by Terina Adams
I could’ve sat there all day watching his body move in unison with his sword. It was as though he and the sword were one. Soon after beginning his warm-up, his mark began to glow. With each sweep, it grew brighter, until with one wide, sweeping arc, Cerac sent a shower of bright light trailing after the sword. He spun, incorporating complex swings and jabs, which moved too fast for me to see, before slicing the air with an arrow of light, shooting off the line of the blade and smashing into a tree. The side of the tree burst into fragments with a loud bam and the branches ignited into flames. The sudden heat washed out, turning the green grass brown.
I’d leapt off the log at the first noise and cowered on the ground. The heavy thuds of Cerac’s footfalls pounded up behind me, then he was crouching beside me.
“Rya, are you all right?” His eyes scanned my face then my body.
“What was that?” I pushed up to sit, my attention unable to leave the burning tree.
“I’m more messed than I thought.”
“That is what you can do?” I was yelling at him.
His whole body slumped. “I’m sorry if it frightened you.”
“Cerac, how can that be? I knew marked had strange abilities, but you just exploded a tree.”
“I don’t normally do that. Our alley interlude has stirred things up inside of me. I won’t do it again. I promise.”
“Are you kidding me? That was amazing.”
The relief that spread across his face made him look like a boy and not the grown man that he was.
“Why would you hide it from me?”
“I’ve not always been nice. Especially when I was a boy. I was pushed too far on too many occasions by the malicious taunts of the court and my brother, and I hurt innocent people. My father would lock me in the dungeons with the prisoners to teach me a lesson. People lauded Hunrus’s marked ability but mine was something to shun. Father wanted me for what I could do, but he didn’t want me to use it, not unless it benefited him.”
“What was it like to grow up in a palace?”
“Dreary.”
“There must’ve been something exciting about it.”
He sat beside me and pulled a blade of grass. “You’ve listened to too many stories.” He touched my cheek. “Your face went from shining like the sun to dark as night. What did I say?”
“I did listen to too many stories. It was how we spent our nights together as a family, before Father died.”
“I have not asked you enough about your life.”
“You do not want to hear it. And besides, I asked you first.”
Cerac spun his blade into the ground as he spoke. “A lion sits on the throne, beside him sits a bear and the court is full of serpents. Really, Rya, there is little to like about the palace.”
“I bet the ladies fall all over you.”
“My brother is the crown prince. It’s him they’re after. Everyone knows my father hates me, so they find little reason to be civil.”
I threaded my arm around his and rested my chin on his shoulder. “And you were such a small boy to have to put up with this.”
“I didn’t understand at first, why it should be Hunrus who received all the praise. But my governess made it clear from the start that I was the bastard son of a whore and that I should not look for love because it would not find me. And that my mother had cursed me by bringing me into the world. Once I was old enough to understand that the span of my life depended on neither my brother nor father producing another heir, I turned to the sword. I decided that was what I would be good at. For if Hunrus or my father could not love me, at least they could fear me. The ranks of Hunrus’s army are filled with warriors who’ve trained under me in the arena, who are loyal to me.”
I heard his conviction and his anger toward his family, but what I also heard was his pain. Cerac was not like Hunrus. He had a good heart. What he wanted most in this world was the love and recognition of his father, but it had eluded him all his life.
“Are you ready? The light is fading and I would like to teach you a few things before we return.”
I handed him the water skin, then snatched the sword he’d left resting by the log and stood.
“The gift you gave me in the alley has readied me more than enough,” I said as I backed away and lowered the sword to his chest.
19
I hung the last sword on its rack and stuffed the rag into my apron pocket. A swirl of smoke danced in front of the sun, marbling the wall with a writhing dark mark across the faint glow of late-evening gold, which turned the stone on the far wall a rusted orange. A few more hours and it would be night, and we’d be locked inside the warded doors for the next cycle of the sun.
All day the people carted in old wood from beyond the gates to build their sage bonfires, and now the smoke wove up into the sky, releasing a black fog that would blanket the city until night, when the fog blended with the sky and all that would be seen was the brilliant orange of the flames underneath. The pungent smell of camphor mixed with refreshing mint saturated the air.
It was Hallow’s Eve and all the doors to the arena would soon be closed and barred. My work here was done, in time to return to the kitchen, where the rest of the servants would spend the evening eating soup and playing cards before retiring to their beds. As long as we stayed indoors, the wraiths would not bother us tonight.
I was at the door when a short figure appeared in the passage farther along.
“Fednick. What are you doing here?”
He loomed out of the dim passage as he neared the armory. “You’re wanted at the door.” There was a mournful ache in his eyes.
“What door do you mean?”
“You are called to the main door.”
“Fednick.” I placed a hand on his upper arm. “Is this a joke?”
Of course it wasn’t. He wouldn’t look so forlorn if it was.
“Why has the main door not been barred yet?”
“Because the prince has said so. He waits for you at the door.”
My blood turned to ice. “The prince. You mean Hunrus?”
“Let me come with you.”
“Go join the others in the kitchen. I will see you there shortly.” I did not mean to snap at him.
“You promise?”
I spun him about and pushed him on his way, then hurried in the opposite direction. As I moved down the passage, it felt as though the walls were closing in on me, about to suffocate me. The passage journey became a long stretch that kept extending the farther I walked. But everything comes to an end regardless of how much your mind wills it to continue, and soon enough I was standing at the main door. The bar lay on the ground, likely the last bar to be laid across the doors in the arena. The heavy metal bar was a physical barrier that made everyone feel better even if it was useless. The etched wards were the only thing that would keep the wraiths out of our homes, and the sage fires were to deter the demons and the wraiths’ pets.
With the door cracked ajar, the first thing I saw was the orange of the sun. The next thing on opening the door wider was a black charger, resounding long, sharp scrapes in the empty street as it pawed the cobbles with impatience to be off. The creature’s instincts were telling it to be gone to safety. Already the eerie creep of evil raced across the sky.
Hunrus looked down upon me. A mask had descended on his face, smoothing his features, blanketing his emotions. There was nothing in his eyes or on his lips for me to read of what was in his mind.
I stayed within the doorway. “Your Highness, the sky is now an orange glow.” I exhaled my delayed breath.
“Then you had best be swift.”
“You know it’s Hallow’s Eve, Your—”
“I do not need lessons in the seasons from a servant.”
He flicked a folded piece of paper and it floated through the air while his lips flickered to life, deforming into malicious glee.
I stayed within the sanctity of the doorway, unwilling to step foot onto the cobbles, and watched
the note tumble on the gentle sage-filled breeze until it hit the horse’s hock, then trampled under the jittery animal’s hoof.
I stared at it, my hand gripping the wood frame of the door.
“I suggest you pick it up.”
This was my punishment. So stupid of me to think Hunrus would glare and fume from afar while Cerac and I foolishly enjoyed ourselves. There was nothing I could say or do to prevent this moment.
I stepped out onto the cobbles to retrieve the note. No sooner had I left the doorway than the door slammed shut behind me. The hollow thunk of the bar being lowered reverberated down my spine.
Hunrus looked to the horizon, his face bathed in a dull smudge of orange as the sun worked its way through the sage smoke. He lowered his eyes to me. “The note holds your instructions. You may open it when you reach the fountain.”
I dived for the folded paper and found the official royal seal stamped into the black wax on the back as Hunrus backed his horse away.
“Run, little servant girl, run,” he said as he turned his horse and sped away to the palace.
For one wasted, foolish moment, I contemplated banging on the door and begging someone let me in, but Hunrus would not have devised this ruse to let me escape so easily. The only way back inside the door was to play his game and complete the task he wanted of me before the sun disappeared.
Note clutched in my hand, I raced toward the fountain, a desolate place now with everyone locked inside their homes. My heart pounded, my lungs burned without enough air as I ran at top speed. I reached the fountain minutes later, collapsing against the cold stone of its wall as I ripped the note open.
Written in a deep cursive scrawl were two words. That was all. Just two words Hunrus had left me as a directive. Tears thickened my throat and stung my eyes. I sunk to the cobbles as I stared at the words wraith’s whore. I fisted the paper, then tossed it to the ground. Hunrus never intended for me to make it back in time.
I watched the smoke rise up behind the arena, a billow of gray rising up into the washed-out sky. I scanned the first row of dwellings, which ran in a ring around the open square. Then I was on my feet and running, slipping a few times on the cobbles in my wild haste to reach the dwellings. At the closest, I banged on the door. “Please, you have to let me in.”
I gave the owners a few seconds before I banged again. The hollow thunk of my hands was the only sound. I left that place and rushed to the next but found the owners there also unwilling to open for me. I imagined them huddled around their table, eyes beading at each other while they listened to my desperate plea, perhaps believing something was already upon me.
I abandoned those dwellings and raced down another street heading away from the square, stopping to bang on many more doors as I went, only to receive a silent response and a locked door. No one was willing to save me.
The fires. If I couldn’t find refuge in someone’s home, then I would have to stay by the sage fires, at least to keep safe from the demons and the wraiths’ pets.
The protective sun was gone, taking its orange glow, and the city descended into darkness. I had no time to waste banging on people’s homes. Instead I sprinted for the outer edge of the dwellings and the ring of fires. The rhythm of my heart throbbed through my ears as my feet pounded hard along the cobble streets, which turned to dirt the farther out I went.
With the cloak of darkness, the black smoke had disappeared, but peeking over the dilapidated dwellings and shacks of the poor rose great pyres of flames reaching up into the night like funnels to the clouds. As I neared, the minty camphor smell of the sage overwhelmed me. I breathed it in, taking it down into my lungs as if inhaling the smell was enough to keep me from harm.
I reached the closest fire when my legs gave way and sent me tumbling to the dirt. I gasped in thick clouds of sage-filled air, then choked and spluttered my way on my knees as far as I could go to the flames. Shielding my face from the heat, I stayed on my knees and moved in farther still. Once I reached the limit of what I could stand, I turned my back and hunched forward over my knees, protecting any naked skin from being exposed to the fire too long. I felt vulnerable placed in the light for anything to see, but knew the only evil that would dare touch me so close to a sage fire was a wraith, and they did not need light to see, for they used their ability to sense a person’s beating heart to hunt down their prey. At least, that was how the legends went.
There was nothing but the ground beneath me for a mattress, but I’d slept outdoors on the hard ground before, so perhaps I could do it again. If my fear would let me. I rested my chin on my knees and stared out into the darkness. At least the heat from behind me kept the chill of the night at bay.
I stared ahead, my eyes trained on nothing, and thought of Sophren and Helna and how they would be filled with fear and of Fednick telling them the prince had taken me outside. If I survived this, how would I explain Hunrus’s actions? And maybe I wouldn’t care anymore about keeping Cerac’s and my time together a secret. Hunrus knew, so what was the point in hiding it from those I cared about?
I had a nighttime to fill with thoughts, and the one that came to me first was the vision of Morick’s beautiful face. My dear, sweet Morick. Thank the stars he was not here to risk his own life to rescue me; it’s something he would’ve done.
Time drove on, and the strength of the fire lessened. The burning heat became comfortable, so I wriggled farther back, not content unless I was close enough to feel the scorch on my bare skin. With the heat and the ebbing of my fear now I was close to the fire, my head felt heavy. I rested my cheek on my knees and closed my eyes.
I woke with a jerk, pushing to sitting when I realized I’d been lying down. That I’d managed to fall asleep surprised me. I stretched my neck and the creaks in my back, then stilled when I heard a noise beyond the crackle of the fire, which must have woken me.
I squinted into the darkness. Flickers of movement danced in the corner of my eye, but when I turned, they disappeared. I scanned the perimeter of the fire in all directions but was limited in what I saw to the cast of firelight. I held my breath, hoping to hear better, and heard nothing more than the gentle crackle of the fire.
Despite there being nothing, a prickling heat started at my stomach and worked its way to my feet, driven there fast by my thudding heart, which pounded hard when I spied lurking shadows gliding from left to right. My vision was hindered by the firelight, so perhaps I’d been mistaken.
The fire had dropped while I slept, so I shuffled on my backside, farther into the fire, as far as I could go without catching my clothes alight. I inhaled deeply, sure that what I smelt and felt tickling the back of my throat was the protective smoke of sage. With my arms wrapped around my knees, I stared ahead, waiting to see death approach. It was all I could do.
I saw the glowing eyes first, about waist high, hovering in the dark. Images from my memory filled the void where its body would be. I was back beside our small campfire, staring at a creature I’d never seen before and had never known existed, a grotesque and fearsome creature that had been ripped from the belly of a wraith.
As the beast pushed through the darkness into the light, the fear that rose up to my heart crippled my ability to think. It approached low on its haunches like a predator preparing to pounce, jaw hanging open, saliva dripping in great drops, soaking the dirt as it prowled forward. I pressed closer to the fire.
That’s when I realized I could not smell the sage. Perhaps I’d been breathing the fire so long I’d lost the smell of it, but it would still be there. It had to be. Back home, we’d learned how to weave the sage through the pyre, soak the wood in its oil and bury the green leaves in sand at the bottom to prolong its presence. Everyone learned this from a very young age. The people of Railyon would be no different. They would’ve prepared the fire thoroughly as we did back home. They had to have. By the way the ragool continued its drooling approach, I began to lose faith in that conviction. All it took was one weak link in the chain of sage fi
res and the demons and the pets could find their way in to wander the streets, destroying what they could.
I forced the scream back down into my stomach and cast around for something I could use as a weapon. To my right but away from the fire, I spied a stack of smallish branches. Leaning up against them was an axe. It would mean leaving the safety of the fire, but I was beginning to wonder if the fire was safe anymore. It smelt like the sage had long since burned away.
An axe was a good weapon for a natural predator, but maybe not for a fearsome ragool. But I would rather die slicing the beast’s stomach open than die with my head bowed.
The glowing orbs followed me as I stood. I sidestepped to the right. The ragool stayed its ground, but its eyes tracked my movement. I backed farther around the fire, casting fleeting glimpses to the stack of branches and the axe. The beast did not move, but it rumbled a low growl.
I was even with the stack. Once I moved, it would draw the beast to attack. If I stayed where I was, it was also likely to attack. I inhaled, then sprinted from the safety of the fire and grabbed the axe from beside the pile and spun with the sound of heavy thuds as the ragool bounded twice, then bunched its haunches to pounce. Its jaws spread wide as it flew through the air, revealing rows of jagged teeth.
A swirl of energy in front of me knocked me to the ground. Something whipped across my face and I felt the sharp sting of a cut. My eyes were momentarily blinded by a swirl of black. I fell back onto my elbow and shielded my face as something leathery buffered the air in front of my face.
When all settled, I lowered my arm and stared at the figure in front of me. A man, but not a man. It could be nothing but a wraith.
20
The wraith stood before me, vast black leathery wings spreading out behind it, stretching to twice its height. Thick veins ribboned through the leather to the edge, ending in long barbs. Its wings were anything but human, but its body and face were distinctly male.
He stood between me and the fire, which cast his face in shadow. His wings shielded his upper body further still, so that all I saw was the powerful girth of his legs outlined in the firelight. He wore a black material that clung to his legs like skin, or maybe it was his skin. Blinded as I was by looking into the fire, I couldn’t see the fine detail. His feet were bare, and I was disturbed by how perfectly shaped they were. There was nothing to distinguish them from any man’s except perhaps that the skin looked soft and clean and the nails trimmed short.