It took Vivyka days to track Matt down. He wasn’t in Halimi, and she figured if Malluk’s people were after him, he would try to stay away from towns where he was well known. Luckily, Vivyka knew every place he had ever lived for any length of time, so she knew he wouldn’t return to Seaport or Oraunt. He loved hot places, so he wouldn’t go north if he could avoid it.. That left the cities between Rosewall and Lordell. She started with the cities closest to Halimi. Though Andersville was about the same distance from it as Rosewall, she knew Matt disliked small towns, so she started in Rosewall.
She went to the kinds of places he liked, asked the right kinds of people, and she eventually found him on the afternoon of the forth day. He was sitting at the bar in the Red Thorn Tavern, the seediest place in town, of course—drinking, smoking, and brooding. She grabbed a chair at a table in the back corner and watched him.
Some women walked by him and didn’t even notice him, but it wasn’t because he was wearing a dark gray t-shirt under his sleeveless jacket, hiding some of his amazing body; it was because he looked like shit, like he had just crawled out of a trash can and hadn’t slept for a week. He had a cut that was at least a day or two old on his cheek and another on his lip, dark circles under his eyes, and the shadow of a beard.
After a while, he got up and knocked into the guy next to him—she wasn’t sure if it was on purpose or not. The guy was big and burly; he looked like a mountain man, like maybe he wrestled bears for fun. Then she realized, with shock, that Matt was drunk. He had always hated the idea: he thought being drunk was stupid and never drank more than a few bottles of ale at a time. But now he was intoxicated enough that he swayed.
The large man shoved him, and Matt stumbled back a few steps before catching himself on the bar. Matt smiled, looking slightly deranged, and shoved back. Predictably, a fight broke out. He held his own fairly well, using only his fists. Vivyka noticed he didn’t have a sword on him. That was a first.
Finally, the bartender got the two men to take it outside. Vivyka waited until some people had gathered around them, and then stood back, blending in with the small crowd to watch. She knew Matt well enough to know that he was holding back, a lot. Even though he was drunk, she could tell by the look in his eyes that he wasn’t really trying. He didn’t bother to try.
The mountain man pummeled him to the ground. Matt lay there with his mouth bleeding as the man backed away. It was enough of a win for him, but Matt got up for more. She realized that he wanted to get beaten. He wanted to lose, to die. But he couldn’t go down without a fight; it wasn’t in his nature, even in his current state of misery.
They continued for a few more minutes until the burly man landed a hard punch and Matt fell onto the cobbled road again. The man was done. He shook his hand, his knuckles now covered with blood, and walked away. Matt lay bleeding on the ground, and people drifted away. The entertainment was over, and now he was just the pathetic loser.
Vivyka stayed where she was until she was the last person there, then crossed her arms over her chest, looking down at him. “You’ve looked better,” she told him.
He opened his eyes and squinted in the sun, trying to see who it was. She stepped closer and offered him a hand, but he waved it away and got up by himself. It wasn’t until he was standing that he recognized her.
He laughed humorlessly as he swayed and wiped the blood off his mouth with the back of his hand. “What now?”
“I need to tell you something,” she said calmly, trying to ignore the terrified knot in her stomach. He could turn on her—he had plenty of reason to hate her, to want to punish her. But she had to do this.
He pulled out a cigarette and put it between his lips, flinching as it touched a fresh cut. “I’ve heard that before. Come to kill me, right?” He scoffed, but she heard the hint of hope in his tone.
“No. Just talk.”
“To let me know how much you despise me?” He laughed. “Join the crowd, people hating me is all the rage right now.” He frowned. “Where’s my damn lighter?”
She pulled it out of his jacket pocket, the same pocket he always kept it in, and lit his cigarette for him. She put it back and sighed. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“To an inn. You need a strong cup of coffee and a bath.”
“I don’t need anything.”
“You seriously do,” she told him. “You’re drunk, and you really stink.”
“Then get the hell away from me,” he grumbled, turning and heading in the opposite direction.
“Mathias,” she said firmly. “We’re going this way.” She grabbed his arm. He turned back around, and she automatically flinched and stepped back.
His frown deepened at her reaction. “Where’s your crossbow?”
“I’m not here to kill you, I just need to talk to you.”
“So, talk.”
“Not until you’re sober. I need you to actually hear me. Now come on.” She pulled him down a side road.
He came willingly now, though he glared at her the whole way instead of watching where he was going, causing him to trip twice.
__________
Vivyka sat on the windowsill, smoking a cigarette and watching the people pass by on the street below. Matt was behind her, sitting in a large, old-fashioned wooden tub.
Not too long ago, if someone had told her that she would be here, doing what she was doing, she would have said they were insane. Matt was the last person on Kelstone she wanted to help. But it wasn’t for him—it was for Sera.
“Hand me a smoke.”
She didn’t lift her gaze from the street. “Get it yourself.”
“You have them.”
She glanced down at the silver case in her hand; she had been moving her thumb absentmindedly over the hellhound engraved on it. She had seen the case plenty of times when they dated, but she had never really looked at it, never noticed the hellhound in the middle of all the swirly designs. She didn’t think she had wanted to notice it, she hadn't wanted to know who he really was.
“Oh, yeah,” she mumbled. She lit a cigarette and handed it to him, looking at him as little as possible, then returned to the ledge.
“So, why are you here?” he asked, sober now. “Why aren’t you trying to kill me, or at least kick the shit of me?”
She let out a long, heavy sigh as she stared out the window again. “When I was little, people liked to pick on me at school. I always seem to attract trouble—which would be how I know you,” she said with a short, humorless laugh. “One day, when I was seven, this small, delicate girl—she was about five at the time—saw this big bully of a girl trying to rough me up. This really was a big girl, too; even most of the boys were scared of her. But that five-year-old girl stepped in and told her to stop. Martha—that was the big girl—she wouldn’t back down, but neither would the little girl. Martha got mad and told her to move or she’d get hit. ‘No,’ the girl said, ‘I won’t let you hurt my friend’. So Martha punched the girl and walked off in a huff. The girl’s mouth was bleeding when I helped her up. ‘I’m not your friend,’ I told her. I knew who she was and we had met several times, but that was it. ‘You are now,’ she said simply, then asked if I was okay and smiled at me. She was hurt, but she was worried about me.”
“Nice story,” Matt said quietly, “but what’s it have to do with me?”
“That little girl was Sera,” Vivyka told him. “She’s always been like that. She’s always loved everyone, always stood up for people, even if she didn’t know them, always a friend to anyone, no matter who they are.”
She laughed softly at another memory. “One time we were playing out in the woods—I think she was eight or so. We found two little boys playing there. One of them didn’t have shoes… there was a reason, he’d lost them or something, I don’t remember. But Sera just took off her boots and gave them to him. She didn’t even think about it, she just handed them over. Then we walked back to her house, which was like two miles away, and it was almost winter. I asked why she did it. ‘Because he needed them,' she told me, and shrugged like it was no big deal.”
Vivyka sighed. “She’s got the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known. Even when she gets hurt, she never hates anyone. She didn’t even think badly of big Martha. She just explained—at five years old—that Martha probably didn’t have loving parents like she did and so she didn’t know any better.” She looked over at Matt now. “Do you understand how much it’s terrified me to think that you might hurt her?”
Matt started to say something, but she cut him off. “She’s hurting now—dying, literally. She hardly eats; she doesn’t have the strength to get out of bed…” Vivyka blinked, trying to not to cry. “And you know why?”
“Me,” he whispered.
She nodded. “That’s part of it,” she agreed softly. “But mostly it’s because of me. I shouldn’t have gone to Chira’s temple; I shouldn’t have had that cleric show her your memories. It was an overload for her, and she got physically sick from it. And she just keeps getting worse.” Vivyka wiped away tears, unable to stop them. “I was the one that made her watch, the one that didn’t believe you when you said it was worse than I knew. I was the one who didn’t save her from it when I had the chance, who caused her to get sick like this.” She took a deep breath. “But you’re the reason she won’t get better.”
“How’s that?” he asked, his voice choked with emotion.
“Because every day she stares out her window. Waiting—always waiting—but you haven’t come.”
“How could anyone forgive—”
“Anyone can’t,” she said flatly. “I can’t… I’ll never forgive you.” She shook her head. “It would take an angel to forgive someone like you…” She looked back at the street below and sighed. “And she’s an angel.”
It was silent for a long time before she finally stood and took another deep breath. She grabbed a cigarette and set his case on the ledge. “Well, that’s all I came to say. So… bye,” she told him, and left.
