Did that mean Izram was her maiden name? Among Delphinad’s many peoples, there were plenty who did not take their husbands’ surnames even after marriage. Or perhaps it was an assumed name.
“And of course you have no right, but what does that matter? Those women who spy on the widow next door to see why a peddler keeps visiting her house, where did they get their licenses? Why aren’t you asking? Shouldn’t you be bending back my fingers one at a time, saying, ‘Tell me honestly what your relationship with the Shadowhawk was’? My bones are so brittle that snapping three at once would be just the thing.”
“Why would you say…”
Gene was flustered and tried to stop her, but the old woman, no, Sara, cackled and snatched up the parchment from the table. He thought she meant to crumple it. Instead, a hand with its forefinger and middle finger extended shot out and slashed toward his chin. Beneath the two fingers projected a blade the length of a palm. It was slimmer than a finger and had no hilt, only a sharp edge, its cloth-wrapped rear end enclosed by her remaining fingers.
“Wouldn’t that be more like a man who inherited the Shadowhawk’s name? A message from a murderer who showed no mercy even to children ought to arrive that way. Did you think I’d waited to this age for a love letter?”
Before she had finished speaking, Jamalik seized Sara’s hand and twisted it. Gene sprang to his feet. As the blade struck the floor, he shouted, “Stop!”
Jamalik froze. Gene reached out and gently took Sara’s wrist. Jamalik released her. Gene rubbed the wrist to check that nothing was broken. Sara was smiling, her lips twitching.
“What fun you have. So an old woman’s sewing needle frightens you that much?”
Gene let go of her hand and looked at Jamalik, who immediately said, “My apologies.”
Gene smiled faintly.
“No. Next time, catch her before I see the blade.”
“Understood.”
Turning back to Sara, Gene bowed his head.
“I apologize. I did not come here to threaten you. I spoke carelessly. Forgive a young man for being overly suspicious.”
Sara merely snorted without answering. Gene, however, had already set aside his suspicions. Her attack just now had shown a skill and speed that would have been difficult even for someone young. Had she held the slightest ill intent, his lowered guard, because she was an old woman and someone he had come to meet with goodwill, could easily have led to a serious wound. But she had not hurt him. With Jamalik standing beside them watching, she could hardly have been unaware of what would happen if she had merely threatened Gene and stopped there. Her attack had been only a test.
What had she wanted to test? Gene raised his head.
“I failed your test, didn’t I?”
“…”
As she looked at his face, Sara’s expression grew strange. Both cheeks trembled, and her brow tightened. One hand hurried inside her clothes, found a handkerchief, and clutched it.
Gene waited in silence. In the end, no tears fell. Holding the handkerchief tightly, Sara looked at him with reddened eyes before speaking.
“You don’t look like him.”
“I did not inherit his blood.”
“Then why? Why have you come looking for me?”
“Because I inherited something else.”
“I’ve heard you’re using that name. What do I care about a name that can be abandoned and changed? Wasn’t it always something any thug who wanted it could pick up and use?”
Gene rose from his chair and picked up Sara’s blade from the floor. He flicked his hand upward. The blade shot away and embedded itself in the wooden floor. At the same time, something split and flew into the air. Jamalik jerked away, then looked down. It was a fragment of a coffee bean, the one he had knocked from the mortar earlier. Given the size of the blade, it would have had to strike exactly through the middle to shatter the bean.
Sara too looked at the blade and the split fragments. Slowly, she raised her head to look at Gene’s hand.
“More than a name?”
Gene nodded. Her eyes were no longer as they had been when he arrived.
“The Shadowhawk taught you? You, with no connection to him? That man, willingly?”
“In truth…”
Gene pulled out the blade and laid it back before Sara.
“I also wanted to confirm whether the man who taught me really was the Shadowhawk. Having met you and heard what you’ve said, I believe he was. My teacher was a man named Beka, who fought as a gladiator in Epherium.”
“Beka” had probably been an assumed name made by reversing the opening part of “Garon Vendigate.” Sara pressed her lips together, then exhaled briefly and asked, “Since when? For how long?”
“We first met ten years ago, when I was fourteen. I knew him for four years after that.”
Sara reached for the blade. Jamalik’s shoulder moved again, but Gene stopped him with a glance. He was not about to be struck again by a weapon plainly in sight. Sara picked up the blade and stroked it with her fingertips. They trembled.
“Twenty years. Twenty years have gone by. All that time, I wished he’d just died. It was hard to believe he could be alive and still not return, never send so much as one message. Even if he was alive, I thought he must have some crippling illness, something so bad he couldn’t even hold a pen. I went on believing the fingers he used to write had rotted away. Yet he taught you? You, who aren’t even his child? And now, after all this time, he sends me… this worthless scrap of a picture?”
Sara’s mouth twisted. When she lowered her head, tears spilled onto the blade. More fell onto the drawing too. Gene did not know what to do. Then Jamalik spoke.
“One thing at least is as you expected. He’s dead.”
Sara raised her head. Looking at Jamalik, she asked in a voice that had instead grown calm, “How did he die?”
Jamalik said nothing more and looked at Gene. Gene answered.
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