Squeezing his hands into fists, Orin said through clenched teeth, “Fine, but she’s mine. I’m going to kill her.”
Nikolai stood. “I’ll get some more food. I didn’t expect company. Priestess, you can have the one there.” Grabbing the bow, he bounded off into the woods.
Looking over at Samara, Orin said, “That was peculiar behavior. He’s acting strange.”
She was staring off after the young man, and though her face was covered, he thought she was frowning. “Well, he’s been under a lot of stress. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
She glanced down at the creature on the stick and chuckled. “I can’t say I’m very hungry. You may have the meat. I’m going to get some sleep.” Then she reached into her robes and took out a small book. Orin watched her for a moment as she flipped through the pages, then he removed the squirrel from the flames. Settling down next to her, he gnawed on the meat and relaxed. After he finished eating, fatigue set in and he fell asleep.
Nikolai didn’t return for several hours, but when he did, Orin woke. He watched the hunter approach, then silently step around the now-sleeping priestess. He sat up, providing the young man a spot to sit. Positioning himself next to Orin, Nikolai removed a couple of squirrels from his belt. Quietly, Orin watched the young man work. After a while, Nikolai said, “What are you going to do once the elf is dead?”
Shrugging, Orin poked at the fire with a stick. Nikolai stared at him, waiting for an answer. Finally, Orin said, “I don’t expect to survive. If I do, I might go south to Havalla or stay with you. I just don’t know.”
They sat in silence again, and soon, Orin settled back down to sleep. When he woke again, the priestess sat across from him, flipping through her book once more.
Although he had seen books when he lived with the Havallans before, he only had a slight understanding of what they were used for. “What is that you’re looking at?” he asked her.
“This?” She closed the book. “This is my spell book. I’m making sure we’re prepared to defend ourselves.”
Back to the task at hand, Orin stood up. All he had brought with him was his sword and his water skin, which he now tied on as quickly as he could without his thumb. He was good about ignoring the missing digit, but during small tasks like this, he couldn’t help but notice its absence. Scratching the stub, he said, “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
The priestess stood up, followed by Nikolai, who said, “Follow me.”
The young man shouldered his pack and set a course through the woods. Orin clenched his fists as they walked. He had felt depressed when he had thought that he would never get a chance to kill the female elf, especially after she had ordered Natalia’s death and then disappeared. Now he had that opportunity, but he wished the other two weren’t with him. He hoped to die in the process.
Lost in his thoughts, he almost stumbled into Nikolai, who had stopped walking and was pointing to the nearby elf. She stood there as if waiting for them, as if she expected them. Orin scowled at Nikolai.
“She’s been waiting for you to wake. She has news for you.” Orin shoved the boy out of his way, sneering at him. The priestess protested behind him.
Yanking his sword from its scabbard, Orin charged forward, heedless of the others. His rage took over, and all else was forgotten. Growling, he held his weapon to his side with its blade pointing behind him so that it wouldn’t tangle on anything.
The elf stared at him, amusement on her face. She muttered a few words as he neared, and by the time he got into swinging range, she had cast a spell.
A group of doppelgangers stepped out of Zayra in all directions, splitting like a kaleidoscope. When the copies finished shifting around, there stood a formation of nine Zayras, three in the front, three in the middle, and three in the rear. Orin hesitated briefly, unsure which elf to strike. Finally, he opted for taking them all.
He swung at the first row of them, and his blade passed harmlessly through them, wedging into a nearby tree. The three he had cut through faded away. His blade stuck almost halfway through the trunk, and he found that he couldn’t yank it free.
The remaining six elves made an identical gesture, then tossed what appeared to be nothing into the air, but over Orin’s head a web-like net appeared and fell upon him. Just as he felt the net start to tighten, it disappeared.
All the elf copies sucked air through their teeth as Priestess Samara stepped forward. Orin yanked his sword free and was about to swing again when the copies dropped to their knees and said, “Wait, human. I have news of your daughter.”
Orin had already cut through another illusion by the time the duplicates faded away and only Zayra remained, still kneeling with her hands in the air. He lowered his sword. The elf gazed up at him, but occasionally glanced over at the priestess as well.
“My daughter is dead. You wretches killed her like you killed my wife,” Orin said.
When he raised his sword to finish off the elf, she shouted, “No! . . . She lives, but she’s in danger.”
Orin almost brought the sword down on the elf anyway, but Nikolai stepped up and caught his wrist. “She speaks the truth!” the boy shouted. Orin brought his foot across the elf’s face, knocking her on her back.
Nikolai leveled his spear at Orin, then said, “At least listen to what she’s saying?”
Zayra sat up and spat a wad of blood at Orin’s feet. “Touch me like that again, human, and I will not lead you to your daughter.” Her glare was like that of a wild cat, unblinking and steady.
Orin looked between the elf and Nikolai. He would have kicked her again, but the glint in her eyes suggested that such actions would not get him what he wanted. Ignoring Nikolai’s spear, he asked Zayra, “Why would you?”
He felt torn between killing this elf and finding out what news she brought. He had given up hope that his daughter lived when he had first left the plains to save Natalia. Now, this elf claimed that she did. “How could she still be alive?” He pumped his unhindered fist furiously.
Climbing to her feet, Zayra said, “Your daughter, Samara, was the one who caused that crater.” Orin put his sword away and breathed deeply. He wanted to hit the elf again for suggesting such a thing, but hearing it from yet another source, he questioned the wisdom of denying the charges.
He glanced over at Nikolai. He had once punched the young man for saying those same words. Now he felt guilty. It didn’t matter, though. He wanted his daughter back.
“How is that possible?” he asked Zayra.
Standing up, but still distrustful of the human, Zayra backed up a bit. She stared at the large man, chewing on her bottom lip. Finally, she said, “I don’t know. What I do know is that she’s currently being manipulated by a powerful mage. He intends to use her to destroy Emperor Havelle, but first, he wants to take her to our home to get better control of her.”
“Illtud?” the priestess asked.
Zayra’s eyes widened briefly, and she stared at the priestess. “Who are you?” she asked.
The priestess bowed her head slightly but didn’t take her eyes off of the elf. “I am Samara Havelle, Arch Mage of Havalla, and High Priestess of Samawi.”
Very slowly, Zayra said, “Illtud will try to manipulate your daughter until she’s completely under his control, or she will use her power to destroy my home. Either way, I don’t think he’s making the right choice.”
Letting out a deep breath, Orin asked, “How is my daughter?” His voice was quiet, almost depressed. He wasn’t sure whether he should believe the elf, but any news was better than none. He leaned low against a tree so that Zayra could see him relax, and so he would lose his height advantage.
Nikolai lowered his spear and walked over to the elf. “He won’t let his daughter be taken by Illtud.”
Zayra also relaxed visibly. She smiled at Nikolai, and Orin’s jaw dropped when they clasped hands. She said something to him in her musical language, then turned back to Orin.
“She’s fine. When I last saw h
er, she had been adopted by a family of traveling performers. She has little to fear, human. Even I would be afraid to confront her. Her magic is wild and barely under her control,” Zayra told him.
“I don’t understand how she gained these powers,” Orin said, mostly to himself.
Nikolai looked over at Samara Havelle. “I believe the priestess can tell you.”
Chapter 20: Remembering
She sat upon the rock, watching the elves below her take her tribe, her mother. She screamed, she tried to warn them, she reached for them. Karena stood behind her, crying, holding Samara closely, then pushing her down.
“Stay down,” she said. Then they were gone. Her family was being carried away by the elves. She conjured the magic—her great, uncontrolled power—and killed the elf who had stayed behind. She knew how to control it now, how to stop the power from getting carried away, but she hadn’t then. Next, she killed Karena. Sure, it was an accident, but it was her inexperience, her ignorance that killed her friend. Killed the rest of them, as well. All of them.
They fell before her, dying. “Run Samara!” a distant voice shouted at her. Before her, Karena’s father fell to the ground, his lifeforce sucked into the magic that she drew into herself to fuel the flames around her. Then more fell . . . cousins . . . aunts . . . uncles.
“Run, Samara.” That wasn’t right. She didn’t run. She killed, floating into the air as she took the magic that kept her people alive. Stole it from them. Killed them.
She felt the sting of a hand slapping her, and she was in a forest. Omar pulled on her arm as two men ran through the trees toward them. “Run!” he pleaded with her. Samara gazed at him, confused. Omar shouldn’t be here; she would kill him too.
Then the girl screamed again. The girl from the Havallan village, the one who had cringed away from her. Samara could see that she was slung over the shoulder of a brutish man. The cloud of confusion drifted away.
She remembered everything. Every last detail. But what really stuck with her were the lies. Illtud had lied to her. He cared for her, but he had lied. Perhaps he had wanted to keep the horrible truth from her. She began to wonder if he even had her parents. Perhaps Omar was right.
Then Omar let her go and started retreating, bringing Samara back to the current predicament. She focused on the two men running toward them, and then, with no more than a thought, as one bent down to scoop her up into his arms, she stole their magic.
The men fell to the ground, lifeless, and she turned back to Omar. He was sweating, his lower lip quivering. Glancing over his shoulder at her, he had seen the men drop dead and had stopped running.
She recognized the look on his face. Fear. She chose to ignore it. Standing up straight, she said to him, “We will not run.” He stared at her, then the fear ebbed out of his expression, transforming to a hard look, a resolute look, and he nodded, pulling his daggers from his waist.
Turning back to the brute who held the girl, Samara made a panthera appear behind him. The cat growled, and both the man and the girl screamed. Dropping his captive, the man ran directly toward Samara and Omar, just as she had planned.
He kept glancing over his shoulder at the cat running after him. Samara reached for his magic, but three daggers buried into his body in rapid succession before she had the chance to take it. When the man fell, Samara ran toward the little girl to check on her, and the cat faded into nothingness.
“Are you okay?” Samara asked.
The girl gasped upon seeing her, and stared at her, wide-eyed.
Frowning, but standing straighter, Samara said, “I will not hurt you.” She dropped to her knees before the girl. “What happened before was an . . . accident. I did not mean to kill anyone. I was . . . scared and I did not know how to . . . control my magic.”
The girl just stared at her. A little annoyed by her reaction, Samara turned back to Omar, only to discover that he stood before the man he had killed, staring at the lifeless body.
Groaning, she rose to her feet and left the girl. She knew what he was feeling; she had felt it herself. She went to him and hugged him. He remained still as stone and said, “I killed him.” She hugged him harder. Finally, he relented and hugged her back.
“You did what you needed,” she said to him, her face pressed into his neck. “Varisha will understand.”
After some time, she released him. She turned around to check on the girl, only to find her standing right next to them, staring down at the body. Then she slowly lifted her gaze to Samara and said, faintly, “Thank you.”
Samara smiled at her. “You’re welcome. I hope you do not think I am a . . . demon . . . anymore.”
The girl shook her head slowly and peered back down at the body. Then she said, her voice almost a whisper, “He told the other two men to get you and then meet up with the others on the road. We need to warn my father.”
Suddenly concerned, Samara turned and headed back to the road. Omar gathered up his daggers and wiped them on the grass, then he and the newcomer followed Samara.
Then she stopped, and her heart fell out of her chest. Glancing toward the road, she saw smoke rising through the trees and heard yells, screams, and the scuffling of hustling feet. “Omar. Look,” she said.
“Yes, I see it. Hurry,” he said and began running. Samara and the girl followed, leaping around roots and underbrush. When they arrived at the road, they walked onto a scene of chaos.
The bandits were fighting the Khaliji in small skirmishes here and there. Heyam’s wagon was burning, and another had been turned over and crushed by a massive, gray-skinned beast.
The children skidded to a stop at the edge of the woods. Samara pointed at the monster. It reminded her of her friend Nikatsu, only heftier and not nearly so elegant. “An ogre,” Omar said, pulling her behind the trees.
The beast growled. A man stood behind it, holding onto a sturdy chain that ended in a shackle around the ogre’s neck.
Charging toward Varisha’s wagon, the monster crashed into the side of the carriage, causing it to lean over on two wheels, then teeter back to its upright position. Samara hadn’t seen Varisha, and worried that she might be in there. She stepped out from behind the trees, avoiding Omar’s attempts to pull her back, and walked right up to the ogre.
She could see the magic in the beast, but she didn’t want it. It was the magic in the shackle that interested her. Tendrils of red, magical aura seeped out of the restraint and embedded into the ogre’s head.
Taking the shackle’s magic as her own, she pointed at the collar and imagined it shattering. The beast had started to bring a massive fist larger than her head down upon her, but when she removed the magic from the bindings, it hesitated.
When the shackle burst, the ogre clutched its neck. Its brow furrowed, and it cast its gaze around, lost and confused. It regarded the human child who stood bravely before it. The two met eyes for just a moment, and the little girl mouthed, “You’re free.” The beast’s eyes briefly widened with understanding.
The ogre turned, backhanding the man who had recently kept it locked under chain. Samara watched as the man flew into the air and crashed against the side of Varisha’s battered wagon.
Panic broke out among the bandits. The ogre turned on its recent tormentors, howling and laughing gleefully, as it charged into the skirmishes. The Khaliji who were still standing gave the beast a respectful distance. Samara was sad to see that many of Omar’s people lay on the road, wounded or dead.
Pulling the magic from some of the bandits, she sent destructive forces at the fleeing brigands. Even as they ran, she followed them.
An observer would have seen a group of hardened men running down the road being chased by a massive ogre, with a young girl following behind, slinging shards of ice, fireballs, and lightning bolts at their backs. Samara didn’t consider what an observer might see, however. Nor did she think about those behind her, watching, who had not seen her command such power before.
When she flung the next fireball d
own the road, it landed like a small pebble in front of the lead bandit. The explosion rocked the ground and consumed those farthest from Samara. The ones closest to her were knocked off their feet, including the giant ogre, who had been loping toward the fleeing men like a charging ape.
Samara walked up to the prone bandits, frowning angrily. They edged away from her, cautiously, not daring to get up. The ogre crawled into the woods, escaping from a situation it no longer wished to be a part of, but not before acknowledging Samara with a thankful nod.
One foolish man attempted to attack the little girl. He leaped up, yelling, “Die, demon!” Hardly thinking about it, Samara simply drained the man of his lifeforce. He dropped at her feet, and she stepped over his corpse.
She glared at the sniveling men in front of her. They were terrified of her, and she stopped. She had been about to finish them, light them all up in a pillar of flame. Some were pleading while others were crying. Grown men.
Her dad wouldn’t have run, Yaroslav wouldn’t have, none of her tribesmen would have. The men in her tribe would fight to the bitter end. Even against the elves, Pyotr had only come back for more help. These men were not like the men from the Panthera tribe.
Scowling at them, she said, “I’m not a demon! Leave us alone! Go away!” The men scrambled to their feet and fled through the woods. Samara watched them run off.
Turning back to the Khaliji, her stomach dropped. The survivors were gathered in the road, watching her. Walking closer, she could see terror and horror on their faces. All of them.
She slowed, stopping yards from them. Nobody said anything. She felt rejected, like a monster. She almost turned to go. Illtud was in Varisha’s wagon, but she thought she might leave him there.
She had turned her head toward the woods when she heard the clapping. She glanced back and saw Omar walking toward her, clapping vigorously. He stepped up next to her and put his arm over her shoulder.
Together, they surveyed the others. From the back, Badr walked forward with Varisha leaning heavily on him. Samara could see that Varisha’s leg was badly wounded.
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