Fable Eyes

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Fable Eyes Excerpt:

Keeping my eyes on the back of his head, I rested a hand on the hilt of the lanasin at my belt.
“I need to make sure your eyes aren’t gold first,” I growled, stepping closer—now he was a blade’s length away.
He stood still, staring out into the cold forest. Quietly, as if trying to convince himself, he murmured, “I haven’t been taken over by a styarin.”
With my next step, I slid the lanasin slightly out of its sheath. The sound made the fayan before me stiffen.
“Then why won’t you let me see?” I pressed.
He slowly turned to face me.
“Gathen,” he said, voice low and husky. “You don’t wanna fight me—trust that.”
I saw his hand twitch beneath his cloak. Flashes of the slashed and stabbed bodies behind me danced through my mind. He was half a head taller than me, but much thinner.
Can I take him?
I smiled and forced a short laugh. “I’d rather not fight you. I just have to figure out why a fellow falearan is being so defensive about his eyes.”
He began to back away, his hood still too low to reveal his upper face. I inched my blade out with his every step.
He watched my every move. I stepped closer.
He paused in his retreat, tilting his head slightly—as if in resignation. Then, despite my anticipation of an attack, he dashed towards me faster than my eyes could follow—a flash of silver glinting in the sunlight.
If it weren’t for blind reflexes, I would’ve been dead.
The pommel of my lanasin knocked his wrist as my blade finally cleared its sheath. His long dagger—falearan-styled, a kinlanasin—flipped as he adjusted his grip. It sang through the air as he flicked it upward, deftly deflecting my much larger weapon.
He made to strike my gut while inside my guard—but suddenly something sprouted from the back of his hand.
Blood splattered my face. I immediately recognized the small throwing blade, sunk hilt-deep in my opponent’s flesh.
Ansen.
The fayan grunted in pain, but didn’t hesitate to toss the kinlanasin to his right hand to block the next three of Ansen’s autlanasin. Metal clanged. One barely missed my face as I lunged with the tip of my blade aimed for his abdomen.
Without so much as a glance my way, he blocked two more autlanasin and, in the same motion, spun around me—dodging my blade and shielding himself from Ansen in one fluid movement.
I kicked backward as he passed, managing to catch his leg. He stumbled. I pivoted, keeping my blade low and close as I stabbed forward.
His speed was incredible. He knocked my lanasin to the side with his injured hand, the embedded autlanasin shifting with the impact. He feinted right. I braced for a slash—not expecting him to instead sling the blood from his gushing wound into my eyes.
I faltered.
In that brief moment of weakness, he grabbed my arm.
Then the world flipped.
I slammed into the ground, air ripped from my lungs.
Before I could gasp for air, a weight slammed onto my chest. My vision blurred with red, but I could see Ansen’s face—and the wild black hair of the fayan he had just tackled.
Ansen struggled to restrain him, but the fayan twisted like a crazed fish. I managed to get my arms locked around his neck, squeezed my biceps, and held.
Ansen’s eyes flicked towards me.
“Gathen,” he grunted, straining, “who is this granstra?!”
“A styarin, I think! Eyes gold?” I wheezed, the pressure of the two fayans crushing my lungs.
Confusion crossed Ansen’s face as the resistance began to weaken.
“Black.”
“What?”
“His eyes are black!”
Both of our gazes, eyes brilliantly shaded with the colors of our souls—like every falearan—turned to the left ear of the fayan between us.
A small silver loop with a single dark blue bead pierced his pinna. Just like the silver loop that held the purple bead of my hometown to my left ear. Just like Ansen’s orange one connected to his left ear.
As the fayan finally fell limp, realization hit me.
My mouth tasted like vomit.
“He’s a medarin,” Ansen murmured, eyes wide as he voiced what I was thinking.
The taboo of our race.
A falearan that murdered another falearan.