Vassal by Sterling D'Este (ebook reader computer TXT) 📕

There was a rustling of cloth, and suddenly Alphonse was standing before Tristan. Her eyes were watering over, and her cheeks were a mottled red of… rage?

Alphonse?

Angry?

And before she could think or breathe or do anything at all, she leaned down and slapped Tristan forcefully. The smack echoed through the cave, and Alphonse stumbled back from the blow, shocking herself at the power she had put into the strike. Her hand stung, and now she was crying, but she realized they were tears of wrath.

Bracing her hand against her chest, cradling it, Alphonse swallowed and fought the urge to apologize.

She looked around at the startled faces of her companions, then back down at Tristan. There was a red handprint on his cheek.

Embarrassment washed over Alphonse, and she hastily retreated to her tent.

✶

Etienne was standing when Alphonse rushed away, but he didn’t remember jumping to his feet. Delyth had gotten up as well, her face shocked. Only Tristan still sat, his cheek red with the force of Alphonse’s blow.

The rogue was grinning, his eyes wide with ridiculous amusement. “So fucking predictable,” he said, and his laugh rang throughout the cave.

Etienne wasn’t sure whether to be more disturbed by Tristan’s response or that Alphonse had slapped him in the first place. She was a healer for Gods’ sake. Always, she had treated the vow to do no harm to others with a near-spiritual fervor. It was her deepest calling.

And now?

She’d been so moved to anger that she’d lashed out. Hot and violent. For Delyth no less, who she had known for a matter of moons. All these moons, Tristan had treated him with careless malice, and never once had Alphonse stepped in. But all Tristan had to do was call Delyth a halfbreed to invoke the healer’s fury?

Etienne turned his eyes on the warrior, but she was looking away, back towards the tent she shared with Alphonse. Etienne had known that the two were getting closer, but since when had his dearest friend come to care so much about Delyth that she would strike someone just for taunting her?

Alphonse wasn’t just changing physically, not anymore. Her very personality seemed to be altering. And why, if not because of Enyo’s influence?

Delyth turned, meeting Etienne’s gaze only briefly before looking away again. She completely ignored Tristan, where he sat, now doubled over by his own mirth.

If Etienne had thought she might explain, he was wrong. She just turned and swept away from them both, back to the tent where Alphonse had disappeared.

Chapter XXI

Seventh Moon, Full: Thloegr

The healer had been looking down at her palm, which was equally as red as Tristan’s face, rubbing it in some mixture of regret when the tent flap opened.

Alphonse glanced over her shoulder quickly, half expecting Tristan to have come back for revenge. It was Delyth instead, and she sighed. “I’m sorry, Delyth. I shouldn’t have hit him. It’s not right to turn on one another like that…” She held out her hand imploringly, certain that some reprimand was coming. “I’ll apologize—”

Delyth smiled a little ruefully. “I think Tristan was overdo for a sound slap. Not that it did him any good. He’s out there cackling like a jackdaw.” Hesitantly, she stepped forward and took Alphonse’s outstretched hand in one of her own. “You needn’t worry so on my count, though,” she said. “I don’t need Tristan’s respect. I have my own and… and yours.”

Alphonse looked down at their hands, Delyth’s stronger, calloused one sheltering her small delicate one. A hand meant for healing.

Not harming.

She turned her hand over to see the slowly fading red mark on her palm. “No one ever told me it hurts to hit someone…” Her whole hand was stinging. “I guess that’s the price. If you raise your fist in anger…” She closed her fingers to hide the offending evidence and peered up through her lashes at Delyth instead.

“You do have my respect. But Delyth, I am sorry if I embarrassed you. I know you’re much stronger and braver. You don’t need me raising a fuss just because of Tristan.” She swallowed. “Well. Even if I didn’t like him saying those things to you. About you. Even if it did make me… angry.” She whispered the last word.

She felt like a brute.

But he had sneered and called Delyth a mule and… It wasn’t right! Delyth was beautiful and wise and careful, thoughtful. She was patient, and— Alphonse sighed. “You deserve better than that.” Better than Tristan name-calling, better than Alphonse lashing out, better than the temple warriors pushing her harder than the rest of the initiates in her story.

༄

Delyth blushed again, her stomach twisting with equal parts warmth and discomfort. “That’s a high peak you’ve set me on. I’m afraid I might fall off and disappoint you.”

Some of the things that Alphonse said, Delyth had believed herself when she was younger: that it hadn’t been fair to be put in the world so different and despised.

But, it was just the hand she’d been dealt. She’d jresponded how anyone would have if faced with her odds.

And Gods knew she’d made plenty of mistakes. Some of them bloody and gruesome.

She squeezed Alphonse’s fist, where it lay closed in her own. “Violence always has a cost. Some of my worst mistakes have been made forgetting that. And I’ve made plenty of them. Mistakes, I mean.”

It seemed important to get Alphonse to realize that, if only so that Delyth wouldn’t let her down in the future.

❀

She very much doubted Delyth’s mistakes remotely resembled the magnitude of her own… Sneaking up to the temple to destroy Enyo. Lying to Delyth about her real purpose on this journey. Letting herself tumble into whatever this was between them without any real hope for a future. Making Etienne worry over her…

Not stopping Etienne before he enacted an ancient ritual they had no business attempting…

She had known it was beyond their abilities. She had known it was dangerous and