Episode 2: Kill Her
1157 Words
5 years later
THUD
The axe buried itself in bark.
Not the target.
Evan stared at it from across the clearing. Seven targets ringed him like silent judges. Seven untouched centres.
Seven misses.
Sweat trickled down his temple despite the autumn chill. His shoulder burned. His leg ached. His ribs felt like someone had wedged a knife between them and forgotten to pull it out.
He slammed his fist into the nearest tree.
Bark split against his knuckles.
Again.
Again.
By the fourth punch, blood streaked the trunk.
He barely felt it.
A knife whistled past his ear and hit the target dead centre.
"Show off," he muttered.
Boots crunched through leaves.
"I was aiming for your head." She gives him a look up and down before heavily sighing, “What is it this time?"
"Nothing." He yanked an axe from the ground,
"Interesting. Last month it was your leg. Last week, your back. Today you're pretending your shoulder isn't hanging on by a thread."
“I can handle pain,” He grunts back
"The tournament's in two weeks."
"I'm aware."
"Are you?" She asks back, getting into his space. "If you lose, the Congregation won't see a bad match. They'll smell weakness."
He says nothing.
"And once they smell blood…" Her eyes found his. "They won't stop at your title."
“I know,” He whispers back
“They will take away the GrandHuntsman position that has been in our family for generations,”
“I know,” He repeats
"Father's position—"
"I know, Mimi." His words cracked.
He drove the axe into a stump hard enough to split it.
"I know every single thing that's waiting to collapse if I fail."
“Go see Gracia,” She tries to be gentler this time.
“No.” His cold voice cuts her off.
“Pretending it didn’t happen doesn’t change the fact that it did! You are bonded and are suffering because of it.”
“I am fine,”
“No you aren’t!”
“Why are you pushing this?!”
Mimi refuses to look at Evan, staying silent.
“Mimi?” Evan presses her
"Warken knows."
Silence.
The axe slipped from his fingers.
"Knows what?"
"That you're failing.
“So please go to the medic, if not for yourself, for me. If they replace you as the next ruler, then the Congregation takes control. If they take over they are going to start another war and our people can’t handle that, I can’t handle that.” Mimi looks at him pleading, “Please.”
She pressed the axe back into his hand and walks away. He stares after her.
He hurls the axe with a scream.
It spun once.
Twice.
Then split the tree clean through.
Timber crashed to the ground.
Evan stood there breathing hard.
It wasn't enough. It never was.
– —- —- —- —-- —-- —-- —- —------ —----- —--- —----- —--- —--- —-----
Gracia's hut smelled of dried lavender and smoke. Bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling, silver beads woven through their stems.
She'd looked ancient when he was ten and somehow she looked exactly the same now. Her wrinkled black skin with dark gray dreads. It was comforting to know some things didn’t change.
“I came to you because I thought you would have another way to sever the bond. I can’t believe the other medics were right.”
“I gave you another option,” Her warm wise voice matches her pitiful look as she holds his hand,
“You gave me an impossible one,” He says back retracting his hand
“Hard yes, but not impossible,” She gives him a knowing look, he never liked that it felt she could see into his soul.
“If I did–”
Gracia interrupts him with a finger on her own lips shushing him, “It seems someone is waiting for you,” With a lower voice he continues, “Don’t worry he only heard the last bit,”
Evan looks at her confused before heavy leather boots approach the door. A large man with a dark gray beard and cold eyes entered.
“"I was wondering when you'd crawl out of the shadows," Evan drawls.
“I think I have a right to be curious when my son visits a medic,” The Grand Huntsman’s gravelly voice says with a nod to Gracia. She gives a curt nod back. She never liked him and never tried to hide it.
“Now that you’ve gotten a second opinion, are you ready to do what you have to?”
“I don’t have time to-” The words die in my throat, “The Prince is coming, I can’t just leave, it will look like i’m running away”
“What if you left to try and find the death speaker on nomads ground?" Gracia cuts in.
“Aressting fake mediums is a mission for a junior bounty,”
“Not if it comes from the Grand Huntsman himself, people will assume it’s important. If you left tonight before the news breaks that the Prince is coming early, it would just be thought you didn’t know as well,”
“Her kind does spend time around there and an easy mission would give you time to heal,” The Grand Huntsman agrees.
“You can’t possibly be agreeing to this absurd plan,” Evan counters, feeling the anger start building in his veins. A feeling that has been as common as breathing for him in the past few years.
"Have you forgotten what they did to your mother?" His words ring to Evan’s ears.
Evan's hand tightened in clenched fists.
"I haven't forgotten anything."
"Then remember properly."
His father stepped closer.
"They put her on a platform. They made people watch."
His heart clenches as if he is being cut with his own axe at his father's words.
“Nows not the time to be selfish! This is for your people!”
Selfish
Another cut.
“So what are you going to do?” His father’s voice raises as he steps into Evans' space. They are the same height but now he feels as small as he did when he saw his mother dragged off.
His father looked at him for a long time, "What are you going to do?"
The hut went silent. Outside, rain had started tapping against the windows.
Evan thought of his upcoming coronation, his mother and a pair of gold eyes he'd tried very hard to forget. He lifted his head.
"I'm going to sever the bond."
"How?"
He met his father's gaze, slowly, he made himself cold. The way his father always looked. The way a future Grand Huntsman should look.
"I'm going to kill her."
Silence.
Somewhere inside him, something split in half.
- Writer
