by Sam Ryder
She was right, I knew. I needed to get control of my emotions, take all the sadness and anger and hone it into a weapon I could use against the Morgoss. The only other option was to let it destroy me. Once, perhaps, that’s what would’ve happened. But I was Level 4 now, and if we didn’t have a Finder it meant we would need to take greater risks now. And I was the one to take them. “I’m sorry,” I said, duly chastened. “Just…please. Give me another mission. An important one.”
Persepheus bit her lower lip, considering. “The dragon has not been seen for many days,” she said.
“You want me to find it.” You want me to find Vrill.
“Yes,” Persepheus said, looking to her sisters to verify their agreement. Min shook her head, but it wasn’t a refusal. Airiel’s chin lifted and then she nodded once in agreement. “After two Blacks have passed. Not a second earlier. This mission will require your full strength.”
It was good enough for me. I steeled myself against another wave of pain that washed over me. Emotional, not physical. All the physical injuries I’d endured while on Primo were nothing compared to what I was feeling now.
I took that wave and allowed it to harden me, to compress my heart into something smaller but stronger, incapable of being broken, like a lump of coal transformed into a diamond.
“I’ll do it,” I said. And then I left.
EIGHT
ARMY OF DARKNESS
Vrill was exhausted. Not from travelling so far, though she felt fatigue from the journey too. Truth be told, it was the dragon, Mrizandr, who did most of the work, its broad, leathery wings undulating tirelessly for hours on end.
Her exhaustion, however, came from fighting the will of the Morgoss. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day she could feel their minds pushing through the collar clamped taut around her neck. It was the worst during the Black, like a creeping evil tasting her flesh, devouring her bit by bloody bit.
Vrill fought it because she had to. Though she’d had her differences with the Three and Eve, those who served them were innocent. Their Warriors were but children in their knowledge, having been taught one way and one way only. She didn’t want them to die because of her. And she also didn’t want the Three to lose, not if it meant the Morgoss won.
And then there was Sam Ryder. He’d been an enigma to her. Pure in all the ways that counted. Honorable. Determined. He’d changed her perspective for the better in so many ways. Unjaded her. Which made it even more awful that she’d been dragged into that damned mirror in Annakor and found herself a slave to the will and whim of the Morgoss, used against the man who had helped bring her back from the dark place she’d been in when they’d first met.
She refused to give in. Even now, she felt herself being bent. She strained against it, her jaw sore from gritting her teeth. She growled, the animalistic sound enough to remind her she was still herself, even if her body was maneuvered like that of a puppet.
Even from this great distance, the Morgoss’s commands heated the collar around her neck. We are here, she thought. She fought them, her body feeling like a grape ready to pop under the strain. In the end, she lost. Again. She sent the command to the dragon using her other collar, which was connected by some dark magic to the larger collar that adorned the winged beast’s scaled neck. It was one word:
Land.
The magnificent animal obeyed immediately. It always saddened her to see that. A strong, powerful creature turned into a house pet. Sit. Beg. Roll over.
They had that in common, a bond that made her feel close to Mrizandr, even when he was trying to kill her friend.
The dragon circled, lower and lower, bringing them down to the treacherous terrain below. Treacherous was an understatement. Though the featureless, rocky flatlands between Annakor and the Three’s ward shields was unforgiving and plagued with monsters, the land itself didn’t actively try to kill you.
This place, however, was a miasma of sheer cliffs falling away to razor-edged rocks, bubbling pools of boiling black liquid, and geysers smoking with putrid yellow emissions. Vrill had learned a lot about Tor over the few years she’d lived here, but this place was foreign to her. She hated everything about it.
For the most part, they’d flown above the noxious air and hazards, but now the yellow smoke stung her eyes and made her crinkle her nose at the sulfuric fumes.
Heat came off the rock itself, and she felt like she was being cooked alive. Even her dragon, which didn’t mind heat in the least, seemed put off by the change in atmosphere, releasing a mournful cry even as he was forced to circle lower, eventually landing on a finger of rock stretching over a canyon. Down below, a raging black river tumbled along toward some unknown conclusion. It might’ve been a metaphor for Vrill’s life, or at least the last month of it.
She wanted to command the dragon to take off and leave this place forever, but the Morgoss wouldn’t allow it. The command came short and sharp into her mind: Bend or break. The choice is yours.
She knew if it came down to it, she would break if she needed to. But right now, bending was the better option. What is your command? she returned, her own thoughts sounding foreign to her, stilted and hollow. It’s like she was inside a version of herself that had become a prison, pounding away at a door no one even knew existed.
Find them, the Morgoss said. Based on the raspy, scraping voice, it was the demon overlord made of smoke, a phantom that seemed to be created of evil itself.
She knew exactly who—what—the demon wanted her to find, because images had plagued her nightmares each time she’d tried to sleep during the journey to this point.
She shuddered and then dismounted, hissing through her teeth as the hot rocks burned the soles of her feet. She bore the pain without question, tied to the path her masters had set her on.
Stay here, she sent to Mrizandr, and knew the beast would obey without question. Despite all the strength he held in his massive body, his mind was weak, trained from birth to be subservient. The dragon knew no other life than the one he had been born into, serving the Morgoss. Vrill wondered if ignorance was better than knowledge. It would be easier, that was for certain.
But better?
Never, she thought, having just enough strength to push the thought through the dark wall erected around her mind.
Do you need to be reminded who you serve? the Morgoss said.
She was being foolish, she knew, fighting them so brazenly. Yes, she needed to fight, but smarter. Strength against strength wasn’t the way. She needed to choose her battles, and now was not the time. Yes, forcing them to punish her would slow down this particular mission, but it would only weaken her for later, more important battles.
No, she said, forcing acquiescence into the single thought.
Good. We will lead you to the prize.
The prize, she thought, not allowing her tone to accidentally slip through her net and into the minds of her captors.
Her feet moved of their own accord, and she didn’t fight them. Instead, she used the reprieve from the constant struggle to think, to plan, to rest.
The return journey and what came after would be crucial to whether Tor survived the great war that was coming.
While she considered her role in all of this, her body moved seamlessly down the cliffside, toward that roiling black river. It felt good to let go of herself. Her muscles seemed to unwind, her bones unstiffening. She was so close to the rapids now that the heat was scalding her skin. Hissing, she scuttled down the next portion faster, ducking behind the protection of a stone outcropping that blocked the worst of the heat. She looked around. There was nowhere left to go. On both sides were sheer drops into the boiling water below.
It didn’t make sense. Surely the Morgoss didn’t bring her all this way just to kill her. Or maybe they did. Who knew how their warped minds worked?
Foolish woman, they said. As you have learned to obey, you will learn to trust our judgment. We will show you the way.
Her body began to move again, towar
d one of the drop-offs. This time, she fought it, her mind and body rebelling against the act of suicide. It was something that had never been in her, no matter how bad things had gotten. She would only kill herself if it would save the others.
Not yet.
Her body had other ideas, however, dragging her forward. She screamed, throwing her body to the ground and clawing at the rough rock until she felt her fingernails crack and bleed. Her body merely squirmed like a snake, moving continuously backwards toward the edge, eventually slipping over, gaining momentum as gravity strained at her.
A large bubble must’ve popped in the river below, because she felt a splash of water against her feet, burning into her skin.
She grabbed the edge, clinging to it with whatever resistance she had left, which wasn’t much. They could kill her, but they would have to earn it.
Another splash of boiling water on her skin. Sound was coming from the back of her throat, a noise of pain and rebellion, and then—
They shattered her will, forcing the rest of her to obey, arching her back and shoving her into an outward swing, reaching the high point before rocketing back down, ripping her fingers from the cliff’s edge and sending her tumbling toward the black water below.
Instead of being swallowed by the dark river, she landed on hard stone, tumbling into darkness, her elbows and knees bruising as they cracked and jolted.
A cave. There was a hidden cave here, just beneath the rock platform she’d stood on a moment earlier.
She peered into the darkness, her Level 4 Seeker eyes picking up shapes. Gray and hunched over, shifting in the shadows.
And then she saw the eyes. Orange around the edges before giving way to needle-small black cores.
This was why she was brought here, what she was commanded to retrieve.
The very same she’d dreamed about Black after fucking Black.
The army of darkness was about to be unleashed on Tor.
NINE
THE CHAPTER IN WHICH I LOSE MY MIND. AGAIN.
This world was supposed to harden you to the pain of loss, wasn’t it? When you kept losing the people around you, surely each new loss would feel smaller than the last. Right?
Fully submerged in the ooze bath that was healing my shoulder, my nose and the many other bumps and bruises I’d acquired while on Primo, I called bullshit.
Because I felt Eve’s loss in the core of my being. I wasn’t in love with her or anything like that, but I did love her. And, maybe, one day I could’ve fallen for her completely.
But this isn’t a lighthearted fantasy love story. This is my reality. Unforgiving. Deadly. I remembered how even Minertha, who had experienced this dark, gritty world from the beginning of its transformation, mourned for Dravon when he was killed in the Black. She’d made the mistake of falling in love with him. Her only reward had been pain.
Finally, I understood why she’d offered herself to me five minutes after Dravon was dead. She wanted to feel something else. Something other. I’d refused her then, doing what I thought was a kindness. Maybe it was. But if I put myself in her stone shoes now, I hated myself for rejecting her when she needed me the most.
Because now I needed to feel something too.
I rose up from the ooze, waiting for the magical, healing slime to slide off my face. I coughed and spat out the rest. Ha. I spat out spittle. My stupid joke would’ve been funnier in my head before. Hell, I probably would’ve shared it with Beat, who, of course, was sitting nearby, waiting for me to emerge. She would’ve laughed too and then we’d laugh at ourselves for being idiots with juvenile senses of humor.
How had I tricked myself into thinking there could be anything light about this world of darkness?
Beat said, “Are you okay?”
The simple question almost undid me, because it was exactly what I knew she would ask, and Beat was someone who always seemed to live up to my expectations. I nodded, once. Was it a lie? No, I realized. I was okay. Had to be. There was no other choice.
By now Beat would’ve heard from the others who’d remained at camp during the Black. They would’ve told her how I ran out of the Black like a crazy person, carrying our lifeless Finder in my arms. She should’ve asked me whether Eve was okay.
But she didn’t, which was a kindness without measure. Maybe she didn’t need to, because the truth was written all over my face.
“What happened after I—we—left?” I asked, trying to fill a rare uncomfortable silence that spread its wings between us.
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter right now.”
“It’s all that matters,” I said with too much force, a gut reaction to feeling like an outsider in the one place I’d ever really felt like an insider. Beat flinched slightly. Frowned. I backtracked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap…”
“No, you’re right. We need to move forward. As Protectors, Seekers…we have a responsibility.” Beat sounded so serious and wise, an abrupt change from her usual silly and wisecracking self. I guess we’d both been changed over the last few days. “We fought hard on successive Blacks. It was pretty brutal. We lost two more.”
I ground my teeth together. The losses always hurt, but without a Finder, they hurt even more now. My vision of growing a large, powerful army to face-off against the Morgoss and their monsters was fading away. Before long, our numbers would dwindle down to the tiny force we’d had when I first arrived. Were all our efforts for nothing?
“Who?” I said, because I refused to become a person who just counted the numbers. Every number had a name, a personality behind it.
“Shaza,” Beat said first.
I was ashamed. It was a name I didn’t know. I used the process of elimination. It didn’t sound like a name fit for the white-furred creature I hadn’t been formally introduced to. Which meant it was the strong-looking Lri Ay woman. “She was a good Warrior?” It felt weird not knowing.
Beat nodded. “We will feel the loss in the Blacks to come.”
“And the other?”
Beat swallowed and a pit formed in my stomach. She was hesitant to tell me the other loss. She feared it would be the piece of news that broke the Seeker’s back. But she also didn’t withhold the information or try to sugarcoat it. “Munzy,” she said.
I hated that I felt a swell of relief that it wasn’t Lace or Millania at the same time I felt a wave of sadness. The giantess had been timid but kind. To be honest, I didn’t think she would ever fight in a Black, but then again I’d been surprised before. Like with Belle, who’d been like a scared field mouse when she first arrived, only to become a giant spider-slaying, katana-wielding ninja before too long. The ooze helped transform people, but I believed it only took one’s natural abilities and made them stronger.
Yes, I was distracting myself from Munzy. Poor, poor Munzy.
It hit me like a knee to the groin.
“She fought in the Black because of what I said to her. I gave her the courage to do it.” Goddesses damn it. Goddesses damn it all into the Black. “I fucking killed her.”
Beat slid off the rock she was sitting on and took a step toward me. “Sam,” she said, using the firm voice she always used on me when I was doing that thing I liked to do: take responsibility for everything that happened, including the decisions of others. The thing was, I knew I was doing it, but this time it felt like it was all on me. How could it not be? If I hadn’t opened my big mouth in an attempt to give the giantess the mental strength to go along with her physical strength, she would still be alive. I’d pushed her out of the nest when she wasn’t ready to fly.
“Sam,” Beat said again, trying to get my attention on her, knowing that I’d turned inwards.
It was too late. I’d already slipped over the edge and gravity had grabbed me by the balls and sucked me down into the abyss.
I stood up, dripping ooze. It was all too much. Eve. Munzy. This fucking world. I had a mission to go on, but not for two Blacks, which left a helluva lot of time to burn. And I couldn’t s
pend it in my own head, not for a second longer. “Thanks for being here when I came out,” I said to Beat, “but I need some time.”
Beat opened her mouth to say something, I’m guessing to refuse to leave me alone, but then nodded slowly.
As I passed her, I placed a hand on her shoulder, hoping it could convey everything that words could not at this particular moment.
I moved on, climbing out of the gully. I felt kinda bad, because the truth was I didn’t want to be alone. I just didn’t want to be around someone who knew me as well as she did, who could see into my soul.
I needed a distraction.
~~~
I found the dark-haired beauty in one of the huts, alone, lying on her back and staring up at a crack in the roof.
“You,” she said, her eyes darting down to glare at me. “You motherfucking coward!” She screamed it, simultaneously shoving to her feet and charging right at me like she was a bull and I was the matador holding the red cape.
Her fists were a tornado, a vortex of fury, beating my chest, my arms…she even got a few good shots in to my face. I didn’t try to protect myself, letting her take out her anger and pain on me. She’d clearly been protective of Munzy. It was natural that she blamed me for what happened. I blamed me.
When she realized I wasn’t going to defend myself, it served only to intensify her anger. I realized that she wanted to feel something too.
She hit me again, her hand cracking against my cheek. And again, harder, with enough force this time to make my head turn to the side. I swiveled back to face her. I would be her punching bag a thousand times over if it helped her get through this loss.
And then she did the opposite to what I expected. Instead of hitting me again, she stepped forward, so close her body brushed against mine, lifted onto her tiptoes, and kissed me.
The immediate effect was better than anything else, and I kissed her back harder, matching the intensity of her passion, picking her up, my hands groping at her ass as her tongue slipped inside my mouth.