Cloak of Darkness (The Destroyer-Blessed Saga Book 1)

by Sara E. Tonissen

  Red’s dreamself was something directly from a children’s horror story. Her features held the same simple beauty, but the darkness behind her eyes was a bottomless pit. The smile that lined her ruby tinted lips was created from contempt—not happiness. Fear and hatred radiated off of her slim build.

  There was nothing pure about this dreamself. Evil was the only word that Red could use to describe it.

  When the dreamself once again drew closer, Red switched her tactics and followed suit. Both women slowly inched toward each other, neither resolving to play the chicken. When the two were barely a foot from each other, they reacted with mirrored movements.

  Hands that were and were not her own shot out to grab twin wrists. Locked together, Red stared at her dreamself. “You say that we are the same, yet you have no power outside of this realm,” Red sneered at herself.

  The dreamself pulled Red until they were nose-to-nose. Identical eyes bore into each other as the two shared glares. “You’re stupid if you don’t realize that my powers, our powers, are only separated in this realm. I already told you. We are one and the same.”

  Red’s dreamself pulled back as the sound of shouts and racing feet grew louder. Teeth that could pass off as fangs glinted in the sunlight as she smiled. “As much as I love talking to someone with a familiar face,” the dreamself began, “it looks like it’s time for you to get going.”

  “Anything to get away from you,” Red thundered. She let go of her dreamself’s wrists, but hers were still clasped tightly in her hands. “Let go,” Red demanded. She dug her nails into skin, but her dreamself did not budge. Her eyes twinkled with delight as she watched Red struggle.

  “You can’t leave without me,” the dreamself hissed. Red paused in her efforts as she heard what could only be fear in the dreamself’s voice. But her fighting continued as her ears focused back on the voices that grew louder still.

  “Yes… yes I… can,” Red panted out as she pushed against the ground with her feet to gain some force over her unmoving dreamself.

  Red’s dreamself let out a blood-wrenching screech when Red managed to scramble away. She crawled over in no human-like manner. Her limbs tripped over each other as she rushed at Red.

  Red slapped at her cheeks and pinched herself in a desperate attempt to draw herself back to the real world. But it seemed as though her living body did not bother to notice the pain she inflicted. “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” she chanted, her voice trembling at the lack of change in her environment.

  “You can’t leave me here!” her dreamself screamed again.

  Red caught sight of the Kingdom Rogues circling around them. Her dreamself saw them a second too late.

  The moment her dreamself was tackled to the ground, Red felt her body crash against the dirt. It took all of the Kingdom Rogues to keep the dreamself down, their attention barely touching the thrashing Red no more than a few yards away.

  Red watched through the tufts of grass as one of the Kingdom Rogues raised their sword. She looked away a moment before it swung down in a vicious arch. But she felt the weight of the pommel slam into the back of her head, sending her back to the conscious reality that she was trying to escape to.

  ~~~

  Red jolted awake in a heap of flailing limbs and blankets. The cot creaked under her trembling body, the sound mixing with the pants of her uneven breaths. She wiped away the sweat trickling down her brow. Red could not restrain the shake in her hands as she tried to fan the heat away from her body.

  Red sucked in air in panting gasps. Her heart stammered against her ribs with irregular beats. The echo of her pulse pushed against her left arm. The pressure was enough to temporarily distract her from what she had witnessed in her nightmare.

  Despite the fact that it was nearly healed, Red cradled her arm to her chest as she slid her feet over the edge of her cot. Red slowly bent down to pull the blankets and stuffed potato sack that she used as a pillow back onto the bed.

  Red combed a hand through the bird's nest that made up her hair. She rubbed at the spot where the sword handle had knocked her unconscious, expecting to find a welt. She was glad to find that she had not managed to damage anything during her nightmare.

  Red let her eyes adjust to the darkness of the room as the adrenaline left her bloodstream. She massaged her arm, pushing into the still tender flesh. The skin around the wound was swollen and bruised. But the doctor had done his work well— her arm was completely functional.

  After watching the dirt wall for too long, Red decided that it was time to start the day; yet she was barely able to stand easily on her feet when someone started pounding on her door.

  Red flung the door open with an abundance of annoyance. She had been wide awake, but she was still going to at least verbally punish whoever thought it was a good idea to disturb her. She luckily managed to glare up at the Norton twins despite the light of their faerie orbs burning her unadjusted eyes.

  “You’re wanted in the training room,” Gretel Norton stated gruffly. She gave Red a disapproving once-over, her eyes catching on Red’s disheveled hair and clothes. “Immediately.”

  “I don’t take orders from you,” Red snapped, her irritation rising as she caught the attitude in the girl’s voice. She returned Gretel’s look of disgust as she shut the door.

  Hansel swung his large arm out to catch the door before Red could slam it in his sister’s face. He had to crane his neck to see below the door frame. The action made him look like a giant gnome rather than a powerful assassin.

  “The orders are from Robyn. He wants you and Jezamon to give the troops some advice to keep them going.”

  Unlike his sister, Hansel’s voice was soft, calm. It was clear to Red that Gretel had the fiery anger, and her brother had the collected temper to calm her down. Gretel Norton could sell anything with her passion, but it was Hansel Norton’s words that were used to buy people over.

  “We’re not leaving unless you come with us,” Gretel added when she saw Red consider her options.

  “I didn’t think I would get that lucky, but thanks for the confirmation,” Red noted dully.

  Hansel pulled his sister away from the door into the hallway. “We will wait for you out here while you get ready,” he stated before gently closing the door.

  Red leaned her forehead against the door with a sigh. She cursed through the wood as Gretel banged on the door again, signaling for her to hurry up.

  Red threw on a tunic and her boots. She pulled her hair back in a loose braid, not bothering to tie the ends off. Red silently slipped out of her room, nodding at the twins to lead the way.

  Gretel immediately strolled off with the faerie orb. Hansel shook his head lightly as he motioned for Red to follow, but he did not comment on his sister’s behavior.

  When the trio was nearly at the mess hall, Gretel Norton turned to Red, “I’m amazed that you survived the Pricker River. I thought it had completely washed you away.”

  Red was glad that she left her blades behind in the room. Without them, she took to imagining all the ways she would have enjoyed gutting the girl in that tunnel. “Just because I haven’t killed you for that little stunt doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten it. Unfortunately for me, Robyn will kick me out if I lay a finger on you. For him I’ll let bygones be bygones. For now.”

  “We weren’t going to let you drown. You were struggling too much and I lost my grip on you,” Gretel stated defensively.

  “At least you’re not trying to deny the fact that you almost killed me and forced me to travel through the Forbidden Wastes.”

  Gretel Norton huffed a laugh, throwing a glance at Red. “Good thing you didn’t die out there. Robyn would have been devastated. I, on the other hand, would not have been as bothered.”

  “I don’t even understand why you went to those lengths to try to get me to come here.”

  Hansel coughed before his sister could make a snarky retort. He looked back at Red with a sigh. “Robyn sent us to recruit you after he le
ft the Kingdom Rogues. We were going to try and convince you after you made your last kill. It wouldn’t have worked if you were still indebted to Arthur Welin. The river was not our best idea, but our cover was already being questioned by Dranac Gnorw. The risk was too large and you ignored us whenever we were in a close enough range to talk.”

  Red was not moved by the explanation. But before she could reply, Gretel added, “Our orders were to bring you here no matter what. There was no way we could travel to the Rogue Manor with you. We had few options.”

  “So your only clear option was to drown me?” Red had no idea whether to be amazed or afraid of their own stupidity. “‘Oh yeah, Robyn, we brought her to you. She’s a bit waterlogged’”—she pinched her fingers together— “‘and a little dead, but we got her here.’”

  Gretel whirled around and stormed back to where Red was walking. Hansel Norton looked as though he wished to intervene, but he let his twin march on. It looked as though steam were about to puff out of Gretel’s ears when she stopped in front of Red. She leaned down so that her glare matched with Red’s eye level.

  “You try and swim in the Pricker River while trying to drag someone else to safety,” she bellowed. “You try to keep not only your head above those raging waters, but someone else's as well. I don’t care who you are to Robyn, I will not hesitate to kill you.”

  Red took a step back, wiping away the spit that had landed on her cheek in Gretel’s fury. She looked up at the steaming girl, her face completely neutral.

  Red stood there for a moment longer before commenting, “Looks like you just did.”

  Red pushed past the twins, swiping the faerie orb out of Gretel’s hand. She had memorized most of the layout of the compound in the dark, but Red smiled knowing that Gretel Norton’s dumbfounded face would not disappear even as she left her and Hansel in the dark tunnels.

  ~~~

  Gretel Norton stormed down the pitch-black hall. Her face burned with embarrassment from letting Red get the better of her. A blow to her pride would not be easily forgotten, especially when that blow came from a dwarfed assassin. Gretel easily pushed past her brother’s feeble attempts to slow her down.

  Hansel Norton knew not to push peace onto his war-minded sister, but he would not let her fight without trying to calm her down. “Gretel, try to just think for a moment,” Hansel began quietly. He jogged alongside his sister, pushing into her path every few steps. “Red is a haughty, snarky little assassin. She doesn’t care what anyone else thinks, and she has no issues with killing people who get on her bad side.”

  “She’s a haughty, snarky little prick who deserves to be taught a lesson,” Gretel seethed, once again pushing past her brother. “And who better to teach her than me?”

  With a few long strides, Hansel stepped back in Gretel’s way. “Even without her voodoo magic, she would destroy you,” he stated calmly.

  Gretel Norton could barely make out her twin’s figure in the dark, but she knew by the tone of his voice that the look on his face was not one of approval. She pushed past her twin, walking quickly to reach the mess hall. “She’s the size of a dwarf. I could easily take her.”

  “Then you might as well challenge her,” Hansel suggested in a much too serious tone. “Oh look, she’s right over there.”

  Gretel squinted to let her eyes adjust to the lighting in the mess hall. Red and Jezamon Kerick stood on one of the tables at the front of the training group with Robyn Thorn beside them. The rebels all looked to Jezamon with a mixture of awe and disgust as he retold another grossly detailed war story.

  Red caught sight of the twins standing in the doorway. She tossed Gretel’s faerie orb around, teasing the other girl. The bouncing light illuminated the smirk that she directed toward the two.

  The twins moved to stand at the back of the crowd. Gretel usually liked to hear Jezamon’s stories, but she was not in the mood to laugh at the orc’s recurring issue of having to pee during a battle. Instead, Gretel Norton’s focus kept returning to Red as she tossed her faerie orb about.

  Hansel Norton was glad that Gretel cared too much about the other rebels to start a fight with Red in the middle of a meeting. He hoped that Jezamon’s crude story was enough to distract his twin from her most recent offender. Hansel did not care for Jezamon’s gory tales, but he listened to the advice that was offered in spite of his dislike toward the orc mercenary.

  After a dozen eye rolls and a handful of sighs, Red made her interruption. “As entertaining as this story is, I think what this barbarian is trying to say is that you should always go to the privy before a battle or you’ll shit yourself.

  “And while that might be a good technique to scare away the enemy with your foul stench, your fellow rebels would not appreciate dying because you caused their eyes to water, making them lose sight of the enemy.”

  “As enjoyable and… helpful as both of those statements were,” Robyn Thorn stated with a confused shake of his head, “I think our troops are looking for advice that is more catered to fighting the enemy… not their indigestion.”

  Jezamon looked truly offended at the jab at his story. “Hey, that does help with fightin’ the enemy,” he protested. “The Maker knows that I can’t fight properly when my tummy’s rumblin’.”

  The crowd let out a chuckle as Jezamon Kerick rubbed at his belly.

  “Please,” Red countered. “You couldn’t fight properly even if you were matched against a drunkard.”

  Another round of laughter made its way through the crowd. Their encouragement was all Red and Jezamon needed to continue bantering back and forth.

  “Can we please get back to the point?” Robyn pleaded, trying to keep the crowd from losing all interest in their lesson. The pair mutually ignored him, their quips becoming more and more antagonizing. When the two started threatening to fight, Robyn wrapped an arm around Red’s stomach and pulled her to his side. He easily lifted Red off her feet, turning around until he set her down on his opposite side.

  Gretel noticed that the motion was so natural for the pair. If she did not know the temper of the smaller partner, Gretel Norton could have imagined that the lift had been taken from a waltz. She was amazed that the simple move had kept Red from throwing the first punch in what would have been a very entertaining fight.

  “As helpful as your advice was, Jezamon,” Robyn Thorn continued with a pointed look directed toward both mercenary and assassin, “why don’t you let Red share some of her own knowledge?”

  “What’s a twelve-year-old goin’ to know that I don’t?” Jezamon sneered, earning him another round of laughs from the crowd.

  Red rolled her eyes but refrained from making a reply when she caught another warning look from Robyn. She looked out into the crowd with no small amount of disdain. “None of you will be prepared for your first battle,” Red began.

  Many crowd members scoffed at her first statement—ready to ignore the rest of her speech. Some turned away from where she was standing at the front of the room, starting up their own conversations with the creatures around them.

  Red glared directly at the few that she caught laughing at her. “Those of you who have already decided to ignore my advice will be the first to die.”

  Gretel could feel a hush fall over the room as the venom in Red’s words sank in. A few creatures shrunk away from her stare as they waited for her to continue. Even Gretel was intrigued to hear what the bratty assassin had to say next—though she would never admit it.

  “None of you will be prepared for your first battle,” Red restated. “You will not be ready for the second. Most of you will not know what to do by your third or your fourth. Your fifth will be a mystery. By your sixth you’ll know that there is no method to the madness.

  “Many of you do not realize that you will never be prepared to fight in a war that you are desperately hoping to win.”

  Red paused to let the crowd process the harshness in her statements. Her eyes roamed over the terrified crowd—no remorse to be seen
. “None of you will be prepared to fight for your life or the lives around you when the time comes.

  “You all want to see change happen, but you cannot take any of this seriously. You train here every day, yet you do not improve. You complain about the living conditions, and you will only be more disappointed with the conditions when your war starts. You barely complete your simple chores, not understanding that it will be a chore just to stay alive.

  “You talk about creating a new world, but you have not come to terms with the fact that you must do the work of the Destroyer before you can have the powers of the Maker.”

  The crowd was stunned to hear such cold statements about their cause. Jezamon Kerick looked as though his jaw were to drop open at any moment. Robyn’s eyes were wide with shock, his forehead wrinkled from the raise in his brows. Gretel Norton was angry to see her brother nodding as if every point was completely true.

  “You have no idea what lies ahead of you—”

  “Why should we believe a word you say?” demanded a woman from the crowd.

  “Yeah,” a smaller mountain orc agreed. “How can we trust anything you say?”

  Red stepped down from the table, the crowd parting to let her through—or to keep her away. She walked through the shifting group until she was in the center of the room.

  “I observed many months of fighting at the front lines when the war started. I watched as soldiers laid down their lives for their rulers and kingdoms because that was what they were trained to do. I have been trained to be as obedient as a soldier, and until recently, I have never questioned an order.”

  The crowd did not look any more pleased with Red’s confession, but they did not argue that it was false. Red turned to see that the crowd was finally listening to what she had to say. When she caught Robyn Thorn’s eye, he motioned for her to continue.

  “Nothing is uniform or planned in war. The Destroyer does not discriminate against those aligned with good or evil. He will snatch you away from this world as soon as he gets the chance. It takes less than a second”—Red snapped her fingers together—“for your fate to be determined.”