From the Ashes of Victory: The Complete Series, page 50
part #0 of From the Ashes of Victory Series
"And then you struck out on your own. Ended up in Nottingham somehow. That's a long way from Scotland."
"You know why I did, though," Millie said.
"Aye, and I also know that it isn't normal. Nothing has stopped you to this point, what's holding you back?"
"I don't want anyone to get hurt."
"You have something to lose, now, is that it? Made you cautious?"
"Of course it has!"
"Good. It should. It should also make you pay more feckin' attention!" Niamh stabbed directly at Millie's face so fast she barely got her guard up in time to keep her nose.
"You talk about being ready, about protecting people when the time comes? You told me you were ready for that responsibility, and I trusted you. So be ready. I could be out recruiting or making it up to the Russians for shooting me mouth off without me brain attached, or any number of other useful things instead of lettin' you waste me time by doing everything half-arsed."
Niamh rained blows down on Millie, a fusillade of sword thrusts that forced her to weave and dodge with everything she had. Her scales saved her arms when she wasn't fast enough, but red welts erupted over her thighs and abdomen when she wasn't. Driven back with relentless intensity, it was all Millie could do to limit the damage to a few welts. All the openings that had been in Niamh's form shut tight, and it was a focussed machine that drilled into Millie's swirling, frantic guard, chipping away at her stamina blow by blow.
"You get into a fight with your mind like it is now, something bad is going to happen, and I won't have it. There's a time and a place, and someone swingin' a feckin' sword at your head is neither! This isn't a bleedin' counsellin' session. You want to get all weepy over drinks tonight, that's one thing, but in here you pay attention or I beat you down 'til you remember how. You focus, Millie!"
400 years of fighting for survival, kith and kin completely dismantled a few schoolyard scraps and the occasional fistfight without even needing to attempt finesse, and Millie was swiftly and viscerally made aware of just how little she actually knew.
Niamh unleashed was terrifying, and it didn't even look like she was trying. She advanced at her own pace, in complete control of something that was no longer sparring.
It was a humiliation.
"You think you're so good at this now you don't have to pay attention anymore? You think 'cause someone's watching I'm gonna take it easy on you?" Niamh perforated each question with a half-dozen thrusts.
"N- no…!" Millie wheezed, unable to catch her breath or keep more than one word in her head while managing to keep Niamh's flashing blade from taking it off. But even that proved too much, and in Millie's retreat, she tripped on her own heel, toppling over backwards to land painfully on her backside.
It took several laboured, shaking breaths before Millie could raise her head high enough to see the look on Niamh's face. Backlit by the lights of The Shed, the Irishwoman loomed over her, her slate-grey eyes flickering in the light of her witchblade from the depths of her darkened silhouette; it was the last thing more than one person had ever seen.
Beaten down and more than a little frightened, Millie couldn't look up any longer. Her cheeks were on fire, raw shame scorching them from the inside and twisting her stomach into knots. Bright red welts glowed from the slashes cut in her trousers and blouse, and a trail of blackened strands of hair lay before her, marking the path of her retreat.
Millie cursed. She swore she would never be in this position again. Not ever. Her brother James had taught her how to fight for that exact reason, but he might as well not have bothered.
She was twelve years old again, clutching at a black eye she'd earned from stealing her first kiss. In the dirt, tangled up in her skirts, she'd looked up at the one who had given it to her because what she'd done was wrong, and sworn that that was the last time she would ever let anyone knock her down.
It had been, until today.
And if her shame had been secret, she might have been able to live with it. If it had only been Niamh, Millie would have been able to find a way to write it off as it had been intended: as a lesson.
But it wasn't secret.
Someone had seen.
Millie twisted to look at Inga, who was looking right back at her, waiting to see what she would do.
A stranger had watched her fall, a stranger who was the reason she'd gotten upset enough to let her guard down in the first place. The reason she had to hide again. The reason that her and Elise's one refuge had been taken away from them. In a building this big, it should have been impossible to feel like she was in a fishbowl, but that's exactly how it felt as two pairs of eyes seemed to find everything about her lacking. Niamh, Millie could forgive, but a stranger? The watching, judging stranger who hadn't even been invited in the first place?
No.
With a frustrated growl, Millie shot to her feet, spinning to face the Russian.
"What!?" Millie snapped.
Inga cocked her head, but her arms remained crossed, her posture relaxed.
"What do you want?" Millie demanded, taking a few steps towards her. "I know you understand that much! What do you want? Why did you come here?" Witchscale flared to life once more, hardening with every step Millie took.
"Millie, don't! Come back!" Niamh shouted, but Millie ignored her.
"You find what you came to see?"
She was only a few feet away when Inga smiled. "You dance. Not fight."
Millie stopped dead. She'd never heard Inga's voice before. She shook the surprise off, replacing it with renewed irritation at what Inga had actually said. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"You want to fight? Fight. This is dance," Inga said, miming swinging a sword.
It was only once Inga had uncrossed her arms that Millie really saw just how big her hands were, but stepped closer anyway.
This seemed to be the expected response, as Inga held her arms out wide, looking like she could crush an entire house. "Come. Inga show you."
Millie charged forward, her anger burning away everything else, propelling her as fast as she'd ever moved in her life. Her fist encased in her scales, she lashed out straight at Inga's midsection.
She never hit it.
Over the misty scales was clamped an enormous, scarred and calloused hand.
Looking up in disbelief, Millie was unprepared for the ground to rush up and smack her as she was tossed backwards like a sack of grain.
"Again."
Millie shot to her feet and charged headlong again, this time going low.
Her face hit the concrete, and her mouth filled with blood.
Dazed and confused, she was still able to sense Inga's arm reaching down for her. She instinctively swatted it away, but the scales prevented her the satisfaction of feeling the impact.
With only a second's reprieve, she tried pushing herself up to get her legs under her, but a massive weight smashed her in the back and her head bounced off the concrete again, reducing Millie's world to pain, blood and stars. She groaned and tried rolling onto her back, but the moment she did, blood started pouring down her throat. Flipping onto her side, she spat crimson across the dusty grey.
"Again."
"Millie, stay down for God's sake!" Niamh's voice was harsh with concern.
A bloody streak ran up Millie's arm as she wiped her nose. "No."
"She'll kill you!"
"No. No kill. Teach. Elise heal body. She remember pain," Inga said, pointing at Millie with a finger like a railroad spike. "Pain best teacher."
Scales distended and deformed, and Millie willed the result out and away to loop around Inga's ankle and heaved. Pain spattered Millie's vision with the effort, but she grit her teeth and kept pulling.
Inga stumbled in surprise as her left leg was pulled out from under her, but let herself fall in what looked to be a practiced move, landing flat on her back. Then, with a swift jerk, she kicked her lassoed leg up, bringing Millie with it. This time it was Millie who stumbled. She spilled forward, directly into Inga's right foot, and pain exploded through Millie's midsection as what felt like a tree smashed her right in the kidney. All the air blew out of her at once, but her arm was still being pulled the opposite way.
She didn't have the breath to scream, so all that came out of her was a wheeze as she was pulled apart by what felt like one giant muscle.
With merciful swiftness, Millie was dropped back to the ground to land painfully on her side, where she crumpled. She didn't remember releasing Inga from her magical hold, but it had been severed, and Millie hadn't the sense to wonder how.
"War is not dance. Not pretty. War is mud, blood and pain. Inga teach you war. Get healed. Come back."
With that, Inga's heavy footsteps took her away, leaving Millie on the cold ground in a pool of her own blood, surrounded by the remnants of her confidence.
"Jesus, Millie," Niamh said. "You should have stayed down."
Millie had never felt worse. She was pretty sure her nose was broken, and maybe one of her ribs. It hurt to breathe, and she didn't want to move her eyes for fear of what else she would see, that and the stabbing pain when she tried.
"No, she's right." Flexing her fingers, she was happy to find they were all intact. "You're right. I have to learn."
"Learn what?" Niamh asked in her teaching voice.
"A few… mmph! punch-ups in the street isn't real training. Errgh," Millie tried to straighten herself, with only moderate success. She managed herself into more of a crescent than a ball, which was something. "Elise… Vickie need me to be better." She shifted her gaze to both Niamhs standing over her. "You've been holding back this whole time. I… thought I was doing well, but you… you haven't shown me a damn thing yet…"
"Aye, and now you know why, you temperamental bell-end. You picked a fight with someone who knew what they were doing, and you didn't even touch her. I don't know what you expected after only a month."
Millie's head thudded against the concrete, and a fresh constellation of stars burst across the ceiling. "She sure as shite touched me."
"That's one lesson learned, at least. Come on," Niamh said, extending her hand, "let's find your girlfriend so she can put you back together."
Even as London grew nearer, Victoria and Yekaterina did not. They sat opposite each other in a shared box as the train trundled southward, but neither of them had yet said much. Victoria knew they were going to have to say something if they hoped to coordinate their efforts at the dinner, but the fact that they were already halfway there and they had not yet started didn't bode well, Victoria thought.
This elemental woman who sat across from her was still an enigma, and as often as Victoria ran straight towards those with the intent of solving them, this one she was happy to keep her distance from. Yekaterina wasn't a law of the natural world or a clever work of magic, she was another person, another witch, and unlike any Victoria had ever met.
Witches, in Victoria's experience, had humility. As far as she and the others knew, it was one of the qualities shared among all witches who Manifested. The demonstration of purity of intent, the fact that it was very often the only possible thing that could save them in that moment.
Yekaterina was not that. She was arrogant, brash, and seemed to have no grasp on just how frivolously she was using a gift as precious as her Manifest, especially given how dangerous it was.
Did Victoria want to know under what circumstances a woman like that could have been thought worthy of her gift? Of course she did, it would either reinforce or shatter a lot of illusions, but in either case, would be enlightening.
But doing that would mean asking Yekaterina about it, and Victoria had reams of enigmas piled up to interrogate before she dug deep enough to reach this Russian.
But the Longs had trusted them, and had recruited them for a reason. If they failed to secure their needed funding, EVE was going implode as a hilariously misguided experiment because two of its witches couldn't talk to each other.
But how to start? And why should Victoria be the one to have to do so? Yekaterina was the one who had acted with such temerity.
So mysterious, with her affected monochrome appearance and haughty airs, who was that pompous Russian to come into Victoria's home and treat her that way? She was a guest, and she had turned her back! A fellow witch, with a spectacular Manifest, and her response to genuine, enthusiastic attempts to share information about their gifts was to look down her nose and dismiss her, like a disinterested parent would do a child. But that was how you learned things! By asking questions!
Just looking at Yekaterina sitting there, Victoria was getting worked up all over again. You embarrassed me! she didn't have the gumption to say aloud. I feel enough shame without you adding even more.
But Millie wasn't here to talk Victoria down this time, and the toxic cycle of being stuck in her own head spooled up once more. She felt venom begin to drip from her fangs, and she needed to plunge them into someone before she turned it on herself.
"Why are you pretending to sleep? A Manifested… woman's… energy ebbs when she's asleep, so I know you're awake," Victoria said, wincing as she realised there were so many ears around.
Yekaterina opened one eye. "Why are you asking, if you have nothing to say?"
"Nothing to say? After what happened, I'm still waiting for you to say something," Victoria said.
"As long as you're waiting, get some sleep. Tonight won't be easy. Maybe you should focus on that instead of me. It's your job, after all."
"My job? There's two of us on this trip."
"And only one of us was preparing for it. The other was sulking, working up the nerve to ask an irrelevant question."
"I'm sorry?"
"I've been concentrating, going over the names of everyone we're meeting tonight. Much easier to do when I can ignore you staring at me. What have you been doing this whole time? Figuring out what you can set on fire because your feelings got hurt? If you need something to do, be sure to let me know when we arrive at St. Pancras, will you? I'm very busy."
Sarcasm? In her second language! Victoria's ears burned in both indignity and jealousy. "I don't believe that for a moment."
"Arthur Harris, Robert Bentham, Ephraim Warwick, Walter Huxley, Ebenezer Tewksbury. Now you tell me each of their marital statuses, and I'll tell you how many children they have. No? How about which ones are offering cash, or gold? Stocks? Ownership percentages? Even more relevant, how about their wine preferences. Hobbies? Oh, you didn't even think to ask those questions, did you?"
The Ice Queen opened both eyes this time, and turned both of them on Victoria with all of a glacier's indifference as to what they pulverised beneath them. "You don't know who I was or what I did before I came here, nor did you even ask."
"Would you have answered, or just given me another flippant jibe for my trouble?"
"We'll never know now, will we?"
Screaming would only make it worse, but it's all Katya wanted in that moment. A good, throat-tearing, primal scream would be preferable to hearing the awfulness coming out of herself.
She didn't want this. But she had to. Without the spite, Katya could see herself enjoying a good argument with Victoria. Details about tonight weren't the only ones she'd teased out of the Longs after their meeting; she'd gotten almost as much about Victoria. It made sense, if they were going to work together. That Victoria hadn't even tried to do the same wasn't at all surprising—Katya knew Victoria's type, or at least the male equivalent.
When Katya had asked what kind of books Victoria read, the answer had left her speechless. Everyone knew who Albert Einstein was, but Victoria had actually read his papers and understood them. E=mc2 was the most famous maths equation in the world, and not only did Victoria understand what it meant, it was part of the fundamental structure of her Manifest.
She was frighteningly intelligent, and those types, in Katya's experience, didn't do well in the kind of situation they would be facing later. Finesse, establishing rapport, keying in on body language and not being afraid to flatter or flirt—as a woman walking into a man's world, those were more important than a bunch of 'big words,' as Ophelia had put it.
So why wasn't Katya saying those things out loud? She had just as much to teach Victoria as the other way around. Conversation with her could be as rewarding as any she had had in her life, and at the very least, certainly more than any she was going to get from anyone else on this trip.
Because Victoria's not the only one reacting poorly to her feelings, Katya thought. And Katya knew that it wasn't just the incident in The Shed, either. If Victoria had Manifested, especially recently, that meant there were feelings much more heavily bruised than anything Katya could inflict with a few words. Katya knew because she bore those bruises as well.
Her armour suddenly began to chafe, cold and rough against her wounds. How much longer would it be before it ripped her open completely? If it did and she began to bleed, who would be there to put on her bandages this time?
Risking a peek with one eye, Victoria was looking out the window. To look at her face, she wasn't seeing the idyllic peace just outside their window, but the war raging inside her head.
Civil wars were the worst kind of war; they never had winners. What they did have were beginnings. As Katya closed her eye again, she realised that though she had managed to flee one, it was only so she could fire the first shot in another.
Millie lay on her stomach with her shirt pulled up to her shoulders, but it was not a pleasant feeling that rolled over her when Elise's hands pressed against her abdomen.
Feeling her bones knit back together in a few moments was much more painful than Millie had thought it would be. The bruises and cuts had been almost soothing in comparison, even though she knew on a practical level, Elise was sewing skin back together. It was as miraculous as it was ghastly to think about, so Millie tried not to, even as Elise enthusiastically explained what she was doing.
"The bones have to move back to where they should be. That is the painful part. In a normal healing time, the movement is slow, inside of a cast. Now…"
