Page 32 of A Broken Promise (the Freckled Fate #1)

32

I wiped my knife clean against his limp shoulder. Blood soaked his black linen shirt. Knife to the heart. Quick and easy. I had gotten much better at aiming and my draw to action speed had increased significantly. Though each time, it still surprised me how human flesh, usually so resilient, was nothing against the sharpness of a blade.

“You never said that he was a SulnGod priest,” Priya said from the adjoining room of the small house-turned-church. She was finishing up her carving of the letter S on the dead priest’s wife.

Bornea Miteno didn’t have a chance to run as I shot him with a crossbow arrow the moment he opened his door. I had no speech for him, nothing to say to his familiar face.

Just pure justice. Maybe not even justice, considering I was still alive, and he was not. His dead body now left forever to rot.

Karma was a bitch.

“I never took you for a religious one,” I shouted back to Priya. She laughed.

Miteno was a priest, but he and his wife were more rotten than the demons of Hell itself.

It was easy to find him once we got to the village. His wooden church with a brick step was the only building with the circle at the peak. Worshipers of SulnGod.

He didn’t even recognize me. But then again, I didn’t give him a chance.

The whole day walking down here, to this village, I thought about what was I going to say to him. Would I ask him why? But the truth was I stopped caring about why a long time ago.

So, when I saw his face, I dove into the familiar numbness. Shot, punch, slice. His wife only had a chance to scream once before Priya claimed her life as well.

“I am just curious, why him though?” she shouted back from the room.

“He sold me into slavery. He took me in at my lowest, I opened up to him, trusted him, and then when I questioned him about receiving wages, he sold me off.” I sheathed the knife. My face filled with revulsion as I took another look at Miteno’s body. Even now, the deep wrinkles on his face made him look so comforting and welcoming. A wolf hiding in sheep’s skin. No more.

“Remind me to never sell you into slavery.” Priya’s laugh echoed as she came out from the room, but I didn’t share the sentiment. I should have felt relief, victory. I made it out of slavery, despite the odds, and came back to take his life. A sweet revenge. But there were no celebrations held, because deep inside, a part of me was just as lost as the day I showed up on Miteno’s porch asking for work and shelter.

“We should’ve buried them,” I finally said, verbalizing the thought that had been truly on my mind all day.

“What?” Priya asked, confused, going through their drawers and shaking out the books in search of her trophy.

“We should’ve buried those bodies.” I paused. “Those Rebel sympathizers,” I clarified.

“Oh hell, Freckles, is that why you’ve been so quiet today? It’s a pile of dead bodies. Above the ground, under the ground, they will all rot and turn into dirt eventually.”

I should’ve buried them. I should’ve, but I didn’t. It took all my strength to just glance one more time at the frozen, tangled arms and legs, hands and feet exposed forever to the elements, and walk away. I had a million valid reasons not to bury them. I didn’t know them, I could’ve been easily killed for helping Rebel sympathizers, plus the ground was frozen rock solid by the morning, and hell, I didn’t even have a shovel.

But valid reasons don’t clear up a guilty conscious.

I should have clawed the frozen ground with my bare hands, ripping my nails apart. I should have buried them.

Should have.

But I didn’t.

“Who knows how many more this prick sold into slavery, and now thanks all to you, he is no longer. If it makes you feel any better, you can count this kill as your contribution to the Rebel cause, if it so inclines your bleeding heart.”

My mind froze as I saw what Priya held in her hand.

“Where did you find that?” I asked, my face lit up in shock.

“Um, that dead bitch was wearing it. Pretty, isn’t it?” Priya said, dangling a necklace. A large, emerald stone, shaped and carved like an eye, hung down on a meticulously made platinum chain.

“That is the eye of the Troiyan,” I said, almost disbelieving what was in front of my eyes.

“And?” Priya ignorantly whirled the long necklace around her finger.

“And….it was Tuluma’s, my Tuluma’s. Her talisman.” I didn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. “She gave it to me on the night she died. Miteno ripped it off my neck when he shoved me into the prison wagon. I thought it was gone forever.” All manner of emotions flooded my mind, heartache, anger, sorrow, joy, relief, gratitude.

“Well, I like it,” Priya said. “I never had anything elven in my collection.”

“I need it, Priya. Please take anything else you want.” Priya’s face changed into slick satisfaction. I was never below begging. I knew that. I was also too aware of the hold Priya had on me. And for this—for this small piece of my past—I would do anything .

“Please, just let me have it, Priya. Anything else but this. It is the only thing I have of her.”

Her eyes lit up in a wicked smile.

“I will give it to you, but only if you drop this Rebel idea… forever ,” she demanded, aware of the lofty cost.

For once, I had absolutely no regret in becoming a liar and a traitor.

“Okay,” I answered without hesitation. The platinum chain and the cold, eye-shaped, green stone now swung around my neck. I gently placed it underneath my leathers, still in incredulity that this was the actual talisman. My chest tightened as the peculiar chain ran deep until the rock settled not too far from my heart.

A piece of my home.