Empyrean Iris

Chapter 47

 "What did you say to me?"

Sunny stood straight backed and ready at the other end of the circle, her spear held at the ready, her, chin lowered. Across the circle General Kazna stared at her with a mixed expression of absolute shock mingled with rage.

"I said you are a COWARD, I knew you were thick but I didn't think you were deaf." The words flowed from her mouth like water, though they burned like fire. The shock on her mothers face melted away like dripping ice, leaving only the stony rage beneath.

"Insolent-"

"NO! Not this time!" Sunny snarled, "Now it is my turn to speak, mother."

Her arms and hands were light, her head was fuzzy and her vision was dim with the dizzying audacity and power of her own words. She felt high, drugged even, and despite knowing that this was going to get her killed, she didn't even care. Finally she could say all of the things that she had always meant to say, "You are and have always been a coward." She said, her voice cold, "You blame me for being weak, and small and pathetic but need I remind you it was YOU that brought me into this world and it was YOU who didn't have the courage to toss me into the fires." She laughed, and her bitterness filled the room like an odor, "Not only that but even after that you did not have the courage to face your own mistakes. You've spent years trying to blame your own inadequacy on me."

Kazna snarled, but Sunny lifted her spear.

"Pathetic, arrogant.... And barren."

Kazna's spear was in her hand faster than Sunny could blink and she stalked across the open circle, her head lowered, "You have gone too FAR!"

Sunny didn't notice the watching crowd as they gathered closer, their eyes wide.

"Too far! Too far, I haven't even gotten started yet. You, great general Kazna, follower of the old ways, a HERETIC. You were sooo ready to condemn me for practicing engineering yet here you are leading these Drev to revenge. You sent your own daughter off as a spy. You hold yourself up like a pillar of tradition, but your whole life has been a sham!"

Kazna snarled and swiped at Sunny, the blade whipping past Sunny's chest.

Sunny stepped back out of the circle and turned to the others, "Look at her, look at what you have become. Mewling cowards bent on revenge against the humans. Where is your honor, where is your respect for the greater warriors!"

Sunny turned to look back at her mother, "You hate it. You hate it because you were beaten by cripples. The humans have turned all our traditions upside down, proven our very ideals and beliefs to be wrong." She turned and pointed a hand at the human, who knelt wide eyed at the center of the circle, "This human bested my father in combat. Lanus..... died an honorable death, and I rejoice for him.... Why can't you do the same?"

She turned to look around the room, "Why can you all not do the same?"

A flash of movement, a bright spark of light, and Sunny looked down to find the blade of her mother's spear at her throat.

"You will die with your words on your tongue." She spat.

Sunny laughed, "You would kill me unarmed and outside of ritual combat." Her laughter continued, rising up into the dark recesses of the cathedral, "You really are a coward and a heretic mother." With all her strength Sunny placed the flat of her spear against her mother's chest and shoved her back, "Kill me if you like, show everyone here what you are."

She turned In a wide circle showing her back to her mother, "Come on mother, you have already belittled me, shamed me, outcasted me, turned me into a spy, so why don't you just go ahead and kill me. Do what you should have done so long ago."