he could do to keep from looking at Cantata, and seeing the nightmare realized in her expression. Doubtless she saw it already. To continue was to abandon her. To continue was never to give up in her defense.
Her avenging. He had seen the hurt on her face, huddled under the blanket. It was the most base and obvious kind of hurt, with limpid eyes and a taut face. He found the blue shawl by his foot again, and looked up at Markov. By his expression, not a chink had been made in his hide, though the oozing at the back of his hand belied a different story. And yet, Ștefan found himself agreeing. He had, perhaps, already lost.
When Markov came for him, Ștefan dashed at the last moment for an inch more. Markov swung hard, and even though he’d been able to brace, it nearly bisected Ștefan.
As though slowed, he pulled back and allowed it through. That was the second time his mind returned to him. Markov’s strike had been overwrought. Luck had scored him an instant to save himself, as he brought his blade around. He could have the fingers from Markov’s guard if he lunged, this instant.
It nearly worked.
Markov pulled his hand back. He wouldn’t outrun Markov’s guard, there was no disarming him now. Ștefan had left himself undefended. He’d committed hard, and if he pulled back, Markov’s riposte would be swift.
Their swords extended past one another, both racing, one pulling away from a lunge, the other reaching one. No clever trick of the bind to prise the sword away. In a jumble of moments, Markov would kill him.
But Markov was off of line. He’d avoided a disarm. He’d warded off most sensible attacks. Before the last moment, a thrust down line of center would have run him along Markov’s sword, but now? Ștefan would die in moments. His sword was already moving.
It whispered over Markov’s as he twisted, bringing the arc of the point home. The grip transferred the brunt of the juddering shock as the tip of the sabre dove between rib and collarbone. There was no disbelief on Markov’s face. There was annihilation.
Markov tried to bring his blade up, and Ștefan-- now desperately off-guard-- wiggled his fingers away and bore down. His hilt came closer to Markov’s chest. Ștefan panted. Both he and his foe staggered for footing. Markov seemed-- unacceptably-- to fail to grasp the situation.
“Then regret it!” Ștefan shouted, inanely. “Contrition! You horrible ravenous man, you thought—” he stumbled over his words, and Markov’s mouth twitched, agog. A sword had gone through his trachea— “You thought to make a ruin of her. Then learn it well, this regret. Whatever horrible fluke has made goodness foreign to you,” All at once, his adrenaline forced a hateful laugh from his lips. “Say my name,” he said, though this time, the irony did not fully escape him. “Say it.”
Ștefan levered the sword to turn Markov towards the scaffold.
“Vedova,” Ștefan said. Somewhere in the depths of his mind, a part of Ștefan could not accept that even so damaged, Markov could be made speechless. Markov spluttered without sound, and Ștefan turned away.
The priest--
The children, the dreadful son and his sister had done something with the priest. Had they been so certain Ștefan would lose? Of course they had. They were shaken and huddled together. What would it have mattered for a little Elantir dandy to die? Ștefan was holding a sword, and it went straight through their father’s chest. He would likely die. He couldn’t stomach the thought of dredging up sympathy for the children.
Zriyne was a marvel of shock and relief, as was Djesdeona, both of whom were clearly thinking far ahead of what Ștefan could now, in his state. His gaze fell upon Cantata, and gingerly so. He scarcely dared to look. Her face seemed mutilated for one horrible moment, so intensely had emotion twisted it.
Ștefan lost himself to the sight of it.
That was the moment he decided that the children had been complicit in the spectacle. Markov’s spectacle. Another, deeper cruelty to punish Cantata. All for… he didn’t want to imagine why.
Ștefan whirled back around on Markov and tore the sabre out of his chest. He fell, as though prostrated. His sword-hand, empty, leapt for something.
Ștefan couldn’t have been certain whether he truly saw the flash of metal. He stamped down on Markov’s hand. Markov’s other hand splayed, for something. Maybe he’d just flinched. But the attempt was enough.
His fury demanded an answer. He slashed like a hammer blow. It cut Markov to the ground, and the most terrible thing was that he meant every ounce of strength. There was an awful suction when the sabre bashed in his breastbone. With the sound of snapping bone, the tip caught Markov’s jaw, and he went down. Then he just had the sabre in his hand.
Bile filled the back of his throat like paste. Sweat pricked, sharp as the cuts Markov had dealt. Markov, a ruin. He realized it then-- he’d hang for this and that would be the best outcome. No, he realized, and glanced down at the wreck on the ground. While he would hang in the square. They’d massacre the Dadzhvoy. Zriyne, noble Zriyne, Djesdeona, his Cantata.
The sabre. Markov wouldn’t have yielded, from the moment the square was drawn. As though it had been predetermined, but the parameters of it eluded Ștefan. Then the weight of the man on the sword seemed to return, gaping where his insides hung onto it like a lifeline. Was it because he couldn’t yield? Would Markov have allowed him to yield, or otherwise, would he have butchered him in front of his beloved, in a grotesque show of dominion? The weight doubled. He felt it careening towards some indistinct cliff, the unraveling of a crime unintended except in the totality of its moment.
Towards where it raced Ștefan could only be dimly aware. But he felt far more sick than he had moments earlier. He stumbled around, vaguely conscious of the body. He struck the sight of it from his mind. He would have groped for some way to stop what was already happening, if he perceived one, but the dream of vengeance had not abated. Rather, it had been no dream at all. Victory looked like a corpse and a reddened sabre. It felt like seasickness.
It bothered him to hold it like that. It was the strangest preoccupation. His thoughts were indistinct. They sloshed, and he struggled to wrestle with them, so he didn’t try. His dueling experience said, the next thing to do was to wipe the blade clean. Dimly, he picked up the grey scarf and ran it over the sabre. Then Polocarija blinked out around him.
He hadn’t really passed out when next he was aware. His body had been moved maybe a couple of feet, up onto the scaffold. Zriyne was holding him up. Ștefan felt a large hand slip into his grip. It felt a little like Cantata’s, so he squeezed, and then it split. He looked. It was two hands, Zriyne’s closed around her sister’s, and Zriyne withdrew her own. Then, Djesdeona cut open his shirt and pressed on a big clump of gauze. It hadn’t hurt before. Now it screamed in betrayal, like his fingers, and his side, and near misses Ștefan had not realized had not been misses. Cantata’s fingers wriggled in his hand. He could hear Zriyne talking to her in another language.
Ștefan looked up at the sky. It was so bright it was almost gold. He squinted up until he heard a sound from Cantata he understood-- a whimper.
Zriyne said, no longer aside, “We must leave Doleri.”
Cantata whimpered again, and this time, wreathed in a blanket, she pressed against his side. When she spoke into his ear it dwarfed the pain in his chest and across his knuckles. She said, “How can I lose Mežižan again?”
Zriyne redoubled, again in the language of the Dadzhvo, and she shuffled Ștefan against the rail of the scaffold, where it hadn’t been cut nearly through by Markov’s relentless assault, then she stuck Cantata’s other hand in Ștefan’s, and said something once again. Her tone seemed hasty. Then she said, as though repeating, “Tell him.”
Cantata pulled her hand-- his too, by proxy-- and pulled her shroud taut. Ștefan watched as the little muscles in her face gathered their strength, and she said, “We have to leave Doleri. It won’t be—” so went the first time she lost her hold on herself, and it broke Ștefan’s heart to pieces to watch— “The Petroviches have noble blood. Even an Elantir, they’ll see it as murder. We can’t stay,” she repeated. Then she squeezed his hands so tight that the gash over his knuckles oozed slick blood, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her lip adjusted. “But please come with us.”
Ștefan thought of his dreamed-for spring wedding. The wrecked little veins in his hand burned. He broke the look for a moment and looked aside to the children. They were still there. Neither seemed to have been looking; they seemed absorbed in their own conversation, too furtive and too steeped in fraternal jargon to understand. But then, for a horrible moment, the girl child looked. There was a malignant satisfaction so potent in her expression that Ștefan could not bear to look any longer.
Cantata lay her head against his chest. He looked at Zriyne. Her expression was unmistakable: she was at her wits’ end persuading Cantata. She looked desperate for his help. The assignment could not be simpler in scope: persuade Cantata to leave. But Cantata had never even left Mežižan. Cantata, brilliant Cantata, who had suffered an ordeal unimaginable. Whom he had avenged, and was now to hurt again? Something hardened in his face. He looked at Zriyne when he spoke to Cantata, bundled in his arms.
“No,” he said. He hadn’t been sure until he said it. “We go into the desert. Past Mežižan, far, to the north, where Zedarium cannot reach us. But we don’t leave, Zriyne. After today, there will be no more losing. Not anyone, not the memory of Mežižan. I can’t allow it.”
Zriyne’s face went stricken. Ștefan knew what she wanted to say, what she had begged him to say in her stead, and why she couldn’t say it. They were both bound by their inability to hurt Cantata. Silent rage, then fear, and at last, a passing figment of understanding, dashed through her expression. Then, perhaps out of desperation, she started to nod. Djesdeona looked sidelong, but finally nodded as well.
Cantata’s head lifted. Zriyne’s hand brushed his arm and he met her eyes again, long enough for her glance to pass along a silent promise. When Zriyne looked, he could see in her eyes remorse. Remorse at expecting him to do what she herself had lacked the strength to. How could he have had any more? Perhaps she should have asked Djesdeona. He was, to his horror, glad, that he would not be alone in carrying regret. Djesdeona stood off.
“It’s past time to leave,” Djesdeona said.
Zriyne’s eyes left his, but that did nothing to unburden him. Cantata flinched when he put a hand on her kerchief, but she settled again. She pulled between Ștefan and Zriyne, unwilling to unhitch herself from either. She seemed leery of the Petrovich children, who remained after they departed, wordless and expressionless except for the horrible hint of a look Viktoria had given him.
Before Ștefan let go of her kerchief, he turned her face to his, aghast at the strength she had to bear. Her red eyes were now doubly so. It would have been too much to ask to abandon her, much too much to force her away from Mežižan. Too much to ask to die in front of her, not to kill Markov, and not to live to fear what came of it. Ștefan took pains to conceal, now, the truth of his fears. He was certain she knew he held them, but if such terror could be let lie, then perhaps it needn’t be so terrifying. He smiled.
“Now, come,” said Ștefan to Cantata. “I still have a month to make you my springtime bride.”