by Amanda Twigg
Landra twisted and plunged her pink blade deep into Mendog’s guts. He wasn’t clever enough to see it coming or quick enough to stop it. Responsibility for the murder sat on Preston’s shoulders again. He’d put her in this position, and his arrogant plotting hadn’t accounted for her will. Did he think his control was so complete he could roll her out in public to do his bidding? Beneath all his abuse, she was still Hux—still chief elect.
The warmth of blood trickled down her fingers. She stared at Mendog’s wide eyes. This wasn’t sitting with old Oakham as he passed nor helping a swamper find peace, and much as she wanted to blame Preston, he hadn’t given the order for this kill. Landra had murdered this man by her own will and for her own ends.
No regrets. She remembered the misshapen soldier’s hands on her body and uttered a terrible growl. As her blade thrust deeper into his soft belly, shocked realization registered on his features. He thrust his own blade in one final, instinctive response.
Landra doubled over to grip her stomach, fire in her side like she’d never known.
“So, this was your plan,” Gallanto said, dancing with agitation.
Stop watching, Gramps. Don’t… No time.
Nothing could undo the monster’s actions or her pain. She twisted the knife, and Mendog jerked in response. A foul breath wheezed out between his crooked teeth, just before his knees buckled.
“What now?” Gallanto asked
Supporting Mendog’s weight proved difficult for Landra. This is bad. Can’t be noticed yet. More to do. She pulled her knife free and allowed him to fall. Blood gushed from his gut, and all life departed his eyes before he hit the floor. A shout went up, and she knew there wasn’t much time.
She ducked under the rail, gripping her side.
“Are you giving yourself up?” Gallanto asked. “Drop the Collector and raise your hands, or they’ll rush you for sure.”
Not done, Gramps. She saw Turgeth with a knife pointed at her brother’s back. It wasn’t like she hadn’t expected retaliation, but panic sent raging swirls through her aura. Burning in her guts threatened to collapse the rest of her pathetic plan. She could barely straighten, and blood dripped from the Collector’s blade onto the wooden floor planks. To one side, Turgeth threatened Dannet. In the opposite direction, Preston brandished a sword.
The mist knows what you’ll do, traitor.
“Murder!” someone cried, and all the demons of the mist broke loose. Soldiers darted like worried animals, hunting for danger and searching out trouble.
“Drop the knife,” Gallanto shouted.
Landra had always known it would come to this moment. She had one knife and one throw left in her arm, if she was lucky. If she took out Turgeth, there was no predicting what Preston would do. She couldn’t put it past the Warrior to kill Chief Templer Vellion in the confusion, or even her father. If she used her blade on Preston, Turgeth’s orders were clear. He would kill Dannet or take him prisoner.
Shelk
“Knife!” someone shouted, alerting everyone to her presence. Landra ran farther out onto the concourse, positioning herself in full sight of the crowds and guards. Her bloody knife dangled in her grip, dripping crimson onto the floor.
Chief Hux stared, his gaze engaging with Landra’s. There was recognition but no comfort. Disappointment. The gold flecks of his eyes usually danced in her presence, but they were dull and accusing now. The hurt that gaze inflicted overshadowed any physical or mental torture her captors had heaped on her Soul.
Forgive me, Father. I can explain.
“Stop,” he ordered and she stilled, but only for a moment. Her mouth opened, wanting to call for protection and counsel. She wanted to run into his arms. Preston leaned out to view the commotion, and it was all the urging she needed. She drew her knife arm back in readiness.
“What are you doing?” Gallanto asked.
She didn’t answer. If she let the moment pass, she would never have this chance again. My people over my brother. “I’m sorry, Dannet,” she said, not for the first time. Then, she launched the Collector at Preston, coordinating all her energy into the release. Her scream of agony rang around the concourse, and everyone looked for the source.
Doubled over, she watched her blade sneak through the procession party, as if in slow motion. In other circumstances, the Collector’s mighty flight would have earned applause. She was good at this, and how could the traitor Warrior think she wouldn’t turn her training on him? The knife plunged into his throat, and blood spurted from his neck in rhythmic gushes. With each pulse, his hard-lined aura thinned until it floated free from his form. His body slumped, as if robbed of all bones.
“Run,” Gallanto said, his form thinning. Her fuzzy mind and distance from the Collector made the connection impossible to maintain. His Soul twisted away to join the threads near the ceiling.
Shelk, what now? A traitor was dead, her life was sacrificed, and Dannet…” She searched for her brother. It hadn’t occurred to her that Turgeth’s sibling bond could dislodge him from duty to Preston, but now he pushed through the crowds to Mendog’s side, leaving Dannet unharmed.
A cruel hysterical laugh escaped from Landra’s throat.
“Arrest her!” Chief Hux’s voice bellowed, and her euphoria crumbled.
Hearing her father order the arrest tore her apart. She’d planned to give herself up, but a moment of clarity showed her how that would turn out. Once Father ordered her execution, his leadership could never survive. The aftermath would deliver Preston’s plan, even after his death.
She turned on her heels and sprang aware. The dangerous glare Turgeth spared from his anguished mourning promised hateful pain to come. His aura pulsed with angry, dark shots of blue she’d never seen from him before.
So what? I’m dead anyway.
“I’ll take this,” Thisk bellowed as she darted away.
Thisk? Why you?
She pivoted left and then sharp right into a deserted corridor. Need a shaft. Gods, I hurt.
Pain had become her regular companion, so she could drive ahead regardless of suffering, but her pace did slow. Only death can take me down. Fight through. Make this count. Even staggering, she made the nearest shaft door and tried to open it. Locked.
She yanked on the panel again, all of her resentment feeding her strength, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Hux,” Thisk’s voice said.
Shelk. She leaned against the door and turned to face her former mentor. Not her twisted tutor in the art of murder, but her beloved teacher of everything she needed to be chief elect. He drew his sword, ready to perform his honorable duty. Worse, her brother rounded the corner.
Dannet stuttered to a halt and stared. “Landra.”
She hadn’t known so much pain, confusion, and love could be held in one word, and she was tempted to run to his arms. He started forward, but Thisk barred his progress. His clothes declared him as the chief elect, but brotherly tears welled in his eyes. She’d never seen him cry.
Can’t breathe. Breaking my heart.
Thisk marched toward her, his sword swaying.
“Finish me here,” she begged, dropping her arms and pulling her shoulders back. Best for our people. She offered her chest for execution.
Tears poured down Dannet’s cheeks. He was distraught and broken, but he was alive. Death had flirted with Landra so many times, she was relieved it would come by Thisk’s hands rather than during her captors’ torture.
The ranger stopped, his bearded face giving nothing away. He was Dannet’s mentor now, and she tried not to feel her jealousy rise again in these final moments.
“Make it quick,” she said.
“I’m not a killer,” Thisk replied.
Not like me. She slumped against the wall, consumed with shame.
The ranger stepped close, took a key from his pocket, and unlocked the shaft door.
Landra’s breathing came heavy as her disbelief registered. After all she’d done, after all she’d abandoned, he w
as giving her a way out. It wasn’t a good way. There was nowhere safe through that door. The underlevel was a filth-ridden, worm-infested bog. The overlevel was a freezing death trap in winter. But it was a way out.
She spared one last look at Dannet, trying to convey as much regret and love as he’d shown to her. After a nod to Thisk, she stumbled into the shaft.
Chapter 16
The cold immediately wrapped Landra in its deadly embrace, but at least she was alive to feel its touch. She grabbed a few items from the stores, stuck a hat on her head, pulled a cloak and gloves on, and clambered up the ladder. The overlevel hadn’t changed, but it took her a moment to find her bearings. She scanned the map before setting off in the direction of the ranger house. By the time she’d reached the base of the city wall, seeping blood had found its way through her cloak. Agonizing pain accompanied her final shuffling steps to the hut, and she slumped through the door, nearly falling.
The place was much as they’d left it: cluttered, messy, hardly clean, and deathly cold. What season is it? She had no idea whether the chilly air signaled the end of winter or was an ominous sign of an ice storm to come. Her shaking hands lit the stove, and she heaped logs onto the blaze.
With basic needs sorted, her pain soared. She clenched her teeth as she eased her jacket up to peek at the wound. The gash wasn’t long, but blood seeped from the cut with each of her movements. Not life-threatening usually, but open to infection. After washing the skin, she coated the area in one of Thisk’s herbal ointments, packed cloths over the top, and bound a strip of fabric around her waist. Then she flung herself onto the bed, wrapped herself in blankets, and slept. Dreams of her ordeal came often. She turned over and returned to sleep each time until dark shadows let her know the stove needed restoking.
Her days focused on enduring. Trips out felt beyond her, so she ate dried fruit from the store and drank sparingly so as to not drain the rain barrel. Water’s probably dirty, anyway. Don’t care. Her plan had never involved survival, and living seemed like an impossible goal. Still lost. Still alone. Shelk.
On her third night in the ranger house, the door swung open, making the hanging weapons on the ceiling clatter in the wind. Thisk stood in the entrance, his sword raised. Landra uncurled from the blankets and stared, not quite believing he’d come. Memories from before her abduction surfaced. She tried pushing them away, fearing they’d break her Soul, but Thisk’s rough ranger clothes and thick hat were too strong a reminder of the time she’d spent training with him here.
Good times, but you’re Dannet’s mentor now. Still, you came.
She stumbled forward toward him. He stood like a rock, solid and impassive. Flinging her arms around his body, she laid her head on his chest. He was warm and strong—unshakeable. The mental anguish she’d trapped away for so long and the tears she’d denied floated up into her consciousness. Her shoulders heaved with a sob. She recalled the people she’d loved and lost, the pain and abuse she’d endured, and the murders she’d committed. It was too much. Grief filled her to bursting, and her dammed tears finally released. The crying she’d denied herself escaped in one snot-drenched, shoulder-shaking flood.
All the while, Thisk remained still. After a long time sobbing, she felt his arms wrap around her shoulders in a fatherly embrace.
Home. Shelk. Home. Her crying came harder.
Chapter 17
Days of recuperation passed with her huddled in bed and Thisk keeping watch. Like before, he hunted, cooked, fed the stove, and spent nights sitting on the floor with his guarding attention on the door.
It was an unusual kind of torture. Landra wanted things to be the same as before, but it wasn’t possible. Too much grief and guilt swamped her Soul. On the third day, she rose and made a good show of pretending life was normal. Thisk spoke little, but for the most part, they returned to their old training routine. They harvested medicinal herbs, hunted food, rebuilt shelters, and trained with swords.
Their conversations remained polite, but a bubble of silence formed between them, capturing all the words they didn’t want to voice. Thisk didn’t discuss who he’d left guarding Dannet, what had happened in Hux Hall, or things her father had said. She didn’t talk of beatings and murder. Neither of them discussed the Collector, which she felt hidden in Thisk’s sack, but the blade whispered to her Soul. For a wonder, Gramps didn’t turn up. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
A couple of weeks in, the mood shifted.
Thisk paused their mock sword battle and leaned against the craggy face of the horseshoe rock to take a drink. “Why did you run away?”
Landra slammed her sword into a tree, and it wedged in the bark.
How dare you ask that? Is it easy to believe I ran from duty?
“Will you tell Father what I say?” she asked, through gritted teeth.
“Of course. He’s my chief.”
Shelk no, then. What good will it do?
“I just went,” she said.
“That will hardly satisfy Chief Hux.”
“He has his peace and a chief elect. What more does he need?”
“The truth.”
Even if it hurts. I paid the price for our people’s future. You don’t need the rest.
“I don’t have to report everything,” Thisk said.
“I’m not far enough gone to forget how the chain of command works. Tell him I left and then lost my way. Everything’s fine now. That’s all anyone needs to know.”
“Fine? You don’t look fit to battle wits with Winton, never mind train.”
“I’m regaining strength.” It was true, no matter how slow her progress. I might never walk without a limp, kick over my head, throw a clean knife, compete in the championships, or live in Hux H… Shelk, I lost everything. “Just do your duty and report what you must.”
“You train like you’re injured,” Thisk said.
She didn’t want to talk about her pains, but an automatic reflex made her grip her side.
“Let me see that,” the ranger said, moving close.
“No.”
“That’s an order, Hux.”
Really? She didn’t fight when he tugged her cloak open.
“What’s under the bandage?” He tugged the yellowed strip away. “Ugh. You should’ve stitched this. Is the yellow gunk feckle ointment?”
“Of course. I’m not stupid.”
The glance they exchanged suggested that they both thought she was.
“Who stabbed you?”
Landra ground her teeth and glared.
“I get it. You’re not ready to share. We’ll have to stop sword training, though. Wielding a long blade could pull this open.”
She slid her sword into its sheath. “Fine.”
“What? No begging for knife training?”
Thisk had the Collector on him today, Landra knew. Six swampers, one underlevel guard, Mendog, and Preston. Don’t want to kill. “No. I don’t want to train with the knife.”
Over dinner, Thisk tried again. “Hux, I might do my duty, but if I followed all the rules and the chain of command, do you think I’d still be Fourth? Tasenda wouldn’t stand a chance against me.”
That brought the faintest smile to Landra’s lips.
“I can see this is bursting you up,” he said. “Nightmares rob you of sleep, your body’s aged ten years in two, and that haunted look’s enough to make grown Warriors cry. You have to trust someone. Tell me what happened.”
“I killed people, Thisk. Will that do? Does saying it out loud make everything right? It’s enough to haunt anyone.”
His mouth stilled around the bird leg he’d been chewing. “I trained you, Landra, and I know soldiers. People don’t fall this far without good reason. If you don’t tell someone what happened, it’s going to break you.
Already broken.
“Chief Hux tasked me with training you to report once,” he said. “Do you remember?”
She nodded but drew back from the moment.
“We c
ould do that now. Start by telling me what happened when you left the party. Include important information, but only give minor details if I stop you and ask.
Can I do this? Will it help?
She settled down on the bed and stared at the ceiling, meaning to end the conversation.
“I followed Dannet to Hux Hall and…” Tears pooled in her eyes. She thought she had none left. As she spoke, steady streams slid down her cheeks and dropped in a dappling pattern on the blankets. “I didn’t run away, Thisk.” The story burst from her in a rush of grief and hate. “There were men waiting for my brother outside Hux Hall. They thought he was the chief elect.”
Wind clattering the windows offered a soundtrack to her story, and she wished it could sweep the horrible details away. Thisk honed his sword rather than finish the meal, his dark eyes going cold and narrow as the details spilled out. Sometimes his hands stilled, and a blank mask froze his features. For the worst parts, he gazed at her face, as if looking away would show cowardice.
As her retelling drew to an end, Landra hugged her arms around her body, hoping to shut out the world. She’d given him most of it, but not all. Some parts were too terrible to share with anyone. “You have to find Turgeth and stop him,” she said. “The plot against Chief Hux puts everyone in danger, and there may be others.”
“I’ll sort it.”
At hearing those words, she relaxed. It wasn’t that the problem didn’t belong to her anymore. She just couldn’t think of it being given into safer hands.
“Your scars came from beatings,” Thisk said, almost to himself. “And the limp? Your leg looks straight after the break.”
“It never felt right after a mud-infested cut from the underlevel.”
“Ah! You did well to survive that. Preston…”
What were you going to say? Our Third was a traitor? I know. That’s why I killed him.
A huge sigh blew out through Thisk’s lips, and he took a while before speaking again.
“What will you do now, Landra?”
Shelk. The question sounded like a variation of something he’d asked before. That time, he’d asked whether they should disappear to the remote lands or face judgment in the city. Nothing’s changed there, but this time, I’m on my own. She wasn’t the chief elect now, and the difference wasn’t lost on her.