A Nightingale's Tale

Chapter Fourteen

She woke late again. She was glad no one had woken her though. She was still tried and sore from fighting for hours the night before. She loved feeling sore from a good dueling session. Even though he wasn’t a very good fighter yet, his stamina made up for it. She rubbed at the dull ache in her muscles at her shoulders as she stretched the sleep out of her system. A pile of clothes was in the corner that hadn’t been there before. She looked through the shirts, shorts, and pants. She assumed they weren’t Sofia’s because of how tiny she was, these clothes would never fit her. A new set of clothes made her feel like a new person. She washed up with a bowl of water and soap on a table. She actually felt like a living person for the first time in days.

The breeze outside her tent startled her, it was much cooler outside than inside her tent. Everyone was off doing their jobs for the day and no one was around the center of camp. Lydia hoped there would be some food left. She found a bowl with a note laying on it on a stump.

“I’m in the library. Eat up and join me there. -Sofia.”

Lydia happily sat on the stump and ate her cold oats and blackberries. She felt good about the day. The cool autumn breeze whipped the trees into each other. The hairs on her arms stood up at the welcome breeze. She contemplated asking Sofia for a sweater. She was almost finished when a familiar face sat beside her.

“Late getting up?” Larid said to her.

“Late night,” she responded, “How are you feeling?”

“Much better. Thank you.”

He kept his gaze straight, into the coals of the remaining morning cooking fire.

“Can I show you something?” he asked.

She hadn’t spoken much to Larid and this startled her. He hadn’t seemed like he really wanted to get to know Lydia in any way before. “I suppose, but I need to get back to the library soon.”

“It won’t take long,” he said standing.

Larid and Lydia walked through the forest but this time they weren’t on a path. They were just walking through the woods. Larid didn’t say a single word to her the whole time they walked. Lydia began to grow uneasy the farther they got from camp.

“I should really get back,” she said slowing her pace.

“Just a little further,” he said.

“No, really, I need to get back.” She turned and began walking back.

“I can’t let you do that. I really am sorry for this.”

He lunged at her with a knife. She went to press on her crystal as he kicked her hand. She cried in pain as her hand smacked a tree next to her. She turned and ran as she held onto her aching wrist with her other hand. He was right behind her. she stumbled over a bush only to find herself in the middle of a thicket. She felt his hand reach over her shoulder.

“LARID, STOP!” Killian was yelling and running toward them. Larid had a knife, an athame, pressed to her throat.

“Don’t do this,” Killian yelled with one hand extended toward Larid. Larid pressed the knife firmly to Lydia’s throat.

“You can’t see it, Killian. She will be the destruction of us all. Remember what you in said at Lanely. You’ll thank me later!”

“Larid, please put the knife down,” he pleaded.

Lydia could feel the heat from the athame against her neck. He held her right arm at an angle that made it impossible for her to open her praecant.

Killian took a step forward, Larid pressed the athame into her skin. She cried out as the warmth of blood fell down her chest.

“Stay back,” he yelled, “I’m doing this for all of us. We’ll die if she stays here.”

Killian was becoming more anxious with every word Larid said.

Lydia couldn’t reach her praecant, but she knew of other methods. She watched his foot behind her out of the corner of her eye. She needed him to just step a few inches further and she could get out of his grip.

“Larid, she saved your life,” Killian yelled.

“She should have let me die, dying would be better than being slaughtered or enslaved by Guardians! Think about what they’ll do when they find out she’s here. Killian, you aren’t thinking clearly.”

“Larid, stop.”

“If we kill her now and take her body to the coven, hopefully, they’ll spare us.”

Larid dug the knife further into her skin, blood was now running down her chest and onto her stomach. Her new clothes were sticking to the wetness. She felt his arm move back.

“I’m doing this for all of us,” he said as he began to pull the knife backward with more force.

She felt Larid’s body stiffen behind her and the knife loosened against her neck. The smell of sulfur drenched the air around them. Larid fell to the ground behind her, his arms still around her pulling her onto him. She stumbled forward to get away from him. Lydia could see scorch marks on the back of his shirt. She rolled him over to see his skin sizzling in a circle. Skin, bone, and organ melted together as the potion ate through him. Sofia stood behind her, and Larid’s dissolving body, with a glass jar in her hand. Liquid fire, a dangerous potion. Lydia hadn’t taught that potions chemistry to Sofia, she must have found the recipe on her own. Sofia screamed.

“The book said it was an immobility spell!” Sofia said shaking. There was still some clear liquid in the bottle. Lydia walked slowly to her to take the jar from her shaking hands so she couldn’t spill any on herself.

“Sofia, it’s ok. Give me the bottle,” Lydia said. She saw her hand had small burns where drops had spilled as she threw the liquid. Lydia’s glove protected her hand as she took the bottle.

Killian ran over toc them and turned Larid’s body completely over. The decay was coming through to the front now, creating dark spots on his chest.

“Go to the tent!” Killian screamed at Sofia. She hunched her shoulders in as if to hide from him.

“I didn’t….”

“NOW!”

She ran off as she covered her face with her hands.

“Killian,” Lydia said trying to calm him down.

“No,” he said pushing her off, “This is your fault. Don’t teach her anymore!”

“Killian, she didn’t know what she was doing.”

“She killed someone because of something you taught her!”

“I didn’t teach her that. I barely even know how to make liquid fire, especially not in that quantity. And he was going to kill me.”

“I wasn’t going to let that happen, but he didn’t need to die by her hands. That’s something she will never she able to take back. Just go, I need to give Larid a proper burial. He was with us from almost the beginning. JUST GO!”

Lydia understood what he was saying, Larid had been there much longer than she had been, he probably saved many lives, and she was the reason he was dissolving on the ground.

The whole camp was filled with people wondering what had happened. Lydia couldn’t look at any of them.

“I heard it was Larid,” she heard someone say.

“Lydia!” Camille said running toward her.

Oh no, Lydia thought. She couldn’t face telling anyone what had just happened.

“Did you see what happened? People are saying Larid did something.”

“I…he’s dead.” She turned away from Camille, leaving her with an expression of horror stuck on her face, and headed to the library. Lydia didn’t know what to say so she just said the truth. She had gotten that unempathetic truthfulness from her mother. She had been constantly like that.

She sat in the chair in front of the biggest table that held all of her notes. She spun a feather, from Annora, the Ekek, between her fingers. It was slick with an oil that Lydia had been researching the day before. The flap at the front of the tent brushed against the side, someone had entered.

“Here,” Sofia said slamming a red book, Lydia had never seen, on the desk in front of her.

Lydia looked at the cover, “Kartikeya.” She flipped through the pages. She didn’t understand the language but almost all of it was translated above the lines or off to the side. Lydia found a book-marked page and recognized some of the translated words.

“This is where you got the ingredients.”

“Yes. I found it on Lyon’s bed when I tried to find something to help you.”

One the left page was a description of an immobility potion, just as Sofia had said. However, the right page wasn’t the right ingredients for one. A page had been torn out between them. It was for liquid fire and the amount of the ingredients was a lot larger than Lydia had ever performed. This was supposed to harm a lot of people at once. She flipped through a few more pages and saw more potions.

“Have you made any others?”

“No, that one caught my eye. Killian is going to want to know how I know how to do that potion. This proves you didn’t teach it to me. He’s going to kill me when he finds out I took this and used it.”

“I don’t need this to prove I didn’t teach you something like that.”

“I had better go,” she said.

“Why? We have people to heal.”

“Killian said…”

“I can’t heal Annora or Oliver by myself, or any of the others at this point.”

Sofia sat down and began crying, “I’ve known Larid for years, I would never…”

Lydia sat and watched the small girl sob into her palms.

“I’m sorry,” Sofia cried out and wiped her face. “I know you didn’t know him…I just…I didn’t know what was going to happen. I mean, I did but I didn’t. I killed him…I killed Larid…”

Lydia realized, she was the one being strange, not Sofia. A man had just died in front of her, she should feel something. But, she didn’t. Was it because she didn’t know Larid well or was it something else. Had everything she had been through desensitized her to tragedy?

“Sofia!” Killian yelled running into the tent. “I told you I didn’t want you in here anymore.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Who’s going to heal people when I leave?” Lydia protested.

“Lyon will be back, he can keep teaching you,” he said ignoring Lydia.

“Lyon’s never here,” Sofia said with bloodshot eyes.

“Sofia, I’m not doing this,” he said with one eyebrow raised.

“Lydia, I need to speak with you,” he said.

He practically ran out of the tent. Lydia looked at Sofia, who looked as upset as he was and followed him. He was deep into the trees by the time she caught up to him. He wasn’t slowing down. “Where are we going?”

“I should have known better.”

“What?”

“I should have listened to reason and never let you stay.”

“You’re kicking me out?” she said and stopped walking.

He heard her stop and stopped a few paces ahead. His back was to her and she could see how tense his muscles were underneath his shirt. A line of sweat ran down his spine and stained his white shirt yellow. She suddenly felt terrified. She didn’t want to leave. She couldn’t leave yet, she didn’t know anything that would help her find Arabella.

“Killian, I’m sorry. I know I haven’t been here long, but I have helped...”

“Just stop, stop it!” he yelled. He spun to face her but didn’t get any closer.

She was surprised and jumped back on the heels of her feet.

“I have risked so much just by letting you be here. Everything I have worked so hard for, helping these people, would be ruined instantly. Being slaughtered by magicians like you would probably be way worse than what they would have gone through if I had just left them. A good man, a friend, was killed because of you.”

A bird fluttered above her head and shook left-over rainwater from a branch. He looked away from her, which she was glad of. She didn’t know what the expression on her face read and she didn’t want him to see it. He straightened his shoulders and Lydia tried to make her facial expression as neutral as possible. He turned back to her and began walking toward her. He stopped when he was only an arm’s reach away.

“Don’t teach Sofia anything but healing spells. I haven’t figured out what to say to everyone so just…don’t say anything until I do.”

He looked at her with a wrinkled brow. He didn’t look young in the dim lighting of the forest. Lydia knew the look that rested above his lips and pressed against his brows, she knew it all too well, disappointment. She had seen that same expression painted across everyone that encountered her at Covet even before she tried out to be a Guardian years ago. That looked had kept her paralyzed before she learned to train. After training had started, however, that look was the only thing that made her better than everyone else she fought. Once again, she was going to have to prove her worth.