Eve of Destruction

by C. E. Stalbaum

  “My instructors liked to tell me that all fear was ultimately born out of ignorance. I don’t know if that’s true, but I think in this case it might be.” Eve took a deep breath. “I don’t understand how I’ve been able to weave these spells so easily, but I need to figure it out. I’m just not sure what I can do.”

  “You need to test yourself,” Shaedra said. “You need to find your limits and push against them. It’s simple—you can’t be expected to control something you don’t understand.”

  “But how do I do that?”

  The Vakari smiled crookedly. “You use me.”

  Eve blinked. “What?”

  “Soldiers train against target dummies, but that won’t work for you,” Shaedra explained. “Your powers are born out of crisis, so I don’t think standing here and trying to hurl spells at a bale of hay is going to help you learn anything. You need real action, but unless we’re willing to go and round up a bunch of Dusties to throw at you, the only chance you have to get it is against me. You can’t harm me—not permanently.”

  “But doesn’t it…” Eve paused and took a deep breath. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

  “You mean getting shot or burned? Of course it hurts.”

  Eve winced. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Shaedra laughed. “A few days ago, I’m pretty sure you wanted your boyfriend to shoot me. Now you’re worried about causing me a little discomfort?”

  Eve glanced down at the woman’s limp arm. “You seem like you’re in enough pain.”

  The woman’s smile vanished as she clutched at her wound. “It feels like there’s still a sword jabbed inside me.”

  It was, Eve decided, an odd sensation to suddenly feel pity for a being so maligned and twisted as a Vakari, but it washed over her regardless. Whatever the woman’s motives, she had defended them against Chaval’s people on more than one occasion, and she had saved them from Aram, too. She might have been a caustic, bitter monster, but if actions were ultimately what defined someone, she had been as staunch an ally since they had met as anyone else. Zach hadn’t been able to accept that yet, but maybe she could.

  “Aren’t you worried I could make it worse?” Eve asked softly.

  Shaedra snorted. “Unless you know how to weave cellium spells, no.”

  “But I was able to harm you earlier, back in the forest after the train,” Eve said. “When you came at us, I knocked you away.”

  “You unraveled the spell he’d placed on me. That’s not exactly the same thing.”

  “But magic can affect you. Aram was able to do it, and that means the Enclave has a way of doing it.”

  Shaedra’s eyes flickered and a faint smile crept across her lips. “There are ways. And if you really are the Avenshal, then you might be able to command that power too.”

  “So if I do spar with you, then it could be dangerous,” Eve said. “Maybe it’s not such a good idea.”

  “Look, we don’t really have a choice here,” Shaedra told her. “You need to understand your powers, and the only way you’re going to do that is to unleash them again. For that, you need me. Let me worry about the details, and save your pity for someone who deserves it.”

  The Vakari stood and walked over to scowl out the dirty window. Eve sat in silence for a few minutes and watched her. Somewhere beneath the acerbic attitude and tattered clothing was a woman who had probably been quite striking once. Between her formidable height and fierce glare, she’d probably commanded respect just by walking into a room.

  Eve took a deep breath and wet her lips. “There’s something else I’ve wanted to ask you.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Your home,” Eve said softly. “There are all kinds of stories and legends. I wanted to know what really happened.”

  For a moment, it almost looked like Shaedra shrunk, like a great shadow had fallen across her shoulders and pushed her down. But then she blinked it away and raised her chin.

  “I happened.”

  Eve frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Whatever you want it to,” Shaedra said dismissively, turning around. “It’s not relevant anyway. What’s important here is you, and figuring out what we’re going to do.”

  “My mom told me once that the Enclave destroyed Vakar for disobeying them,” Eve pressed, unfettered. “Mr. Maltus said it was more complicated than that.”

  Shaedra just stared at her for several seconds, and it was hard not to wilt beneath the power of that green gaze. But Eve forced herself to stand strong, and eventually the other woman shook her head and sighed.

  “They weren’t punishing us, exactly,” she said finally. “They just didn’t care about saving us.”

  “Saving you from what?”

  “The Lesseks.”

  Eve frowned. “Isn’t that some ethnic group in Esharia?”

  “Now, yes,” Shaedra said. “Three centuries ago they had their own country right next to ours. We’d never really gotten along, and eventually they decided to attack. We weren’t ready for it, and the Enclave did nothing to help.”

  “Were they supposed to? I didn’t think they got involved in wars like that.”

  Shaedra snorted and sat back down in the chair. “They get involved in whatever they want as long as things can be manipulated to their advantage. But apparently we weren’t worth the time.”

  Eve nodded. “So they let you be conquered.”

  “They would have,” she whispered. “And it didn’t feel like anyone cared. Except me.”

  She fell silent, and Eve let it hang for a few minutes as Shaedra seemed to gather herself. Her eyes lost their focus, and it was like she was staring off at something in the distance…

  “I tried to come up with a way to stop them,” she went on eventually. “It was based on bits of research I’d gathered over the years. I thought I could unleash enough power to destroy them all, to completely wipe their soldiers from the map…”

  “That doesn’t seem possible,” Eve said softly.

  Shaedra shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know, but the Enclave was scared of it—terrified, even. They tried to stop me the entire time I was researching it. First one of their agents tried to convince me to give it up. Then he tried to sabotage what I was doing. Finally when I attempted to actually weave the spell, he and a bunch of others attacked me.”

  “So what happened?”

  “They killed me.”

  Eve frowned and leaned forward. “I don’t…”

  “Not before I could unleash the spell, or at least part of it,” Shaedra explained. “I was bleeding, dying, and I knew I didn’t have the strength to face the Flensing. So I Defiled, and the spell was…not what I expected it to be.”

  The woman ran a hand through her hair and looked up at Eve again. “I created us. I created me. And in the process, I wiped out thousands of Lesseks. They never took Vakar because I destroyed it first.”

  Eve swallowed and shook her head. “With one spell? I don’t see how that’s even possible…”

  “Don’t you?” Shaedra asked. “That’s exactly what we’re talking about with you, isn’t it? Except you’re not just a normal mage like me—you’re the Avenshal, corrupted by the power of a dark god. If I could destroy an entire country—if I could create an entirely new race of monsters—imagine what you could do if you don’t learn to control it.”

  “I…”

  Shaedra waved a hand and stood. “I’m not very useful to you as a historian, but maybe I can be as an example. I was a Defiler—I am a Defiler—but not because I intended to be. I sundered the Fane out of fear and desperation because I didn’t understand what I was capable of. The Enclave never let me test my spell or my theories. Instead they did what they always do—they bury the knowledge instead of trying to understand it. They hide from the truth and then act surprised when it comes back to haunt them later. You don’t need to make that mistake.”

  “What if I…” Eve clenched her hands and bit down on her lip
. “What if I can’t control it?”

  “Then we die,” Shaedra said flatly. “All of us. Fortunately for you, you’re a smart girl and you have people who want to help you. You’ll figure it out.”

  “I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or not,” Eve muttered.

  “It should. Right now, though, you should relax. Find a bath if you can, or just wait for the boys to fetch us dinner. I’m going to scout around a little bit and see if I can find someplace nearby that we can practice—assuming you don’t mind being left alone.”

  She did, actually, but then she decided it was foolish beyond reason. Here she was, the Avenshal, someone with so much power inside of her that she was supposed to destroy the Fane…and she was scared of being left alone? She might have been in the slums of the Dusty capital, but that shouldn’t have mattered—it didn’t seem like the Dark Messiah should have been afraid if she were left alone in the middle of the Void, for Edeh’s sake.

  And maybe controlling that fear was the first step in accepting what she was.

  “I’ll be fine,” Eve said.

  Shaedra eyed her for a long moment, and Eve couldn’t help but feel she was being sized up. Finally the Vakari nodded and headed out the door.

  ***

  “How are you holding up?”

  Zach tilted to face Danev as the older man took a swig from a bottle of whiskey and then a long drag from a fresh cigar. He looked haggard, certainly, as all of them did, but a simple drink had apparently gone a long way towards repairing the damage. He was once again calm and in control, the calculating businessman they’d come to rely on over this past week.

  Zach wasn’t sure he had weathered this most recent storm nearly as well himself. He was tired, sore, confused…and more than a little angry. Mostly at himself.

  “It seems like I should be asking you that,” Zach replied, biting down on a piece of dried meat. The two of them sat together on stools at the pub waiting for their rather sizeable order of food to be filled. Normally he would have winced at the prospect of eating anything from a place like this, but now he was so hungry they could have cooked up balma steak and he wouldn’t have thought twice about eating it.

  “I’d like to claim that I used to be in better shape,” Danev murmured, “but that would be stretching the truth. I’ve never been much of an outdoorsman.”

  “I meant because it was your bodyguard that tried to kill us.”

  “Ah, yes, well, that just validates a decision I made a long time ago.”

  Zach leaned on his elbow and lowered his voice a bit. The pub was almost empty, but he didn’t feel like taking unnecessary chances.

  “I assume you mean staying away from the Enclave,” he said.

  Danev nodded gravely. “I severed my last official tie to them almost ten years ago. I still have some semi-reliable contacts on the inside, but nothing like before.”

  “I’ve been wondering about that, actually. You described your college friends as a bunch of rebels who hated the Enclave and everything it stood for. So then how did you end up entangled with them at all?”

  “That,” he whispered, “is a long story.”

  “They don’t seem to be in a rush to cook our dinner,” Zach pointed out.

  Danev made an odd face and took another swig of whiskey. “People like to think they get wiser as they get older, and in some small ways they might. More often than not, though, they forget just as much as they learn—and then end up cynical or even downright bitter.”

  Zach grunted. “That describes my parents pretty well.”

  “It describes most people, I imagine,” Danev said. “When I finally left Valmeri it was like stepping outside of a tent in the middle of a hurricane. I’d gone from a safe, nurturing environment to something more like an endless gunfight. I’m sure you had a similar experience in the service.”

  “Sometimes literally,” he murmured.

  “Well, the point is that once I left, the crystal clear waters I had been staring at for the past four years suddenly become incredibly murky. We had been fighting to protect an imaginary group of people, and that never hit me until I left school behind.”

  Zach frowned. “What do you mean?’”

  “We had this notion that there was a group of people out there just waiting for us to save them,” Danev explained. “And that once we solved their problems—once we brought them food, medicine, and all the other things we thought the world was depriving them of—they would embrace us as their saviors.”

  “That almost sounds like the Polerian War,” Zach commented. “Wasn’t that the whole reason we got involved in the first place?”

  “Partially, and yes, the similarities are striking. Which is all the more damning, really—we were the first generation after the war, and you would think we might have learned something. Instead we were just as arrogant in our way, just as certain that we were right and that no one could tell us differently.”

  He puffed at his cigar. “Anyway, my point was that after Valmeri, I had to make a lot of tough choices just like everyone else. Simon and Tara’s plan had fallen through, our group had collapsed, and suddenly I was alone in the world.”

  “So you turned to the Enclave,” Zach reasoned.

  “Not exactly. Glenn did, as you know, but I always had a reasonably keen business sense, and I wanted to get started on my own. I raised enough money to start a few small shops, but I knew that ultimately I wasn’t going to get anywhere being the black sheep. For all our supposed power and influence, a mage who takes the Oath Rituals has surprisingly limited choices in front of him. He either goes on to teach others, joins the Enclave directly, or serves at a temple—and the last option isn’t easy if you happen to be male.”

  “And you didn’t do any of those,” Zach said.

  “No, and I knew the Enclave would keep their eyes on me. I decided to make it easy for them and offered my services in a limited capacity. We had a functional relationship over the years, for the most part. I passed them along information, and they left me alone to run my business.”

  Danev sighed and tapped the ashes off his cigar. “I never really thought of it as blood money, but in some ways, that’s exactly what it was. When I severed ties five years ago, I doubted they had enough influence left in the west to really pressure me, if they even wanted to. They’d had two decades to make certain that I wasn’t sharing their secrets or Defiling—I figured they might just leave me alone.”

  “I thought about that a lot while we were walking,” Zach said. “About Aram, I mean. Do you really think the Enclave placed him with you based on Mrs. DeShane’s visions?”

  “Far-fetched,” Danev dismissed. “Too many in the Magister’s Council doubted Tara’s powers, and Eclipseans don’t exactly sprout fully-formed out of corn fields. Despite the Enclave’s influence and power, they’re not in the habit of wasting resources.”

  “So you think it was luck, then?”

  “I think I underestimated how valuable I was as an information gatherer,” he murmured. “And they weren’t willing to sever that tie, even if I was.”

  Zach nodded idly and glanced to the other patrons. None of them seemed to care at all about what was going on around them. Sadly, the cook behind the bar seemed to have inherited their apathy. At this rate, Zach might have to order more jerky just to make his stomach shut up.

  “I’d like to say I should have known better,” Danev whispered after finishing off his bottle, “but I did know better. I checked him out for months. I had people I trust vouch for him. I looked the gift horse squarely in the mouth and it didn’t bite.”

  “Speaking of biting, I don’t want to leave Eve alone with Shaedra too long,” Zach said.

  “If she wanted to do something, she’s had—”

  “I know, she’s had plenty of opportunities,” he muttered. “And she hasn’t given us any reason to doubt her. But after Aram and everything else that’s happened…”

  Danev clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Ev
e can take care of herself, you know.”

  Zach sighed. “Apparently she has the power to do a lot of things.”

  “I’m not talking about magic,” Danev said, smiling wryly. “She’s a DeShane. They always figure out ways to get into trouble and then claw their way out of it.”

  Zach grunted. “I hope you’re right.”

  “Every man has to believe in something,” Danev said wistfully. “Wouldn’t you rather it be her?”

  Zach nodded and gnawed at another piece of dried meat. He had never doubted his friend in his entire life, and he hadn’t once regretted it. Was there a reason to start now? Maybe he could help her through it, or maybe he didn’t even have to. Maybe he just needed to be there like he always was, the loyal fool willing to do anything to get a smile.

  Because it was worth it each and every time.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “It’s a Goddess-damned circus!”

  It wasn’t a terrible description of the day’s events, Amaya Soroshi mused, but that didn’t stop her from tossing the nearby soldier a warning glare. He clamped his mouth shut and turned his attention back to the proceedings. Amaya stared at him for a few more seconds before shifting her eyes down to the bottom level.

  Reporters swarmed the ground floor of the Hall of Innovation, including many from the other side of the country. President Janel’s arrival anywhere was big news, naturally, but a meeting like this only a week before the election was particularly significant. Janel had been avoiding Chaval in person and even by proxy for months now; he had left his slanderous campaign messages to the eastern media and the occasional pamphlet or poster out here. He hadn’t visited Cadotheia personally since before Chaval had even declared candidacy.

  But today that had all changed, and the streets thundered with jeering crowds. The locals saw Janel’s visit as a sign of weakness, perhaps a last desperate plea for a coalition government since the polls were so skewed against him. Chaval had tried to play that down, at least publically. He wanted to be seen as taking the high ground in all of this, and he was ultimately the one who had invited Janel—and the distant third-place magi candidate, Karyn Marose—to Cadotheia in the first place.