The Way We Fall

Chapter 175 (Tigris)

TW: V0mit, coarse language, fighting.

Tigris couldn't stand to be near Roche. The woman had scrambled her mind, sending her thoughts and emotions scattering a million directions like startled birds. She latched onto her future, her plan to find the knights and retake the castle.

The rest... everything unspoken and everything cursed between them... it could wait.

It had to.

Tigris had no idea how to mend the rift torn into her world without making it worse.

Kai drifted beside her, shooting Roche concerned glances like he was finally seeing her for the first time and what he saw devastated him. A tense silence had fallen over them, one that Roche filled by antagonising Aodh. Tigris' heart still leapt every time her younger brother rolled his eyes at the inkblood, making jokes about her incompetence. She waited for Roche to whip out her inkblood, to show just how powerful she really was.

But Roche merely took the jibes in stride, elbowing the prince and teasing him further.

Kai was right. Roche had never been a fool. She'd merely played the role of one, and no one had bothered to look past that mask. Tigris had been so ignorant.

She couldn't tell who had paid the price for that lie. Tigris knew that she'd paid to some extent. She'd given her trust, her ear, and her heart to Roche. Roche had just always been there for her. In the past five years, the woman had spent every day by her side. Teasing, advising, comforting, whatever Tigris needed done, Roche had done it. It had never crossed Tigris' mind that there were secrets behind the woman's unflinching honesty.

The question plagued her. Who paid for the deceit, truly? Tigris had lost a friend.

But Roche had lost so much more.

How much had they both paid without the other realising?

She was shaken out of the melancholic thoughts when they found the first group of knights. Tigris held up her hand the moment she saw movement up ahead. Everyone went still as Tigris crept closer, one hand on her sword, the other holding up a torch. Aodh had tested the efficiency of the flames against the uska during the night, and apparently the strange creatures were repulsed by the glowing flames.

Tigris parted the bushes, faltering when it wasn't a swarm of shadows that she glimpsed, but a sea of Faultless grey cloaks.

Knights.

Her breath whistled out of her as a deluge of relief coursed through her. Behind her, her companions pressed forward to get a look.

A crack sounded, as loud as a gunshot. Everyone turned to glare at Roche, who had stepped on a twig. She shot them a sheepish look as the group of arguing knights spun around. Their faces slackened with shock. Then the shouts started.

"Inkblood!" one of the knights cried, and they all immediately unsheathed their swords.

Tigris spluttered in surprise, glancing to her side. Roche had gone pale, but there was no sign that the woman had revealed herself.

"What?" Aodh sputtered.

Grief and rage glistened in the hard lines of the knights' faces. They charged forward. Tigris unsheathed her sword smoothly, meeting the swing of the closest knight. The impact reverberated down her arm painfully.

"You," the knight seethed, enraged, "Will pay for wearing the face of our queen."

Several things clicked in Tigris' mind.

"Stop! It's really me! I'm not dead!" she ordered, "Stand down!"

The knights faltered at the familiar authority. Roche and Kai took the moment to spill out of the bushes. The sight of the servants gave the knights pause.