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The sun was slowly creeping over the trees and Kaunas was nowhere in sight. Pyrrha shuddered as she turned away from the Nemunas river. What she wanted to see in the pale dawn light was the face once beloved, but she saw it only as Sir Jurgis’ family saw it: the face of a murderer. Blonde hair almost shrouding her wide, desperate green eyes, lips contorting in fear—the last things they must have seen. The smell of smoke was still fresh on her mind. Just last night, only a short sword and small shield had been the only things between her and many sabers.
The way it began came back when she shut her eyes. Bile burned in her throat as she remembered the metallic reek of blood, the red pits where Jurgis’ eyes once were, his mouth gaped in agony, and his blue-gray eyes lying on the floor. Barely a few hours earlier, he had promised to marry her and she felt as though she could have floated away were it not for her hand so gently clasped in his. Soon after she read the words I love Pyrrha carved into his chest, his guards’ blades were pointed at her. Death had followed her to what had once been her refuge and she fought it screaming.
“I don’t want them back,” she said quietly.
“Oh, come on,” Tira cajoled with a smile all too serene, “I just cleaned them.” She was standing in the shade of a nearby willow tree, watching a pair of bloodied rags drift away with the current. Her ring blade was slung almost casually on her right shoulder. A bird skull dangled from the ends of her two thick braids that stood out on either side of her head, as though in morbid mockery of a jester’s cap. A raven was perched on her left shoulder, its beady red eyes seemingly fixed on Pyrrha. It had followed them since they fled Kaunas, and Tira had let it land on her arm like a falconer.
Pyrrha turned her head just enough to see the weapons from the corner of her eye. The short sword and the small, round shield had indeed been wiped clean. “What difference does it make?” she asked.
“You can’t just let weapons rust, you know,” Tira said.
“If—if I had a choice, I’d throw them away.” It was a sorely tempting idea now. Then, if she could just keep running, she would lose the rest of Lozoraitis’ guards for good. But to where? Going upstream of the twisting Nemunas would lead her southeast into the Ruthenian regions1—if she were so lucky.
“Oh, don’t lie. You’re better off with them.” Tira offered her the sword. The blade glinted almost warmly in the sun.
Pyrrha turned away, only to recoil at the sight of her reflection on the water. She tentatively held out her hand and accepted the sword. Her heart pounded at the thought of tossing it into the river, still swollen by spring rains. In time, it would be corroded and buried in mud. And if by then someone happened to dredge it up, it would be unrecognizable as the sword of the bringer of woe. She squinted, slowly raised the sword, only to freeze at the raven’s shrill alarm cry. Just as she turned her head, Tira seized her arm.
“Don’t you dare,” Tira growled, digging her long nails in. The raven alighted on the riverbank and stared up at Pyrrha, still shrieking at her.
“I wasn’t—”
“Your dear Jurgis’ family would’ve had you beheaded and that’s how you thank me? By throwing your mother’s sword away?”
With a sharp gasp, Pyrrha slowly lowered the sword. “How did you know…”
“Oh, we met. I held onto her sword and shield just for you.”
Pyrrha’s eyes fell on the inscription along the length of the fuller. The script was at once foreign and yet somehow familiar. Most of the letters she thought she recognized as Latin ones but some of them—like what seemed to be an O with a little bar in the middle or what resembled an angular S—were a mystery to her. Yet she felt that it should not have been. Her own name had been foreign to Jurgis and perhaps, she supposed, that was one reason he had been so quick to allow her the liberty of exploring his library. Perhaps he had hoped that she would recognize something—anything—in the Greek legends. Now it had already gone up in smoke with his mansion.
“Tira, do you know what this says?” she asked.
Tira tilted her head as she examined it, then smirked. “No, I don’t.”
Crestfallen, Pyrrha heaved a sigh. “Then… how did you get it?”
“You wanted to leave that tower with your life, didn’t you?”
Pyrrha’s heart sank. “Well, not like… that .”
“Pity that those stupid nobles didn’t believe you. If I were you, I wouldn’t even think of leaving that shield behind, either.” Tira nonchalantly scratched the top of the raven’s head with her fingers. “Oh, and don’t worry about Mephisto here.” She patted the bird’s head and it shut its eyes as if pleased with itself. “He’s just looking out for you.”
With a begrudging nod, Pyrrha stepped closer to the shield. When she bent down to pick it up, her face reflected dimly on the shield. The wide-eyed terror on sky-blue metal, framed in golden embossments that curled like a ram’s horns. Her eyes began to sting with welling tears. The weight of the sword and shield she could bear, but she dreaded raising them against anyone else.
“What’s the problem now?” Tira snapped.
Pyrrha wiped her eyes, then grabbed the shield and hugged it to her chest. “I… I can’t stand my own reflection.”
Tira’s irritated expression melted away. “Oh, you’ll get used to it. You’ll have to.”
Pyrrha’s blood ran cold. “I’ve never even trained to fight.”
“Could’ve fooled me when you killed that first guard.”
Pyrrha hung her head and shut her eyes. “I had no choice,” she hissed between clenched teeth.
Tira gently placed her hand on her shoulder and quietly said, “Well, neither did I once. But don’t worry. I know just the place where you can start afresh.”
Pyrrha looked around and saw that, for the moment, all was still. Reluctantly, she nodded.
Suddenly, Mephisto flew up into the willow and croaked loudly and repeatedly. The call echoed through the woods as six more ravens alighted on the branches above them. Pyrrha shuddered at the sight of all those red eyes looking down on her, but Tira beamed.
“Tira, what’s going on?”
“They’re all looking out for you now,” she answered, tugging her arm.
Despite the sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach, Pyrrha slowly began to follow. The ravens dispersed in all directions and their cries died away, leaving one of the birds to follow the two high overhead. Pyrrha could not believe how briskly Tira could walk away from it all. She tried to think of Jurgis in all his warmth, but ended up wondering how far his killer could have gone from the mansion that night. Then she remembered how quickly Tira found her imprisoned in the tower and she gripped her weapons tighter in her shaking hands.