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Liorah

“I’m a doctor,” Niarok said quietly. “I didn’t mean to stare. I’m sorry. Although if you ever want to tell me how you got them, I’d be happy to hear the story.”

It wasn’t what I’d expected him to say. He was literally the first person in this entire place who had decent manners.

I shrugged and grinned, easily.

“There’s not much to tell, it was Aydin’s girlfriend– I mean his ex.” I snickered at the thought that I could have forgotten that debacle. I had added it to the long list of reasons why being in a romantic relationship with an assassin was a horrible idea.

Niarok looked up, sharply, though his expression was more confusion and shock than any recognition. I raised an eyebrow. He had no idea about this situation, did he?

I pulled up my right sleeve and vaguely gestured to some of the many scars. The most noticable was a long cut that ran from the outside of my wrist into my sleeve. Halfway it was crossed by three concentric circles, knife wounds that hadn’t been delivered in battle.

“And some of the others were his friends, or his father, or his King, or a second-cousin twice removed or who even knows.”

I rubbed the mark in an instinctive effort to shove down the memories.

“I don’t think he gave me any himself but that’s not his fault,” I said, rather satisfied that I’d managed to avoid that. In fact, I was ahead there. I had given him a bloody nose once and he’d absolutely deserved it.

“I thought you were friends,” Niarok said, barely able to keep the horror out of his voice.

I blinked, rapidly.

“Of course we are.”

“Are all your friends like that?” Niarok asked, looking like he was desperately trying to hide a laugh.

“Oh, he wasn’t my friend then. Family fued, sins of the fathers, so on and so forth,” I gestured, vaguely. “And he was being a real idiot about it too.”

Niarok looked as though I had swept the metaphorical floor out from under him. I grinned.

“He didn’t tell you?”

This was incredibly amusing. I couldn’t have timed this better in any way. Making a joke of it was the only way I could manage this. It was that or crying and who wanted to do that?

Someone called out behind me, answered by another voice. I spun around, hand flicking to my weapons.

He had landed hard, apparently from the ceiling. I glanced up at it, and back down to him in extreme confusion.

“Is everyone in this entire place trying to give me a heart attack or is that just a bonus?” I asked, sarcastically.

“Hello? Do you know where I am?” the young man asked, dubiously.

A tall girl with jet-black hair who faintly looked like Niarok strode up to him.

“Yes, I do,” she said. Her voice was sharp and authoratative. I took an instant liking to her. “You’re in a hellhole of an evil omniscient castle, stuck here with the rest of us. Welcome in,” she snapped.

I snickered. That was brilliant.

“Oh, don’t worry. The rest of them are a bit more decent than me,” she said, jerking her chin toward Niarok. “I’m just the gatekeeper.”

This time I laughed outright.

“Speak for yourself, love,” I said, with a grin. The jury was still out whether I was more decent than her but I was comfortable with assuming I wasn’t.

“I’ll only kill you if you try to hurt me or one of them.”

“Okay?” The man said, dubiously. He slowly got up and showed his hands, making it obvious he was unarmed.  “I won’t hurt anyone unless it’s absolutely necessary. Besides, I’m unarmed,” he said. He didn’t sound aggressive.

“I hope you will keep your word for your sake,” the girl spat. She glared at him before returning to her seat.

The man looked dubious and unimpressed.

“Very dramatic,” he muttered.

I was barely able to manage my laughter and eventually just gave up, trying to stifle the almost hysterical laughter.

Lorcan passed me and I shot him a glare, just to keep in the habit, but he didn’t even look in my direction. Rude. Who else was I supposed to argue with?

He was softly humming something and I pulled an expression that couldn’t be interpreted as anything other than the mocking I intended.

He was looking at the girl. And the girl was looking at him. An awful lot. I raised my eyebrows.

Was I interrupting? I felt like I was interrupting.

Wait, wait, hold on, I’d seen this before. That was the same soft-headed look Gavril and Nebiah shot at each other.

This had to be a joke. I glanced back and forth between them and decided that it absolutely wasn’t a joke. I bit on my lower lip to keep from bursting out in laughter. Them? Now? That was the most inoppertune moment possible and exactly like Lorcan. I pitied the girl.

Neither Lorcan nor the girl noticed and I backed away. Lovesick people tended to react in unexpected ways and I didn’t want to get strangled by Lorcan again. That had been annoying.

___________

Liorah really woke up and chose violence. XD

Her dropping huge backstory bombs on Niarok like ten seconds after being introduced is so ridiculously in character. XD

Aydin hasn’t let slip a single thing during this entire time and Liorah needs two minutes to spill everything. XD

(I didn’t really start an interaction with anyone so whoever has a character free! Calidris, we can introduce Skia and Liorah if you feel like it 😈)

Also, y’all, I finished drawing a portrait of Aydin and it’s making me so happy. Do y’all wanna see?

I think I’ll wake him up pretty soon, but I need to invent a really good nightmare first. Or I might copy the one I just wrote for the book, that one was horrifying and will do nicely!