Yet here she was, wild-eyed and disheveled, miles from home in a hostile forest. And a man wearing my flesh was pretending to be me. She goggled at me, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. “You’re naked,” she pointed out in distress. “And you’re…you’re not fat anymore. What happened to you? How could that happen in one night? How can you be alive? Spink and Amzil saw you killed. Spink saw you beaten to death on the streets, by his own fellows, his own regiment. Do you know what that’s done to him? Do you know how that’s made him hate everything he was once so proud of? Amzil saw the end of everything that she had just begun to hope for. But here you are. Alive. I don’t understand, Nevare! I don’t understand anything!”
She took two hesitant steps toward me. Had I opened my arms, she would have rushed into them. But Soldier’s Boy did not. He stood before her, naked and unlovely, my arms folded across my chest, and asked her solemnly, “Why did you come here? What do you want?”
“Why did I—what? I came to avenge you, you great idiot! To make her suffer for your death as we were all suffering. I came to make her sorry for betraying you, to punish the magic for not keeping its word! And what do I want? I want my life back! I want my husband to see me when he looks at me instead of looking through me. I want Amzil to stop scowling and snapping at the children. I want her to stop weeping at night. I want my baby to be born healthy and happy, not into a house where daily we endure floods of desolation or tides of panic. That’s what I want. That’s what I came for. I knew I wouldn’t get it, but I thought I could at least kill one of those who had taken it from me.”
I felt as if I were dying. I threw myself against Soldier’s Boy’s awareness, trying to break through. I wanted to take her in my arms and comfort her; I wanted something for Epiny. It seemed that everything I’d thought I’d purchased for her by turning my back on Gettys was hollow and sordid by the light of day. I hadn’t solved anything when I’d given way to the magic. I’d only left them to muddle through grief burdened by guilt that none of them deserved.
“I won’t let you kill her.” He spoke flatly to Epiny. “You should just go home. Pretend you never saw me here. Accept that I’m dead. Then leave Gettys. Go back west where you and your kind belong.” He lifted his eyes to Lisana as he spoke, but I had the oddest sensation that he could not see her. The strangest part was that I felt Lisana definitely could see me. I stared through his eyes at her, begging her for some kind of mercy, for some splinter of kindness for my cousin. What had she ever done to them save try to protect me and stand by me? Why did she have to suffer so for the magic?
Lisana spoke softly to Epiny. “As you see, Jhernian, I spoke truth to you. The magic keeps its word. Nevare isn’t dead.”
Epiny swung her head back to look at me. Her lips were parted and she swayed slightly. The whites showed all around her eyes. I’d once seen a horse that had been ridden near to death. She reminded me of that poor beast, as if she stayed on her feet more by sheer willpower than by physical strength. She stared at me for a long time, then looked back at Lisana. Her voice was flat. “Don’t try to deceive me. That’s not Nevare. I know Nevare and that’s not him. You forget that the magic touches me? You forget that I can look at his aura and see that something is very wrong? You can’t cheat me again, Tree Woman. I intend to kill you or die trying.” She stooped down. For the first time, I saw the small hatchet she had used to cut her firewood. Against Tree Woman’s thick stump, it looked ridiculous, a child’s toy. But it was a toy made of iron. Its presence burned against my skin. When Epiny raised it over her head, her teeth bared in a grimace of hatred, Soldier’s Boy acted, springing between her and the stump and catching her falling wrist. He squeezed hard and the hatchet fell from her grip. He caught her other wrist when she tried to rake his eyes with her nails. Despite his wasted condition, he held her easily. Epiny snarled and shrieked at him wordlessly. She kicked out at him; he accepted the blows.
“Her mind is gone,” Olikea opined. She sounded appalled, as if Epiny’s loss of dignity were shameful to her as well. “It would be a kindness to kill her.” She spoke in Speck, her words directed to Soldier’s Boy. The lack of malice in her voice chilled me. She meant it. She thought Soldier’s Boy should put Epiny down as one would a diseased dog. She ventured closer to pick up the hatchet. I feared she would do the deed herself, just sink the shining blade into Epiny’s spine.
“No!” I bellowed. “Lisana, help me! Please! Don’t let Epiny be killed! It will be too much for me to bear!”