Her steps could not carry her quicker as she fled across the desert. Her tribe was spiritual and they spent their lives bending their bodies and mind as the snakes of the desert did and she could slip with ease and stealth across those dunes. When she reached the mine, the old man in charge was sitting there nervous and trembling and Verity had felt her heart slam into her throat.
“Haldon, where is my husband?” Verity managed to croak out from her tight throat.
“Oh, Verity, the scouts saw a contingent of Mycean army soldiers coming this way and they all ran off to meet them. I worry for them because it has been hours and I have yet to hear any word…”
Verity did not wait for the man to go on as she turned back and tore across the desert, already seeing a dim fire and tower of smoke rising from where her village stood. She felt clumsy and heavy and slow as her heart trembled with terror, barely seeing the soldiers ahead slaying her neighbors, her friends… As she neared she had already seen the bodies of her brothers and father and she had hurried towards her home as if in a dream, wondering why the soldiers did not turn on her. She saw with a nameless horror her own sweet babies being dragged into the street, along with her terrified mother, and Candor and Lila were clutching each other, refusing to let go as the soldier had buried his spear into the three of them. Their whimpers and screams tore at her heart and wrath had turned her into a kind of Fury.
Verity had torn a spear from the body of the nearest of the dead villagers and she whirled like a dervish, slashing furiously at men who seemed to not even see her coming. She howled and growled and tore them down until they began to flee. At that point, there was nothing left for them to destroy anyway and a captain had ordered their retreat. Verity heard a wet coughing and turned to see her dying mother coughing up blood and sobbing as she held her dead grandchildren.
Verity stooped to touch her mother and her mother had looked around wildly, not seeing Verity at all.
“Who is there?” her mother asked, coughing up a thick gob of dark blood.
“Mama, why can’t you see me?” Verity said, her voice childlike in its despair and confusion.
“Verity? Daughter? You must have the Mirage upon you, child; I cannot see you,” her mother told her.
The Mirage had not come in her youth as much as she had wished it. She remembered the elders calling it an omen and those words were an axe in her soul now. She had given up on it completely the day that she consummated her marriage because the elders also swore that the blood of the next shaman must be pure. Verity was coming to the conclusion that legends were broken things and we mostly just guessed and changed our theories once they were broken. What good did it do her now to be a pioneer of a new discovery when everyone she cared to share it with was dead or dying?
Despite the chaos in her soul, Verity concentrated her mind on being visible and her mother’s blood-smeared smile let her know she could see her again. It was the last she could see as her eyes glassed over and life fled from her eyes. She stared down at her mother’s arms clutching her lifeless children and her ears no longer heard the crackle of flames or the last whimpers of the dying. She could not fathom how far she was falling into the abyss of her own despair but when the moment passed, her knees wobbled and she collapsed to the ground, her palms finding the grainy dirt sticky with drying blood.
Verity whimpered, her lip trembling as she gathered their limp bodies into her arms and wailed and rocked and held them until she fell into darkness more finally.
When Verity woke, the oasis that her village once was had become a dusty bowl of disparity. The army had torn down the gates and crushed the dunes that kept the sands from covering them and a good 3 inches of sand was covering the corpses and even herself as she clutched her dead mother and babes. She laid kisses upon their sandy foreheads as she rose up and let the sands swallow them. Without the villagers to keep the sands at bay, they would be properly buried in a few short days anyway.
Verity stumbled over the ghost city that had once been her heart and she felt empty. She could not bring herself to die here just yet and set out to walk until the desert buried her alone, her personal punishment for not being there when they had needed her most. She had thought she could not cry anymore but as she thought of her babies and her husband, great rivulets of tears both washed the swirling sand away and adhered new granules to her face. She stumbled forward and cursed herself for ever leaving at all. She didn’t think she could have saved them, but she could have at least died with them. As she stumbled across the sands wandering towards the east, her will was empty and she planned to walk until the sun and heat took her.
She was ready to die but when her mind thought of figs, the Mirage would give her a fig tree and offer its fruit. When her mind craved water, a clear unsullied pool of pure spring water would open from the sands. Her power kept her alive and at any time she could have turned the offerings down but she would hear Lila’s sweet voice telling her to be strong and Candor’s little laugh would follow. The sounds would crush her but they would lift her as well and soon she took comfort in knowing her babes would suffer no more. She imagined a great oasis where her parents, brothers, husband and children embraced each other now and they were safe forever from any more pain, waiting for the day they would hold each other. They weren’t asking Verity to join them; they were asking her to live and make them proud. No matter how badly she wanted death, she wanted to keep them alive inside her even more. She wanted to give the children of this world a place without tyranny and fear. She wanted to watch the Mycean Royal Army drop like swatted flies.
Verity had crossed the fertile Walk without stopping and back into the eastern Cyryl desert. There had been no one to stop her, nothing to ease her pain. She kept on going and when the pain passed, the rage came. Rage hardened her heart for revenge. The shifting sands would harden as the Mirage paved her way across the desert and when she ended up in Dreana, a green lush paradise of a village, she knew that was where she would wait to find the ones who would help her. She stumbled into a pretty café, using her mirage to cover her weariness and pain and the owner had been happy to have her on as help. Such a pretty, spirited woman, he had thought of her. What an illusion that had been.
At first, the sight of children playing shook her with stabs of grief but in time, she would just smile sadly, sometimes for an instant seeing her lively Lila and patient Candor before the child would become a stranger. The children of Dreana all seemed to adore her. Men did not fail to notice her beauty but Verity was not interested. Her heart still had room for love but these men never compared to Callum, some even became cruel when they realized she would not bend. She bided her time and used her Mirage to hide the darkest parts of her heart.
For years she had waited and, as it happened, a pretty young warrior woman named Rienna had been the answer to her prayers. She may have missed that Rienna was one of the Chosen but she had not missed the sorrow that Rienna hid in her smile; it did not matter which had been the thing to draw her in, only that it did. She had been so excited to meet Rienna that she had failed to uphold her illusions and Rienna had seen through them. Verity knew the elders would have plenty to say about carelessness and signs and Verity’s failures but, as cruel as the thought was, they were not here after all and she was. What good was foresight to ones who could not save themselves?
Finn’s face was crumpled and tears were drying on his cheeks. Verity was stroking his arm and comforting him and he laughed at her unconscious care for his pain. She ignored his reaction and continued to comfort him.
“Verity, you shouldn’t be worried about comforting me; it is your life after all!” Finn scolded her with a kind voice.
“And I know it is a wretched thing to hear, but it is a story I have grown to face better with every retelling. This is the first I have recited it to any other than my own shattered heart though. I used to write the words and burn them in the hearth every night. I never told a soul the whole story until now. I didn’t know if it wa
s a story you could handle because I know you never knew the warmth of a family yourself and it is a cold way to lose one. You are a stronger, kinder man than I had imagined I would meet again. I did not know another gentleman existed other than my husband and I am happy to be wrong.”
Finn sniffed as he gathered himself.
“You mean other than the wild orgy part,” Finn conceded.
“Finn, you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. I am a woman and I do not pretend to know men very well, but I know you are a man of honor, no matter the gender of the ones you deal with. I never judged you for your past and I would not judge you still if it were something you did again. I would not change you because I believe you deserve to be happy. I am not some child that pretends I have all the answers for how you should live nor all you could ever want.”
Finn dropped his arm and laced his fingers in hers.
“For the gods’ sake, Verity, I don’t want any other woman but you,” Finn told her exasperatedly, nudging her chin lightly with a lopsided smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “I hope you don’t think I would dive off of a mountain for just any woman!”
Verity’s heart filled in a way it hadn’t since her children had filled her to her brim. Her eyes filled with happy tears and for the first time in so long, her cup runneth over.
Chapter 12: Hold the Fort
Ashe, Rienna, Krose and Dinsch each told their accounts (sans the waterfall incident on Ashe and Rienna’s part and the fact that Krose and Dinsch had been outfoxed by a foxy cat girl rather than pursuing a spy) but they had enjoyed and drank in each other’s stories over a bit of mead and roast lamb. When Verity and Finn had walked in, all four of them had shot up and hugged their friends with relief and shared more stories, although Finn and Verity had stuck with the truth and the others had been holding back tears. Okay, Dinsch was bawling like a baby but Verity had comforted him and he had fallen asleep against her breast. Probably on purpose, to Finn’s thinking, but he knew Dinsch was Dinsch and as long as Verity didn’t mind, neither did he. He’d claim Dinsch’s paw if he misbehaved though.
Rienna looked at her friends and thought about how far they had come; how, against incredible odds, they had kept going and found strength where some might have succumbed wholly to despair and death. She did not miss the bond between Verity and Finn but she could not bring herself to look at Ashe. She was afraid to get lost in what they had started but she was also afraid it had been no more substantial than the fling she had with Krose. It felt like a sappy love story that just had no place in a time of war. At the same time, she knew that sometimes it was those sappy things that gave you a reason to fight. She envied Finn and Verity for their open, easy adoration and wished she knew how to drop her own defenses and be a woman, but she didn’t really need to be a woman right now; she needed the warrior in her more. Melchior would have teased her, that she seemed to think the two were mutually exclusive (and also he or Ashe could remedy the lack of a warrior inside her), but then no one ever questioned the correlation between man and warrior, so what would he know about her own philosophy?
When it was time to rest, they all went to their separate rooms, knowing that sleep was a true priority. After a lengthy rest, they all met in the main hall again, wondering at what their next steps would be. One of the younger magicians had shuffled into the main hall, a boy named Vzygas, and he was not very good at hiding the panic in his face. He delivered his news and Rienna asked him if Melchior knew yet but the boy had said Melchior would not wake; that Melchior had mumbled and turned over twice and threw a water pitcher at him the third time.
Rienna hurried to tell Melchior herself, almost wanting him to try something stupid so she could break his arm. She would heal it afterwards, but she wanted that satisfaction.
When Rienna entered Melchior’s room, he was sprawled out across his bed on top of the twisted sheets, his left leg hanging off of the bed. The sheet only covered his right leg and barely his cock though a soft forest of dark red hairs peeked out. He had the look of someone who was recovering from illness or had just slept fitfully. Rienna approached him and shook his shoulders.
“Wake up, you big oaf,” Rienna said, shaking him lightly. Melchior mumbled and knocked her hands away. Rienna was in no mood to deal with this, so she shook him harder. He grabbed her and twisted her until she was trapped under his bare left thigh and still he slept. Rienna seethed angrily, hating how easy it was for him to overpower her when her own ego made her sloppy.
“You idiot, I told you to pinch yourself; sleeping too much isn’t going to do you any good either!” Rienna said aloud, pinching Melchior’s shadowy cheek, adding a little twist for good measure. He had called it cute before, not realizing that was actually how to remove the spell.
“Owwwwwww,” Melchior groaned childishly, slapping his hand to his cheek and rubbing it, propping himself up and opening one eye groggily, grinning like a fool. He wiggled his eyebrows flirtatiously and Rienna’s face hardened, unamused.
“I always knew you couldn’t resist me, Rienna,” he growled and started nuzzling her neck with that prickly jaw.
“By the gods, Melchior, do you ever shave?” Rienna said as she pushed him off of her and got to her feet.
“Every morning and it comes back by noon,” Melchior said, still grinning that idiot grin.
“I thought you should know Ghyliad passed away this morning,” Rienna said, hanging her head.
Melchior’s smile had snapped closed like an iron door and he shot up and grabbed Rienna’s shoulders to look into her eyes.
“We’re wasting time; we have to mobilize— “
Rienna had clamped a hand over his mouth and locked her gaze on his, warning him to shut up and listen wordlessly.
“My friends, the unicorns, are holding the barrier. They can hold it as long as we need to and there are many more of them to hold it than an old man and his handful of scared acolytes,” Rienna assured him and the tenseness dropped away from Melchior so she lowered her hand. It was small comfort to him though; she could see Melchior had really cared for the old wizard.
“I think, for the first time, I’m grateful you and my brother are as asininely reckless as you are. They’re not ready, Rienna; the troops just need more time and I have been taking all of the burden on myself and pushing the rest of you out when I should have been utilizing you. I won’t make the same mistake again. Please tell me we can work together and give that old man his last wish.”
It was times like this that Rienna could see the Melchior she had known as a girl. She could see that rare passion and sincerity, not laced with his usual disdain and mockery. She smiled and nodded, then punched him in the jaw so hard, he was lucky if he didn’t get whiplash.
“I’ll heal that later if it bothers you too much. Don’t ever try to physically overpower me again or I’ll be healing a hole in your gut. Get dressed and meet us in the main hall. We have plans to set in motion,” Rienna simply told him as she closed the door behind her.
When Melchior entered the main hall, the others were already looking at maps and markers spread out on the tables and trying to decide how to utilize each other better. Finn was the only one who had a hand at archery so he wanted to work with the bowyers and archers. Krose and Dinsch both knew how to paint their way in and out of trouble so they could go a long way working with the spies and scouts. Verity knew her strong suit was desert survival and she knew the deserts better than any; if it came down to their armies having to fall back in the desert, she would be the best to map that out. Rienna was a good sword; Ashe was too but they hardly had the time to teach his style. Ashe decided he would be better off working with the smiths on more effective blades. Melchior watched them decide and was glad for their quick ability to fall into the effort and it made him feel even more foolish that he had been insisting on overseeing everything himself.
Before Melchior had come, he stopped by Ghyliad’s chamber to pay his respects to the old man and to watch the unicorns hold
ing the barrier. 3 of them would hold it at a time and they would switch off every 8 hours. One of the apprentices of Ghyliad was a woman and she was the one to relay anything the unicorns had to say to the others. It was both sad and peace of mind in those moments, but Melchior had gone into the main hall more relaxed for knowing that Ghyliad’s plans were not in vain and they still had time to go up against Myceum with all that they had.
They did manage to gain a small army of magicians, but magicians were mostly pacifists and aggravatingly neutral; however, Melchior could be pretty persuasive even to a stubborn set like them, so he would be the one to deal with them personally.
When the others noticed Melchior, they stopped what they were doing. He rubbed his jaw intentionally and shot Rienna a sly look. Verity had hurried over but hesitated before reaching him. She smiled apologetically then embraced him fully, laying a quick kiss on his uninjured cheek before backing away.
“I wasn’t sure I would see you again. Or even sure I wanted to. But I know I am glad for it now and I am hoping we can work together right this time,” Verity admitted diplomatically, but her honesty had forced a short burst of laughter from Rienna’s lips.
Melchior nodded gruffly, knowing he deserved a colder reception, folding his arms over his chest as he inspected the tables cursorily. When his eyes met his allies, he was all business.
“I’m glad to see you have all found duties to cover, but you have yet to know the intel we have gathered on Myceum. After I tell you, you will see why I hesitate to simply march on them as we are. The man in charge is exactly the lunatic you may have feared and underestimating him is suicide. Chevalle is no pushover and Viper has just as many generals waiting to cut us down without a second thought. There had been a strange hush in the network and even my spies are having trouble getting to the core of it. We have to be careful how we move; unfortunately, they are counting on us to be sloppy enough to actually fall into their traps. Theirs is an army that does not care to preserve their numbers. They are ready to die to the last man to achieve their ends. This isn’t just a war, it’s genocide.”
The Truth about Heroes: Complete Trilogy (Heroes Trilogy) Page 46