Excerpt: Heart of the Sword: Finale

Karen looked at the boy up and down. He was a pale, bony, twitching thing, barely worth noticing He had been beaten, recently and well, a purplish bruise of fingers on his neck where someone had tried to crush the life out of him. For whatever reason they'd stopped. His spiritual energy was so low it was almost insignificant. It seemed he had just enough to be bound to this sword and barely enough to be kept from being pulled into it. Was he a Hamaki? He would have to be some sort of distant relation, very distant and she hadn't thought the Hamaki had sunk as low as to breed out. They were—had been too tight and controlled a family to let anyone consort with Westerners.
She ran her fingers along the lacquered sheath of the sparrow sword. It had been a hundred years since she'd seen it last; more than that since she'd touched it. It bit harder, now, snatching at her fingertips, sending greedy hooks into the fringes of her aura, like a child wanting attention. And this boy had been called to it, why? He wasn't what she would call beautiful but maybe he could sing well or play some sort of musical instrument with a virtuoso's talent. Wake would like that.
"So now that you have the sword, what do you intend to do with it?" Karen asked, looking at the boy's face and trying to gauge his reaction.
"I...um...want to see Aiden?" He knotted his long fingers together and looked at her hopefully, biting on the inside of his lip. Aiden? Aiden. Aiden. Karen glanced at Deidra for an explanation. She was standing by the door and not paying attention, instead shuffling her feet and looking out the windows at the top of the doors if she was expecting company at any time.
"Deidra."
"Huh?"
"Aiden?" Karen said, annoyed at having to repeat herself.
"Isn't he with Wake?"
Ah, Baek's boy. How did this boy know him? This not-Hamaki, this strange little flaw in the plan. She absently traced her fingers along the silver sparrow, spun into the deep dark blue of the sword. In her day it had been called the sword of beautiful sorrow. The memory surprised her and charmed her. Her day had been long ago indeed and she let her mind wander back to it breifly, to see what details she could remember of hazy summer days and a small temple tucked into a bowl of rolling green hills where the monks chanted sweetly above the still air. It was a memory as fragile as a butterflys wing and the boy's restless shifting was enough to banish it like smoke. She narrowed her eyes at him and he quailed under her gaze, a wonderful reaction that made her want to do it again and again, just to see him flinch.
"How do you know him?" Karen said, standing and taking the sword with her. It burned her fingers and the palm of her hand. She rested her free hand around the hilt, bound with black and blue cloth. Had it always been this way or had they changed it? The boy watched her warily but didn't tremble and reach for the sword or even stare at it with burning eyes. Strange little thing. Was he so unconcerned for its fate? His tongue darted out, fleet and red, as he licked his cracked lips.
"H...he's my f...friend. I met him two years ago wh..wh...when I got lost." The truth, she supposed, but he looked uncomfortable saying it.
"Hmm," Karen said, though she didn't *really* care. Baek's boy, after all, was just a means to an end and after a while who knew if she would even need him. This creature though, this curly headed little curio... Karen unsheathed the sword, listening to the chime of metal, the even deeper hum that sparked like fire along her arm. It had been so long since she'd held a Hamaki sword or any sword of quality for that matter and she'd never unsheathed the Sparrow. Before because she hadn't the audacity and after because she hadn't had the chance. It was an interesting sword. Lighter than the Heron but still with that peculiar resistance in the air.
She came to the boy and rested the blade along the edge of his throat, watching the metal reflect up onto his skin. He swallowed and looked up at her, trembling slightly like a leaf blown by a gentle breeze and fingers knotting and unknotting restlessly.
"You're bound to this sword," she said. "Hence you are in my way." She wondered if e understood what she was talking about. He must, she decided. This was the same that knew Isao after all, or so Deidra had claimed. He must know. This must be one of Isao's tricks. He was always a bad at deceit, or she had since learned to discover them. She twisted the sword just so, cutting into his flesh and making a line of red appear that was soon caught in the grooves of the blade, inching downward toward the floor. Fresh blood was so beautiful. A different beauty than souls. There was something passionate about it, something vital, a violent beauty, a living beauty.
"Should I kill you now?" she said, cocking her head to the side. She wanted to, though slowly, to watch him bleed. She likely wouldn't kill him in that way, though. It was an indulgence none of them can afford.
"Um...please don't. I...I like my life," he said, and reached up with tentative twig like fingers and pushed the sword away. For a moment Karen didn't know what to say. True it had been a while since she'd posed that question but most had knelt there glaring at her defiantly. Never had someone had the absolute gall to shove the sword away. She opened her mouth and laughed in spite of herself. His lips twitched, though not quite a smile.