by Lori Hyrup
Movements turned into a rhythmic dance as Aria continued to push her way across the square, careful to keep the wraiths from getting too near the youngster. Even a small drop of their toxin would be lethal to one so young. Her arm moved faster and faster until her blade became a whirl of prismatic colors under the moonlight. This was her element, her time. Several of the shard beasts went down beneath the tempest that was Aria. Faster and faster the krusword spun, causing the crystal to sing as it cut through the air. She glanced ahead, noting she was close to breaking free of their blockade.
The young couple reached their destination and waited in the distance, beyond the edge of the town and out of the range of the wraiths. Realizing sound attracted the wraiths, they kept quiet. The man though gestured for her to hurry, and the woman wrung her hands nervously. Aria barely spared a thought for them except to note that they were out of harm’s way.
With each wraith she slew, two more seemed to take its place. Why were there so many? Spin, slash, whirl, slash, twist, slash, dodge, slash. Only a small part of her brain acknowledged that she still held the child, so focused was she on destroying her targets. She became the wind dancing to the song of the sword. Despite the dire circumstances, it had never sounded so beautiful. Time lost all dimension. There was only Aria, her blade, and the wraiths that shattered in a shower of stars.
Suddenly Aria’s arm stopped moving, and the song ended. Why had she stopped? She looked up at a white-haired man holding her wrist. Aria blinked as recollection returned to her. “Zephyron?” she asked.
“The fighting is over,” he said as he gently pulled the toddler from her arms. The young mother rushed up to reclaim her child.
“Thank you, Kruusta. Thank you.” The woman met Aria’s eyes and backed away into the safety of her husband’s arm. The two of them distanced themselves even farther.
Aria scanned the village. Nothing but white shards covered the area between the house and the edge of the town. Fortunately prism wraiths did not bleed, or the ground would have been saturated with blood. She eyed Zephyron, hoping to find an explanation.
“That was all you,” he said in an incredulous tone. “As far as I can tell, every one of them is gone.”
Kharra and the other people who had been rescued returned, each one of them wearing the same stunned expression as they looked out over the carnage. In ones and twos, the villagers broke off to investigate the damage. Zephyron did as well.
A burning sensation ignited across Aria’s shoulder, forcing her to her knees. Kharra rushed to her side. “Aria! Are you okay? Did one of them scratch you?”
Aria remained where she was for a moment. The pain pulsed and ebbed with the beat of her heart, but after a few moments, it subsided. “I don’t know,” she said at last, her breath short in coming. “My shoulder’s on fire.”
Kharra’s deft hands removed Aria’s shoulder pad and pulled back her light mail shirt. “I don’t think this is a scratch from the wraiths,” Kharra assessed, her voice laced with the faint sound of sorrow.
Aria sighed. No, it was not a scratch from the wraith. On her shoulder grew four perfectly formed crystalline shards, the largest of which was at least the length of a finger. She recalled how Kruusta Charold, the one she had failed to end before his transformation, had screamed about being on fire as he went through his conversion. Aria’s body was finally turning against her.
Aria planted her sword tip into the ground and hoisted herself up. “The pain has gone. I’m fine now.” She readjusted her shirt and allowed the crystal in her hand to reclaim her weapon, its solid form taking on its quicksilver-like quality once again before disappearing.
Kharra regarded Aria with an unreadable mask.
It was both good and bad that the other woman did not seem fearful of these early signs of Aria’s transformation. Aria said, “I don’t know if you overheard what I said to Zephyron before. If during our trek I come to the point where I am no longer me, I have asked him to release me.”
“Aria,” Kharra replied at last, “I won’t let it come to that.”
“I appreciate your concern for my well-being, but I’m a kruusta. This is something we all know will happen, some sooner than others. I will help you both for as long as I am able, and maybe I will be lucky enough to last beyond your mission. But I don’t wish to become a threat to people. If I start to lose myself, I would like someone to kill me before I hurt someone else.”
“Don’t worry,” Kharra said solemnly. “We won’t let you hurt anyone.”
“Thank you.” Aria gave the young woman a tight smile.
Zephyron returned a short while later, his face a dark thundercloud on the verge of bursting.
“What’s wrong?” Kharra asked.
“I went to the local shard temple. The entire shard…it’s gone, destroyed.”
“That explains why there were so many wraiths,” Kharra said, her face still unreadable.
A fount of emotions boiled up through Aria. “Destroyed? How does one destroy a shard?” she demanded.
Zephyron shook his head. “I don’t know, and it’s really too late for us to investigate tonight. I say we get some rest and come back tomorrow to take a closer look.”
The two women agreed. While Aria was fairly certain that all of the wraiths had been eliminated, she was too exhausted to double-check. On her recommendation the villagers gathered some of their belongings and joined the three travelers in camping a short distance away from the village. She reassured them that they could return the next day to do a thorough sweep of the area.
5
THE TRUTH
“Are you coming?” Zephyron asked as the villagers shuffled away.
Kharra shook her head. “No, I’m going to wait here until she wakes.”
Zephyron nodded. He did not seem to be looking at her but rather through her.
“What’s wrong?” Kharra asked.
“Ah, nothing. I’m just processing all of this.”
“The shard?” she asked.
“The shard—or shards for that matter. Aria. Our mission. I don’t think it was a coincidence that our mission brought us to this place, not just to Aria but to whatever is going on with the crystal in this land at this point in time.” His brow furrowed, and his jaw became stiff.
“You’re angry,” Kharra said pointedly.
Zephyron rocked his head forward and back subtly.
“Because of the shards?”
“Well, some of that, yeah, but also the stuff that’s happening to her,” he said as he jutted his chin in the direction of Aria’s bedroll. “She’s a fascinating woman—skilled, intelligent, and open-minded. It’s horrible that she has to endure this conversion process. I don’t get it. The crystals don’t behave that way. There’s something else that’s causing this reaction she and the other kruustas have. I know it. And whatever that something is, it’s been going on for roughly a century.” He regained his focus, his face set with resolve. “We won’t let her fall to this. We will find out how to stop it. There’s got to be something that can be done. If we had a Sauru singer, we probably would have figured this out already.”
“But the Sauru are extinct,” Kharra interjected.
Zephyron sighed. “I know, but there’s got to be a way.”
“Well, you’re the next best thing to a Sauru,” Kharra said encouragingly. “You have sensitivity to Mattekan and the crystal veins that others don’t. I’m sure something will occur to you.”
Zephyron nodded. “I hope so.”
“You wouldn’t kill her, would you?” Kharra asked.
“What? No,” Zephyron said with an emphatic shake of his head.
“You don’t think she’ll turn into this krumetus monster?”
Zephyron shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think if we can keep her focused on this mission, keep her from giving up, we can probably delay it until we find a cure.”
Kharra nodded. “And if that isn’t enough? What if she does transform?”
; “I don’t know. I really don’t want to think about that. Maybe we could restrain her until we find the cure.”
Kharra refrained from voicing her doubts. If an entire land could not find a cure over the course of a hundred years, what chance did they have of finding one in a matter of weeks? Kharra studied Zephyron briefly. To any other observer, he likely looked composed and in control, but Kharra could tell that this situation had rattled him. He was determined to do whatever was necessary to save Aria.
Aria woke to a blast of sunlight breaking through the tall cinnabar trees standing at attention over their camp. The light fell on her face, blinding her for a moment when she opened her eyes. As she allowed them to adjust, the shards on her shoulder pulsed gently in rhythm with her heartbeat. She wanted nothing more than to cut them off, but she knew they would just grow back. They were as much a part of her body now as her hair or skin. For some reason not being able to wear her left shoulder pad annoyed her even more than having shards protruding from her shoulder.
Aria sat up. Kharra poked at the fire, but the rest of the camp was empty.
“The villagers returned to the village to begin cleaning up,” Kharra announced without looking at her. “They also sent a messenger to deliver word to the other nearby villages announcing that the menace has passed and requesting people return home. Zephyron wants us to meet him at the shard temple as soon as you’re ready.”
Her energy drained despite the sleep, Aria forced herself up and followed Kharra’s lead. She rubbed her fingers through her hair as images from the previous night drifted back to her. She had lost herself in the crystal, even if for just a moment. That had never happened before, and it frightened her. How long before she lost herself forever?
The two women passed through the town on the way to the shard temple. Dozens of villagers milled about already hard at work repairing the damage from the night before. Bodies of the deceased, wrapped in white linen, lined the town square.
A man working on a door to one of the houses looked up to wipe his brow. As soon as he saw Aria, his expressionless face broke into a bright smile. He waved. Aria’s lips turned upward at the edges, and she nodded to him in return. Three other people they passed did the same.
Unlike Murali, where the shard temple had been set back away from the town, here in White Bluff, the temple sat right beside the other major buildings lining the square though obscured from the road by a dozen blossoming fruit trees. Aria caught the sweet, slightly tart scent of apple blossoms as she and Kharra walked up the footpath toward the temple’s front entrance. Aria frowned at seeing so many of the blossoms on the ground.
Kharra stopped. Aria looked up and scowled at the scene. Of the temple, only the doorway and the lower portion of the front wall remained standing. The rest of the building lay scattered in thousands of pieces. Kharra continued forward, picking her steps through the shredded debris. Aria followed. Bits of wood, stone, glass, and metalwork littered the area. Mixed in with the wreckage, Aria spotted small fragments of crystal, most no bigger than her finger.
Zephyron, who had arrived some time earlier, was sifting through what should have been the shard’s dais. Both women joined him, trying to be careful of where they stepped. A twinge of sadness panged in Aria’s heart as shard pieces crunched beneath her foot.
“This exploded outward,” Zephyron announced as they arrived. “The force of the blast demolished the temple and killed the priest. His remains are over there in what was once another room. I haven’t seen destruction like this since the war.”
Aria peered into the crater. The ground sank down to the height of a man. The only thing left of the shard was the frayed edges of its root, blackened and dead. Kharra placed a hand on her arm. It was at that point she realized she had been shaking with anger. The crystal in her hand pulsed in response to her emotion. She closed her eyes, took several deep breaths, and composed herself. She could not afford to allow it to spread further.
“This confirms what I said last night, why so many wraiths swarmed the town,” Kharra added. “Aria, have you ever seen anything like this before?”
Aria shook her head. “Never.” She found herself pushing down her anger once again. “But I intend to find out who caused this and why. This is too much to be a coincidence between here and Murali.” Her companions both agreed. Her gut told her something else as well. She stared at the crater and poked at random pieces of debris with her toe.
“I’ll be honest though,” she said at last, the sound of her voice constricted even to her own ears. “These things are happening just as you two arrive in our lands.”
Kharra’s head whipped around to look at Aria, her expression stunned. “You don’t think we have anything to do with this, do you?” Zephyron stood and crossed his arms, his expression wary.
“I don’t know. Not directly, no, but you both possess a lot of information about the shards. You come from a strange land and know nothing of our ways, yet you want to go to Ei’ars’anu, the site of the most powerful shard ever known. At the same time, other shards are dying or are being destroyed, something that has never happened in my entire service as a kruusta. Burn me if the two aren’t related.”
Aria regarded the two calmly, weighing her next words carefully. “You both withhold details from me, and I am certain your reasons are good for doing so. I was fine with you keeping your personal business to yourselves, and I had no plans on prying. But my understanding of the circumstances has changed. If I am going to continue to help you, then I need to understand everything. Who you are. What you are.” She stared at Zephyron to emphasize the what. She continued. “Where you are from. Why you are here. What you are after.” There. She had said it all.
Zephyron studied her, his blue eyes piercing and intense. Kharra eyed her passively, the woman’s face not betraying her emotions. Both of them stood silently for many moments. The silence unnerved her, but Aria refused to move, not even to shift her weight.
At last Zephyron said, “Let us get food, and we can talk.”
The three of them picked their way carefully back through the door and out toward the town square. There were even more people moving around than before: some carrying supplies, others hammering or sawing at various pieces of construction, and some loading the bodies into wagons.
A woman with long, rich brown hair ran up to them from one of the buildings. A man, sawdust covering his pants, followed her. The woman stopped just in front of them and held her hands together. At first Aria thought something else had happened, but the woman beaming from ear to ear caused her to dismiss the notion. She looked Aria in the eye. “Thank you, Kruusta, so much for coming to rescue my husband and the others. I don’t know what I would have done had I lost him.”
The man beside her dwarfed her frame with his wide shoulders and broad chest. Aria recognized him as one of the people they had rescued from the Raven’s Roost. “Yes, thank you. My name is Ian. You were exhausted when you returned last night, so I didn’t want to bother you, but I did not get the chance to thank you properly.” He extended his hand, and Aria took it. “The Raven’s Roost is my establishment. We’ve gotten the place cleaned up, and the fires are going, so the least I can do is offer you all a meal and somewhere to rest.”
“That is generous of you,” Aria said in response.
A scruffy youth with reddish-brown hair, somewhere between a boy and a man, ran up to the group as well. He took Zephyron’s hand in both of his and shook it. “Thank you, Zephyron, for getting me out of the stables.” The boy glanced at Aria and said, “After I released the horses, I got trapped and couldn’t get back.”
Zephyron smiled. “My pleasure, Adarn. You were pretty heroic yourself, thinking of the horses like you did.”
“I just did what I could, sir. Everyone was so panicked about getting out of the village, many of the extra horses were left behind. They couldn’t get away, what with being locked up in their stalls and all.”
More people joined them out in the squa
re, wanting to either shake their hands, give them thanks, or both. One little girl with golden hair and bright-green eyes wove her way through the crowd and hugged Aria’s leg. Aria placed her hand on the girl’s head and smiled. Despite losing a number of people from their village, they were grateful help had come and appreciative that others had been saved.
In all her years as a kruusta, Aria had never before been the center of such positive attention. For the first time ever, her actions felt like more than just a job, and seeing so many happy faces affected her in ways she never thought possible. Having helped these people, positive emotions threatened to overwhelm her. Yes, she would find out who was behind the problems with the shards and who was responsible for the massacre here.
At last Ian held up his hands. “Okay, folks, let them get something to eat. Dara, take them inside, will you?”
The woman with the long brown hair hugged her husband and then beckoned the village saviors to follow her into the Raven’s Roost. She told them to sit anywhere they wanted while she went to fetch them their meals.
The inn had indeed been cleaned up as Ian said—debris cleared away, tables and chairs righted, floors swept and mopped, and counters wiped clean. Only two other tables held occupants, people who had come in from working to take a break; Ian and his wife had opened up their kitchen to offer a meal to any of those who helped with the rebuilding.
Zephyron led the way to a table in the far back. The other customers smiled and nodded their heads to them as they passed. Dara returned moments later with three plates heaping with meat, bread, vegetables, and even fresh scoops of butter. She had offered them ale, but none of them wanted to imbibe alcohol. Instead she brought them large mugs of fresh-brewed tea sweetened with a few drops of honey. Aria’s stomach growled as soon as the food appeared in front of her. Zephyron raised an eyebrow and grinned.