“I'm going in,” Sibba answered. “You two stay here. If he escapes, shout. Give chase. Anything. Just don't let him get away.”
Before either could argue, Sibba took off into the dark. On silent feet, she crept through one of the barren fields, ducking low so as not to cast a shadow. With the moon half-hidden behind the clouds, it was fairly easy for her to sneak unseen to hide under the overhang of the outbuilding. From inside there came the uneasy snort of a horse and the bleating of sheep. There was the sharp, iron scent of blood in the air. His, she hoped.
Anger made her brave, or reckless, depending on her mood. In this case, she knew she was being careless, but she couldn't help herself. The rage was back, simmering just below the surface, threatening to spill over into everything else. He was here somewhere, and she would find him, and she would kill him. She touched the ax handle and dared to ask Hefdis for help one last time before slipping across the yard and inside the house without a sound.
Evenon slept soundly on a bench, covered in furs. His boots were beside the door, along with his bow and quiver full of arrows, minus the one that had killed her mother. A boar was on a spit, dripping fat into the flames that sizzled and popped. Draped on the warm stones beside the hearth were strips of bloodied cloth and his once-white shirt soaked red and torn. What she had seen in her vision, then, had come to pass. What had Tola done to her?
She considered drawing the sword—killing him with his brother's own sword would be satisfying—but the weapon was too burdensome in the small space. Instead, she pulled the ax from her belt and knelt at Evenon's side. He shifted and she froze. The blanket slid off and she saw the oozing gash in his abdomen and the darkening bruises spreading over his ribs. The strange tattoos seemed to pulse and fade, swirling with a magic she didn’t understand.
The ax was warm and sharp in her hand, a silent predator, a beast that bit hungrily into flesh and always thirsted for more. She brought it to his cheek just as he had done to her, and pressed it hard there until it drew blood.
He woke with a sudden jerk and she held him down with her other hand. His eyes looked wildly around the room as they adjusted to the darkness, but she saw the moment he recognized her. The moment he knew that death had come for him. Did he think she was a wight come from the forest, perhaps? A monster? Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong.
“You have something of mine,” she said, her voice a low, hissing whisper. The hearth fire crackled as a log crumbled, but it was the only sound. Neither of them moved.
“It was never yours,” he said.
She pressed the ax harder to his cheek. A drop of blood leaked down his face like a tear. When one of his hands began to reach up for her, she stood and leaned a knee on his poorly-bandaged wound. He gasped, his eyes closing and his head tilting back. The movement dragged the ax down his face, opening a thin cut in a straight line perpendicular to the scar her mother had given him. A twin to the one that ran down Sibba’s face.
“That's fine,” she said, her voice still dangerously quiet. “I have no problem killing you first and then finding it.”
“You can do whatever you want,” he managed to choke out, “but you will always be a fraud.”
“Unlike you, I've never tried to be something I'm not,” Sibba answered. It was his tricks that had started this, his own need to be someone else for the girl he loved that brought him to the Fields in the first place. “If you are to be believed, that circlet belonged to my mother. Whoever your Crowheart girl is, I would rather die than see you give it to her. She doesn't deserve it.”
“Your mother was a coward.”
Sibba leaned more of her weight on her knee, anger making her vision blurry. He howled in pain, his back arching. Who was he to call anyone a coward? Lies and betrayal were weapons of the weak.
She lifted the ax. One clean slice across the neck. That was all it would take and then she would be rid of him. One more brother to complete the set.
But this wasn't like Gabel or Vyion. It was harder to kill a man who was helpless on his back, who wasn't fighting back. This wasn’t the Fielding way, and she realized with a start that that was important to her. If he was meant to live, he would. She would give him a fighting chance. It would make her victory that much sweeter.
“Get up,” she demanded, getting to her feet. When he didn't move, she hauled him up by the arms. He fell to the ground with a grunt. “Get up!” she screamed at him. The ax sang to her, begged her for another taste of blood, but she held herself back. She was dizzy with anger, with everything she had been holding in since the moment she realized that Gabel intended to attack her, and it scared her more than anything else. The idea that she could lose control. Each move, each swing of her blade, had to be precise and planned, or else there was room for error and regrets, neither of which she needed any more of in her life.
Evenon was crawling away from her, trying to stand but falling. Finally, he reached the hearth and used the hot stones to pull himself to his feet. He stood, one hand pressed to his wound, and pushed himself to the door and his weapon there. Sibba didn't move but instead let her eyes follow the trail of blood he left on the floor, a gruesome streak of red from the bench to the hearth.
It took an eternity for him to reach his bow. He lifted it and an arrow and collapsed against the wall beside the door as he tried to string it with trembling fingers. He wasn't going to run, then; he was going to stand and fight. He may not believe in her gods, but this would get him into Elanos. Maybe when they met there, she would finally be able to ask him why he had betrayed her as he had.
Three steps. That was all it would take. Sibba raised the ax to her shoulder, lifted her lip in a half-snarl, half-smile, and lunged.
The door behind Evenon crashed open in a flurry of wild red hair and black robes. “Sibba! Don't!”
Over his shoulder, her eyes met startling green ones nearly hidden behind a band of black kohl. Sibba stopped, not wanting to catch Tola in the crossfire, and that was all Evenon needed. Something struck Sibba in the right shoulder, knocking her off balance. She stumbled sideways, hitting the hearth and going down to her knees, the ax tumbling from her hand.
Her vision went blurry, but she heard a scramble in the door and then it swung closed with a bang. He was gone.
“Oh gods, Sibba,” Tola said, kneeling beside her, but Sibba ignored her. She reached up with her left hand and snapped the shaft of the arrow off so that there was only an inch or two left. The arrowhead was buried deep in her shoulder, but the adrenaline hid the pain, and she was going to take advantage of it while she could. Holding her right arm to her chest, she picked up her ax again and pushed herself to her feet, ignoring Tola's hands on her.