He saw a flash of movement in his periphery and dove right on instinct. The axe blade of a halberd bit deep into the dirt where he’d been standing a moment earlier.
Its wielder was a burly man, fast, too, who yanked the weapon upward and prepared to make another strike while Damon was still within its effective range.
Halberds were weak against convincing feints. Damon danced left, luring the weapon down again before bursting forward with hidden speed.
He cleaved through the weapon’s haft with one strike, carrying the spin completely around, and buried his sword through his opponent’s thigh.
The blade was slick with red as he drew it back, numbly watching the defeated man slump forward and hurry to crawl away on hands and knees. Damon spun around, eyes passing over what was left of the camp, searching for Shank.
The crest sorcerer found him first. Pain exploded against the side of Damon’s head as the world turned sideways.
He landed on top of one of the collapsed tent canopies, inches away from the smoldering fire, with what felt like tiny mallets conducting brutal demolition on the inside of his head.
“Curious…” Shank’s voice was loud and strangely amused. “I would not have expected one such as yourself to be of recklessness to such a degree.”
Damon pulled himself up, doing his best not to loathe the sluggish way his body was responding to him. Shank could have already killed him, could have even slit his throat without ever even appearing in front of him.
His crest was giving off an eerie azure light, which made the smile underneath his banishment marks look undeniably ghoulish. He held his curved sword loose in the fingers of one hand and approached Damon with deceptive slowness.
“Gavel wished for the money he was owed, but some of the men you just fought were of his employ,” said Shank. “I am certain that he would prefer I resolve this situation, regardless of outstanding payment.”
There was a sudden blur, a sudden flash of cold blue, and Damon’s sword was no longer in his hand. He saw it bouncing across the dirt a dozen feet away, sensed Shank behind him, ready to issue the finishing strike on his newly disarmed opponent.
Ria’s voice cut through the moment, angry words spoken in Konokai, the local Rem language. Damon looked over his shoulder to see Shank whirling, searching the darkness for her. A bolt of lightning cut through the storm, striking the exact spot where he stood.
“Damon!” Ria rushed to his sword, picking up his sword as she entered the camp and passing it to him.
Damon blinked, clearing the after-image from his eyes and refocusing on Shank. The crest sorcerer was on his hands and knees, smoke rising from a vicious looking scorch mark on his shoulder, muscles in his fingers still twitching from the intensity of the shock.
“Ekastra!” shouted Ria. “Fool! You think yourself faster than lightning?”
Shank lifted his head, eyes glowing a frozen blue, and began to laugh. “I have no need to be. I can simply be faster than your eyes.”
His body blurred an instant before Ria brought down her next lightning strike. Damon brought his sword to bare and whirled in a circle, searching the storm swept night for blurs and shadows.
He knew, in that moment, that despite their efforts, they’d come up short. Shank’s crest gave him an advantage too great for even Ria’s tempesting to counter.
Damon felt the air move to his left and blocked on instinct. He caught the center of Shank’s sword, partially stopping the approaching slash, but the weapon’s curve still managed to sneak by and do damage.
The slash took him in the same shoulder he’d injured in their previous fight, blood seeping from new and old wounds alike. He felt the pressure on his weapon recede as their opponent launched into a new attack, too fast to follow. Ria gasped and doubled over.
Damon swore under his breath as he caught her by the shoulders, and he only partially untensed upon seeing that she’d been either kicked or punched in the stomach, rather than impaled or disemboweled.
“Damon!” she shouted.
Her eyes looked to the right of his face, and then to his neck. Damon had time to glance downward and confirm that Shank’s horrible curved sword was against his throat before everything happened at once.
An arrow hissed through the air by Damon’s ear. Shank let out a screech of pain and dropped his weapon, stumbling back. Vel appeared near the smoldering canvas tent fires, holding the short bow with one hand and covering her mouth with the other.
Ria burst into motion, launching a spinning kick that struck Shank clear across the mouth before he could use his crest magic to put himself out of reach. He retreated as soon as he recovered enough to act, briefly appearing as a blur at the edge of the clearing before disappearing into the dense trees of the Malagantyan.
CHAPTER 37
Vel was shaking, and Damon wasn’t sure whether it was from the chill of the rain and wind, or from fear. He hurried over to her, ignoring his own wounds to wrap his arms around her shoulders.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
She nodded, teeth chattering, and leaned her head forward into his chest.
“How did you find us?” he asked.
“I followed you,” she whispered. “When you and Ria left together, I thought… Well, I’m not sure what I thought. It just felt dangerous to leave you to whatever you had planned.”
Ria let out an appreciative chuckle. “You were proven correct, young Velanor.”
“I didn’t watch the path you took up the cliffs to the cave closely enough to follow you up,” said Vel. “I was getting ready to give up and head back to the tower house when I saw you sneak into the campsite, Damon.”
“You saved our lives,” he said.
“We are not out of danger yet,” said Ria. “We must be of haste. Shank could recover enough to decide to take his revenge at any moment.”
“Right,” said Damon. “Let’s move.”
The journey back to the farmstead was fairly miserable. Damon kept a hand clutched over his shoulder, fingers going numb under the relentless onslaught of cold rain.
The forest had begun to flood, leaving them splashing through several inch-deep puddles to progress forward at more than one point.
The tower house was a comforting sight, with its glowing orange windows indicating that the hearth was still aflame within.
Vel opened the door for Damon and Ria, and the three of them stumbled into the common room, dripping wet with water like half-drowned rats.
Malon sat at the dining table, fingers steepled, expression serious. She didn’t look up as they entered, instead waiting while they took their shoes off and discarded soaking outer layers of clothing.
“Aesta…” said Damon.
“Stop.” Malon’s eyes flicked up to pan over them. “Don’t waste my time with excuses. Tell me exactly where the three of you have been and what you’ve done.”
Her voice was stern and authoritative, churning old memories of childhood punishments to the fore. Damon was aware that he wasn’t the only one avoiding her gaze, nor hoping that one of the others would take point in explaining the nature of their mess.
“Ria and I went after Shank,” he said, after too long of a pause. “We thought that if we attacked during the storm and took him by surprise…”
“Rash, impulsive, and foolish,” sighed Malon. “Seta? What of you? Did you go after them to bring them back?”
“I tried to,” muttered Vel. “I didn’t make it in time. I’m sorry.”
“We recognize the mistake we made, aesta,” said Damon.
“No,” said Malon. “The mistake was in my judgment, not in your actions. I was overestimating my ability to keep you all safe. I underestimated both your energy and impulsiveness.”
“Aesta…” said Vel.
“Tomorrow, all of you will return to your normal lives.” Malon gave them a sad smile, resting her chin against her folded hands. “It’s for your own sake as much as mine.”
“What?” snap
ped Damon. “Look, we admitted that we made a mistake. The situation hasn’t changed that much.”
“We can’t just leave you here,” said Vel. “Please. I wasn’t interested in coming back to the farmstead to begin with, but I’m even less interested of knowingly leaving you in danger.”
“I’ve shown you some of what I can do, but not all, by any stretch,” said Malon. “I’ll be fine.”
“So, what?” Damon let some of his frustration veer into his voice. “You’re just going to throw us off the farm now, because… what? You don’t trust us to stay alive anymore? I came back here to help keep you safe, aesta!”
“I know, solas,” she said, standing up. “I can’t fully explain how much I appreciate that sentiment. How much I love you for it. But this… is simply how it must be.”
Malon crossed the distance to him before he could say another word, reaching out a hand to gently caress his cheek. For some reason, Damon found it hard to look at her directly, the conflict within his emotions stirring old memories.
She leaned forward, kissed him once on the cheek, and then the lips, and then spoke to the room. “Each of you should get some sleep. Ria, for tonight, you may rest in my bed.”
It was a testament to the gravity of the moment that Ria simply nodded instead of making a fuss. She was the first to leave the common room, followed by Vel, and finally Damon, once he realized that Malon clearly considered the conversation to be over.
He stripped out of his clothing, rebandaged his shoulder, and climbed under his quilt. He could hear the constant patter of rain on the roof overhead, now sans magical thunder. The illumination of the hearth flickered through the crack between his door and the floor, occasionally broken by Malon’s passing shadow.
He didn’t want to leave. He would, if Malon insisted, but he didn’t want to. It was a stark realization, one that raised hard questions about where his life was headed and what he wanted out of it. Five years chasing the dream of becoming a gladiator comparable to his father and the Gilded Swords, and now he was pining for the old life he’d run away from.
Except it wasn’t the same life. He wasn’t a child anymore, blessed and cursed with the innocence and naivety of youth. Malon wasn’t simply his aesta anymore, and Ria and Vel were grown and independent.
Three women, three changing relationships, all balanced on the edge of a knife. Balanced on a situation filled with dangers he still didn’t fully understand.
Strangely, he felt himself missing his old sword, his wrathblade. He massaged his broken finger through the splint, wincing as he thought back to Gavel and the alleyway and the encounter which had set the course of his life askew.
It was a ridiculous notion, but some deep-set part of his instincts told him that the past week of his life would have played out extremely differently if he’d somehow managed to keep ahold of the weapon. He blinked, giving the thought the attention it deserved.
Shank had asked about his wrathblade. He’d assumed it was simple curiosity, interest born from the nature of his crest, but Damon still remembered the eagerness in the outcast Rem’s voice.
It was a line of thinking that only led to him feeling the loss of his prized weapon all the more deeply. His priceless wrathblade, gifted to him by Lady Adele of Paquet, the third woman he’d ever bedded in his life, incidentally.
He glanced toward the door, suddenly hoping that it would open and Ria or Malon or even Vel would slip in and join him in his bed. He felt his face flush as he finally acknowledged the fact that he was attracted to them through the veil of shame and guilt and familial history.
The light from the hearth peeking through under the door dimmed, but no footsteps followed. Damon resigned himself to thoughts and fantasies of things he wanted that he simply couldn’t have as he finally drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER 38
Damon went to sleep alone and woke up with a guest. His eyes were still closed when he felt his visitor slip under the quilt next to him. He suspected he knew who it was, and the soft, playful voice gave him immediate confirmation.
“Young Damon,” whispered Ria. “Are you still asleep?”
He felt her lips press against his and sleepily kissed her back. Reaching an arm over and around her, he tiredly tried to pull her body to lock into his, feeling a sudden pressing and achingly hard need to take care of a certain problem he’d woken up with.
“Oh, if only,” sighed Ria. “I would enjoy nothing more than to be of pleasure this morning, once, twice, three times, if your stamina allowed.”
“I believe it would for that,” said Damon. He kissed her again, cupping one of her breasts through the fabric of her spiral tunic.
Ria ran her hands through his hair, sliding upward to pull his face into her bosom. “I am sorry, Damon. I… am taking the request of Malon, our aesta, to heart. It is time for me to depart.”
“Why now?” Damon shook his head, pulling back from the embrace, looking at her seriously. “When was the last time you actually listened to her, rather than rebelling?”
“Long ago, this is true.”
“Be honest with me. Are you afraid of Shank?”
Ria blinked, her violet eyes betraying nothing as they peeked out behind loose strands of black hair. “No. At least, not in the sense you may think me of. I am afraid, Damon, of my own weakness. Against Shank, yes, but against Malon, as well. I need to become stronger and I sense that time is of the essence.”
“Is that the only reason?” he asked.
“Are you asking me if I am fleeing in light of our fledgling intimacy?”
“Fleeing isn’t exactly the word I’d choose.” Damon shrugged. “But yes. I suppose I am.”
He felt Ria’s arms wrap tighter around his chest. She gave him a slow kiss, not just taking her time, but letting Damon take his as he kissed her back.
“I felt vulnerable with you,” said Ria. “That is true. With that said, I would have risked it, if it had made sense.”
He reached out, letting his thumb press against the bottom of her chin. “I think it could.”
“I wish it could.” She closed her eyes, smiling sadly. “I would follow you, if you asked me to. I suspect you would… follow me, of the same?”
“I would,” said Damon. “I somehow doubt it would end well.”
“You would be attacked, possibly killed, by warriors of the Kirranosai as soon as we passed more than a day’s travel north, east, or west of here.”
“That’s wonderful to consider.”
Ria rolled her eyes. “Would it be all that much better for one such as I in the Merinian colony cities?”
“Objectively yes, but not by all that much,” he said. “You wouldn’t be safe either. I know, and I understand your point.”
Ria nodded as though she’d needed to hear him agree before it was genuinely made true. “We will see each other again.”
“Yeah. We will.”
Ria stared at him, and Damon felt his heart break in the same instant her resolve briefly flickered. She closed her eyes, bending her head forward, and Damon pulled her into a tight hug.
“One month, Ria. Regardless of what else happens. Come back to the farm in one month from today, even if just for the night.”
“Malon may not—”
“Aesta,” said Damon, “will have calmed down by then. I’ll figure this out.”
She watched him for a purposeful span of seconds, reading him on a level that felt akin to being undressed. He didn’t look away and didn’t let go of her.
“One month from today,” said Ria, with a nod.
He followed her into the common room in time to witness the tail end of her tearful goodbye to Vel. The two women, nearly sisters in all but name, hugged each and whispered to each other. Valid questions about where Ria would go and what she’d do from Vel, honest reassurances about her ability to take care of herself from Ria.
“I will be okay, Velanor,” said Ria. “I love you and this will not be the last time we see one another.�
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“I know,” said Vel. “It’s always the same. Goodbyes never get any easier.”
“That is a statement of the truth.”
Malon waited by the door, wearing her grey tunic and black leggings, hair not yet in its usual red braid. Ria nodded to her with a face much more guarded than it had been with either of the others.
“Malon,” she said. “I will take your advice.”
“Seta.” Malon blinked a couple of times. “Please be careful.”
“Always,” said Ria.
Malon didn’t look like she knew what to do with her hands, as though the distance grown between her and Ria made it hard for her to even know how to give her former ward a hug.
It was distance too far to cross in that instant. Ria shot one last look in the direction of Damon and Vel before shouldering a bag of supplies she must have prepared the night before and slipping out through the door.
Malon let out a sigh and leaned against the dining table. “This is for the best. The two of you should also leave by midday. Solas, I’d been hoping since you both are heading toward the coast that you could watch over seta along the way.”
Damon glanced toward Vel and nodded. “I can, but… Aesta, are you sure about this?”
“Very much so,” she said. “It isn’t forever. The situation here will settle down in time, truly.”
Her words sounded much like what he’d told Ria just a moment earlier, which made him appreciate just how hard the decision was for Malon. She was a practical woman and wouldn’t go to such great lengths to protect them if she didn’t think it was necessary.
It was a fact which paradoxically left him feeling more than ever like he needed to be the one to resolve the situation.
He’d tried the obvious approach, simply attacking and killing Shank. He’d nearly killed two men with his sword, mercenaries and assassins, true enough, but he’d still come close to ending their lives.
“Solas?” asked Malon. “Are you alright?”
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