by Tiger Hebert
He looked around, but there was no sign of her. He looked left, toward the city, then he turned and walked the opposite direction down the street. He made it past the first building, then he stopped.
“I can’t hide from you, even when I want to.”
Theros exhaled and turned toward the alley to his right. The shadows of the tall buildings cast the alleyway into darkness, excluding even the brightness of the blue crystal light. He saw nothing.
Her voice trembled. “I can’t do this.”
“I’m sorry I’ve hurt you.”
“I can’t do this, Theros.”
“I know. You’re injured, you’re tired, and I’ve hurt you.”
“You lied to me,” she said, pouring bitterness into a sea of disappointment.
You failed me.
Theros held out his hands. “What do you mean?”
“Stop lying!” she cried through gritted teeth.
You failed me.
For the first time, he snapped at her. “You want the truth? The truth is that I love you and want to be with you more than anything in this accursed life, but I feel the whole damned world will fall apart if that happens. And everything is out of my control right now. I can rarely sleep, and when I do I am greeted by the dead. Their blood is on my hands. They hate me for it and they haunt me for it.”
Sharka hobbled forward out of the alley shadows. “The world is already falling apart, it doesn’t depend on you.”
You failed me.
“I’m trying to keep you safe,” growled the big orc.
“I’m an orc and I’m a warrior. I don’t need your protection!”
You failed me.
“This isn’t about you being a woman, dammit!”
“Then what are you so afraid of?” demanded Sharka as she moved a step closer.
You failed me.
“Dammit, I’m scared! Is that what you needed to hear? Yes, I’m scared! I’m scared I’m going mad. The rage, it’s kindling inside of me, always begging to be released, and it’s getting harder to hold back.”
Sharka took one last step, putting her right in his face. She growled, “But what is the real issue, what are you scared off, Theros?”
You failed me.
He roared at her. “That I’ll kill you.”
Her mouth fell open, her eyes grew wide, and much of her color faded from her face. There she stood, terrified.
“Easy, big fella,” came a familiar voice.
It wasn’t coming from her. Theros turned to see three others, a dwarf and two humans in the street behind him. The human male had his arms stretched out toward him, gesturing to the ground.
“Come on, big fella, let’s put it down.”
It’s Nal’drin... What’s he talking about?
“Theros, it’s okay, my friend. Put it down,” pleaded Dom.
Theros looked back toward Sharka, then he realized that he held his hammer in his upraised left hand. He let go. The hammer fell away to the cobblestones as Theros quickly backed away from his companions. His eyes met with Sharka’s. Along with his reflection, they held tears and terror.
“I... I’m... I...”
Right there in the street, the big orc collapsed.
A voice whispered, “You’ll thank me later.”
16
Shadow Games
In the fallout after the rebellion, my brothers and sisters were cast out of our home in the high heavens. Some of them had realized what they had done, but many sipped from the cup of bitterness and wrath. None more so than my closest brother, the archangel Raiza’kin. He called us the traitors. He raged at the perceived betrayal by us and the Father. So he swore an oath, an oath of revenge...
War in the Heavens, Jazren of the Seraphim Order
KIRIANA CAUGHT THE shadow’s silhouette darting between the buildings. The bluish purple light that illuminated the cavern barely exposed the hunter. She pulled the trigger, the gears turned, the loaded bolt canister spun, and the quarrels began to fly. In a heartbeat’s breadth of time, three bolts were loosed. They tore through time and space and sunk deep into the shadows, yet found their target not.
The shadow dashed back into her line of sight. The master slayer’s steady aim remained locked in on the mark. Her finger moved in a fluid motion, pulling the trigger back in a smooth sweeping motion. The repeater’s spring loaded mechanism uncoiled. The stored energy spun the gears and thus the canister once more, and a salvo of quarrels was released, but the shadow was gone. Just like that, it was gone. She had not even blinked, yet he was nowhere to be found. The bolts soared fruitlessly into the distance.
No one moves that fast. Am I seeing things, wondered Kiriana.
The shadow slipped back into sight as it emerged from another dark alleyway some thirty yards away. The figure, shrouded in shadow, stood tall. The shadow displayed a proper, gentlemanly posture as he appeared to have clasped his hands either behind his back or at his waist. It was impossible to tell in this lighting.
Kiriana was intentionally slower, more deliberate this time. With an exaggerated motion she showed that she was pointing both of her crossbows away from her target. The shadow stood and stared, then he slowly cocked his head to the side at a peculiar angle. It seemed that he was... surveying her. The dark figure kept his eyes fixated upon her then he began to shake his head in a very slow manner. It took a few seconds, but as he continued, it was clear that he was expressing his disapproval.
“Who are you?” she asked.
The shadow stopped shaking his head, but he did not speak. Instead he simply lifted his head back upright. Then he extended a hand in a feigned attempt at some pretentious royal ceremony, as if she were expected to kiss his hand.
“What do you want?” Kiriana demanded, trepidation filling her voice.
The shadow slowly recoiled his extended hand and then he moved into a pose with that left his right arm extended up high and off to his right. His left elbow looked tucked to his side with his arm extending straight forward with his palm up. It wasn’t all clear at first to her, but as he moved she could see his silhouette well. The dark figure stepped and twirled with a dignified grace. There before her very eyes, the shadow that had been stalking her, danced. And it wasn’t just any dance, it was a very specific one. It was her dance, the dance taught her in Tempour.
Her heart raced.
As he held his perfect form, the shadow danced her ancestral dance alone. His figure seemed to glide across the crystal lit stone. His moving foot always swept in a grand arc more reminiscent of the martial arts than of dance, but it was surely her dance, it was the Prenure Waltz.
“Who are you?” she demanded with a voice that tried to betray itself, one half soft and gentle, the other with a subtle unyielding rigidity.
The shadow snapped back to his formal stance with a stiff posture. Then he stretched his hand out toward her again in the same fashion as before. Then an overwhelming sense of dread overtook her. Kiriana jerked her crossbows up toward the target and she pulled the trigger. The coil released and the gears turned, spinning the canister, but it only clicked. Even though she knew what the sound meant, she looked down in disbelief only to confirm that the canister was empty. She reflexively pulled the trigger on her other crossbow and like the first weapon, it whirred then clicked. The canisters were both empty.
The shadowy figure tilted his head off to the side in that same peculiar way, then he began to nod his head in disapproval once more. Then he began to shake his head so vigorously it was almost violent. Intense fear swelled within Kiriana.
She screamed, “What do you want?”
For the first time the shadow spoke. It hissed but a single word. It hissed, “Revenge!”
The shadow burst into a flurry of rapid movements that ended with his arms extended toward her. Kiriana’s twin repeaters clattered to the stone floor as a hail of knives flew towards her. The master slayer tumbled away from certain death only to find the shadow sprinting after her. She still couldn�
��t make out much about her attacker, and now wasn’t the time. She rolled to her feet, and then she sprang into a dead sprint.
Kiriana sped through the abandoned streets of Duroc’s Refuge. The wake of her once fiery hair, now purple under the crystal lighting, streamed behind her. Sprinting wasn’t everyone’s game, but it suited her. Her delicate figure belied her strength. Those powerful legs carried her lithe frame with great speed. The shadow pursued.
I must shift this to my advantage, she thought.
Her comfortably worn leather boots were surprisingly quiet upon the stony streets, but stealth would do her no good if she couldn’t shake him long enough to disappear. Instead the shadowed pursuer gained on her.
Impossible!
The dark figure launched another dagger at her, but Kiriana banked a hard left, turning down a side street. The dagger cut right through the empty space where she was. It sailed harmlessly into the night.
She hurried down the side street and she found a series of narrow alleyways that branched away from it. The decisive master slayer planted her foot in the ground and made a sharp cut into the first alley to her left. The alley’s darkness swallowed her whole. The slayer felt right at home. She wasted no time; deftly pulling her blades from their sheaths. She gripped the short swords as if they were long daggers prepared for ambush.
She heard him before she saw him. The raspy hiss-like whisper of her hunter’s breaths sent chills down her spine. Then the shadowed figure, still unidentifiable in this light, turned the corner and locked eyes with her. His eyes filled her with terror and sorrow, they were naught but wells of bitterness and hatred.
She sprang at him like a viper. She stabbed downward with all of her might. Both of the sinuous blades flashed as they sped down. The tips of the shining steel tore through the shadowed figure with ease. Her enemy laughed at her as a cloud of black mists swirled outward from the place where she struck, leaving nothing behind. Her blades stabbed awkwardly through empty air. Kiriana stumbled as she found no target to absorb her momentum. She tried to catch her balance but the tip of her leather boot snagged on one of the cobblestones. Kiriana fell.
It happened so fast. She was unable to stop herself from slamming into the stone stoop on the other side of the alley. Her shoulder and the base of her neck met the corner of the stairs with a sickly crunch. Kiriana’s body fell limp as it fell away from the stoop.
Oh my God, no! She had tried to scream but nothing came out.
She couldn’t see anything. Something covered her face. Something warm and heavy pressed hard against her cheek, obscuring her vision. She tried to move and realized she couldn’t. Panic overtook her. She struggled frantically, willing herself to do something, to move... all to no avail. Beyond the excruciating pain in her head and neck, Kiriana had lost all other feeling.
Fear and pain summoned an overwhelming tide of her emotions. Tears streamed from her face as she cried. “Why?”
“Revenge,” he said.
Kiriana watched the floor pull away from her. Her assailant had lifted her crumpled and broken body from the floor. Her body began to spin in the shadow’s grasp, then she was dropped. Her body fell like dead weight until it landed upon the blood splattered stoop. Her head jerked and snapped backward against the stone and her vision went black.
Adrenaline pushed Kiriana’s groggy mind to alertness. Her head throbbed. She forced her eyes open only to see the blurred outline of her attacker. She concentrated with great difficulty to bring her assailant into focus. Then the image started to become clear.
He stood over Kiriana, watching her die. He shook his head in slow exaggerated movements like he had before. He wanted her to have no doubt as to his message. He wanted her to know that she had disappointed him, again. He stilled his head, then the killer squatted down over her limp body. He drew close to her, allowing her eyes to slowly come into focus. He placed one cold hand upon the exposed part of her chest just above her clothing line. He could feel her frightened heart thundering beneath his fingertips.
“What... did I... do to you?” she asked through tears.
She still couldn’t see. Tears flooded her eyes and she had no means to wipe them away. Instead they simply pooled and distorted her sight. Then she felt cold but gentle fingers sweep the tears away, first from one eye, then the next. Her eyes strained to refocus on the face. It slowly came into focus. It was a face she knew; she knew it well.
“Ari? How? Why?”
His cold, dead reply was a fatal bite. “You killed me.”
“I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt,” said Kiriana as the involuntary spasms of sobs rocked her broken body.
“Pretty girls never do,” said Ari, his voice dripping with bitter sarcasm. “Now it’s your turn.”
Kiriana’s screams were chocked by blood and tears as she slowly died. The fiance that she had once watched die, laughed. The haunting melody of his warped laughter echoed in the alley and screamed of madness. He caressed her cheek and smiled at her.
“I loved you,” he said through gritted teeth, then he drove the dagger into her chest. The vengeful madman stabbed her over and over again; his volatile tonic of love and hatred was unabated. The blood flowed from Kiriana’s body and she slipped away into darkness.
The night was half spent. She awoke with a start. The hours of early morning had come quickly. Her pulse raced. It felt as if her heart would beat its way out of her chest. Sweat glistened upon her skin in the crystal lit darkness of the king’s city. Kiriana looked at her hands as she drew them to her face. In a strange and uncoordinated manner she began touching her body and her face.
“I can move. It was only a dream! It was only a dream,” she said between breaths. She took a deep breath to stabilize her breathing, and then she let out a long sigh of relief.
“Are you okay?” asked Nal’drin. Genuine concern filled his eyes. “That one seemed worse than the others.”
“The others?” she asked, pretending to not know what he was talking about.
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We’ve all got baggage,” he said from the bedroll where he sat.
“No, no, it’s nothing really—” started Kiriana, but she read the expression in his face that said he wasn’t buying it. “Actually... this was the worst. It’s like... it’s like my past is haunting me, literally.”
“Want to talk about it?” he said as he handed her a mug of freshly brewed tea.
“Oh, thanks,” she said as she accepted the warm mug. “There’s not much to talk about.”
Nal’drin said nothing. He sat there with a smile as he studied her face. Her eyes had always captivated him. The wild, almost chaotic striations that filled her nearly emerald eyes were stunning.
Don’t creep her out, you idiot, he thought.
He could gaze at her all night long, but he looked down at his hands and began to fidget. His fingers began to purposelessly pluck at one of his fingernails. He briefly exchanged a glance and a smile with her before turning back to his fumbling fingers.
Kiriana’s cheeks reddened and she felt herself blushing. What are you, a schoolgirl? She asked herself.
She took a deep breath, then she asked, “Have you ever had that one thing in your life that... that if you could just change that one thing, then everything else would be different?”
“We all have regrets,” he admitted.
“Yes, but do you have a single one that... I don’t know, just eclipses everything else?” she asked, her eyes locking with his.
“Yeah, I do. It wasn’t one particular event, I was just a terrible son through and through,” Nal’drin said flatly. His unabashed honesty surprised even himself.
“How so?” she asked before sipping her tea.
“I was rebellious and self-centered. He’d say go right, so I’d go left. I did spend time with him, but it was rarely because I wanted to. He did everything he could to build a strong bond between the two of us, but I fought it tooth and nail,” said Nal’drin with a
hushed voice. “Now he’s gone.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Kiriana.
“Thanks,” he said before giving a forced smile. “What’s your story?”
“The Brotherhood occasionally sent us on missions. I was to lead a major one, an assassination. As we closed in on the mark’s camp, the members of my team told me to call off the mission. The mark was more heavily guarded than we had anticipated. My team had the sense to recognize that. I didn’t. In foolish determination, I went for the kill,” she said.
Nal’drin said, “So they followed you.”
“They did, at the expense of their own lives,” said Kiriana.
“How many did you lose?” he asked.
“All of them,” she said before pausing. “My fiance and his sister were among them.”
Nal’drin felt compassion and sorrow rise up in him as he listened. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” said Kiriana.
It clearly isn’t, he thought.
She then pressed her lips together hard and forced a smile back at him as tears formed in her eyes.
Nal’drin, filled with apprehension, slowly extended his open hand toward hers. He was surprised at how eager she was to place her petite hand in his. He gently squeezed her hand in a comforting way.
“You must miss them a great deal,” said Nal’drin.
She wiped the tears from her eyes and a genuine smile finally started to peek through the clouds. “I do, but that was a long time ago.”
“How long ago?” he asked.
“It has been nearly seven years now,” she replied.
“You must have been engaged at quite a young age, then,” said Nal’drin.
Kiriana laughed as she thought about it, “You know, we really were, weren’t we? We were just teenagers then. How young, how foolish...” she said, her voice trailing off.