63. Would You Believe (Patreon)

“Would you believe ‘your brother’?” Aaron asked, trying not to tense up. Tensing up wasn’t generally advisable, with a knife to one’s side. He wouldn’t want to make her twitchy.

“...Are you the one who ate the fox’s tongue, then?” she asked.

“No?” he replied, with a little wince. Because there was no way to prove he hadn’t, given that someone who had could lie on kirin’s bone all they wished, with no visible sign. “Wouldn’t have had to lie for that one, though. Mostly because I am your brother, but also because ‘would you believe’ isn’t stating any facts. Like me being your brother. Which I would appreciate discussing in more detail, with less stabbing, if you would be so kind as to—”

She saw where that sentence was going and nudged her knife a little closer, presumably to establish how very much she was not going to be putting it down. Which was the point when Aaron realized something: he was wearing armor. It was a thing he’d gotten used to over the past weeks, the same as the weight of the griffin’s cloak over his shoulders. He hadn’t even thought about it. Because the last time someone had drawn a knife on him, and the time before that and the time before that, he hadn’t had armor. She’d jabbed the tip through the lacings on the side, but.

But.

He had armor. And a reassuring weight on his shoulders. And a door behind him, that led to a balcony in a cliffside, but that was a very little matter if one could fly.

“We’re going to move towards the hallway door,” she said. “I’m going to call for my guards, and you’re not going to do anything so daft as—”

He dropped, twisting to the side, so when she stabbed him—which she very promptly did, he’d known actual assassins to hesitate more than that, oww—it jarred over his ribs rather than the squishier bits beneath before it wasn’t in a position to be stabbing anything but leather anymore. The fact that his next breath came in fine meant she hadn’t gotten him very deep. It certainly didn’t hurt as much as having his wrist broken, so she was already an improvement over their father.

He tried to sweep her legs, but she still had that stub arm around him and she used it pull herself in, to fall towards him, so he twisted a little more and fisted a hand in her shirt, trying to pull her even further over and acquaint her skull with the iron lacing on the door behind him. Which worked, a bit, but in a way that made her curse rather than fall unconscious. And she still had that knife, which is alarmingly close to his neck. Armor apparently gave people less choices in places to stab him, and he was not sure he appreciated that. He grabbed her wrist, holding it off, but she was stronger than him—

But he had two hands, so.

He pawed behind himself for the doorknob. Twisted it, and led them both stumbling backwards out into rain and wind and cold. Where she disengaged, and took a step back into the doorway, like she had him trapped.

The rain had soaked both of them already. The wind gusted, tugging at his cloak.

Which fell off. Because the griffin cloak he’s worn the entire journey here, the one he’d only taken off on the Lady’s orders, the one he’d started to think of as his, was still hanging back in the guard room to dry. That weight on his shoulders had been the blanket that had replaced it.

He’d worn a blanket to see his sister. As first impressions went, he thought this could be going better.

“Surrender,” she said.

“I’m not really in the habit. Sorry.” There was ground below, far below, rather than ocean. The height doesn’t scare him, but it was… less than ideal, so far as jumping went. But there were other balconies, some reasonably close. He pulled his gaze back to her. Shrugged. And could not stop the next words from his mouth: “I’m not actually sorry. Also, your sword is annoying,” he added, which was the full truth.

It felt weird, speaking in the presence of kirin’s bone. There was no feeling of compulsion to it. He just kept talking, as if from his own will, when he really shouldn’t.

Though frankly, that applied to most things he said.

Lightning forked above, silhouetting the plateau’s edge high above them. The thunder was immediate. And under it, a rasping sound or feeling he couldn’t place, like the charge in the air was building up against his spine.

“You talk or you die,” she said. “It’s not that hard a choice.”

King Orin—Prince Orin, at the time—had once told him much the same. His delivery had been better. You will talk, and then you will die.

“Really?” Aaron smiled, with extra teeth. “Why don’t you swear on that hilt of yours that it won’t be both, and then I’ll…”

Lightning again, from behind him this time. For a near-blinding moment, the rock face and all on it glistened in the light.

She didn’t even attempt that swear. Just eyed the distance between them. Probably figuring the best way to catch him one-handed, while keeping him in a condition to talk. He was a little surprised she hadn’t just yelled for those guards of hers yet. But then, the stone walls were thick, the storm was loud, and he hadn’t noticed the rooms immediately next to hers having lights behind their doors. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to have anyone overhearing her conversation with Markus. Her dear brother.

“You’ll have a better chance at escape later if you don’t make me injure you here,” she said, like some kind of compromise. And was probably going to say some other words, too. But Aaron could be sporting, when it served.

“Behind you,” he told her, in a perfectly reasonable and believable tone.

The look she shot him was nearly disappointed. “Do you really expect me to fall for that?”

“Behind and above,” he corrected, because behind you wasn’t truthful enough, when above was the more pertinent direction.

The thing about truth was this: it was every bit as good as a lie. Better, if it went unbelieved.

Because if she did believe him, she’d turn. Just her head, just barely; probably not long enough to see anything, certainly not long enough for him to do anything.

And if she didn’t, well. Then the lightning would come again, just so. And he’d see it again: light over the rough cliff face, and scales that glittered smoothly. The dragon’s over-large claws gripped the stone with a precariousness Aaron could sympathize with, having done that himself earlier in the evening. The thunder drowned out all other sounds, and the creature used it to move. A last lunge, now that it was in position.

A dragon dropping on one’s sister was, arguably, a more effective distraction than a mere behind you.

Perhaps she would believe him better in the future.