Why I Fight

By Hannah Cahoon

The ringing of cold steel reached my ears as I ran through the torrents of people. This had to have been the stupidest thing I’d ever done. I mean, who charges wildly through sword-wielding maniacs just to take on the man who taught me everything I know?

“Asterin will do as she’s told.” I scoffed at Kieran’s words as I raced to my possible doom, trying not to slip on green grass and yellow leaves wet with blood.

“She’s loyal,” Kiernan added. “She doesn’t ask questions.”

Maybe a three-year-old doesn’t know when they’ve been lied to… I hacked my way to the man I’d once considered a mentor. Hard to believe I once believed everything he had fed to me.

“She thinks I saved her.” Kieran’s smug voice rang in my thoughts. “I told her that her parents died and I took her in, gave her a purpose.”

That was a year ago—the night of the last Harvest moon— when I learned the truth about Kiernan, the man who raised me. I left my career as an assassin and The Violent Highland, all I had known since I was three, ceased to be my home.

A knife grazed my cheek, and its sting snapped me from my memories. I threw my own knife into the chest of the attacker. My resolve deepened the longer my gaze remained on my former mentor—my kidnapper.

Though I had been young when my parents “died,” I still remembered my mama’s dark hair and kind blue eyes—both which I inherited—and my father’s vibrant green eyes. I remembered the necklace Mama always wore—a smaller silver cross, no bigger than my thumb. She had always said that it represented the light and the hope it brought with it.

My fingers touched Mama’s necklace—a reminder of the time lost because of Kiernan’s crimes. A month ago, she had given it to me with her last breath. I had only just found them again.

The heat from battlefield explosions threw me back to the final day I was with my family.

Flames. Heat. My anguished cry as I caught my mother, careful to avoid the arrow piercing her heart.

The memories remained as though it happened yesterday and not a month ago. Kiernan’s cold dark eyes as he turned away from where he had buried a dagger in my father’s chest. His last words ran in my ears.

“You should have stayed with me. This all could have been avoided.”

“I hate you!” I screamed. A soft groan brought my gaze back to Mama. Her bloodied hands pulled weakly at her necklace. Once I helped her remove it, she folded it into my hand. Crying, I placed it around my own neck. Her last words stuck with me through the following battles filled with blood and sorrow.

“Never forget, Asterin, you must hold onto the light. Don’t let him take that away from you.”

A shriek ripped me back to the present. A soldier toppled back, feebly pulling at the spear jutting through him. My gaze searched the battlefield, landing on Kiernan as he prepared to drive his sword into the back of the unsuspecting king. I drew a knife from its sheath and threw it as his hand lowered.

Thump! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Kiernan had dodged the knife, and it embedded harmlessly into a nearby tree. The king continued to fight, unaware of the betrayal that had nearly befallen him. My enemy turned to me. “You’re a fool!”

“Maybe. But I’m not letting you win until I know I’ve done everything in my power to stop you.” I gripped my two remaining knives.

Kiernan lunged, and the feeling of a blade slicing into my upper right arm sent me stumbling. How had I missed the knife?

“Someone hasn’t been practicing.” Kieran sneered as I jerked away.

I blocked the sword aimed at my head and maneuvered behind Kiernan to thrust my knife at his back. He whirled and grabbed my throat with an iron grip. My knives clattered on the ground as I choked. My empty hands grasped at his, as I desperately sought air. The look in his eyes said I would die. But I couldn’t. That would mean my parents’ deaths had been in vain, as had countless others. Though black spots danced across my vision, I saw a glint of metal shining in the sunlight behind Kieran. Hope blossomed like the ray illuminating the spear. My salvation.

“This is your end!” Kiernan growled in my ear.

“No,” I choked out. “It’s yours.”

Lifting my legs, I kicked him hard, loosening his grip. One more kick separated us and sent him stumbling toward the spear stuck in the ground.

It plunged into his neck.

He glared at me with hatred until the life drained out of eyes. A sigh of relief escaped my lips. With their leader dead at my feet, Kiernan’s army surrendered. It was over.

I fingered Mama’s necklace again, tears pricking my eyes and relief flooding through my veins.

“I did it, Mama,” I whispered, my knees thudding against the blood-soaked autumn leaves. “I did it.”