Silver sank back down to the floor, her back against the tree. The light was fading now, her campfire long since turned to ash; a fitting visual to her sunken mood. She closed her eyes against the coming dark, not needing further reminder of what lay both behind and ahead, and simply breathed.
He was not supposed to have come after her. He was not supposed to have seen her again. The letter she had sent had been representative of punctuation, a firm and final goodbye to a man who could have meant so much to her had circumstances been different. He was not supposed to have followed her halfway across Bree-land for one last kiss and an explanation that would never have sat well.
But he had and she, in response, had been more honest with him than she had at any other time of her life. A mistake? Possibly, but not one that would matter for much longer. He was gone now, returned to Bree and the raven-haired beauty to whom he offered his dedication. She would not see him again and that was for the best. Her coffin sported enough nails already, she did not need them driven in further with the sledgehammer wielded by the object of her infatuation and his lovely partner. She did not need that reminder of her inherent inability to be loved or her foolishness in wanting to.
He had asked her to await his return, to give him time to think, but she knew that he didn't need it. His path was set, as was hers. Before morning she would be gone. It was easier for everyone that way...
The rustling of the leaves from the low hanging trees caused a frown to settle upon her brow. He could not be back so soon, surely? That had certainly not been enough time to "clear his head," to give the illusion of pouring some serious thought into the matter so as to soften the blow when he reiterated a rejection he had already made.
"Go back to Bree,'" she sighed.
"When we've only just found you?" the response came from a voice at once both familiar and yet foreign to her. "Get up, Mutt."
She had heard a younger version echoing in her nightmares over the years, always speaking those very words. Her eyes snapped open, widening as her gaze fell upon the faces of the three men. They were older now, meaner somehow, angrier than she had ever seen them, but she knew them. Despite her best efforts, she had never forgotten. Just as she had never forgotten the fear. In but an instant, the tall, proud woman who had stalked so many lands, facing the undead and monsters alike in her pursuit of riches of the past was reduced again to naught but a terrified child.
Alone now as she had been so many years ago, she did as Aerlrick had commanded without question. Bark fell down to the soft grass as she pushed herself to her feet whilst pressing her back against the tree, needing the feel of something solid to support her suddenly weak legs. Her breath huffed in and out of her nostrils, short and ragged, as Thaelan stepped closer. She grit her teeth, turning her face away when he raised his hand to run the back of his fingers along her cheek.
"You always were such a good little dog,'" he told her, grinning nastily.
"Don't touch," spoke up Randir, mocking as ever. "You'll get brown on you!"
"Hah!" Aelrick shot back. "Wouldn't be the first time, would it Thaelan?"
Silver cringed, truths she had long since buried being pushed once more to the surface.
"What did you do with her, Sairona?" Aerlick, the eldest of the three, continued. "Speak!"
Silver had no idea what, or who, they referred to. She tried to tell them, voice quavering. She hated herself for that. She hated herself for her weakness in the face of these three. She hated the way her body curled automatically forward, the air driven out of her by Thaelan's fist to her abdomen. She hated the way they laughed.
"Wrong answer, Mutt!"
She sensed, rather than saw, Thaelan drawing back his arm for another strike. She sensed, rather than saw, the amusement of Aerlick, the sadistic joy of Randir. In her minds eye, she saw the others - Anasis, Yana, her father, his wife - watching on with varying degrees of indifference or pleasure for her pain.
Suddenly, she hated them more than she had ever hated herself.
Curling her hand into a fist, she crooked her arm and forced it up with all the power born of her rage. Even were it not for that, twenty years of regularly swinging a pickaxe had conditioned and strengthened her form to a high degree. His jaw broke beneath the impact, his thick frame raising several inches into the air before falling back onto the grass. The shock and horror on the faces of the other pair were delicious, but short-lived. She curled her lip into a snarl, pale gaze flitting from one to the other to see who would come at her next.
The answer was both.
She fought back as best she could, but it wasn't long before she was overpowered by the pair, and then by the trio as Thaelan came back into the fray. Blows rained down upon her from all directions, unstoppable, indefensible save her for arms covering her head. They yelled at her, screaming that she deserved every kick, every punch, that she should never have been born. Everything would have been so much better if she'd never existed.
By the time they were done, she was barely conscious. She could do nothing as they spoke amongst themselves, discussing what they should do with her now. They must have thought her already dead. She felt strong hands, slick with blood, grip her wrists and ankles. Each step they took sent waves of agony through her battered body but she refused to make a sound.
"Throw her down there," Aerlick ordered. "No one will come looking anyway. Flithy half-breed."
A gobbet of warm spit hit her cheek. She would have opened her eyes to glare, if she could but they were already swollen shut. She barely registered it as she was swung first one way and then the other. Fingers unclenched from around her limbs and for several seconds she was free. She flew through the air, graceless in her prone state but rid of all that had ever held her back...
Her back hit hard stone, driving what little air she had back out of her.
"You should never have done it, Sairona," came a last shout from somewhere above. "You should never have driven Varani away!"
So, that was what this had been about? The youngest of her half-siblings had chosen her own path and Silver was to blame for it? Had the girl come back to Bree in pursuit of that local lad - what was his name again? - Braxdan? Good on her!
Silver tried to laugh but her ribs hurt abominably. She wanted to scream defiance to them, to let them know that they had failed to kill her yet again. She wanted to taunt them, her half-brothers, the boys, now men, who had hurt her so many times over the years. She wanted to...
But she couldn't. She was helpless, bloodied and broken, body afire from pain save for her legs which were curiously numb, lying upon a thin ledge halfway down a ravine in the Eastern Bree-fields, Sairona's last thought for that night was as simple as it was poignant.
If I make it out of this alive, you won't.
