“It has already demonstrated superiority of determination and mind,” and here the Councilwoman’s eyes twinkled, and Raimie knew that the Council was aware of his deception, “now we shall test its spiritual aptitude.”
Having finished addressing the audience, the Councilwoman turned her attention upon the one to be tested.
“Young human, your test is simple. All you must do is cross the room.”
Raimie waited for her to continue.
“Cross the room?” he asked when she failed to do so, head tilted to the side. “Is that all?”
The Councilwoman unwrapped a long length of cloth from around her waist and hung it from the top of the dais, securing it with a sheathed dagger from her waist.
“You’ve passed if you can claim my sash.”
Raimie coughed awkwardly. He was not eager to take the woman’s clothing. It was only a sash, and she’d offered it willingly, but the idea of claiming it seemed a violation of her person. Plus, the idea of touching her soiled clothing only mildly made Raimie want to gag.
“I understand, mistress,” he said, a tiny squeak escaping his lips on the last syllable.
He hesitantly stepped forward, expecting all manner of traps or triggers. Once he’d made it halfway to his goal without incident, however, caution was loosened, and he picked up his pace.
A wall of fire sprang up mere inches from his face. He flung himself backward, bruising his tailbone in the process.
The flames reached from one side of the arena’s floor to the other with no break. He checked behind him, and tension bled away upon the observation that the fire was confined to the one spot. Raimie didn’t relish the idea of fire trapping him again
The blaze served as a barrier specifically for him. It wasn’t spreading as it should, and the Esela on the sloping platforms didn’t respond in the panicked way that an uncontrolled fire would provoke.
“Seriously?” he asked incredulously. “Fire? Again?”
The Council stared him down impassively, and he threw his head back, eyes squeezed shut.
The goal was the get the sash. She’d said nothing about how he took it. He could climb the ramp around to the dais and claim his prize that way, but he’d have to deal with hostile Esela every long step of the way.
So his options were fire or wrath of the Esela, neither good choices.
The fire itself could be magical. He reviewed what he’d learned about Eselan sorcery. It could simply be an illusion in which case this was a test of bravery such that the magic would dissipate once he took a step into it, but it could also be a conjuration with which to test his resolve. Did he want to pass this trial badly enough to endure burns again?
Either way, possibly illusory fire was a much better choice than an angry mob.
Raimie battled for mastery of his fear as he clambered to his feet. Without hesitation, he dashed into the blaze.
The flames flicked around him, tickling as they passed. Raimie almost cried with relief that he didn’t smell his flash roasting, relieved that he’d guessed correctly. The roar flooding his ears reduced to a soft hum, and he heard a voice like an angel singing.
The fire parted, and he stood beside a pretty girl child lying on the bank of a brook with clothes thrown haphazardly around her. Her feet were dipped in the water, and her hair stretched behind her. Her eyes were closed, a smile on her face and a song on her lips.
Behind her, the roofs and walls of a village peeked through the trees of the forest. The peacefulness of his surroundings soaked into him, and Raimie relaxed. He didn’t know if this was part of his test or what he was supposed to accomplish if that was the case, but he decided that he didn’t care. He would enjoy whatever normalcy this was while it lasted. He leaned over to nudge the girl and let her know she was no longer alone. The world fuzzed out of focus, and
he was back in Allanovian, blankly staring up at four Esela sitting on a raised platform. Shaking his head, he moved forward toward the sash, and
the steady beat of a drum penetrated the stillness. The girl’s gray eyes snapped open, looking straight through him. He barely dodged her leaping to her feet. She turned away from the stream, and he followed her gaze to see the village burning. Small figures ran from their homes only to be cut down, screaming, by other blurred figures in the streets. The girl’s mouth parted from shock, stunned at the scene unfolding before her.
A familiar figure, spattered in blood, burst out of the brush further down the bank. Raimie stepped in front of the child, not sure if he could protect her, but he relaxed when he recognized a younger version of the Eselan who’d rescued his family. Kheled dashed up to the girl and through Raimie to snatch her hand.
“What are you doing?” he shouted. “Run!”
The girl turned away from her home with a sob, and Kheled shoved her to hurry her on her way before turning to watch the town collapse in flames. A dazed look took hold in his eyes momentarily before anger coalesced on every inch of his flesh. He took a step forward, arms thrown back and chest projected, and released a roar of such fury and agony that Raimie was locked in place while it rang. The noise petered off, and Kheled lowered his head, wiping his tears on his sleeve. Sniffing back the other bodily fluids that had collected with the tears, he whipped around and sprinted after the girl.
Fifteen feet out, he paused and glanced over his shoulder. In that moment, the world blurred again, and Raimie was seeing double. The plain and the stone chamber overlapped one another, and the child with red and green tinged hair momentarily merged with the image of an astonishingly tall healer.
“Raimie!” he yelled. “Watch your back!”
Raimie whirled as fierce men bounded out of the tall trees skirting the stream. Their eyes were empty, devoid of life and feeling, and every inch of their skin was crisscrossed in black vines. Raimie suppressed a shudder of revulsion.
They flowed around him, howling and chasing after their prey. Just as Raimie started to believe that he might actually be invisible to them, one stopped short, and
two Zrelnach escorted a seedy-looking male through the stone doors of the chamber. He shuffled forward, clutching the knife he held nervously, and
it faced him, curiously sniffing the air. Its eyes abruptly filled with violence, and it flung its head back, screeching. It sprinted at Raimie in a headlong rush to bring him down, and
the seedy looking male saw his chance to rush Raimie and
he tried to sidestep, but its broad shoulder clipped him. They both collapsed in a pile of limbs, each struggling to gain the upper hand. It won out, sitting on his chest and squeezing his throat. Raimie frantically searched the nearby ground with one hand for a rock or weapon he could use but found nothing. Grasping at its grimy fingers, he slowly pried them apart, adrenaline giving him the necessary strength. Taking a large gulp of beautiful air, he pulled back as far as the ground would allow and smashed his palm into its chest, white light shooting from his hand for a split second. It flew off of him, and he quickly followed. His fury was uncontained. He rained fists covered in shadow down into its face over and over again until it was meaty pulp.
Breathing hard, he squinted at the wild man. Its body was limp, and Raimie knew it was dead.
The fire that had consumed the village spread quickly. It reached the trees and raced to the stream. It surrounded him, and the agony of his burning flesh filled him.
When he came to, Raimie knelt on the ground, gasping from exertion. Disoriented by the sudden sharpness of his surroundings, he frantically cast about the room for any signs of fire, but there was no evidence that anything had ever burned here.
He attempted to rub the wet off of his face, but his hands only added to it. Confused, he inspected them, back and front, wondering at the red splatter coating them. He wiped them on his vest and in so doing, observed the body between his knees.
He yelped and scrambled on all fours to get away. It took a minute, but he eventually worked up the courage to examine the dead man. The body ha
d a few bumps and scrapes on it, but the majority of the damage was to the face. It had been completely caved in by what looked like repeated blows from a blunt object.
Raimie lifted a hand and made it into a fist. His eye’s flicked between it and the dead man. His stomach heaved, and he stumbled to the edge of the arena floor. He invested the full weight of his body into the wall with one hand before emptying his stomach contents through the other’s fingers and into the dirt. When he’d stopped retching, he coughed once, twice, and pushed away.
He wandered to the sash dangling over the edge of the dais and yanked it with enough force that the dagger pinning it in place quickly followed. He caught the weapon, unsheathed it, and flung it straight at the Council. It flew over the raised edge, spinning end over end, and speared the Council’s table with enough force that it stayed upright even with the blade’s bounce to and fro. The weapon never had any chance of harming the council members, but several Zrelnach immediately sprang into action, scrambling to apprehend Raimie.
He carefully scrubbed his hands on the Councilwoman’s sash and dropped it. Stepping on it, he raised his hands in surrender, waiting for the Zrelnach to push their way through the masses of the audience.
“Your ‘spiritual’ trial involves manipulating the candidate into killing someone else?!” he shouted with incredulity. “What does that say about your own morality? How dare you make me a murderer! Fuck you and your stupid trials!”
Two Zrelnach dropped off of the observation ramp. They sprinted to him, grabbed his arms, and yanked them behind his back in a fierce grip. By the time the manhandling was over, Raimie could hardly see through the red cloud obscuring his vision.
“Let me go!” he screamed, kicking out with both legs and jerking his arms away. “Let me go!”
The Zrelnach took his full weight, waiting for the Council’s judgment. The Councilwoman shook her shock with difficulty.
“He’s completed the task I set for him and shown his values to those of us here,” she muttered over Raimie’s continued kicking and screaming. “I believe that the rules say he’s passed. See here Raimie, son of Aramar, forever to be known as such by the Esela.”
She nodded to the Zrelnach, and they released their hold. Raimie collapsed to the ground, sobbing.
Above him, the Councilwoman hunched over, her thighs taking on bulk. She collected a sword lying on the table and sprang to join the young man on the arena floor. Her feet contacted the ground, and the added muscle absorbed the shock.
“You’ve rejected the mantle of Shadowsteal for now, young warrior, but even still, you require a blade. The Council had determined to give you a training sword initially, but I believe from what we’ve seen in the last day that you’re worthy of something more.
“I bequeath Silverblade to you, a sword specially forged for you as requested by a friend.”
She placed it in front of Raimie.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she whispered so softly that he barely heard it.
Finished, she turned her back on the human, and the Zrelnach visibly bristled at the Councilwoman providing such a vulnerable target to a possible, armed threat.
They needn’t have worried. Raimie was so wrapped up in his self-loathing and pity that he couldn’t have taken advantage of such an opportunity even if he’d been inclined to.
The Councilwoman leaped to the dais, and her thighs shrank down to their natural size. She turned, surprised at the crowd of people still gathered.
“Have you not had your fill of someone else’s suffering today?” she asked with a touch of anger. “We’re finished here! Get back to your daily lives.”
The cave filled with murmurs and whispers, and the crowd shuffled its way through the stone doors. The Council hunched together over the table in order to discuss the trials’ results amongst themselves.
Raimie reached for his new sword, even though the thought of touching it turned his stomach. He shakily got to his feet, using the blade as support. Lost in a stupor, he stumbled toward the doors and through the initial retreat of Esela. They parted around him like water, not one interested in providing bodily contact to the blood-spattered young man.
He wandered Allanovian’s halls, somehow finding his way to the exit without getting lost. As he passed under the waterfall, he made no move to avoid the water. Under the trickle at the edge, he examined the center of the pool and considered what it would be like to stand under that bone crushing deluge, wondering if he could find some peace there.
He blinked the dripping water from his eyelashes and marched into the forest in a direction where he hoped no one would think to look for him.
Chapter Twelve
The city gate had fallen. The screams of my people chased me as the human horde pushed through our last defenses and began their slaughter. Despairing, I sprinted to join any warriors who might live in an attempt to hold the horde back from the residential sectors.
Passing through the marketplace, I heard a familiar laugh behind me, twisted into a manic cackle. I stopped dead in my tracks, hoping against hope that I was wrong, before turning to confirm my fears.
Arivor waited for me in the market, completely drenched in blood. A deranged grin plastered his face, and he’d cocked his head, watching me with curiosity. In one hand, he gripped his massive sword, and in the other, the severed head of a slaughtered Eselan. Laughing again, he raised the head into the air and deliberately dropped it with a splat.
“You tricked me,” I whispered, rage making me tremble.
Arivor cocked his head the other way and stared.
“You never had any intention of leaving us in peace. It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d convinced the Council to give themselves up to your mercy. Instead, you USED me to sneak your own people inside the gate!”
Arivor stepped over the head and strode toward me, robe dragging slightly behind him. He lowered its hood, exposing his disfigured face. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I looked away in shame.
“You brought this on yourself,” he spoke into the tense air.
My head jerked.
“I knew you’d never forgiven me.”
“And now, you’ve destroyed your own home, much like you destroyed mine,” he continued as if he’d never heard me speak.
“You son of a bitch!” I screamed, sprinting forward with the full intention of cutting him down.
He caught my blade quite easily, of course. He’d always been the better fighter of the two of us.
“There are innocent people living here!” I yelled at him, pushing him back with all of my strength.
“Indeed,” he said whilst holding me back with only one hand on his sword’s grip, “including Lirilith and your new baby.”
I jumped away and wearily circled him.
“What do you mean?”
Arivor didn’t move, only followed me with his eyes.
“I may have let slip the location of a certain home to an especially bloodthirsty band of humans before the attack.”
Terror froze me to the core.
“You… wouldn’t,” I whispered. “You and Lirilith are friends. You’d never… hurt her.”
“Sure about that, Uncle Eri?” he asked, face twisting as he mouthed my old nickname. “Better run along and make sure.”
I backed away very slowly, watching him with every step until I was far enough away to safely turn my back. As I sprinted home, I heard Doldimar call out behind me.
“I’m leaving you alive for now, Erianger. It’ll be so much more fun to kill you once you’ve lost everything.”
Raimie wandered the forest in no particular direction. He wasn’t trying to get lost. Such an attempt would be impossible to realize knowing that Allanovian sat underneath the closest mountain. Raimie did, however, want to escape the watchful eyes of his family and the Esela.
He took to the easiest paths, avoiding patches of brush and thorns as much as possible in the untamed wilderness. Somewhere nearby, a creek bubbled happily, and eventual
ly, his path led to its banks.
The initial swelling from the spring snow melt must have passed as the water that flowed past him meandered at a much more relaxed pace than it had scant days before and few miles apart.
The placid water was the best image Ramie had seen in ages, and his brain was quick to inform him that his mouth was a barren desert and his throat was sandpaper, both crying out for moisture. Collapsing to his knees on the bank, Raimie leaned over the stream, flinging the sword-what did she call it, Silverblade?-away so he could make a scoop of his hands.
Before he could retrieve the water his body screamed for, his blood spattered visage reflected up from the still surface. The red sprayed in a trail of droplets over his cheeks and nose, smeared where he’d tried to wipe it away on his forehead.
His eyes dilated, and the beginnings of a smile played across his lips. Raimie violently shook his head, and when he faced the image again, his pupils had constricted.
He angrily slapped the water’s surface to erase the view, but that made his face disappear only momentarily, and that hated image needed to go permanently. He tried again to erase it and again, eventually up to his elbows in the creek with water soaking all of his clothes. He scooped up fistfuls of water and scrubbed his face, rubbing so hard that the skin was almost as red as the blood that had previously adorned it.
Panting, he sat back on his heels. He refused to check his appearance for any remnants of blood. Instead, he snatched Silverblade from the ground as he rose.
That woman had given him the sword because she’d insisted that he’d need a weapon, but what would he need it for? Would he be forced to kill more people like that man who’d just died…?
When he’d controlled his stomach, Raimie absently rested Silverblade’s point on the creek’s bank while he attached the sheath to his belt.
“That has to be the most interesting murder I’ve ever seen someone commit,” Dim said from behind.
Raimie tensed, sudden dread turning his limbs to stone.
“Leave the poor boy alone,” Bright chimed in. “I don’t know if that man’s death even qualifies as murder.”
The Undying Champions (The Eternal War Book 1) Page 20