Shoestring Theory

TWENTY-FOUR

Cyril had never thrown a punch before.

Surprising, yes, but the occasion never came up. He knew the basics of it, though. He had seen it done. He understood the theory behind it, the gist of the movement. And his hands had been balled into fists for him, so he did not even have to worry about that part.

Cyril threw his weight forward, between Eufrates and Atticus. He had not used any magic, because he couldn’t, but it still felt as though time slowed to a snail’s crawl. He could feel somewhere in his body that he was doing this wrong. It was going to end up in injury.

But it was not going to end up in death .

Before Atticus could even begin to pull the momentum to swing his sword, Cyril’s fist was flying towards his face. He felt his shoulder snap strangely as the blow connected, hitting Atticus hard and square in the jaw. He was sure some of his fingers had broken against the bone. He had put so much force into the blow, it sent Atticus reeling back, sword useless at his side as he fell backwards into the mud. Cyril only didn’t fall himself because Eufrates held him back by his shirt, preventing him from landing on their assailant.

Belatedly, as he steadied his feet into the wet soil, he realised he had been screaming the entire time.

Atticus looked at him like he was gazing upon something unknowable. At least for a second, before he spat out a bloodied tooth – a front one, Cyril remarked with some pride – and shot him an incredulous, wicked snarl.

“I see. You’ve bought yourself some ti–”

He was interrupted – all of them were interrupted, really, by a flash of golden light, as though the sun itself had manifested within the garden and exploded into glimmering, blinding particles. Cyril could have sworn it stopped raining in that moment, too, but he could not be sure. He shut his eyes tight as soon as the light became too much to bear and shielded his face with both arms, as though he would be buffeted back by some invisible force.

A second or two passed. Cyril heard footsteps stirring the grass and felt a hand on his waist, reassuring, but impatient. It took the unused sword fastened at his hip from him with practiced ease.

“Oh, what? This one’s so light ! What am I meant to do with this?”

Cyril opened his eyes immediately, because it was her. She was standing next to him, in front of him, her full half-a-head-taller height towering over Cyril’s frame. She was looking back at her brother with the sword brandished in one hand.

Eufrates gaped for a moment before he finally said, “I had to give him something he could use , Tig.”

Tigris examined the blade, held it up to look down its handle as though appraising fine jewellery. She held it out to Atticus with a contented smile. It would do.

“Did you miss me?” she purred.

She was in her gown from that wedding dinner, still. It was soaked through with rainwater and clung to her body, wrapping around it. She looked ridiculous, but not even a hat made of fine, garish feathers could stop Tigris from cutting the most intimidating image he’d ever seen at that moment.

The sky had begun falling upon them again. The rain formed a halo around her head that made her look divine. She advanced on Atticus when she did not hear an answer.

Atticus, regaining his senses, got to his feet and drew his sword, pointing it at her with the same fervour as if he were trying to banish an evil spirit.

“It was a mistake for you to return to that form. I had planned to kill you quietly, but now I can rip you apart alongside your pathetic retinue.”

“You know what I’ve always hated about you, Atticus?” She sliced a diagonal across his breast that he just barely parried away. “You talk too much.”

“Airheaded bitch ,” he spat.

“Snivelling rat.”

It was like she had trained to fight in a wet evening gown, in a field of flowers during an oncoming storm. Any disadvantage she might have had being trapped inside the body of a cat for so long was cancelled out by her vim and vigour in the face of Atticus’s failing health and frayed sanity. She cut and flourished at him like a predator playing with its food. It was not a matter of if she would manage to best him, but when and how .

Cyril watched their one-sided duel, hands still glued into those pathetic little fists, his left one now tinted with blood from Atticus’s jaw. He could not believe he was, just a moment ago, fully intent on going to try and fight, but he was elated he had bought time until a true dashing hero arrived.

The fight did not last any longer than two minutes. Atticus did not have the stamina and Tigris looked like she was growing bored of the uneven match. She disarmed him. Then, without a single word of goodbye to the man she had been about to marry, for the coup-de-grace she stuck him through the throat with Cyril’s sword.

He collapsed onto his back with a dull, wet sound, spasming, fighting to pluck the weapon from himself. His hands trembled, his whole body shook. Cyril watched his mouth open and close, gurgling horribly and noiselessly through the sound of rainfall until it stopped.

When he was dead, on the ground in a pool of his own blood and the sword still pinning his neck, she turned to the two of them, Cyril and Eufrates, staring wide-eyed back at her.

“That wasn’t quite the tone I wanted to set for my first day as queen, but I don’t dislike it,” she said.

Cyril ran to her. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders in an embrace and she picked him up and swung him a full turn before she let him down again.

“Oh, I have been wanting to do that for days !” Tigris beamed.

“Tig!” he said, and stepped back to truly look at her. “I am so happy to see you!”

Tigris wrapped a fond arm around his shoulders and drew them together, pressing her forehead to his.

She murmured, “Cy, that was the worst fucking punch I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Cyril let out a bubble of laughter that nearly had him doubled over.

She went to her brother next, who was still kneeling on the ground, frozen as though he still had no idea if any of this were real or if his head had truly been lopped off in combat and he was in the middle of delusions of victory. As if to prove him wrong she hugged him so tight that Cyril could see him try to push her away after a few moments.

Tigris helped him to his feet and Cyril ran after her to help. They each took one of Eufrates’s arms and hoisted him up. The wound on his chest, the most dangerous one, still held fast to its makeshift stitching, so he was no longer in danger of bleeding out. But when he stood up, he wobbled on unsteady legs and his eyes screwed shut, fighting off a dizzy spell.

Tigris ripped off a section of her dress to wrap it around the hole in his hand while Cyril held him upright.

“Can you walk?” he asked, looking down at the wound on Eufrates’s thigh.

Eufrates nodded. “It is not a deep wound. I am only lightheaded from the bloodletting, but I will recover in a moment.”

Cyril was about to lead him further into the garden, to sit under a copse of trees and rest, but Tigris grabbed both their arms and pulled him towards the palace gates instead.

“Oh, no,” she said. “We need to get out of here.”

Cyril tilted his head at her. “Why?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but she did not need to. The rumbling of the earth they had experienced before returned anew. This time, though, it opened cracks in the soil, and churned it so badly Cyril’s feet began to sink into the mud.

Under Tigris’s guidance, they took off running.