“That is not for me to tell.”
“Then why mention them?” Irmina’s voice was shrill. “Why tell me this now? Why not inform the Tribunal or some High Ashishin? If they’re those among Amuni’s Children as strong as you say, who know the secrets of the Bloodline, who can transform people into shadelings, why did they wait until now?”
“Harmony, my dear. There hasn’t been enough power, enough Mater, in Denestia, or in any of the realms to begin such an undertaking. Not since the gods were sealed in the Nether thousands of years ago.”
“And now there is?”
“See? You’re catching on.”
“How come?”
“Ah, my dear. That’s where I have to draw the line without breaking the rules. It’s time to go. Don’t worry, the shade won’t find you. I’ll scatter your scent to the thirty-two winds. Ride for the Vallum of Light. And avoid the Bastions. You wouldn’t want to draw the attention of the Pathfinders while you’re on this side of the wall. Oh, one more thing. Tell Jerem we’re even.”
With those words, Irmina’s world swirled and went black. Before she could react, a sensation came as if a great wind snatched her and threw her from a mountaintop. Heart racing, an unreleased scream stuck in her throat, her stomach attempting to spew its contents, she fell.
And lurched to a head-snapping stop. Black became light. Light slowly evolved into the world once more. When she came to her senses, she was unsure of her location.
Far off, a speck in the distance, a bright line sparkled and followed the land along the horizon. She knew that line. The Vallum. Attached to the wall and rising into the air another hundred feet was one of the Bastions of Light.
CHAPTER 30
Ancel kicked at a rat crawling across his filthy boots. Boots he’d taken from a dead soldier. The rodent’s squeal joined the multitude of squeaks around him. He didn’t need to look hard to see the numerous rats, some almost as big as man’s thigh, that scurried along the sewer tunnel. Covering his nose and mouth against the overwhelming stench of shit, sludge, mud, and only the Pits of Hydae knew what else, that clung to his boots and pants almost to his waist was futile. The air stank worse than a week old corpse. Breathing served to have the odor become a foul taste.
They had made good their escape through the canals and into the extensive drainage system under Randane. Dodged patrols, loud footsteps, shushed breaths, shadowy hiding places, and incessant bell tolls filled their flight. When they couldn’t escape a patrol’s path, Kachien commanded them to stand still wherever they hid, often around the corner in some alley and against a building. Tense moments edged on achingly as the soldiers would run by, passing them as if they were not standing in plain sight.
Mirza and Danvir huddled nearby, their forms silhouetted against the light provided by the tunnel’s opening. Outside, the rain fell in glinting sheets, and lightning crackled across the dark quilt of clouds covering the heavens and blotting out any signs of the morning sun. Separating the three of them from Kachien was a knee-deep flow of filth. At all times, Charra kept himself between Ancel and her.
There had been no chance to speak during their escape, and in fact, this was their first respite. Still, Ancel refused to talk to the woman. Not that he didn’t want to, but whereas his Kachien had been a tender, breathtaking, seductive flower with more than a touch of flame, this woman, this killer, was as hard as silversteel and colder than the Kelvore Mountains’ highest peak.
Six times on their way here, she’d slunk off to kill a patrolling regimental guard. Each time, she returned impassive and wordless. Not once did she shy away from Ancel’s accusatory gaze. He found it was he who broke contact whenever their eyes made four. How can you possibly be the same woman who shared your fears and tears with me?
“What’ve we done? What’ve we done? Gods be good, what’ve we done?” Danvir muttered.
“Survived,” Mirza answered, his voice thick.
“No.” Danvir trembled. “We killed men. Merchant’s guards. Do you know what that means? We murdered them.”
“It means you saved my life and probably Ancel’s too. The guard was going to run me through if you and Charra hadn’t interfered.” Mirza’s gaze shifted to Kachien for a brief moment. He sounded steadier by a hair than Ancel felt until his voice cracked. “A-And without her, the rest of them would’ve finished us. I–I thought I was dead for sure.” His eyes shone with wetness in the dim light. He scrubbed at his face.
“What happened up there?” Ancel gestured outside with a nod, rubbing at his folded arms as he thought about what he heard and saw. “All I remember is them hitting me, then Charra’s growls and the sound of fighting.”
“You resisted and they beat you.” Mirza’s voice regained some of its normal smoothness. “Then one sliced at me just as Danvir and Charra leaped on him. Your woman showed up then. And well, you saw the results.”
“Why’d it have to come to that?” Danvir’s words were a hoarse whine. “What did you two do?”
“Us?” Ancel gave him an incredulous stare. “We did nothing. We heard the screaming and ran outside. When we got there we saw someone huddled over the merchant.” He glanced at Kachien. “The guards found us in the alley and thought we did it. Although Master Callan told them different, they wouldn’t listen. They tried to arrest us.”
“Why’d you have to fight?” Danvir moaned. “Look what you made me do.” He looked down at his hands, horror written across his face. “The King’s regiment could’ve easily settled the matter when they arrived. They would’ve known you had nothing to do with the killings.”
Ancel shook his head. Their encounter and flight replayed through his head. “You don’t get it, do you? At first, I thought they were just merchant’s guards. But in all the running here, I realized they wore the same armor and emblems as the King’s men. The Silver Spear, the Charging Boar, the Mailed Fist, the Leaping Hound, the Hunter’s Bow, the Executioner’s Axe. All the King’s men.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Mirza said. “Why’d they think we had something to do with the killings?”
“They did not,” Kachien said. Her voice had its usual lilt, but she sounded much more in command, harder. Her gaze locked onto Ancel. “Those who seek you grew tired of me killing everyone they sent. So they chose to have the King’s guards do their work.”
“What?” Ancel couldn’t help his shocked expression.
“Who’s after him? Better yet, why?” Mirza asked.
“Neither is for me to say. I simply follow orders.”
“Listen, you whore!” Mirza snarled, utter disdain twisting his features. “When Teacher Calestis asked me-”
A slap rang out. Ancel hadn’t seen Kachien move. One moment she stood on the opposite side of the stream of waste, and the next, she was in front of Mirza, backhanding him.
“You will learn to respect me.” Kachien kept her hand raised for a moment before lowering it.
Charra released a low growl and shifted position slightly. Without thinking, Ancel reached out and grabbed a handful of fur.
Sullen-faced, Mirza rubbed at his cheek. “I–I’m sorry,” he muttered.
Charra strained against Ancel’s grip, but he held firm. “What were your orders?”
“To protect you even if it should cost me my life.” Kachien remained neutral, almost bored, as if reciting an instruction to continue travelling in one direction over another.
Danvir was still blubbering in the background about killing a man. His eyes shifted constantly, and they were blank, lost.
“Slap your friend,” Kachien said with an annoyed glance in the broad-shouldered young man’s direction.
“Why would-” Ancel began.
Another slap rang out. Mirza shrugged in response to Ancel’s glare. The muttering stopped, and Danvir peered down at them as if he woke from a dream.
Kachien stared at him, her yellow-brown eyes glowing in the dim light. “Do you wish to see your home again?” Danvir nodded. “Good. Then act
like a man. You saved your friends’ lives. If not for you and the pet, they would be dead. Killing is never easy, especially not your first. Weather the storm. Think of the good you have done to save them.”
“Why did we need to kill them?” Danvir whispered.
“Because they were bad men. Evil. Their kind needs killing. You will soon see.”
Ancel couldn’t believe this was the sweet girl he had taken to. “Who gave you orders to protect me?”
“Shin Galiana Calestis.”
Danvir and Ancel gaped. Mirza had no reaction.
“She’s a Teacher,” Ancel blurted. “She hasn’t been a Shin in over twenty years.”
“If you say so,” Kachien answered, but her face left no doubt as to what she thought. “I shall tell you as much as I am allowed. Some time ago, Amuni’s Children crossed from the Rotted Forest. They-”
“So now you’re trying to convince us with some peddler’s tall story?” Ancel made the contempt in his voice plain.
“No,” Kachien said, “With the truth. They destroyed several towns and clans. Mine included. Unfortunately for me, I was sent to protect a boy and watch a man at a village named Carnas in Ostania.” Kachien’s voice wavered. “Because of that, when my people were massacred I was not there to die with them in honor. They were the second family I have lost.”
“What happened to this boy and man?” Ancel asked, oblivious to the change in her state.
“I failed to protect the boy. They took him. So I was summoned here and instructed to protect you. I was told if I failed again to take my own life.”
Ancel snorted his disbelief. “As simple as that?”
“Yes. Still, if you do not believe me about your teacher,” her eyes shifted to Mirza, “You can ask him.”
Ancel’s eyes almost popped out of his head. Then he remembered Mirza’s earlier outburst. The meek expression on his friend’s face said the rest.
Danvir stared as much as Ancel did. “Is it true, Mirz?”
Mirza fidgeted for a bit, then he squeezed his eyes shut, inhaled deeply, and opened them again. “Yes. I mean, I’m not sure of the bits about Amuni’s Children, but what she said about Shin Galiana is true.” Mirza’s body deflated with the confession.
Seeing his friend’s face was one thing, but hearing Mirza actually confess brought a sudden anger coursing through Ancel. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He balled his hands into tight fists, fingernails digging painfully into his palms as he tried to focus on anything other than hitting his friend.
“I–I wanted to. But I couldn’t. She ordered me not to.” Mirza scrubbed at his face again. “What was I to do? You tell me. Someone who you knew as a Teacher reveals they’re still a full Ashishin following the Tribunal’s orders. What choice would you have?”
“What’d she tell you to do?” Ancel’s lip curled.
“She said she knew how concerned we all were for how you’ve been lately, since, you know…” Ancel nodded. Mirza continued, “Well, she told me to make sure you met her.” Mirza gestured with his head to Kachien.
Mirza’s story made sense. He knows I love learning about Ostania. And that I can’t resist a challenge. No wonder he took the bet. His anger still smoldering, Ancel turned to Kachien. “So it was all a lie then? Everything between us?”
Kachien looked away. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. “Yes. At first.”
Ancel’s world crumbled. The colors he experienced the last few days swirled across his vision. They roiled all around Kachien and the others. Even the filth within the drain glowed. He closed his eyes and shuddered. Remembering what Kachien told him, he sought the calm he used when he trained by forcing all his emotions into the deep pools within his mind until they became a light buzz. A sense of emptiness filled him, and he opened his eyes.
Kachien tilted her head. “Do you remember what happened when we…” Her voice trailed off, and she looked at the ground.
Ancel’s answer slipped out before he could think. “Y-Yes, I do.”
“Well, the power you have, Amuni’s Children want it. They desire you enough to have brought whatever shadelings escaped with them into the Broken Lands back across the Rotted Forest. And whatever they want, the shade wants.”
“How could you know this?”
“I did not. Not until you told me, and I felt what happened at the river. Whatever power came alive in you then, someone else here must have sensed it before. Remember what I told you about controlling your power. About what my people practiced. I am not supposed to be telling you this much, but…” Her gaze rose to meet his once more. “At first, you were a task, and like most men, a slave to your lust, to your weakness for female flesh. The best way for me to get close to you was in the bed. The other part of what I did was to help you grow. By bringing out your emotions I could help your power along.”
The words stung and added to the empty space in Ancel’s head and chest.
“But you became more than that.” Kachien’s face wrinkled in confusion. She heaved a sigh. “I have never had a man touch me the way you have. Make me feel the way you do. This is something new for me. All the others are just sex and me keeping up my disguise.” She closed her eyes as if it had taken everything for her to make such an admittance.
“Fuck. You,” Ancel growled. “No one is that hardened. Now, I’m supposed to believe someone may be after me from this side of the Vallum also? Why should I believe anything you’ve said. You’ve already proven how well you can lie. You all have.” He scowled at them.
“Not me,” Danvir protested.
Ancel spared him a glare that could have shattered glass.
“If I wanted you dead, you would be.” Tears flowed down Kachien’s cheeks as her impassive tone wilted. “If I wanted to take you, I could have done so outside the city, and no one would have known. Where I am from, you must be hard to survive or the land breaks you. If I did not feel as I feel, I could act if you were nothing. But I cannot.” She wiped at her face.
A part of Ancel wanted to doubt Kachien, but the look on her face touched him. He remembered all the time they spent together, the dinners, the music, their laughter, and lovemaking. That couldn’t all be a lie? Could it?
Outside, the storm raged, and the winds howled. Rain drummed harder and lightning rippled angrily.
“I believe her,” Mirza said, the sudden flashes illuminating his grim face. “I’ve kept it to myself all this time. But when Mother died my father would have nightmares for weeks after. He often talked in his sleep. He’d always say he was sorry to my mother over and over again. He blamed himself. One night, he mentioned how if he knew Pathfinders would’ve come for mother he would’ve ran away. When-”
“Pathfinders?” Danvir blurted. “Why would Pathfinders take your mother? She never used Mater to break the law.” He paused, a questioning expression on his face. “Or did she?”
“No,” Mirza said firmly, but his voice echoed his pain. “Mother never did any such thing. When I asked my father about it, he made me swear not to say a word. He said if I ever did, to anyone, they’d take me next. I still remember that night. How he cried.”
“What’d he say?” Ancel asked.
“That Mother lost control. He said at her age, it sometimes happens, so the Pathfinders came to take her where she wouldn’t be a danger to anyone. It’s the reason I’ve always pleaded with you to continue your training. I’d hate for the Pathfinders to come for you too.”
“Mirz, I…I…This can’t be real. Only criminals need fear the Pathfinders. Why would they-” Ancel remembered the conversation with Kachien then. How she asked about those who lacked emotional control, or those who failed the trials, or touched Mater on their own without training. His doubts withered and died.
“Besides she saved my life,” Ancel heard Mirza say as he regained his focus. “Ancel, I believe what we saw in the Greenleaf Forest were wraithwolves?”
Kachien’s attention snapped to Mirza. “Where? Here in Granadia?”
“Yes. Near our home.”
She shook her head. “No. I doubt they were. Shadelings cannot cross the Vallum of Light.”
Mirza gave a snort. “If you asked me several years ago, I would’ve said Pathfinders are good people, not some all powerful Ashishins who come and snatch your loved ones in the night. Until today, I believed Amuni’s Children wanting Ancel and the shade appearing again was impossible too. Not anymore.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Ancel implored. “If my father said they weren’t wraithwolves then we should believe him.”
“Like he told you the truth about yourself? About why they sent you here?”
Glowering, Ancel balled his hands into fists. The mere suggestion his father was somehow involved in this mess made his blood boil. Again, he subdued his emotions.
“You know, you’re my friend, Ancel. My best friend. But you can be naive at times,” Mirza added.
“He’s right,” Danvir said.
“Listen, if Shin Galiana knew about her and asked her to come protect you, then it’s obvious your father knew.” Mirza turned his hands palm upward. “It makes me wonder what else they’re hiding.”
“Regardless,” Ancel said, his voice tight as he resisted the temptation to touch his mother’s pendant, “We need to head home. That’s the only place we’ll find answers. And the only place I’ll be safe. What do you suggest, Kachien?”
“There is a way out.” She pointed outside into the pouring rain. “We need to cross this canal to the tunnels on the other side. They lead to the river. I shall warn you now. You will need to swim and dive near the end.”
Ancel almost gagged at the prospect of swimming and being submerged in the canal’s filthy water.
“So what’re we waiting for?” Danvir took a step toward the tunnel’s entrance.
“If you leave, the soldiers waiting above on those banks will cut you down.”
“They know we’re here?” Danvir eased back from the opening.
“Maybe not, but they are covering this way,” Kachien said. “I have seen their helmets bob up and down too many times now.”
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