Blades of Fate

by Alledria Hurt

  Blood coated the cobblestones. For a moment, he wished the guard would intervene, but he doubted they would be any help.

  Under his shirt, something changed. His skin slid and he felt a pulling at his back. Warden tasted blood.

  "Leviana," he called her name and she didn't respond. He knew she was beside him n the stones, but reaching her... Warden rolled over on his side and put a hand out to her. She groaned. Boots came toward them. Three men stood over them. His back itched and stretched.

  The pain in his chest ran away like water. In his limbs, he felt renewed strength. He jumped to his feet and seized one of the long cannons by the barrel forcing it upward. The others drew a bead on him and he lashed out with his foot, knocking one into another. The shots went wild. At the corner of his eye, he saw Leviana move. She swept into the space beside him and then a man fell, his face opened by her talons.

  One of the men attempted to flee and Warden flashed forward with his teeth and caught the back of the man's shirt to drag him to a stop. At his shoulder, Leviana snatched the man's neck leaving bloody ribbons of flesh hanging from the ends of her fingers.

  His lust for blood cried for more. In the moonlight, his eyes appeared the color of garnet crystal and though the moon hung high, shadows crowded around him.

  The rustle of feathers drew his attention. Beside him, Leviana stood with wings of silver and blue. Splitting his shirt, he wore leather dragon wings. They were the victors in the street. The long cannons lay abandoned where they had fallen.

  He turned to her.

  "Beloved."

  She came to his arms.

  "My love."

  Suddenly, his eyes went dark and he felt his strength sapped. He leaned against her heavily and his knees gave way. There in the street, she eased him down. Just before unconsciousness took him, he gazed into those blue eyes and asked,

  "Where am I?"

  Her feathers twitched in the sea breeze and Leviana flexed her wings automatically to keep from catching wind. At her feet, Warden lay, but for a moment he had been someone else. He had called her beloved.

  Vadian.

  The bodies would draw the guard. She needed to leave, but she could hardly go without him. His wings receded into his back as she raised him from the ground. Haw they had managed to avoid spectators she did not know, but for now, she had the chance to escape without witnesses. Carrying him, she fled with long strides. Blood ran from wound in her arm where the long cannon had spun her. She ran.

  Several streets away, she moved into an alleyway. They would wait for day. Then they might barter their way onto a ship bound for Larki. Settling beside him, she brushed her wings over him. Though there was blood on his shirt, she could find no wound. Good. She wrapped herself up as securely as she could and prepared to wait for day.

  Daylight found her still awake. Her wings were gone and her side ached, but her eyes were still open. Warden slept at her side. A large gray rat ran across her boot and stopped to peer at her. She let it pass unmolested. Eating rat was a desperate measure she was not prepared to take. One feather lay on the ground near her fingers. Picking it up, she wiped it across Warden's face. He snuffled and sneezed before opening his eyes. They were again the deep brown of tanned leather. He sat up hurriedly.

  "Where are we?" he asked.

  "In an alleyway off the docks," she said. "We needed to get away from those dead bodies in the street, so I hid us."

  He mulled her words as his jaw moved. Then he turned colors.

  "They wounded me."

  "You're fine."

  "Are you alright?"

  "Yes." She didn't tell him that she was still injured, but then he didn't need to know that. "We escaped with our lives. Now we need to leave Denden before they find us."

  "What happened to me? What was that darkness I saw and how am I not bleeding to death?"

  "It has to do with our connection to one another," Leviana said. She rose and moved along the wall toward the street. He came to his feet behind her. "I cannot tell you more than that."

  "You must tell me what you know," he pleaded.

  "I told you. All your questions will be answered when we reach Backaran."

  "And if we never reach there?"

  "Then you will die before you have answers. I will not tell you anything more." She leaned out into the street and then stepped out. He waited for her to come back. When she didn't, he stepped out to follow her.

  Leviana headed for the docks with him trailing along behind. When she reached the main street there, she stopped, surveying the ships in port.

  "We need a boat bound for Larki," she said when he drew abreast. "That's the closest port to the fabled city. Then we will go overland."

  "Then we should go to a Captain's tavern and inquire," he said.

  "Perhaps you should do that," she said. "After last night, I worry that I'm being recognized. They want my head on a pike and I would like to avoid that, if possible."

  "Where will you be?" he asked.

  "I'm going down to where the men fish and I'll wait there. You can come find me once you've found us a way out of the city."

  "And if I choose to leave without you?"

  "You won't," she said turning her back on him. "Your life depends on staying near to me."

  "How will I do this, if I must stay close to you?"

  "You'll find a way."

  His last view of her was of the hair cascading down her back, a black mass of blood-stained curls. As she drew away, he felt the pain first in the pit of his stomach. It spread to his chest and then into his limbs.

  "Come back," he called. "I can't let you get too far away."

  Leviana stopped, but did not come back. She looked at him with hooded eyes. With one hand, she brushed her hair out of her face. Her luminous blue eyes pinned him down and he swallowed hard.

  "Don't leave me," he said. "I cannot be without you."

  Stepping up to him, she raised her hands to his face. She rubbed her fingers across his lips.

  "We are chained to one another," she said. "It would seem it is stronger now than it once was."

  She remembered him telling her how she had once run from him. If the chains had been stronger then, she would never have been able to do that. It appeared now that Warden stood captured by the ancient magic.

  "Let us go then," she said. She let him lead the way and pick their direction. They walked among the squat buildings of Denden, nearly hand in hand. At a tavern hanging the sign of the Seafarer's Rest, they entered. Warden went up to the bar and asked,

  "We seek a ship bound for Larki which may need more hands?"

  "I may know of such a ship," the barkeep said. He tilted his chin toward a table further back. Three men sat at the table. "Two bound for Larki and a third for Shilta, further along the islands of Xernia. Maybe you find a berth among them."

  If he noticed Leviana, he said nothing. Warden drew as little attention to her as he could while he walked over to the table.

  "Good sirs," Warden began. The three looked up at him with curious eyes. They had cards strewn across the tabletop in a game of Klerken. "I seek space for two aboard a ship headed for Larki, working not passenger."

  The third man shrugged. "I'm headed for Shilta."

  The other two traded looks.

  "I have all the crew I need," said the first. He played a card on the stack and waited for the second to speak up.

  "I might have a berth or two open, depending on whether all my crew returns. We lose a few every time we dock." The second played his card and waited on the third. The third played a card and Warden leaned across the table.

  "There is myself and my companion."

  "As long as you're both good workers, I don't care how many you bring with you," the second said. "The ship is Regalina's Legacy. We sail tonight with the tide. Be inboard and we'll consider your compensation then."

  "You are sure you can pay?"

  "So long as the buyer is there in Larki, all will be fine." The
n he made a shooing gesture with his cards. "I want to finish this game. If you want the berth, be on the ship when we sail."

  If they marked the blood on Warden's clothes they said nothing. He came back to Leviana and said,

  "Regalina's Legacy. We might have to throw someone overboard to make room, but we have space."

  "Good. Let's go."

  They left the tavern together.

  "That was a good choice," Leviana said. "How did you know where to look?"

  "I grew up in a port city. The Captains tend to stay in taverns close to the water, but of better quality than the ones their sailors frequent," Warden said. "That was many years ago, though. Another lifetime perhaps."

  "Perhaps."

  They walked down the docks looking at the names on the prows of ships. When they reached the Regalina's Legacy, they went aboard. A man greeted them.

  "Who are you," he asked.

  "The Captain said we might find berths here," Warden said. Leviana stayed in his shadow and kept her mouth shut. "We've come for work."

  "Find a berth below deck and stow your things if you have any." He searched them with his gaze, but said nothing about their appearance. "If the Captain said you could go, then you're going."

  "Thank you," Warden said and he moved through the ship toward the lower level. Leviana followed him. In the darkness of below deck, she drew closer to him.

  "I've never worked on a ship before," she said.

  "I can only imagine that you haven't," he said. He led the way to the crew hammocks. They didn't have anything to stow but they could at least get some rest before the ship left port. "It isn't hard. A lot of it is doing what you're told."

  He swung up into a hammock and closed his eyes. "You'll be fine."

  Leviana watched him ease into sleep knowing she couldn't sleep until she was certain they were on their way. However, they didn't mean she couldn't at least try to rest her nerves. Despite her best efforts however, she found herself falling asleep after only a few minutes swinging in the hammock.

  The Voice Plots

  Lounging in his seat, Kendrick felt none of the ease his posture portrayed. He watched with close eyes the way his mother lopped back and forth across the front room aware that from the window it looked exactly like it was, she paced. Her contemplative look did not make him any more at ease.

  "So she escaped?"

  His question brought her up short, but did nothing to change her expression. Instead, her eyes grew quizzical.

  "Her blood ran on the stones," she said. "She fell."

  "Yet, your agents did not furnish you with a body. That's twice they've failed."

  He had little room to discuss failure. She had been in Arathum and slipped through his fingers after Versa was foolish enough to leave her on the road. Of course, he had led her to believe they could manage the coup while Leviana lived, which was certainly not the case. Every moment the woman continued to draw breath jeopardized his plans.

  "She wasn't alone," Gricean said. "If what my agents say is true, it's the assassin we hired."

  "What? Why would he be in her employ?"

  "I don't think he was employed by her. My eyes in Denden say they arrived in the city together and they were together at the time of the ambush." She stopped to toy with a red fruit forgotten on the table. Kendrick had forgone eating in her presence. After all, he didn't need anyone in the palace starting to mark whether or not he took his meals. Already scrutiny was being paid to him he didn't enjoy. He had to be more discrete with Versa. She might well cost him his plans.

  "If he isn't in her employ, why would they be together?"

  "Maybe he thinks he can barter her life for his own?" Gricean said with a shrug. "They are together, that is all we really know. There is a reason, we just don't know what it is."

  "Unless its true," Kendrick said. "Could it be the time came and we missed it?"

  "The rebirth of the Black King?"

  "It would make sense." He leaned onto the table. "If he had been reborn, she would be more vulnerable, which explains her failure to fight off his attack in the first place. Even more, it would tell us why he chooses to remain with a woman he was ordered to kill. He cannot be apart from her."

  "If that's true, things have changed."

  "Yes." With a shake of his head, Kendrick rose from his chair. "I have to head back, they'll be missing me if I'm gone too long."

  "How much longer before you can finish your father's work?"

  "I cannot say. The Seal is gone."

  "What do you mean gone?" The Black King's seal was the only instrument with the power to insure the decree disbanding the empire was carried out. Without it, no one would accept the order and their plans would fail.

  "It's gone. According to Versa, she didn't have it on her when she left for the tomb. I did not see it around her neck. Yet, when we went to retrieve it, the Seal was gone. The box she kept it in empty."

  "How could you come so far to fail?" Her voice rose to piercing.

  "I have not failed. Not yet."

  "He will accept results."

  "Of course, he does. And he will have them. There is nothing stopping me once I find it. I've already sent Versa scouring the road near the tomb to insure it wasn't lost there among all the fighting. I've scoured the palace myself. It is nowhere to be found."

  "Perhaps you need to see a Seer," she offered with a disingenuous smile.

  "No seer can see the Seal. You know this. It is beyond them."

  "The ones back home can see it."

  "No, they can't. They just like to pretend they can because it hasn't moved in centuries."

  He turned toward the door though he wouldn't use it to leave. He didn't want the servants to see him. Gossipy lot, even though his mother kept a tight rein over hers. Her activities had been treasonous before she involved herself with her father.

  "Kendrick," she said to his back. "About the girl?"

  "Versa? What about her?"

  "Is she a distraction?"

  "I need her, Mother. She's necessary to my plans."

  "After that--"

  "After that, I'll make a decision. I won't discuss it."

  "See to it that you do. Her survival is not part of our plan."

  He sighed and before he reached the door walked into thin air.

  Gricean watched him go before rolling her eyes. She had to find out where the Queen had gone with her new consort. If she could get ahead of them, there was still a chance she could make sure the woman died a horrible death. Just as planned.

  Kendrick wiped his face with damp hands before running them through his unruly hair. The journey of a mile made in seconds always left him a little parched. Some said the between space was an amplification of the world you crossed through and Arathum was a warm place on its best day. He couldn't wait to be home among the almost frost laden breezes of the mountains. Of course, there no one would question his abilities. He was one of the elite, the favored. Here, among mortals, he had to be careful his every move lest he give the game away.

  Closing his eyes, he tried to let the worst of the news drain away. Though she had a talent for the dramatic, his mother had a point. What if they had missed the rebirth of the Black King? It was the right time. The right moon. The right everything. Had they inadvertently brought the two together by trying to have her killed?

  Fate, the lady of the wheel, would undoubtedly have found that amusing.

  His reflection in the polished metal betrayed a certain haggardness he didn't like. Sunken eyes and sallow cheeks, as if he slept only minutes at night. Of course, so far from the seat of power, it was hard to draw on it to create the things he wanted. Keeping the lay fooled proved more and more taxing by the day.

  "There is nothing else. I Have all the power I need to finish what I've begun."

  The rhythm rapping on his door made him hastily wipe his face and mutter a quick glamor. Strength and health. No matter what.

  Versa stood in the hall.

&nb
sp; "You could have just come in. In fact--"

  She pushed past him.

  "The Seal is nowhere on the road."

  He schooled his face away from his displeasure. "I didn't expect it would be."

  "She had to have taken it. But why? She didn't need it."

  "Versa, we've been over this."

  "Kendrick, I've served her for years. This is unlike her."

  "Like her or unlike her, it doesn't matter. It isn't here and I need it." He found his eyes tracing the lines of her muscles, the valleys and mounds of her strength made so apparent. Vitality shone off her skin. The aroma of it tantalized his senses. She'd never notice a pinch of her energy taken to feed his need and fuel his magic.

  When he embraced her, she didn't run but melted into his arms. Her armor pressed hard against his skin. When he laid his lips on her forehead, he resisted the urge to run his tongue over her flesh.

  Resting there, he banked the urge in his thoughts to feed on her. Had he before? Yes. However, the hunger grew. Without magic to feed on, he wanted to substitute life force. Do that too much and he'd lose himself to it.

  Nalcet warned of how his brother, Backaran, had once done that very thing and now was a captive of the madness and desire life force draining brought.

  Versa did not remain content in his arms for long, stepping back to look in his eyes.

  "Why can't you make the changes without it?"

  "Decrees affecting all the territories have to be affixed with the seal. You know this. You serve as her Trusted." He turned his back on her. "Unless we find it, I cannot complete what must be done. This cycle of violence will never end."

  "Without her, there are no more wars of conquest."

  "And so it will remain until someone brings back the seal and it starts over again. We need the seal to stop it from happening."

  "Then we have to find her."

  "Reports put her in Denden most recently, but there is no telling where she was going from there."

  Kendrick stalked her with his eyes as she began to pace. Such energy. It begged to be tasted. He transferred his gaze to the floor, but couldn't stop up his ears against the sound of her tromping and muttering.