I’ve been trying to write more short fiction recently. Partly because it’s honestly not my forte, but also because if I can get some short stories published somewhere, it’s all good exposure.

I spotted a prompt recently, which was to write a short story on the theme of betrayal. Rather than write something entirely new, I thought I’d adapt a scene from Crowchanger. It’s a useful one, because although there are little spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read it, the scene happens quite early on in the book, so it’s not going to spoil any of the climax. In the book, the scene is written in third person, from Sylas’s point of view. The new slant on it, is that I’ve done this in first person, from Fienne’s point of view. She isn’t a viewpoint character in the book, so this is the only thing I’m likely to do from her perspective.

STAB AND TWIST

By dawn, the children were already carrying water from the well for washing. We used it cold. Not even a betrothal warrants wasting precious fuel to heat water. In the desert, we are used to discomfort.

I made sure to wake Pietrig myself. Aithne and Kael’s wedding celebrations had gone on late, but Pietrig had come home later still, and filthy with it. He’d been with Sylas; I could tell. Our father and Sylas’s had gone to great lengths to keep them apart, but the soot from the kiln—their meeting-place of old—gave them away.

I pumped Pietrig for information, though he was barely awake.

“Did he say anything? Is he willing?”

Pietrig spluttered as I poured cold water over his head. He scrubbed his fingers through his dark curls, rubbing behind his ears and down his neck. Funny. I used to help wash him when he was little, and here he was, wearing the gem in his ear, a grown man. Sooty water ran in rivulets over his shoulders.

“They’ve told him.”

“Is that all? Does it please him?”

Pietrig shook the water from his hair. “What do you think?”

I didn’t have to think; I knew. I’d talked to Sylas before he left. All he wanted was to be a changer and escape the village, his father, the linandra pits—everything that makes our people the lowest of the low, and him lowest of all.

“I think he’d want to stay at the Aerie.”

But his father would never allow that. After only three children, one dead these several months, Craie needed grandchildren to raise his status. Although most suspected Sylas would sooner lie with a man, Craie would still force him into marriage for his own ends.

“I know why this betrothal is happening, Fienne. To free me from the dig team. Father’s giving me a future by taking away Sylas’s. It stinks.”

Pietrig wasn’t meant to be a linandra digger; he was meant to follow father as village elder. But if Sylas took his place in the pits, Pietrig could come home, and Sylas marrying me would drag his family off the bottom rung of our village’s ladder.

As a marriage proposal, it did indeed stink.

#

The morning was cool; the clean dress fresh against my skin. Sylas was freshly scrubbed, all hints of soot washed away. The linandra bead that marked his adulthood glinted in the early sun, but the bead on the thong about my neck was a sham. It proclaimed me a woman, but I was seventeen, nearly eighteen, and I had never bled.

My stomach fluttered. It’s expected for the girl to be nervous, but Sylas looked just as tense, and I wondered what had passed between him and his parents. When I tried to catch his eye, to give him a reassuring smile, he looked past me, to where the rest of my family stood. To Pietrig.

Can there be anything more soul-destroying than knowing your betrothed loves your brother better?

I’d guessed years ago. Pietrig would flirt with the village girls—sneak a kiss when he could. But Sylas only had eyes for Pietrig. Would Sylas even want to take me to his bed when we were married? Had that too been part of my father’s plan? To blame him when I failed to conceive?

When my father suggested the betrothal it seemed ideal. I loved Sylas like another brother already. He’s a good man, kind and gentle. But I didn’t think they’d trick him; I thought he knew. I’d sooner he had been happy about the match, but could I lay my hand on my heart and say I wouldn’t marry him even if he was unwilling, knowing this might be my only chance? The Lady knows my shame, I reasoned, and still she has brought this man to be my betrothed.

As we stood, waiting to be joined, my betrothed-to-be tried to catch my brother’s eye. When at last he succeeded, he tensed and looked uncomfortably away. Shifting, he stared across the circle to where his own family were gathered. He and his mother were so very close. What were they conveying to each other with those lingering looks?

My father took my hand to lead me towards Sylas. Sylas’s father took his elbow and tried to do the same, but Sylas shook his father off. He muttered something. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I could guess the intent from his truculent posture. A chill ran through me, and my heart beat so hard, I thought my father could hear it. My father leaned close, his breath tickling my ear when he spoke.

“Take his hand, child. Many men are nervous when it comes to it. He will do it for you.”

I held out my hand, and Sylas looked at me, his eyes full of pain. He didn’t want to hurt me, I could tell, but he would do it all the same. I wanted to run. To hide. To pretend this wasn’t happening. But the whole village was watching. I had to see it through.

He looked like an animal in a trap.

“I’m sorry.” He barely whispered the words, but I read them from his lips.

His father yanked his arm. “Take it. Take her hand, damn you.”

The look he gave me broke my heart. “I can’t. Fienne, I can’t. I’m sorry.”

It’s only nerves, I told myself. It has happened before, one partner hesitating, realising the importance of the vows. But I could hear villagers shuffling behind me. This was not just nerves. They could tell something was wrong.

“Please, Elder Skarai. Don’t do this to her. Take her back to your wife. Say we made a mistake. Say she refused me. Say she loves another. Please don’t do this.”

I tried to speak, could feel my lips trembling as I did so. “But I would not refuse you. You are the gentlest man in the village. I would have you as my husband before any of them. When my father asked me, I agreed right away.”

He raised his head and looked over my shoulder, far into the distance. I didn’t need to turn to know he was staring at the mountain on which the Aerie lay. Thinking of his dreams of changing; his future, left in tatters because of me.

“I cannot marry you, Fienne. I will not.” Then to my horror, he raised his voice so all the village could hear. “I will not take her, do you hear me? I will go back to the Aerie. I cannot marry. Not Fienne. Not anyone. I mean to be a changer.”

“You’ll do as we say, young Sylas!” My father tugged at my hand, and Craie did the same to Sylas. Was there ever a less auspicious start to a marriage than a man and woman’s hands being joined by force? I wanted to scream at them to stop, but I controlled myself.

“No,” I said, and the words caught in my throat. “If he does not want me, I would not have you force him.”

“He will do as he is told, girl, as will you.” My father would never normally speak angrily to me. “Who do you want in the desert: Sylas or your brother? Your brother, who will lead after me?”

Pietrig was right, I thought bitterly. All this was to release Pietrig from the digging—from the life in the vents that rotted men’s lungs and ate the skin from their faces. Had he been part of their schemes?

Sylas raised his voice. “They try to trick my father. The girl is barren. She has had no flows. She should never have had the bead. I will not marry her.”

No one moved. No one spoke. I stared at him, speechless. He might have come to this betrothal unwillingly, but to shame me before everyone…

My eyes threatened to overflow, but I would not cry in front of him. I would not let him see how deeply he had wounded me.

“Who— Who told you? They said it was a secret—that no one beyond family knew of it. How could you do this to me, Sylas? In front of everyone. Omena’s wings, but I thought you cared for me a little.”

No one beyond family.

I had washed the soot from Pietrig’s body myself.

Pietrig had slept with Sylas last night, of that I was now certain. And at the kiln, in the throes of lovemaking or in the quiet after, he had told Sylas my secret. The one thing he had sworn no one outside family would know. He had told him I was barren, and now the entire village knew.

I ran home sobbing. Sylas was not my betrothed, nor ever would be now, but he had been my friend. Pietrig was my own blood.

A friend’s betrayal stabs deep, but a brother’s betrayal twists the knife.