Jay had never before been stabbed. At least not seriously; he had gone through the usual knife accidents prone to every growing boy, but no later attackers had ever managed a knife into his body. His first emotion was that of embarrassment. He, Bluejaybird Miller, caught with a reaction time slow enough for a knife. He stared at the man, face twisted with loose skin over an odd smile, the way the man's shoulder pressed against his neck for support.
It was a fascinating feeling, being stabbed. The pain came next. It wasn't the intensity he would have imagined, and he felt it at a keen distance. The knife had a shape to it, a mass that made itself known like a bird in the hollow of a tree. It was a sharp pain, though, and certainly worth being called pain.
He heard Andrea's scream. That hurt worse than the knife. The scream of a woman always had that sort of impact. Women… why were they so emotional? Then again, if he had seen her with a knife in her heart, he would sure as heaven and hell be screaming, too.
A blade in the center of a body did feel weird.
Jay staggered backwards as if he had been pushed rather than stabbed. Immediately the knife came loose. No, loose was not the word to describe it. The blade was simply gone from his body, though the knife remained in the man's hand.
"Jay!" It was Andrea's voice, loud as thunder as just as wild.
His hands flew to his chest to be drenched in burning hot blood. His knees cracked against the floor.
It wasn't a river, though. Jay had never seen a stabbing before, but he had heard plenty a tale. It was supposed to be a ruby red fountain, gushing blood over the body.
Heal, he thought. A command to himself. Heal.
The blade hadn't touched his heart, anyway. Just like walking through walls. It was a fairly interesting thing to realize. It would make an awesome story.
"He'll be dead soon," the man said. The conviction wasn't very strong.
Jay gasped for breath and stared at the man. The famous murderer of Timber's imagination. Hah. Jay was going to have to apologize for this one. A big apology was in the running.
The man snarled low, like a dog. He kept the knife up, still dripping with blood, his other arm pressed tight against his abdomen.
Prince Isaac rose to stab again.
The man whirled with his knife-wielding arm.
Stupid, stupid royalty boy.
The Prince fell hard against the floor.
At the same time the door crashed down in a storm of splintered wood. Jay squeezed his eyes shut for only an instant. It was that guard. Hyrum, red in the face ahd heaving with fatigue. Busting down a door would do that to a person, though the drama of doing such was much more interesting than unlocking it.
The man in black wasn't expecting it, and Jay had carried in his own knife. He reached out and slashed hard across the stiff muscle of the leg. It was almost like chopping wood.
He could feel the wound over his heart healing as he did so, the sensation mixing with the sound of a new scream. His sister's.
He grinned. She was going to kill him for this. "Lake?"
He looked up into the shadows of her terrified face as she grabbed his shoulders. "Jay! What the hell happened here?"
The man in black was on the floor now, blood gushing in a pool around him. Jay had struck good. He hoped Andrea had noticed.
"Jay!" Lake repeated. " Jay, you idiot, what happened?"
There wasn't much else to say. Damn, but it hurt to have a wound heal right over you. "I think I was just stabbed, Lake."
She pressed her lips against his cheek. "Prince Isaac…"
He had no time to respond. The man grunted in pain. "Your Highness." The words were hardly above a whisper. "What a surprise."
Hyrum carried a torch with him. It lit the room like too much sunlight and showed the still form of Prince Isaac. There was no blood… Jay could not be sure of breathing. Either way, the man's statement went unheard.
Except the man was not looking at the Prince.
His eyes, shining with pain, were focused squarely upon Hyrum. He laughed, a weak little snicker, and licked his lips. He wasn't deathly injured, but apparently the wound in his side was getting to him. "I recognize you. You don't look like yourself. Of course, you were never as silly looking as your younger brother."
"Who are you?" Hyrum demanded.
"A servant of nobility, hardly noticeable in the courts, but I know you. Prince Hyrum of Corlblen, I wager. Heir to the throne. I had heard rumor you were on some sort of quest."
Yeah, I couldn't do it. I just couldn't kill off Jay. Probably because he's based off my twin brother and that was disturbing to me to kill my own brother. Isaac, though, I'm not quite as attached to him.
The Hyrum thing... I was actually planning on introducing it a different way, but I felt it was a little too convenient, and I figured the murderer would have the social connections to recognize random royalty.