Page 47 of Naga's Essence
‘I’m simply too weak.
“I believe you,” I assure him. “I believe that you care about us.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. I know it probably doesn’t feel that way out there. At least, not yet.”
But it doesn’t matter what I want, because I’m not fighting for myself. I’m fighting for my mother and my father. For everyone else who’s been ground into dust by the machine that this man’s family has allowed to exist. It doesn’t matter what I want. I’m nothing. What matters is my duty.
With that, I unsheathe the dagger and swing it straight at its target.
My aim is as deadly as ever, but my dagger never reaches his throat. There’s a sharp clanging of metal, and my blow is deflected to the side. Zalith is holding his own dagger.
He knew what I was doing. And he blocked me!
“I had hoped it wouldn’t go this far,” he says, stepping into a defensive stance. “And it doesn’t have to go any further. If you put your dagger away and go to bed, I won’t say anything about it. We never have to talk about this again if you don’t want to.”
I take on my own stance, stepping carefully closer to him. “It’s okay. You don’t have to pretend anymore. I’ve shown you how ungrateful I am. You can take it all out on me. I’m not one of the good ones. And I don’t pretend to be.”
“I’ve talked about you with Slyth,” he returns. “I know some of what you’ve been through. Not all of it, of course. He would never betray a secret. But I know you’ve been hurt. I know that you’re angry. But I also know that you’re more than your anger.”
“It doesn’t matter what I am!” I cry. “It’s not about me!”
With that, I dive in with my blade. Again, he blocks. I disengage my blade and swing again.
He keeps blocking as I keep swinging. He’s letting obvious opportunities pass to put offensive pressure on me, and even ignoring outright weaknesses in my defense. I know he sees them because I can tell what a talented swordsman he is. Being treated like that infuriates me, and my attacks become more reckless and more intense.
“It is about you, Lorelai,” he answered, stepping back. “You’re important, and so is your happiness. You matter as much as anyone who you’re fighting for.”
“You’re just saying that because Slyth told you to!” I snap, pushing him further back. A few more steps and he’ll be pinned in the corner. “Slyth doesn’t know me! And if he did, he’d be happy to have me gone!”
But I’m still only using my dagger, not my magic. Even when I’m fighting, I’m holding back, hesitating. I hate how weak I’ve become. He should be dead now. Instead…
I feint at his left then stab directly at his throat. He ignores the feint and catches the strike with the guard of his dagger. And then, suddenly, with a twist of his wrist, my dagger is out of my hand and in the air. It falls to the ground and clatters along the stone floor, finally coming to a stop underneath his desk.
For a second, he holds his own dagger in his hand and then calmly puts it away. “I’ve known Slyth for as long as I’ve been alive,” he says. “Slyth may blind himself to certain things about you. But I promise you that he does love you. Fully and truly. And no, this will not change his mind.”
“That’s it?” I say. I’m trying to sound taunting, but my voice sounds desperate instead. “You’re just going to leave me alive? Even though I tried to kill you?”
“Even if I believed that you deserved to die, I would grant you your life for the sake of Slyth’s love,” he replies. “But I don’t believe anything of the sort. I believe that you deserve to live and to be happy in ways you haven’t learned to expect yet.”
I can feel tears rising in my eyes, and I push them back. This is my enemy. I won’t cry in front of him. I refuse to.
“Do you think I’ll stop trying to kill you? Do you think it’s over just because you got rid of my dagger one time?”
“What you do is entirely up to you,” Zalith says, and he sits back on his chair. “But I hope that you become a friend. To me, and to Rory. For Slyth’s sake, yes, but also because I like you, and I’d like to know you better.”
The heat starts to build up in my hands. It’s as if all of my anger, an anger that I’ve built up over years of helplessness, is concentrating between my palms and slowly beginning to turn into fire.
“I’d like that, too,” I say, and a tear pushes out of my eye. “In another life, I would have liked to be your friend.”
He turns around, and his eyes widen. The air between my palms is shimmering with heat. And then a second later, the fire erupts. A fireball, floating between my hands, burning with blue-white heat. The tongues of it wrap around each other, and as I draw my hands apart, it slowly expands.
“Lorelai,” he says, his calm starting to drop for the first time this whole night. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You can just be happy. That’s enough.”
“Stop it!” I cry. “Just stop it! Don’t tell me what I can do! This is about what I have to do! I have to!”
“Please, Lorelai. If you do this, you can’t take this back.”
The tears flow down my face. Why does it have to be like this? Why does it have to be so hard? This should be a joyful moment. This should feel like success, for all the years of effort I put into it.