MELITA
She didn’t deserve his kindness. She didn’t deserve his encouragement. All she’d earned was something like distrust and acrimony; and she’d openly welcome it at this point, not understanding how or why he’d insist upon remaining in her stead. Self-hatred mutilated her throat now, clawing and binding, and the girl suddenly wanted to do nothing more than curl into a ball and be left alone with her thoughts, with her malice, with her menace upon her own soul, completely out of depth with lacking control. Where there’d always been impulsive and impetuousness, it had reached a broadening new level of debacles and vitriol, plunging towards those who hadn’t been warranted her rage or defiance. Her eyes darted back and forth, from the rush of leaves nearby, a promise of hiding, of running, of rampaging elsewhere, and then back to the man, who hardly knew her at all – before the blight, when she hadn’t been so stupid, so worthless, so bound by disease and regret.You won’t hurt me, I promise sounded great - but she’d been in trainings before, with Kiada, where they had intended to maul and maim one another, neither inflicted by the blight, just by their own abhorrence of one another. Where was the guarantee she wouldn’t relapse? That he could fend her off again if something awful entrenched itself into her blood?
But gods, how she wanted to fight again – to feel like herself instead of this distorted, misshapen menace. For all the times she’d yearned to become a monster, she hadn’t yearned for this, out of control, out of her element, seeking out those she cherished and ensuring they were harmed. That had never been her dream, her motive, or anything she’d stood for. “Okay,” she mumbled, taking her staff back into her right hand, the familiar hum blistering beneath her fingertips.
Then she lunged, a rush, a rampage of movement, an exploitation of fierce, swift upheaval, back into her essence, the beautiful weight of her weapon across her palm. The girl remembered her training, the way Wessex and Alistair had told her to root her movements, her motions, the notion of precision, the weight of her impact. She shifted back and forth, before attempting to swing the staff at Loren’s right shoulder.
See I've come to burn your kingdom down
