Roses on Fire ~ The Tale of Roses and Thorns 2.
Chapter 5 ~ Not your fault

A few days later Ivelle decided to take a walk in the city. She was walking in the gardens with the guards watching from a reasonable distance. She sat down on a bench, taking a few deep breaths to clear her mind. Her mood was awful ever since she had that dispute first with Cirillo then with Adrastos. To be fair she hadn’t seen neither of them ever since.

“Is this seat free?” asked a figure in front of her. She was so deep in her thoughts that she didn’t notice him standing there.

“Áedh!” she said with slight surprise “Sure, come sit down.”

For a few minutes they were sitting in silence, until Ivelle broke it.

“You don’t know how relieved I was, when I saw you. I thought you were dead...” she confessed on a low voice.

“I felt the same.” he turned his head to face her “There were plenty of evidence of your death. We all thought that we won’t see you again.” he took a deep breath and stood up “Although seeing you with Delroy and Adrastos was... well let’s say surprising. No that’s not good. More like.... slightly shocking.”

“I trust them.”

“I know, and I hope that this trust is not misplaced.” he turned away “Come, let’s take a walk.”

The whole ward was loud from the clinging of swords and the shooting of arrows.

“Why are we here again?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I thought you might need some practice.”

“We agreed on a walk.” she said teasingly “And anyways, I’m not supposed to have my weapons with me while I’m here...”

“I talked to Allerick,” they kept on walking towards the ward “and we agreed that you need practice. I mean, after all, you’ve been away for 6 months and-”

" Okay, I get it.” she cut him off as they reached the armoury. They picked their weapons (swords, because Ivelle had always been better with them) and they started the practice.

For a while they were just circling, looking into each other’s eyes. Then Áedh attacked first and the practice begun. Ivelle was able to block Áedh’s sword and managed to hit him a few times. The swords (which were of course blunt so they couldn’t hurt each other) were clinging, and the whole ward was echoing from their fight. Soon a huge crowd was watching them, whispering and speculating about the outcome.

Ivelle was watching Áedh, looking for his weakness. She let him exhaust himself by attacking. After a while she noticed: Áedh always put his weight on his left leg and tried to spare his right one. With one last attempt to attack Ivelle went for Áedh’s right leg and managed to take him by surprise. Áedh lost his balance and fell to the ground, with Ivelle standing above him with a victorious grin.

“So, who needs practising now?”

“Very funny.” he said standing up “You’re better than you were.”

“Well, Adrastos is quite a great teacher you know.” she grinned and from the corner of her eyes noticed someone moving among the crowd. She turned her head and noticed a furious-looking Cirillo walking past a very proud-looking Adrastos. Áedh followed her gaze and watched Cirillo leaving.

“I guess we had enough practice for today. Care to join me for lunch?” he started packing the swords away.

“I uhm...” she looked around looking for Adrastos again, but he disappeared “Yeah sure.” she smiled and helped Áedh.

“So” she started picking her food “What happened to you? You know...after we...departed.”

Áedh started examining his food very carefully and stayed silent for a while. Ivelle wanted to kick herself for bringing this up but couldn’t help her curiosity.

“I fought them. The dark soldiers. At first, I was confident, but then more came. Six against one. You can imagine...they belaboured me quite effectively and left me there. I was bleeding badly and slowly lost my consciousness. I woke up a week later in Nethilor.”

“Your leg...”

“You noticed.” Ivelle just nodded “Yes, it’s not one hundred percent healed yet. But it’s getting better every day.” he gave her a weak smile “It’s not your fault.”

“But-”

“Not your fault.” he put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Ivelle put down her fork and laid back in her seat.

“I could’ve stayed. I could’ve helped you.”

“Then you’d been dead.”

“You nearly died.”

“Yes. But I didn’t. My chances were better than yours and you know it very well. You don’t have to be the hero in every single situation.” he stood up “I have to go to a meeting. Please Ivelle, don’t blame yourself. It’s really not your fault.” he turned away and left.

Ivelle sat there and stared at the plate before her. Was it really not her fault? She was the one who insisted on resuming their journey to Drauri and then to Nendawin. She was the one who left Áedh alone. Cirillo was right. She ran into every fatal situation she found. But it was worse than what Cirillo said, because she usually put others’ lives in danger too.

Who will be the next one? Hagan? Adrastos? Delroy? Pádraig? She couldn’t let that happen. Not again.