“What’s wrong?” Nadya asked. She hid with him. They were separated from the others. Aeron did not know where Demyan was, but last he saw the king, the young ruler was not moving, face down in a pile of rancid ash where they could not reach him.
“Nothing,” Aeron said slowly, peeking around the shelter they hid behind. No one stood near them, everything hidden by clouds of ash or billows of smoke. Soldiers ran toward the demons or carried their wounded away. Nothing at all was familiar to Aeron but hiding was no longer an option. “C’mon, this way.”
Aeron took Nadya by the hand, moving quickly from one charred piece of building to another in a low crouch. He didn’t think crouching would help against the hell hounds but it made Aeron feel better about leaving their hiding spot. They made it halfway across a large open air market to an abandoned canon at the center before hearing the snarls of a demon above them.
“MOVE!” Aeron shouted, shoving Nadya ahead of him as the demon pounced. Aeron felt the weight of the beast on his back, crushing his ribs and robbing the breath from his lungs.
“AERON!” Nadya squealed. There was nothing he could do, no way to retaliate. Even if Nadya could hit the thing, the chances of hitting him were too great, especially with the Hex Storm above. He knew it and, moreover, she knew it too. The pack on his back prevented the claws from reaching his flesh, the cloak acting as buffer for the creature’s maw. It did not stop the beast from shaking Aeron like a rag doll, tearing the cloak in the process. He shut his eyes, bringing his arms above his neck in vain attempt to protect himself, filling with Power until the stupid creature flew off him. He lay there for a moment, wind and stone, ash and dirt swirling in a vortex that kept the animal away from him. He felt the Power surge through him, took two more breaths and finally forced himself to his feet. He did not get far.
“FOUND YOU!”
Roth held Nadya in his grasp. She squirmed and sobbed, her face dirty but not scratched. Aeron looked hard at the creature, skin so pale it was practically lavender in color, hair stringy and matted with clawed hands, fangs, and a series of spikes protruding from his spine. What was done to him? Why?
“Danyel…” Aeron breathed out, only barely remembering to duck as the creature reached for him.
“Oh good, a game! I’ll find, you hide!” the creature hollered. “Here, take the soft one, it will make it more fun! I’ll count! One… two… three…”
Nadya was shoved at Aeron with such force that they both fell to the ground. Aeron did not wait, grabbing Nadya and yanking her to her feet as he threw an orb of energy at Roth. They got a swarm of butterflies instead. Typical.
“No! Be gone demon spawn!” Roth growled, swatting at the butterflies or trying to set them all on fire. Nadya slowed long enough to watch in confusion, until Aeron grabbed her wrist to tug her along. He did not want to know why they were spared, but was not going to waste the opportunity either. The stupid thing did more damage trying to kill the butterflies than it did trying to get them. They ran, dodging a few blasts of blown earth or ducking away from flying debris until finally ducking into what might have been an herbalist shop at one point. Dried twigs and flowers littered the floor and broken shelving. Some even hung from the ceiling.
“Why did it let me go?” Nadya breathed. Aeron saw her lips moving and felt the vibration of her voice but did not truly understand her. His head hurt, his ears making him dizzy. “Aeron?”
“I…” he began but still could not bring himself to tell her. “I don’t know.”
He lied to stall for time, leaning up from their spot enough to look out a window that was covered in broken wood slats. He could not see much, but what he saw made his blood run cold. On the ground near the shop was Kendall. The young queen, he noticed, used her body to shield someone beneath her, presumably Demyan, from something unseen.
“Demyan,” Aeron said, moving before he even realized he’d gotten up. If Nadya tried to stop him, he did not notice. His focus was Demyan, his friend. He startled Kendall, but quickly saw the relief in her face - - until he realized what she was protecting the king from.
A demon, tall and broad with four arms and wings at its back, a weapon in each beefy hand. There was no time to react or think as the beast brought all four weapons down on Aeron’s head. All he could do was flinch, listen to the vibrations of Kendall scream - and then breathe when nothing happened.
“ - up boy!!”
Aeron looked up, eyes wide with shock. A centaur stood above them, muscles straining to hold back the demon that had tried to smash Aeron to bits mere moments before.
“Na-vid?” Aeron breathed out right as an arc of ice ripped the demon in half. Everyone flinched then, turning to look at the source of their salvation. Nadya.
“Thank her later, highness,” Navid said as he hefted the unconscious king into his arms. Aeron looked to the centaur in confusion, unable to truly hear his voice. It was not possible for the centaur to be there. Aeron must be hallucinating. He could not move, could not think, only stare. He felt someone grab his shoulder and jumped. Kendall stood beside him, her face desperate to be away. Aeron looked at Navid again, the centaur still there as a sentinel above him and finally allowed himself to be moved.
They ran toward Nadya, ducking back into the herbalist shop and through broken doorways to a sub level with racks of glass bottles: a brewery then, not an herbalist - or maybe both. The Kormandi did strange things. Things in the sub level remained untouched, as if no one bothered to look beyond the main levels. A long, narrow pass was hidden behind one of the racks barely noticeable until Nadya pointed it out. Aeron stood in shock, staring stupidly until Nadya took his face in her hands and kissed him. Hard.
“What.. Was that for?” Aeron frowned.
“For you to wake up, Prince of the Flame. Focus! And, because the centaur did not come for Demyan. He came for your cursed pointed ears!”
Aeron only blinked. Nadya shook her head, making a vexed sound as she moved to help Kendall. Aeron, on the other hand, looked to the centaur looming over the fallen king.
“He’s alive, but badly injured. He needs Healing, even if it is a small amount,” Navid said. Nadya nodded, stooping to help as Navid rose to his full height.
“What are you doing here?” Aeron said. Navid smirked. He did not fit well in the sub-level of the shop, too broad and tall to be truly comfortable. “How did you even find me?”
Navid tossed something at Aeron, something sharp that left a tiny slice in his palm when he caught it. When he looked down his jaw dropped. It was a nearly- black stone with a single rune etched into the center. Eila made it and three others after their uncle disappeared. Aeron stole them when he left Damaskha and given them to Master Barth in hopes that the Itahli alchemist could replicate them. If Navid had them…
“Wait, Master Barth, is he-” Aeron began.
“Alive,” Navid cut in. “As was Baron Karov, though he was considerably worse off when I left. The stone they used took them both to your sister. She needs to work on proximity. They ended up in the temple proper. I landed on top of a broken wall almost two blocks over. You’re lucky the girl screamed - unless that was you.”
Aeron didn’t care if the demi-human landed in a vat of filth or if he did scream like a girl when that demon raised his arms for attack. In that moment, Navid was the most beautiful thing he’d seen in his short, crazy life.
Chapter Nineteen
Rielle put her hand to her nose as she and Eila walked into Azucena proper. The Port Circle stood a good mile outside city limits as was standard practice across the globe for such things. It was frightfully hot, hotter than Tierra Vida, and smelled like someone spilled every spice known to man inside Navid’s chili - if what the centaur made could even be called chili. Kaleo’s letter detailed quite a bit about Azucena and its people, the streets and what he did now as an apprentice of all things. To a bard. Rielle supposed it was fitting for her uncle to take on such a persona as she remembered him being quite skilled at music.
“Now where?” Eila asked as they stared at the monstrous fountain looming over all the mud-brick buildings that made up the city of Azucena. It rivaled Illurian City in size, butting up against the foothills of the Sierra Alto mountains and stretching out to the Campo de Arena - a vast dessert that covered a good portion of the Mahalan nation.
“Fountain?” Rielle suggested. “Something is making that gods awful stench. Azrus take me where I stand before that stuff does.”
Eila giggled, hooking her arm with Rielle’s as the two set off toward the center of the city. Many stared at them but they stared right back. Most of the women wore curious outfits that showed their navels and covered their hair. An odd practice. The twins wore tight trews and long tunics that made movement easier and, while Eila liked to leave her hair down around her shoulders, Rielle kept it in a tight braid atop her head - the only distinguishing factor between the twins according to everyone that knew them.
Looking for people was not all together difficult. With some well-placed smiles and a few bits of coin, information could be gathered from almost anywhere. They’d learned that when looking for their uncle and Aeron or when making quick trips into town to learn the local gossip coming in from the trading ships in Gavail. Kaleo was not hard to miss and, while he’d not given a name for the bard he followed, asking for a teal-winged apprentice would produce descent enough results in Rielle’s guestimation. She was, of course, not wrong.
“Ah, Senor Reven!” someone said happily, a portly man lobbing the heads off small lizards in the winding market. Linen covers strung across bamboo poles offered respite from the sun. Rolling curtains of the same bamboo covered what sufficed as windows on each stall presumably to lock them up or perhaps protect from the wind. “Si, si… un buen cantador. Lo buscas?”
The girls blinked at the man, unable to discern a single word spoken other than "Reven" which they gathered was a name.
“No…” Rielle hazarded with a lilt to her word that made it a question. “We’re looking for Kaleo. The apprentice. He has wings and teal hair.”
She made gestures of wings and tugged at Eila’s hair when speaking her cousin’s description. The man nodded, bringing his hatchet down on another lizard so that the head rolled off the wooden board to land at Eila’s feet. She stared down at it, kicking it distastefully with the tip of her booted foot.
“Why do you look for him?” someone said, making the girls whirl around. A girl roughly Kaleo’s age stood behind them, her hair tucked up into a loosely knitted cap like what some of the boys in the city wore. She had amber eyes and pale, if dirty, skin. “Do you know him?”
“Do you?” Rielle shot back with a frown and hip full of attitude. “Who are you?”
“I ask first,” the girl retorted. Rielle narrowed her lavender eyes, fists balling at her sides until Eila stepped in.
“He sent us a letter that he was here with someone else we know. A bard. Do you know where we can find them?”
The girl’s demeanor changed from curiosity to suspicion, eyes narrowing at the girls. She peered at them and finally nodded, jerking her head toward the foothills before moving onward. It was nearly impossible to keep up with her, dodging through people and vendors, even drunkards hanging over barrels until the city began to clear away to a path leading up to the foothills. Nearly a full hour later they stood before a giant manse with a replica of the large fountain in front of it. Two other women stood there with a drake, of all things, a chimera and a blue-feathered phoenix.
“Azure!” the girls said, running to the chimera where the phoenix was perched. The drake, however, snapped at them so fiercely they fell on their rears and earned the chimera’s wrath in return. Fionn was known to them, the creature snarling protectively at the drake while Azure screeched and took flight into the air.
“Stop!” cried a woman with cerulean eyes. “Malek, behave! You too!”
“The drake is hers,” Eila whispered watching the woman with wide-eyes. No one else moved.
“Of course, the drake is hers,” Rielle replied, standing with a grunt and then pulling her sister to her feet. “We don’t have time for this - where is Kaleo?”
“Gone,” the amber-eyed girl said. “Why do you look for him?”
“He’s our cousin,” the girls said in annoyed unison. They received arched brows by way of response.
“What do you mean ‘gone’?” Eila asked. “Where did he go?”
“We do not know,” the girl said, folding her arms beneath her breasts. She was sort of pretty and rather defensive of Kaleo. Girlfriend, perhaps? Rielle looked to her sister with the question lingering silently between them. Eila shrugged. Perhaps she was. “He was here yesterday. When we return, he was not. Nor the bard.”
“You said he is your cousin,” the cerulean-eyed woman interjected. “You know Azure. And Fionn?” The girls nodded. “They cannot speak to Reven or Kaleo. Why? It worries them. Worries me.”
“Reven is… the bard?” Eila asked. Azure landed on her head, making her grin. She missed the little phoenix a great deal. He went missing with her uncle.
Reven is Gannon, Eila heard. When she touched the phoenix, she could speak with him. She had not tried with Fionn but imagined it might be the same. Aeron could speak to them without touching them at all. It hardly seemed fair. Rielle was not so lucky, but made stones better than Eila did even if the girls kept that secret to themselves. But something happened while I hunted. I … lost him.
“How do you lose a bard?” Eila asked, tilting her head to look at the phoenix. He adjusted, flapping to her shoulder instead. Rielle only sighed and shook her head.
“Great, she’s talking to him. Alright look, when was the last time you saw them? Yesterday, right? What happened yesterday?”
“Reven showed us the house,” the copper- skinned woman said. Everyone looked at the manse. It was hideous but large and something their uncle would immediately burn to the ground for being an eye-sore. This bard was not their uncle no matter what Azure said.
“Rielle,” Eila said looking to her twin. She may not speak with mythical beasts, but she had her own secrets. Rielle only shook her head, her braid swaying back and forth as she moved toward the front door. She studied the ground, crouched to touch the flagstones or the steps leading to the door. It was there she stopped, narrowing her eyes until coming up with a tiny dart.
“Tondra,” the girls said in unison. The weapon was a signature of the Esbethi general, easily filled with any poison the woman liked.
“He’s in Esbeth,” Eila said.
“Wonderful,” Rielle added. “Who’s got money?”
***
Patience was something that Noelani Caelestis- Oenel prided herself on. However, in the face of pure insolence, she was beginning to lose that patience. Kaleo glowered at her. This boy she raised as her own, the child that nearly tore her from her beloved so many years ago, born of a single night of indiscretion; the child she’d forgiven and accepted had the audacity to glower.
They sat in her private study surrounded by things that helped to calm her. Incense burned near the open window and the sound of the sea crashing against the waves reached her ears. It did not help calm her at all. She wanted to rip the feathers right out of her son’s wings for what he’d done, for making her worry, for the lies he continued to tell. Kalelako, the Speaker of Tribes, stood behind her in a support role but offered little in the way of actual support. He now courted Noelani, the time of mourning for her beloved gone. It was a good match - he was as Powerful as Gannon was and Touched by Heaven as a guide for their ancestors into the next life; she could not refuse him. However, she could also do nothing until she solved the dilemma of the man in her dungeons either.
“Kaleo…” she began, rising to her feet. He watched her, ivory bracelets Binding his Power. “I want to help, to bring justice against those that took you.”
He scoffed. She pursed her lips and narrowed her almond eyes at him, silver wings bristling with barel
y controlled rage.
“Fine, then we will do this a different way,” Noelani said, walking toward the door. “Kal - if you please. I’ll need your assistance.”
“Leave him alone, Noelani!” Kaleo barked, rising to his feet as well.
“Then talk to me!” she barked back. “What you’re saying isn’t possible, Kaleo. It can’t be. Do you understand that? So, help me understand what you’ve done; what they’ve done.”
The boy refused, snarling as he sat back down. She let him, turning sharply with a swirl of silken skirts around her narrow ankles. The bangles she wore on her bare feet jingled as she walked with determination to the bowels of the cliff-side palace. Water filled the passages, dripping from the walls and ceilings. Two guards stood at the ready, both nodding when she approached.
“Have they said anything?” she asked.
“No, Amatessa,” one replied firmly. She sighed, looking to Kalelako who only offered a helpless shrug. She did not want to know the truth, not really. If she was right, her heart would shatter all over again, after years of careful mending. If Kaleo was right… she didn’t even want to think about that possibility.
“We are not to be disturbed,” she said. Both guards snapped to attention, allowing her and Kalelako to pass. He followed in silence, his black wings gleaming in the darkness while hers seemed to radiate moonlight. She moved to the holding cell with the tirsai man in it first. He was not conscious. Tondra was ruthless and her intel spoke of a Powerful caster; she’d gone prepared. Perhaps a little too prepared. The man’s hair was cropped short and his skin darker than normal for a tirsai as if he’d spent years in the sun. He had a scar at his left eye and a tiny fever rash across his cheeks caused by the poison. She saw the similarity to her beloved husband but nothing concrete.
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