“and if by life or death I can save you, I will.”
Each carving slice Antiope makes in the wood opens up another cut inside of her. The rings wrap themselves around her heart in bands of steels that are getting tighter, and tighter. It hurts. But when the stones are being carved Isra counts them one by one, just as she counts the sharp facets of each carving. She presses her eyes closed against the ache, against the sharp stab of a cold tear leaking through.
There is a memory of counting banging like a hammer behind her eyes. Now she counts the beats of her heart and waits, tight and barely held together, to feel the drop, drop, drop of blood against her wet cheek. It feels like she's waiting for snow, for flakes each more impossibly cold and intricate than the last.
When Isra gets to the last stone and she hears the sigh of a axe cleaving the wood she opens her eyes. The bright glare burns and something in her chest, some fury sea of magic, starts to rise, and burn and shine in answer to that glowing weapon. There is a star in her core, a furious comet streaking violently though the cosmos towards some nameless, foretold death.
Death, she thinks, there is that word again. And the pitted knife blade still feels like a brier against the fragile grip of her magic. Isra holds it tighter and welcomes the sting.
She looks away from the burning wood and her smile feels like a mouthful of shark teeth when she steps back from the smoke and cinder. All the cuts left in her are bleeding, and bleeding, and bleeding until there is nothing more inside the once slave than a ocean of salted-down blood. Isra is choking on it, and she's almost surprised that the ice at her hooves isn't turning crimson as she starts to drown.
“Thank you.” Her eyes say the rest, for walking with me, for cutting free all this death inside of me. They are blue gemstones, hard and faceted in her head (and they are two instead of four). She's still holding that blade like a candle. It catches like firelight in the glow of the lanterns, and she does not need to wonder what darkness she might chase back with it.
This time when Isra blinks her tears are turning to sharp diamond drops thudding against the floor. Still she's counting, each word, each cut, each ring around her heart. “It's not wood that I must carve.” One. Two. Three. She's still backing away and when she gets to four she turns and starts to run. Fable roars in the distance, urging her to hurry.
It's not wood she has to carve.
It's a king.
It's the world.
@Antiope
