In the back of the room, a maid stumbled down the stairs, causing a small stir as she hurried over to another barkeep, whispering frantically.
I watched them, blinking blearily, a wrinkle forming on my brow.
Even through the haze of drunkenness, I noticed that something seemed… off. The maid looked shaken, though she didn’t speak above a whisper, even from across the room I could sense the panic in her words.
Her eyes slipped to us, wide and frightened.
“Moth,” I said, quietly. “Where did the others go?”
He shrugged. “Upstairs. Bed.”
Just like that, I was very, very sober. I straightened.
The maid didn’t break my stare. She unfurled just one finger, pointing — up.
A decade-old memory surfaced, of another inn not unlike this one. An inn where my troops and enemy troops had found themselves in the same place, at the same time. I had lost two friends that night, all to what amounted to nothing more than bad luck. Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong people.
Our next target was less than a hundred miles from here. And Meriata was a central hub for rest and pleasure seeking, the kind of place that soldiers — soldiers from any army — would find themselves drawn to.
I had been careless.
I’d been so desperate to come here for my own reasons that I hadn’t stopped to think of the risks. I had been so damned careful, until now.
I rose. “Get up, Moth.”
He looked up, confused. “Why?”
“Do you have your sword?”
A sudden stillness fell over Moth’s face. He nodded.
“We aren’t alone here.” Slowly, I lifted my chin towards the stairs. Moth followed. The maids’ eyes followed us silently. The most frightened looking maid was young, but the barkeep looked old enough to be unsurprised. Perhaps this was not the first time this had happened here. There had been many clashes like this in Meriata, after all, during the Ryvenai War.
We crept up the stairs and rounded a corner.
The first thing I saw was blood. It rolled from beneath the doors, creeping over floorboards.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
I shot Moth a look. What was better, for him to stay here alone or to come with me into what would almost certainly be a fight? He hadn’t even seen combat before.
“Stay here,” I said.
“You can’t go in there alone—”
“Stay here, Moth,” I said again, and I didn’t give him any time to argue with me before I was gone.
I conjured my magic to the surface of my skin, flames at my fingertips and simmering at the edges of my blades. In two steps, I was around the corner and pushing open the door. And just as it always did in times like this, my brother’s voice was in my ears:
Evaluate. Judge. Act. That’s all there is.
Evaluate. The first thing that hit me was the blood — there was so fucking much of it, spreading over white sheets, over wooden floors, so much that it took a moment for my eyes to find the source. There, crumpled on the floor near the foot of the bed, was a body. One of my soldiers. His throat was torn open, his sword clutched in his hand. A few feet away, another bloodied figure, a partially-dressed young woman, lay lifeless.
Judge. The blood was warm. The bodies were fresh. Whoever did this was still here. I backed out of this room and threw open another to see another body, another one of my dead men, this one looking as if he was killed so swiftly he didn’t even have the chance to fight.
And then, to my left, I heard a thump.
I turned. The sound had come from the next room over, and ended quickly, like whoever was responsible had hurriedly tried to cover it.
That’s where our assailant was. That room.
Act. I readied my weapon and backed out of this room, moving down to the next one. I opened the door—
—Only to see a soldier standing there, as if he had been about to open it at the same time.
He stared at me, wide-eyed. He was covered in blood, so much so that it was impossible to see what type of uniform he wore. He was young, barely older than Moth.
Time suspended for one split second, the two of us staring at each other.
And just as quickly, the spell broke.
He started to raise his sword, but I countered the strike quickly, sending him staggering back. His weapon went clattering to the ground. I pushed him against the wall, my staff against his throat
“Who are you with?” I demanded. “Aviness?”
The boy was afraid. I could see it in his face, even though he was trying to cover it up with hatred. His lips twisted into a forced sneer.
“I killed them,” he said. “I’ll kill you, too. In the name of the true king.”
Stupid kid. I wanted to tell him, Do you think Aviness has any clue who you are? Do you think your life is worth his crown?
Instead I loosened my grip on my magic. The edges of my blades were now bright with flames, unleashing a wall of heat over us.
“Do you know who I am? I’m Maxantarius Farlione, and those are my men that you’ve murdered.”
The boy let out a ragged breath. His eyes widened, even though he tried to hide his fear.
“How many of your men are here?” I demanded. “Tell me that and you’ll keep your life. Think very carefully about how you answer.”
Hesitation.
“Jorge?”
Moth’s small voice came from behind me.
Fuck.
“Moth—” I began to bark a command, and did not get to finish.
Here’s the thing about teenage boys: they’re stupid.
In my split second of distraction, the boy I had pinned against the wall raised his hand and a large ceramic lamp from the bedside table went careening against my head.
I staggered back.
A Wielder. Fantastic.
And this is how it always goes. Control to chaos in less than a second. By the time I righted myself, the boy was lunging for me, his sword back in his hand, the other raised as he tried to push me back with another wave of magic. He was a good Wielder for someone so young, but still inexperienced. Two steps, two slashes, and I had him down on the ground.
But then there were footsteps. The noise had alerted the soldier’s companions, no doubt. I whirled just in time to see three more figures fly into the room, Moth lurching through the door and against the wall, his sword raised.
I didn’t have time to think or breathe or utter commands.
Three against one. I’d faced far worse odds before.
But there was something especially vile about this sort of fight, the kind fought not in chaotic battlefields but in these close, intimate quarters, close enough to hear every dying breath, close enough to see the terror in their eyes as your blades run through their guts. It’s ugly, and pathetic, and terrible.
Pain shot across my side, blood soaking my jacket. Still, my muscles responded on instinct. The boy didn’t get the chance to scream, letting out only a pitiful gargle as he hit the ground, his throat slashed. One of his companions let out a ragged sound of fury and lunged for me. I was still recovering. Didn’t move fast enough. His blade struck me, and for a moment I couldn’t catch my breath — an unnatural jolt ran down to my bones. Magic. Another Wielder.
I countered with a sloppy, vicious strike. Blood spattered my face. This body fell on top of the other one, twitching, dying slower.
I clutched my side. My vision blurred.
By the time it cleared again, I saw the first soldier, the one who was little more than a child, back on his feet, rushing towards me, rage on his face—
And then I saw Moth lunge, magic sparking at his hands, collecting around his sword.
There was a crash as they collided. A blast of light filled the room. When it subsided, Moth was on his knees, the soldier on the ground before him, his weapon buried in the bloody, burnt body.
The world was suddenly silent.
Moth’s face was tilted down to the lifeless soldier benea
th him. His breaths were heaving, but he did not blink.
I slowly rose.
“Moth,” I said, quietly.
He did not move. His breath came quicker and quicker, and now all I could think about was the first time I felt someone else’s blood soak my hands.
“Moth, look at me.”
His head snapped up. Crimson smeared his blond curls and his face. At thirteen, Moth was that strange age when sometimes he looked almost like an adult, or at least some distant version of the one he would become. But now, staring at me with round blue eyes, he looked like such a helpless child.
Several sets of footsteps approached at a wild run, and I tensed, only for the doorframe to be filled by four of my own soldiers. When their eyes landed on me, they sagged with visible relief.
“General.” One gave me a sloppy salute and I waved it away, still panting. As if it was the time for performances like that. Another went to the soldier dead on the bed and let out a curse.
“Fuck, poor Jorge…”
“The bastards came out of nowhere,” one told me. “Everywhere at once. All over the fucking city. They weren’t Aviness’s people.”
I looked down at the bodies at my feet, using the tip of my blade to push one of them over. It had been impossible to make out the sigil at his lapel in the thick of the fighting, but now I recognized it — a coat of arms, with twin roses at its apex. Morwood. Yet another powerful family, one that hadn’t yet joined the fight. Bad news, if Aviness was still gaining allies.
“I hope that was the one who killed Jorge,” the other said to Moth, then spat down at the body. “Good job, Moth. At least you killed the trash. I hope you did it slow.”
He clapped Moth on the soldier, and Moth winced, saying nothing. I spun to my soldier, shooting him a glare that he probably didn’t understand, then forced my fury down.
“Get me Arith and Essanie. Tell them we need to gather everyone and regroup in camp beyond the city bounds. We need to leave Meriata tonight.”
The soldiers nodded and dutifully went off to fulfill their orders. But Moth was the last one to leave, his hands still clutched around the hilt of his sword, eyes staring down at the life he had taken.
It was nearly sunrise by the time we all regrouped in a camp outside of Meriata. It turned out that skirmishes like the one in our inn had broken out across the city, and we lost a few dozen men to sneak attacks conducted while they were drunk and unaware in pubs or brothels. It had been an attack of opportunity, borne out of nothing but our ill-fated decision to stay in Meriata that night, of all nights.
But the real concern was the implication of Morwood joining the fight now, at this stage. We had defeated many loyalists, but Morwood was so powerful that in one fell swoop, the addition of their armies to Aviness’s allies undid more than half of our effort.
Arith, Essanie, and I strategized for hours, sending letters with Stratagrams back and forth between Zeryth and his other leaders in Korvius. And at last, a decision was reached: we had to regroup. Our strategy of picking off our enemies one by one had begun to backfire, and Zeryth had gotten impatient.
Nothing about this was good news, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel a wave of relief when I read the words on our final letter:
Fine. You have your new orders. Return to Korvius immediately.
Nothing was over yet. In fact, this might only be the beginning of something worse. But at least, if there was to be a storm, I’d weather it with Tisaanah next to me.
It was already almost nightfall again by the time we emerged from the tents, the sky painted bloody. The men had trained and been briefed on our change of plans, and now they ate and gathered around fires, manic uncertainty hovering in the air. I paced through them, looking for one particular face that I did not find.
Not until I wandered beyond the edge of the camp, far past the guards and the final tents. I found Moth standing on a rocky shore along a brook. Meriata’s lights twinkled far in the distance.
“You shouldn’t be alone past the bounds of camp,” I said.
Moth said nothing. He didn’t turn.
I approached him, and caught just a glimpse of movement as he turned his face away from me — the back of his hand swiping at his cheek.
“I did the right thing,” he said, quickly. “I don’t regret it.”
“Alright,” I murmured.
“Don’t let them say that I’m being— being too—” He paused, his jaw tight. “I just needed a few minutes. I don’t want them to see.”
Ascended, Moth.
I let out a breath through my teeth and ran my hand through my hair, buying myself a few seconds to untangle what I couldn’t figure out how to put into words.
I blinked, and saw my own brother’s face from years ago — the way he had looked at me, when he realized that I couldn’t look down at my own hands without seeing them covered in blood. “This will poison you, Max, if you let it,” he had told me, simply. “Find a place to put it away. We’re not going to talk about this again.”
That’s how it always was. A thing that festered, unspoken. A thing that lived behind closed doors and closed doors alone. It had been easy for Brayan, for Nura, for my father. I’d been so envious of that, because I wasn’t made for it. All of my emotions had always been so close to the surface.
“There’s nothing wrong with this, Moth,” I said, quietly. “With what you’re feeling right now. Do you understand? You did what you had to do today, and we’re both alive because of it. But you never want to get used to what it feels like to kill.”
Moth slowly lowered to the ground, as if he was so exhausted that his legs were simply giving up, and I crouched beside him.
“I do,” he choked out, carefully looking away.
“No. You don’t,” I said. “My father and my brother were military heroes. And so was my grandfather, and my great-grandfather, and on and on. I was taught to be one, too. And my family, they truly believed in it — in the honor of what we had always been. But sometimes, as you get older, you realize… there are things they were wrong about. No matter how good their intentions were. And what I’ve realized is that it doesn’t matter how many titles or medals or wreaths of honor you lay upon it. There’s an ugly truth to what we were, and what we did, that no one ever wanted to look in the face.”
I glanced at Moth. The light had waned. He did not look at me, but the fading sun caught two streaks of silver on his cheeks.
“I was a prick to you, when you enlisted. I still owe you an apology for that.”
He shook his head and started to protest, but I held up a hand.
“I do. But it’s because I was—” I let out a breath through my teeth. “It’s because I was scared for you, Moth. Because it’s just not worth it. It’s never been worth it. Hold onto this, onto what you’re feeling right now, for as long as you can. Hold onto your humanity. And if anyone tells you to be ashamed of it, if anyone tells you that it’s weakness that you know the value of a human life, then they’re fucking lost, Moth. They are lost. And so many are.”
I thought of my father, and the way he had spoken to me when I was not much older than Moth — how he had taught me that there was an honor in a life of killing, and strength in learning how to do it without feeling.
For so long I had avoided thinking about it, avoided reconciling those two warring halves. He had been a good man, a good father. But he had been his own kind of lost in so many other ways. I just hadn’t seen it then. Even now, I didn’t want to see it. I wanted my family’s memories to be untouchable, defined only by their good intentions.
But no one ever got that gift. No matter how much I missed them. No matter how much I loved them.
“I was,” I muttered. “Ten years later and I’m still trying to find my way back,”
There was a long silence. Moth blinked and more tears slithered down his cheeks.
“I’m glad we’re going home,” he said, quietly.
Home. The word caught and settled
, deep in my chest. But home wasn’t Korvius, or the Towers, or even a cottage in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by flowers. Home was a pair of mismatched eyes, an accented voice, and a heartbeat that followed the same cadence as mine. And I was so, so homesick.
“Me too,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tisaanah
Eslyn lived for three more agonizing days.
Sammerin helped treat her. Dire injuries often required both a Valtain and a Solarie healer, to treat the full breadth of the damage. But for Sammerin, it was obvious right away that something in this went deeper than his occupational duties. The first time he saw Eslyn lying there like a shriveled up corpse, clutching her eyeless face, he winced, stood there for a long moment, then sat down at her bedside and simply didn’t get up again.
Ariadnea was often there, too, clearly upset even if she never voiced it. Every time she was forced to leave on Syrizen business, she’d give Sammerin a tight, “Take care of her, Sam,” and Sammerin would nod seriously.
For days, he barely moved, barely spoke. Late on the first night, I went to Eslyn’s room and laid a plate of food and glass of water on the bedside table.
Sammerin gave me a confused look. “She can’t eat.”
“It’s for you, Sammerin.”
“Oh.” He blinked blearily at the food, as if the thought of eating hadn’t crossed his mind. “Thank you.”
He didn’t reach for it, though. Instead his eyes slipped back to Eslyn, writhing on the bed. The screams — if one could call them that — had faded to a low, constant moan in the back of my mind. That, somehow, managed to be even more unsettling.
“Willa says she could still survive,” I said.
“She won’t survive. And if she does at this point, she’ll wish she hadn’t.” A muscle feathered in his jaw as he watched her — since he came into this room, he had barely looked away. “It’s an awful disease. I hoped that when I left the military, I wouldn’t have to watch people die of it anymore.”
Sammerin probably had to do a lot of things now that he wished he didn’t.
Children of Fallen Gods (The War of Lost Hearts Book 2) Page 21