Her sleep came and went in waves that left Kaye feeling more tired than if she hadn’t slept at all, until Taya arrived early the next morning. For a long time, Kaye remained under her furrows, clutching herself in the fetal position and listening to the conversation in the next room.

  Her mother’s scolding of her father seemed like it was never going to end. Taya had plenty to say about his irresponsibility, reminding him of other times he had done the same thing.

  Kaye pushed herself to stand up, realizing she had forgotten an open window, leaving the room chilly and wet from the light rain pouring outside. When she closed it, her mother interrupted herself for a moment, before resuming the scolding with a quieter voice.

  This is the st day. The st full day. Kaye left the room and went to meet her parents.

  During the night, Hogog, Rair and the healer had moved Gairin to the corner of the room where he y now, thick bedding under him and a splint to keep his leg straight. Taya was sitting by his side with a bowl of herbal soup cradled on her p.

  “Sorry for waking you up, dear. You can go back to sleep if you want, I’ll try to keep quiet,” Taya said.

  Kaye shook her head. “It wasn’t his fault, mom. Father is pushing himself because of me.”

  “Which I want to do,” Gairin said.

  “Well, I’m not about to scold you, am I? Especially when you were sleeping.”

  “You should,” Kaye answered. You would do a lot more than that if you knew what I was doing.

  “It’s not that simple,” Taya said. “I have been warning your father for a long time, and the thing is that, most times, he only caused trouble for himself. I’m trying to make him realize that that is not the case anymore,” she said the st part while staring at Gairin, dragging her words.

  “And you shouldn’t bme yourself for everything. My brother does enough of that for the whole family.”

  “Then can we compromise?” Kaye asked. “If I’m more patient then father won’t have to push himself, and you won’t have to fight with him.”

  This is for the better, Kaye. You have to tell them how you feel about it while you can.

  “We can try,” her mother said, “but you have to understand that there might be setbacks. We might have this conversation again.”

  “And you shouldn’t bme yourself for that when it happens,” her father concluded.

  Kaye nodded. “I can do that.” It was an easy enough lie.

  Taya resumed feeding Gairin his soup, which made Kaye’s stomach growl. She heard Rair’s and Hogog’s muffled voices from the floor below as she walked towards the kitchen.

  Soon Kaye found herself at the back of the house, her recurve bow in hand and shooting at a makeshift wooden target she had tied around a tree. A thud reverberated with every arrow, and it didn’t take long for the wood to be full of shallow dents.

  She took another shot, and the arrow hit the thin rope keeping it in pce. The target fell to the ground.

  The rain started to pick up again, so she brought everything inside with her. Rair had closed up shop and was cleaning the pce, Taya and Gairin were still talking and Hogog was alone in the kitchen. Kaye joined him, making small talk while inspecting the retrieved arrows. The wooden target was soft enough that none would be in serious need of repair.

  “Hungry?” her uncle asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Start being. Rair said he’s cooking us the best meal of our lives today.”

  Kaye could hear Rair’s footsteps coming up the stairs. She heard as he stopped, then turned to walk back down. Someone was banging at the front door.

  “We’re closed,” his voice barely reached her ears.

  A loud crash sounded from below, followed by a shout. Something fell with a thud, and something else hit the wall hard enough for it to be felt in the floor above.

  Hogog was running out the room before Kaye could react. She nocked an arrow and followed him.

  “What was that?” Taya’s voice reached her from the corridor.

  “Don’t come out!” Kaye shouted to her mother, rushing past her. Hogog was already on the stairs, a firepit poker in hand.

  Kaye almost slid down the steps, taking in the scene in a heartbeat. Blood on the wall, Rair struggling with his arms around a man while another tried to help him. Two others were looking around, turned at noticing Hogog. They all wore masks of cloth and hoods.

  Landing on the floor, she turned at Rair’s painful grunting, and shot at the man approaching him with a dagger in his hands.

  The man screamed, starting forward with the strength of the shot and stumbling against the one who held Rair. Rair freed himself from the other man at the same time, running towards the stairs with a terrible gash pouring blood from his right arm and another on his chest.

  Kaye was rocked to the side; she only had enough time to notice it had been Hogog before he was pushing her off the ground. “Up! Up!”

  He practically dragged her up the stairs, her feet sliding as she struggled to keep bance. The poker wasn’t in his hands anymore, and Kaye caught a gnce of it sticking through a masked man’s neck in one of her stumbles.

  Taya had a knife in her hands and Hogog pushed her inside a room. Rair was rushing from the other side of the corridor with a cleaver in hand.

  Kaye slipped past him, making for the kitchen where her arrows were. She didn’t stop to count, grabbing a handful of them before leaving the room again.

  She loaded an arrow and shot it at the masked men, but it was too high and flew right past them. One broke from the group to rush her while the others turned to Rair and Hogog.

  “I got her!” the man shouted.

  Kaye ducked, nocked, pulled the string and released another arrow, grunting as she did so.

  It caught the man in the stomach, but his momentum kept him going forward. She barely had time to move to the side before he crashed against her, bringing both to the ground. Kicking, Kaye managed to push herself to the side and into her room before the man could pin her in pce, and by the time he was lunging towards her she already had her bone dagger out.

  From below and up, sliding beneath the ribs, just like how she had been taught to do, Kaye stabbed at the man, reaching the heart. He fell on top of her, spasming.

  The heartbeats that followed were the longest of her life. The man mumbled, tried to grab her but had no strength. His weight was pressing the dagger’s pommel against her stomach. Kaye could barely breathe, and didn’t know from where she summoned the strength to push his limp body to the side.

  Not giving herself a single moment to catch her breath, she left the room, reaching for her bow and nocking another arrow.

  Blood, so much blood, spttering the ground and walls and even some on the ceiling. People moved about; the moment too fast for her to make out who was who. She pointed the arrow forward. Who was she targeting?

  The view in front of her became clearer then. Rair was soaked through with red, cwing on the ground. Gairin was lying face down in his bedding while three men closed upon Hogog, who was swinging a cleaver around madly.

  Her mother’s screech reached her ears.

  “Kaye!” Hogog shouted.

  She followed her mother’s desperate screams to find her trying to keep a masked man away, her hands clutched tightly around his dagger, blood pouring out.

  Kaye aimed for his head, but released too fast and hit his elbow. The man turned with bloodshot eyes, rushing towards her with a fist raised.

  Grabbing another arrow, she stood to meet him.

  Someone dashed past her, appearing in between her and the man. A cloak spun around and a long piece of steel fshed before her eyes.

  Stabbing through the man, the newcomer kept going forward. Kaye only had enough time to register their white hair before her instincts kicked in again.

  Turning to where Hogog was, she threw herself at the closest man, jamming the arrow in his neck, in the process catching sight of yet another masked man coming up the stairs before they fell forward, hitting others with them. Twisting in the ground, she heard Hogog roaring as he brought down his cleaver against the chest of the man she was pinning down, the impact going through him and hammering against her. Again and again, he screamed with fury, showering blood on her face, spttering it at the ceiling every time he raised the weapon.

  A thud to her side brought Kaye’s attention around in time to see the white-haired man swing against another’s neck. The strike didn’t behead him, but caught against his spine and the man fell, bringing the sword and its wielder back with him.

  Then the room was still.

  Hogog’s breathing was harsh like that of a beast. Rair had reached a wall and was trying to push himself to a sitting position. When Kaye saw blood pooling around Gairin, she crawled towards him.

  “Father? Father!”

  She couldn’t tell if he was warm or not. Though she saw her fingers touching his shoulders, struggled against the weight as she turned him around, no sensation reached her skin.

  His head fell on her p, the ruin of his throat still leaking blood. Gairin’s mouth was agape in surprise, his eyes bulging.

  When had her mother stopped screaming?

  Kaye looked behind her to see Taya leaning against the wall, unmoving. One of the masked men’s daggers was buried deep in her chest.

  She whirled around, sliding Gairin’s body to the side.

  “Who did this?!”

  Kaye stood up, looked around but saw no masked man still standing. She approached the closest one, kicked the side of his head with all the strength she had. “Speak! Who are you?!”

  He didn’t say anything. Didn’t even react to the blow. None of the others did.

  “Who else is there?!”

  Kaye strode towards the door. They could have missed one. Someone could be alive and still dying and she had to get answers from them before that happened.

  Someone blocked her path. She looked up to see the swordsman, noticed that he was young. Bck-skinned, with white hair in dreadlocks tied to flow to the back of his head, the sides shaved and a bandana covering his forehead.

  She reached for her dagger but didn’t find it. She had left it buried in the other man’s chest. “Move, I have to find them.”

  “They’re all dead,” he answered.

  “You killed them! You could have left one alive, why didn’t you?”

  “Kaye! Enough!” Hogog shouted. Her uncle was hunkered down by Rair’s side, trying to stanch his bleeding.

  “They killed my parents,” Kaye said, searching in her mind for a motive, a face, a name. The dead cat. The fight at the tavern. “Hokar Urcan did this, and I’m going to kill him for it.”

  “How? What proof do you have?”

  “Who else?!”

  “How are you going to do it? Walking up to him? If he ordered this, then things won’t be that easy.”

  Kaye hadn’t even noticed when she stepped closer to them. Rair was wheezing in pain, his and Hogog’s hands quenched in red.

  “You’re a coward,” she spat the words.

  The white-haired man spoke from behind her, “We don’t have time for this. If this Hokar really wants you dead, there might be more coming.”

  “There better be.”

  “The blood is getting to your head, calm down.”

  She felt his hand on her shoulder and turned around, aiming a punch at his stomach.

  He dodged, and brought his now sheathed sword around in a strike that caught her in the back of the neck.