Now, Shoot
"Coward. He meant it to go this way from the start. Arthurs is a monster in his own right—don't worry so much."
Naz's face stayed dark.
"It's just..."
"What? Speak."
"He is cruel beyond all necessity. The knights who dueled him, every last one of them..."
White to the lips, Naz stumbled on.
"They died with their skulls crushed. And when he wins a duel, he cuts off a hand for a trophy..."
Naz broke down and wept.
"When he was little I changed his diapers... he's like a grandson to me—"
"So what is Arthurs doing now?"
"The Vice Commander and Sir Navaron have taken him in hand. The training is brutal."
"Run him like the real thing. Those Mardus bastards will never give him a fair duel."
Ilya drove his fingers into his temples. Weariness all but dripped from his face. Naz hesitated, then ventured on with care.
"My lady... has refused both food and drink."
"Of course. She's blaming herself. She turns everything into her own fault."
"Will you not go to the Annex? The wound that damned man left on my lady's face..."
A stir of voices rose beyond the door, and Ilya called out toward it.
"What is it?"
One of the knights on guard hurried in, looking uneasy.
"Your Grace. My lady... has come."
A crack ran through Ilya's composure. Naz started and turned toward the doorway.
"Evelynn? Send her in."
A moment later a woman stepped into the office, her face hidden behind a white veil. She lingered a long while at the threshold, hesitating.
"Come here and sit."
Ilya watched, unblinking, as Evelynn crossed the room with slow steps. When she finally stopped, Naz bent at the waist.
"My lady. You've come."
"Yes, Sir Naz. It's been a long time."
A familiar face loosened the knot in her, and Evelynn smiled, small and brief. Ilya looked at the two of them and flicked a hand.
"That's enough. Out."
Naz glanced from one to the other, worried, then left the office. Alone together, they let the silence stretch, and it was Ilya who broke it.
"I didn't think you'd come all the way here."
"I'm sorry. I wasn't going to come... but there was something I had to tell you."
"I'm not faulting you for coming."
Evelynn lifted the white veil from her face. Bruises and cuts the powder could not hide came into view, and Ilya's brow shot up.
"What, exactly, did you have to say to him that was worth this?"
He snarled it.
Evelynn, who had kept her eyes lowered, raised her head and spoke each word clear.
"My brother is a greedy man. And in equal measure he is fearful, and full of suspicion."
"And what does that have to do with you being beaten?"
His face twisted, terrible.
"I sowed a little discord between my brother and Father. I never dreamed he would strike my maid inside the archducal castle."
"Did I ever tell you to do a thing like that?"
His gaze only grew sharper, and Evelynn's nerves frayed. She rushed to add more.
"I told you I'd play the double agent, didn't I? No one here knows my brother better than I do, so I wanted to do whatever I could."
Ilya's face set cold.
"That damned bargain is the only thing in your head. Because that's how you get to run from here even a day sooner."
The words struck dead center. Evelynn bowed her head, and her palms seemed to grow damp with the strain.
"You don't have to rush. Ayatoll Mardus will die by my hand soon enough."
"I'm sorry. I should have endured it... and because of me, young Arthurs..."
Tears were creeping into her voice. This is not the time to cry. Evelynn gave her head one hard shake, looked into that cold face, and pleaded.
"Arthurs hasn't even been knighted yet. Please stop this duel. You can, Your Grace, can't you?"
"Naz and the Vice Commander both tried to talk him down, and he still means to fight. There's nothing I can do."
Ilya shook his head, remembering the boy's eyes, grave and bright as he had never seen them.
"Arthurs is your knight. A man who stands idle while the lady he protects is struck across the face is no knight at all."
"But..."
"He did what had to be done. You have nothing to be sorry for."
Knight and lady. It sounded like something out of a fairy tale, and yet those ordinary words set Evelynn strangely at ease. Is it because he said it so calmly? The heart that had been racing with dread seemed to grow still.
Ilya had been quietly studying her pale face. On impulse he reached out, and thick-knuckled fingers brushed the faint bruise on her cheek and the cut at the corner of her mouth. She flinched. The touch was gentle enough to raise gooseflesh; every hair on her body seemed to stand on end.
"Has this... happened before?"
Evelynn understood what her husband was asking, and her head sank. From the earliest days of their marriage he had said it almost out of habit: she was no cherished princess, delicately raised. Even so, she did not want to hear herself admit that she had grown up being beaten like an animal.
His footsteps crossed the floor. He rose and came to stand before her, and Evelynn lifted her head, just a little.
"Have you ever hunted?"
"No... not once."
He looked down at her for a long moment, his face impossible to read, then offered a hand. They began to walk slowly through the office. Weapons and the hides of beasts dressed the walls, and a chill slid down her spine. Ilya stopped at one place and took a weapon down from its hook.
"A bow?"
"No. This is a crossbow. They say an ancestor of House Azantis favored it. He used to amuse himself at hunting games with his lover, this in his hands."
Evelynn could not have said how a bow differed from a crossbow, but she listened to her husband in silence. Ilya took her hand again and drew her on. Before a great pane of glass he stopped and thrust the crossbow toward her.
"Want to take a shot?"
"What? This... me? Father... I was a daughter, so he never even let me near a weapon."
She had never heard such a thing in her life, and the shock tangled her tongue. He shook the crossbow in his grip, his face cold.
"If Sir Bellina heard that, she'd spit blood. You can. Try."
Can I even hold this? What if I drop it?
Evelynn drew one long breath and took the crossbow. What? Why does it lift so easily? She raised it to eye level in a single motion and looked from her own arm to the weapon, dazed.
"I must be stronger than I thought."
"Ha. Sorry to disappoint you, but no. There's a lightening enchantment on it."
Ilya broke into a broad, unguarded laugh. Evelynn wilted and hung her head. He stepped in behind her and stood as if to fold her into his arms.
"Lift it to eye level. Brace the underside with your left hand."
He took her left arm and set the angle of the crossbow. His right hand closed over hers where it gripped the trigger.
"Yes... that's how you do it."
He whispered, and his breath touched her face, hot. The glass gave her back the sight of herself, nearly held in a man's arms, aiming. Her heart kicked. She thought it would burst and kill her.
"Evelynn. Imagine it. Yourself, loosing this."
Evelynn shut her eyes tight and called up the seat of Marquisate Mardus—Acrid Castle, an impregnable fortress raised upon a dizzying height.
Startled, Evelynn turned her head. She met those sharply gleaming blue eyes straight on, and for a moment she forgot to breathe.
"You're an Illusionist. You may not be able to kill them in truth, but you can hurt them until they beg you for death."
Could I... do that? Her lot had eased a little since the bargain with him, but she still had no faith in herself.
"When that day comes, I'll leave Odin Mardus to you."
What did he just... At words she had never expected, the hand on the trigger began to shake.
"Am I... going to the central plains with you? When you take your revenge?"
Ilya answered as calmly as if she had asked something that went without saying.
"No one knows Acrid Castle better than you do. And the Black Forest Knights have no Illusionist."
"W-would I... actually be of any help?"
He said he needed what I can do. It was the first time in her life she had heard such a thing, and the thrill of it tangled her tongue.
"If you can't, make some monster that lives in the sea and drown the lot of them. You're good at whales."
He tossed it off with an idle face, and Evelynn's face flared scarlet.
"When Arthurs fights his duel, I'm going too."
"If you don't appear, Arthurs will be hurt."
Thump. Thump. Thinking of Arthurs still left her anxious, and yet her heart was beating with a strange, sweet pleasure.
Evelynn closed one eye and glared out through the window. She shifted the crossbow this way and that, taking aim beyond the glass, and Ilya looked down at her in surprise. He lifted, just a little, the arm that braced the stock.
Give up wanting it all at once. Focus, and take them one by one. Start with what I can do—carefully, a single thing at a time. And then, someday...
Her trembling finger hauled hard on the trigger. The bolt shot through the window and punched clean through a lantern hanging from a branch. She had fired it herself and still could not believe it, and she rubbed at her eyes.
"Did you—did you see? I hit it!"
"That's how you do it. Well done."
He tapped her shoulder the way he did his knights. The pale face that had been panting flushed red in an instant. A red earlobe showed through the curls of golden hair, and Ilya laughed, short and quiet.