The momentary distraction was all Valoel needed. By the time I turned my eyes back on him, he’d already gotten up, and his fist was mid-swing. I couldn’t avoid it. His fist smashed into the side of my face like a brick. I staggered to the side, reaching with my hands for a nearby column to stop myself from toppling over.
The world shifted and swayed around me like I was underwater. On my cheek, a bright flower of pain had started to bloom. I could taste blood in my mouth, and when I spat on the floor, I saw it. Red and thick. Gritting my teeth, I spun around and went on the offensive, launching a series of furious kicks, swipes, and punches at him, but he dodged them or blocked them all like he wasn’t even trying.
Another hit caught me in the ribs, this time from his boot. I lost my footing and fell to the floor, but before I could get up, he was on me again, delivering another kick to my abdomen. I coughed blood, and groaned from the pain.
“So, this is Seline,” Valoel said as I clutched my abdomen. The wound I’d taken earlier thanks to Corax had opened again. Valoel was a lot stronger than me, but that wound wasn’t helping me one bit. “Did you know that your name has been heard in just about every corner of the city? It’s surprising, really, that such a pathetic, broken creature could have a reputation of any kind besides the obvious.”
“What’s the obvious?” I managed to say, though speaking was painful.
“That you’re an Aevian without wings, a joke of your species. It’s fascinating, really, how word of your deeds has reached others from our side of the rifts, mages, even the odd vampire or two. Have you truly done anything of note since you fell besides find that stone around your wrist?”
I thrust my dagger up at him, but I wasn’t close enough and he batted it away with his sword. It clattered to the floor too far away for me to reach. I was defenseless now, bleeding, injured, and he had a sword in his hand. I put my hand out, as if it alone could stop him from swinging that sword and killing me.
“Please,” I said, “I’m your half-sister.”
“Don’t go holding onto the illusion that you’re actually important enough for me to spare. That we happen to be related by blood is a trivial detail, and only useful as it allows me to wield the stones. You have no idea what these stones really do, what they’re capable of in the right hands.”
“Your hands?”
“Indeed. My hands.” He knelt before me and picked my right hand up. I struggled, but his grip was vicelike, and even though it was sitting in his pocket, the power of the wrath stone was… affecting me, sapping my will to fight, draining it out of me. He pulled the cuff of my jacket up to reveal the armlet wrapped around my wrist, the golden stone sitting inside it. “Courage…” he said, trailing off, “This stone is the only reason you’ve done anything of note. Without it you’re nothing.”
I stared up at him, the glow from my golden stone illuminating the side of his face, his eyes. “Ditto,” I snarled.
It took every ounce of fight I had in me, but I managed to spin around on the floor, grab his neck between my thighs, and pull him to the floor. He slammed down on his back and lost his grip on his sword. While he recovered, I got up, raced over to it, and took hold of the handle, but his foot fell on the blade before I could pull it off the ground.
He punched me again, this time on the opposite cheek. I saw stars this time. My vision darkened around my eyes, and as I fell to the floor, it blackened entirely. I didn’t feel the impact, but when I opened my eyes again, my head was throbbing and, I thought, bleeding, too. I touched the side of my face, and my fingers came away wet and sticky with blood.
Gritting my teeth, I summoned what was left of my energy to get myself off the ground again. Even as Valoel approached, his sword in his hand, the tip of the blade aimed directly into my midsection, I wasn’t going to let him just kill me like that. If I was going to die, I was going to die on my fucking feet.
Valoel shook his head. “Why do you insist on fighting?” he asked.
“Because assholes like you still exist.”
The stone around my wrist buzzed and glowed, vibrating with power. Valoel sighed and readied his sword. I knew what he was going to do even before he’d started swinging the sword toward me, but I didn’t care. I’d already started mouthing the word of power I was going to use to send him spiraling into the wall behind him. The only question was, was his sword faster than my words?
“Vesh—” a clang of steel on steel rang out through the hollowed-out building, cutting my evocation in two. Something had moved in front of me, something dark and large enough to push me back. Feathers. Wings. Another clash of blades echoed through the building, and as the light around me settled, I realized, Valoel was locked in a swordfight… with Draven.
Valoel and Draven exchanged furious blows with each other. Each clash of their swords created little explosions of light that briefly illuminated their faces. Both men were scowling at each other, although Valoel had hatred on his face, while Draven showed only an intense concentration and focus.
All of the strength in my legs suddenly left me, and I fell to my knees. I had to stick my hands out to stop my face from hitting the floor, otherwise it would’ve. I felt weak, depleted, and that was to say nothing about the injuries I’d sustained. Valoel was a lot stronger than I was, a better fighter, and he had the more powerful stone.
Blood dripped from my lips to the concrete floor beneath me. I watched them fall, and then I saw a shadow move over the pool. Turning my eyes up, I saw Rey sitting in front of me. He stared at me, his bright blue eyes almost glowing from within.
“You… did this?” I asked, though the pain made me struggle through my words.
“Someone had to go and get help to make sure you didn’t get yourself killed,” he said.
“Took… t—ook…” I wanted to tell him he’d taken his sweet time. I wanted to crack wise, make light out of a bad situation, but I couldn’t make the words form.
“I’m sure whatever you’re going to say is hilarious, but there’s no way lover-boy over there is going to beat Valoel on his own, so… be a dear and stay where you are.”
“You’re going to f-fight?”
“No, I’m going to get you all out of here before that maniac kills us all. You can’t die on me now. Not when you’re so close.”
“Close to… what?”
Rey bounded off, and I didn’t have the strength to follow him with my eyes. Valoel had kicked the crap out of me, but he was going to also kick the crap out of Draven. What the hell was Rey thinking? Draven didn’t have even a single stone. Valoel had two. What hope did he think he had of beating Valoel?
An explosion of blue light rocked the inside of the building. I shielded my eyes from the brightness. Everything hurt. My body was screaming. I had to wonder whether Valoel had cut me more times than I thought, because this wasn’t normal.
A pair of hands grabbed me by the arms, another set by my feet. I turned my eyes up but only saw wings; large, feathery wings, and the portal I was being dragged into. The dizzying sensation of moving through it was enough to make me lose my grip on consciousness again. By the time it returned, I was somewhere quiet and dark, but I was alive.
I tried to sit up, realizing immediately that had been a mistake. Every inch of me cried out with pain. I had to grit my teeth and suck in a deep breath of air just to hold on to wakefulness. All the blood had rushed to my head, causing it to start spinning. It was Draven who placed a hand on my chest and pushed me gently back onto the bed.
“Schh… stop,” he said, “You’ve been badly injured.”
“Yeah… no shit,” I almost couldn’t speak. My voice was hoarse and weak.
“You need to rest.”
Scanning my surroundings, I realized I was in the medical center. “Is anyone else hurt?”
Draven shook his head. “No. We were able to get you out before Valoel could hurt any of us.”
“You fought him off…”
“Not just me. I had help.”
“Yes. Feisty little thing… I had no idea.”
“Is he…?”
“He’s fine, but he told me there’s something he must do before you return to full strength. The healer says you’ll make a full recovery in a day or so… I should probably give you some space.”
I remembered, then. I remembered what he’d done; he was the reason I’d lost everything. It was so easy to forget what he’d done to me when we were near each other. That was why I’d decided not to see him, not to speak to him, since the very last time; when we found the Hope stone.
I needed to let the truth sink in, I needed to let myself process it away from him.
Shutting my eyes hard, I turned my head away from him and let it rest against the pillow. The sting of tears pushed behind my closed eyelids, but I fought them back, held them down. It was one of the hardest things I’d had to do, given the state I was in. The effort necessary to hold them back was almost unbearable, but I did it.
By the time I opened my eyes again, Draven was already almost through the door.
“Draven…” I called out.
He stopped. Turned. “Yes?”
I swallowed hard. “Come back…”
Hesitating only for an instant, he shut the door to the medical center and walked over to my bed. There were only a few candles scattered around the room, each providing enough of a glow with which to see, but little more. This low lighting enhanced all of Draven’s features—his cheekbones, his chin, the fullness of his lips; the darkness of his eyes.
“I’m here,” he said.
I swallowed again. “Thank you,” I said.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do… you risked your life to come out and get me. Valoel could’ve killed you and the others you brought with you.”
“Aaryn and the most recent graduates. Rey thought they’d be needed, and he was right.”
The pain that came with breathing was almost too much to bear, but I held it inside of myself and tried not to let it show. “That little shit is always right about everything,” I said, summoning a weak smile.
Draven approached a little closer, angling his head to the side. “How long have you known that he can talk?”
“Pretty much since we got here… he talked to me the night of the Caretaker.”
“Huh…”
“What?”
“That’s around the time he first showed up.”
“What?” I shuffled around on the bed a little, but my body felt stiff as a board. My joints wouldn’t work unless I made them work, and they resisted by flaring up like each of them had swollen to the size of grapefruits. What the hell had Valoel done to me?
Draven rushed closer to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t move, Seline… please. The magic the healer used to heal you is still trying to work on you. Moving will only make things worse.”
“Yeah… I figured that one out too.” I let myself relax.
A long pause hung in the tense air between us. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking, that was something I’d never been able to do. Draven’s facial expressions were always hard to read. Right now, though, I wasn’t trying to figure out what was on his mind. I was too hurt for that.
“I know I’m probably the last person you want to be spending time with…” Draven said, “I can go and get Fate for you, I know she’s waiting to come and visit.”
“Why did you do it?” I asked, turning my eyes on him.
Despite the darkness of his eyes, I could tell he knew exactly what I’d asked. Draven took a deep breath, perhaps to brace himself for what was about to happen. It wasn’t like I could get up and hit him, though. If he was going to tell me the whole truth about what happened that night as he remembered it, then right now was probably the best time for him to do it.
“Our houses were at war,” he said, “You and I both knew that someday, possibly, we’d find each other on the opposite ends of swords. I’d tried to talk to you about that possibility, tried to make plans, contingencies… but you never wanted to discuss it. You always seemed to think the war would be over before… before one of our Houses won over the other.”
“I really believed that…”
“You did. And you made me believe it, too. When I was with you, I forgot the world outside of you even existed. I hated having to leave you every time we parted ways. I hated even more that I’d go for days, even weeks without seeing you because my unit would be sent to fight some battle or other against another of the House’s enemies. The House of Night had its fair share.”
I watched him silently for a moment, my eyes boring into his like I could shoot lasers out of them. “That’s a great history lesson, but you still haven’t told me why you did what you did.”
“I’m trying to give you context.”
“I don’t want context. I want to know the truth… I want to know what would make the man that I loved decide to give away our best kept secret so that his House could win the war. And not only win the war, but murder innocent Aevians and then cut…” I couldn’t finish.
Draven shook his head. “I want to tell you it wasn’t me,” he said, “But it was. I told them about the secret entrance. They had told me about what your father had done to my father and brother, they’d told me he’d cut their wings off… I didn’t know they were going to do that to you.” Again, he shook his head, like the memory was hurting him. “But I don’t know exactly why I gave the secret away. I love…” he paused. “I loved, you with every ounce of myself. Nothing short of magic could’ve driven me to betray you the way that I did.”
Loved. I wasn’t sure why his decision to change what he’d said had stung the way it had, but there was the sting anyway. I swallowed the feeling down like that hard pill everyone talks about, and took it for what it was.
“If tonight’s taught me anything,” I said, “It’s that we can’t do this by ourselves. We can’t achieve what we want to achieve if we aren’t working together. So, I’m going to work with you.”
“I would like that.”
“But that’s all this is. I’m going to work with you to bring Valoel down, and because I believe in what the Obsidian Order can be. Do you understand?”
“I do…”
“Good. I’ll get my rest, and as soon as I’m ready to do so, we’re going to figure out our next move.”
“Do you have any idea where Valoel may have gone after our fight? Where he may be operating out of?”
“No. He only came for me because I was in the open and on my own. He thought he could take me, and if you and Rey hadn’t helped, he would’ve. I don’t think he’ll fall for the same trick again, not if we set it up as some kind of ambush. He’s driven by a deep desire to kill me, but he’s not stupid.”
Draven nodded. “Get some rest. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
“I’m sure Siren can handle that.”
I hadn’t meant for the words to sting, but even Draven’s stone-cold wall of emotion cracked at that. It was his lips. They were the tell. They parted slightly, then shut tightly, pressing into a thin line. He didn’t speak again. Quietly, he left the room where I would be spending the next twenty-four hours or so.
When he was gone, I allowed myself a moment to breathe. Being so close to him had kicked up a tornado of emotions inside of me that I had been trying to avoid. I didn’t want to be so overwhelmed by what I was feeling and thinking, that was why I’d given myself enough space from him. Being next to him was all it took to bring everything up.
It was easier when I didn’t know what we once meant to each other, but those memories were so fresh now, so raw, they felt… recent. Like what happened to me only happened a few days ago. Like our love was only blooming, and rich, and warm, and wonderful a week ago. And now all that was left of it was this cold, barren, dead field where nothing could grow. It was… horrifying. I’d easily take another swordfight with Valoel over the burden of my memories.
No such luck for me, though. And hadn’t I wanted my memories back to begin with? Be careful what you wish for was right on, here.
I settled into the bed, shuffling around until I found a position that didn’t hurt so much. It wasn’t easy. I had no idea how I was going to get any sleep in my current state, but whatever Valoel had done to me couldn’t be easily healed with magic, so I was left to endure it all—every second of pain.
In the end, the thought of delivering every ounce of this pain back to him was what got me to finally fall asleep.
Maybe I snuck out of the medical room a little sooner than the healer would’ve liked, but I had good reason to. I wanted to train. I’d learned a lot about Valoel’s techniques in combat yesterday, how he moved, which was his dominant side, how strong his strikes were. He was stronger than me, faster than me, and more capable than me. I needed to spend every moment I could training, and not just with daggers, either.
Today, I had a sword in my hand.
I’d never been good with a sword. I always preferred delivering quick, lethal thrusts to my opponent from short range. But ever since I started having dreams about who I was before the fall, who I really was, it was like I’d rediscovered some lost talent I’d always had. A talent for wielding and using a longsword.
The Obsidian Order had a decent selection of blades to choose from. I’d gone for a slightly lighter version of what Valoel had been carrying, but I had no doubt in my mind this sword could take a hit from his and not fall apart in my hand. It was strong, and sturdy. When I aimed at the one of the target dummy’s limbs, the sword would cut clean through and sever it.
Using it made me feel strangely like I was at home, at ease, in my element. I had to wonder what else about myself I’d discover in the coming weeks. Maybe I’d suddenly enjoy the taste of fish? I hated fish, unless it was tuna, and only if it was on a pizza.
“You’re alive,” came Felice’s voice from the edge of the training room.
The Obsidian Order Boxed Set Page 65