In the time since she had left Snowbourn, Silver had developed several aches from her scuffle with Aerlick. Not least of these was the darkening bruise upon her throat, making it difficult to swallow. It was worth it though. When her anger had subsided, she had felt oddly empowered, like a weight had been lifted from her. One facet of her fear was diminished now. It was time to face the next.
Her path had taken her east, over plains and through meadows, to a place she had once thought of as a sanctuary. Antoth's hut. Or at least, where it used to be. She was saddened to discover that it was gone almost as surely as the man himself. No sign remained of the carefully tended vegetable patch or of the once thriving bee hives. The bench he had hewn from a tree was missing, rotted away or taken by someone with a use for it. Not even the hut itself remained intact, the stones that had comprised its walls had been slowly but surely pilfered over the years, presumably to make repairs on other houses or walls. All that remained was a slight indentation in the earth and a roughly circular scattering of rocks. Nevertheless, she had lingered a while, fond memories of the time before his disappearance bringing a smile to her plump lips. It was here that she had first learned to read, here that she had learned a little something of compassion. The man who had once resided here had shaped her life in so many ways, placing the seed of kindness and the love for discovery within her heart when all else around her was rotten and dark. She had never learned why he had left her there alone. She had never ascertained why he had abandoned her so suddenly. but for all the hurt it had caused, she still felt so very grateful that she had experienced those years with him.
Not so the recipient of her next stop.
As the shadows lengthened, she reluctantly departed the ruin of her only childhood joy and made her way across that familiar meadow. It seemed so much smaller now, the grass shorter, the distance less. Was it because she was older and taller than she had been? Or because she dreaded the next meeting?
The farmhouse loomed ahead of her far sooner than she would have liked, squatting in the distance like a fat spider awaiting its next meal. She grimaced and forged on ahead regardless. Didn't she face spiders frequently? Didn't she divest them of their legs, their mandibles, their lives? She could show no fear here. Not to this man. She would not, could not, give him the satisfaction of knowing how her heart quailed in the face of his indifference.
Straightening her back, lifting her head high, she raised her fist to knock upon the door. To her surprise, it swung inward. Unusual. It was not like him to leave it unlatched. Frowning, she pushed her way inside.
"Daddy dear," she called mockingly. "I came home!"
All that greeted her was the silence and the shadows and the smell. Musty. Cold and damp. But there was something else, something altogether far more familiar. She followed it to the closed door of the kitchen area, her frown deepening as she pushed it open and stepped inside. The stench was overwhelming now, accompanied by the buzz of disturbed flies.
"You bastard," she said, sagging down into a chair once her eyes had adjusted to the deeper gloom. "You couldn't even give me this much."
There before her, as she had known he would be, her father sat slumped in his customary chair, skin a pallid grey and eyes open in a sightless stare. Flies crawled in and out of his mouth, across his face and body but she didn't care. It didn't matter a jot to her that the eggs had already been laid, that soon the corpse would be crawling with flesh eating maggots. It mattered only that she would never be able to see the look upon his face when he saw that she had come back to face him at last.
She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes. She would not cry. She would shed no tears for this wretch, this cad, this disgraced Rider. Not even if those tears were for herself and not for him. He would never have looked upon her with pride or affection. He would never have hugged her or explained why he had allowed such terrible things to happen to her. Her would never apologise for his part in them or speak a wish that the past could be changed. In life he would have remained disinterested in her. In death he remained indifferent.
Silver rose abruptly and made her way back outside. Walking around to the side of the house, she found the marker under which her father's wife had been buried, lovingly carved from... was that the wood from Antoth's bench?!
Furious, she kicked at it again and again until it shifted within the dirt, leaning at a crooked angle. How the harridan would have hated that!
"I only wish you were in there with him," she hissed at the uncaring dirt. "I might be too late for this, but I wanted you to know that no matter how you tried, you never broke me!"
Filled with a sudden purpose, Silver marched over to where she had left Steel and Salwen. She took from his saddlebags a flint and a torch and, using the blade of her kukri, struck the former to bring life and light to the latter. Dusky features darkened all the more by a grim determination. Silver marched back inside the house. It didn't take long to touch the fire to all the soft surfaces and bundles of clothes. It didn't take long for the fire to spread, lapping at the dried wood of the interior like a cat with a bowl of cream. She rushed out, one hand covering her mouth and nostrils against the quickly thickening smoke and, turning, threw the torch up onto the thatched roof.
Smiling at her handiwork, and at least one fantasy fulfilled, Silver retrieved her horses and walked away, never once looking back.
