Page 3 of Swordheart #1
She could make a rope of blankets and try to hang herself, but there weren’t any exposed rafters.
And her bedchamber had quite low ceilings and was stuffed to bursting with furniture that Silas had needed to store somewhere, so even if she’d somehow managed all the rest, she could have just put her feet onto the bed once it got hard to breathe.
Even in her most dramatic imaginings, Halla didn’t think she could beat herself to death with the chamber pot.
It was going to have to be the sword. Halla sighed.
No use dithering. Roll up your sleeves and get to work.
Her mother had always said that, although to be fair, not usually about killing oneself.
The sword was just so unwieldy. If it had been a knife, she would have had no problem, but the blade was so long that if she held the hilt in her right hand, she had no way to get the point actually into her chest.
How marvelously stupid. Give me an enormous piece of sharp metal and I still can’t think of a way to use it. Perhaps I should just wait for Aunt Malva to come in for the night and try to cut her head off.
Tempting as this idea was, she would merely end up in a prison cell.
If she was lucky, they would hang her. If she was unlucky, the family would argue that she had gone mad, take her home, and lock her up somewhere.
And Alver would probably still marry her and her nieces would still not get any money out of the deal.
She left the sword in the sheath while she tried to figure out what to do. With her luck, she’d cut something off while trying to prop everything in place.
Something not vital enough to kill me, but something I’d miss. A thumb, maybe. I would miss my thumbs.
Maybe if she braced the pommel on the wall, somehow fixed it in place, and then got a running start… around the night table and the large ornamental chest and the bed posts and…
All right, the running start was probably not going to work, either.
The pommel on the wall was still the best bet though. Perhaps against the windowsill. She had no idea how to make it stay in one place, though. Could she hold the blade?
I could try, I suppose… and there would go my thumbs again…
If I’m dead, I don’t need both thumbs.
She stripped down to her shift to make it easier to stab. Stabbing through cloth was already a pain. Through the heart? Yes, that seemed best. People in ballads always stabbed themselves through the heart.
She tugged the fabric down. No sense in getting more cloth in the way of things.
I’ve already got far too much in the way there, she thought glumly, looking down at her chest. What a nuisance. Over the top and I’ll have to keep the blade angled well up. It would be humiliating to try to stab myself in the heart and get hung up on my own left breast.
Still, I suppose it’s easier than it would have been before I turned thirty and everything began sagging…
Somehow this was not terribly comforting.
Okay, I brace the end there, and then I shove myself onto the sword. Through the heart.
Fast. I should try to do this fast.
There was just barely enough room between the edge of the bed and the windowsill that she thought she could manage it.
She was also rather gloomily certain that she would be standing there with a sword in one hand for the next hour and end up not actually stabbing herself at all, but maybe she’d surprise herself.
What other choice do I have? I don’t want to die, but at least this way, my nieces inherit everything and I don’t end up locked in Alver’s attic.
Maybe it will be easy.
She didn’t think it would be easy. She didn’t want to die. She quite liked living. Even when it was bad, it was interesting. There was always something fascinating going on.
On the other hand, being locked in Alver’s attic for the rest of her life would not be interesting. In fact, it would likely be a combination of horrific and horrifically boring. Surely death was preferable to that.
“Well,” she said out loud, trying to bolster her own courage. “My mother’s clan were raiding cattle and slaying their enemies only a generation ago. Some of them probably still are. Let’s go.”
Let’s go did not seem like very good last words, so she added, “I commend my soul to any god that will take it.”
It occurred to her suddenly that the sword might very well be rusted into its scabbard, in which case she’d feel rather stupid about standing here, bare-breasted, commending her soul to the gods.
She drew the sword.
There was a crack like silent thunder and blue light pulsed around the sheath. She immediately dropped the sheath, but the light was faster. It ran over her hands and down her wrists. She clutched the sword hilt in sheer astonishment.
The blue light shot around the room and coalesced into a figure. It was roughly human-shaped, although man or woman or both or neither, she could not tell.
It could be a demon for all I know.
She threw her empty hand up in front of her to ward off the blaze of light. When the light faded, leaving orange afterimages on her eyes, there was a man standing in her bedchamber, in the narrow space between the chest and the night table.
“I am the servant of the sword,” he said. “I obey the will of the—great god, woman, put on some clothes!”