Spellscribed Tales: First Refrain

by Kristopher Cruz

  Devinia panted, trying to keep her panic and fatigue from overwhelming her. “It’s really hard to follow you, mother.”

  “I know.” She responded, looking around cautiously. “But you have to try.”

  “Is it true?” Devinia asked her mother. “Is our own family trying to kill us?”

  “Yes, my daughter.” Ashrava said. “But we only need to evade them long enough to gain an audience with the Matron of a different house. If I can, I’ll see they keep you safe.”

  “But mother, what about-” she started to ask.

  “We need to go.” Ashrava commanded, melding back into the shadows.

  They fled again, diving into deep shadow and shifting through pools of darkness like eels cutting through an inky sea. Her mother led her to a small park plaza along the outer limits of the city. Their wildland, called Fiorache’Sora, awaited them at the edge of the plaza. A circular stone formed a viewing platform where citizens could sit and enjoy the gloom of the Fiorache’Sora while taking part in public activities.

  Unfortunately, a ring of lights illuminated the cleared land like a wall to anyone seeking to cross in shadows. Even the canopy of interwoven branches had been grown away from the outlying forest, ensuring nothing could cross from the woods into the city using shadows cast by the branches. Some elves in charge of city defense would patrol the city canopy, cutting down any branches that grew too close.

  “The Forest of Night Eternal.” Ashrava told her, leading the two to the end of the plaza. Only two dozen yards away, the first of the grand trees soared up into the sky, hundreds of feet tall and more than thirty feet across with dozens of spindle-like branches jutting out in seemingly random patterns. Only the branches near the top had leaves, the rest were bare. The trees only got taller and thicker the deeper into the forest one went. Some of them were tall enough that one could fall from the top, and if somehow they missed every branch on the way down, they would still have quite some time to consider their demise.

  “We’re going there?” Devinia asked.

  Ashrava glanced down at her with a frown. “Are you scared?”

  “Yes.” The younger admitted.

  Ashrava hesitated a second before replying. “Good. It will keep you alive.” She whispered.

  Devinia felt, rather than heard, the presence of someone else on the plaza. She started to turn her head, but her mother reached out and grabbed her shoulder before she could do so.

  “Don’t.” she replied. “When I say so, run into the forest, shadowmeld and go as deep as you can. I’ll find you and take you to somewhere safe.”

  Devinia could tell now there was significantly more than one new presence in the plaza. Her mother must have known of their arrival many seconds before her. Ashrava pushed her shoulder suddenly.

  “Go!” she shouted, whirling towards their pursuers. Devinia broke into a run. Behind her, she heard the subtle sounds of knives slicing the air concluding in the thwack of them hitting home. She somehow made it across the brilliant beam of light without being hurt. She dove for the deepest shadow, trying to ignore the sounds of her mother crying out in pain. With tears streaming down her face, the young elf was swallowed up in the darkness.

  She at first raced into the forest, but as the sounds of fighting behind her grew dim, she became fearful for her mother. She was a good assassin, but there were several trying to kill her. Devinia didn’t want to believe it was her own family trying to kill them. It had happened to houses before; a particular family in the bloodline brought shame to their line and had been cut off. Confused, Devinia reasoned that she had not yet begun her life in the family. Why should she be targeted?

  She came back around, staying in shadowmeld until she got to the edge of the forest. In the plaza across the band of light cutting through the perpetual gloom of the forest, it seemed that the fight was already over. Ashrava was dropped to both knees, cut in several places. Devinia could see throwing knives embedded in her arms and legs, and by the way she labored to breathe she could tell there had been some kind of poison on them.

  Of the assassins pursuing them, only two remained standing. The other four that had arrived, whether dead or just injured, lay strewn about the plaza.

  One of the assassins held Ashrava by the hair, and the other leaned forward, resting her arm on her bent knee as she talked to Devinia’s mother face to face. In the stillness of the night, she could hear every word being spoken.

  “Oh, my poor Ashrava.” The female said, sounding familiar. “You were warned, several times even, that your choices of contracts were sloppy. You didn’t even verify the last one was legitimate before taking it. You’ve fallen, girl.”

  “Spare me your condescension, Matron.” Ashrava spat weakly. “I did what I had to...to support my family.”

  “And look where that got them.” the female replied. “Your husband lies dead across the loom he loved more than you, and all your children have been found and eliminated, save the last.”

  Ashrava stared hatefully back at the matron. “You have to follow every letter of the law, huh? You couldn’t just kill me and let my children go.”

  “She doesn’t even grieve for her husband.” The female observed. Devinia felt another presence in the shadows around her, but it seemed just as interested in the event in the plaza.

  “They will no longer target you if you are not a member of her family.” A voice whispered in Devinia’s ear. The words seemed to come from anywhere, and nowhere at the same time. “Then you could at least save yourself.”

  “You know the law,” the matron said. “When a head of household falls into our ‘care’, we prune their immediate family from the great tree of their lineage. It is our way, and you have executed those same orders on half a dozen targets in your time.”

  “If you want to live,” The voice whispered, “You need to go out there now.”

  Devinia’s mind raced. Now that she wasn’t being forced to react and could actually think, things became clearer to her. Her mother, as aloof and distant as she had been the whole twenty years of her life, had been trying to protect her in some way. But she had also been making mistakes, doing sloppy work; and she must have done something deserving of her name being erased from the House of Nightsever.

  If Devinia wanted to live, she had to not be Ashrava’s daughter. There was a way, but she didn’t know if they would hear her out before cutting her throat. It was her only chance; she didn’t think she would last long in the Forest of Night Eternal without her mother to guide and teach her anyway.

  Devinia withdrew from the shadows, stood straight and walked steadily out of the forest. She crossed into the line of light and took a breath before speaking.

  “Wait!” she shouted, as Ashrava’s eyes widened in fear.

  “No…” she murmured, unable to evoke motion from her poisoned limbs.

  “Oh?” the matron mused. “The prey returns to us. Your daughter is too kind. Perhaps she is willing to accept the natural order of things, like she has been taught to.”

  Devinia could see the tremble in her mother’s jaw, the fear in her eyes. She knew then that Ashrava had been trying to buy her as much time as possible to flee as far into the forest as she could; but that would not be the way that Devinia would survive. If her mother had already accepted her death, then what she was about to do would suffice just as well.

  “I, Devinia of the house of Nightsever, reject all ties and bonds of the bloodline!” She shouted, walking closer to the group. It was almost imperceptible, but she could see recognition cross both the eyes of her mother and the Matron of the Nightsever.

  “And in so doing, lose claim to all benefits and requirements of the house.” Devinia spoke, repeating a speech that she had been taught in one of her classes, but modifying it to fit herself. “And in so doing, lose my name and my fortune, becoming a lost seed amidst the trees of great houses.”

  The matron seemed amused, her eyes indicating the smile she hid beneath her mask. “Clever.”
She said in response. “I see your daughter is more cutthroat than you were.” She tapped the flat of her dagger against the side of her leg as she thought. “I do believe she did it right, but what if I don’t want to acknowledge it?”

  Devinia felt like melting into a puddle and dying of terror, but she managed to reduce the reaction to a slight tremble in her hands.

  “If you did that, you wouldn’t be following the laws both kings have set down.” Devinia replied, her defiant voice sounding small in the large plaza. “And then, since you weren’t following the law, then I guess you wouldn’t be so set on killing me too.”

  The matron laughed. “Honest. Not fully cognizant of every possibility, but well thought out. Fine. I, the matron of the Nightsever house, will strip both your name and your belonging to my house if you agree to one condition.”

  “What is the condition?”

  “Would you do anything to survive the night?” the matron asked.

  Devinia nodded. “Yes.” She replied.

  The matron drew a long dagger and threw it. It bit, point first, into the soft grass in front of the girl. “Then you have only to cut all ties to your family. Permanently.”

  Tension visibly slipped out of Ashrava’s body.

  Devinia paled. “You want me to-”

  “Do it, child.” Ashrava spoke.

  “But…” Her daughter hesitated.

  “This way you get to live!” Ashrava exclaimed as loudly as she could manage in her weakened state. “I am already lost, all that changes is the hand that holds the knife.”

  Devinia plucked the dagger up and walked onto the plaza. She walked in front of her mother and knelt facing her. Her hand trembled so badly that it nearly rattled against the stone beneath her. She looked her mother in the eyes, hoping there was another chance. Maybe she could turn and cut the matron down, or maybe-

  “It will be all right, child.” Ashrava said, her regal calm coming over her again. “You have much potential, and I did everything I could to help you grow. Just please… let me guard your life one last time.”

  Devinia leaned into her mother, wrapping her left arm around her shoulder and neck in a final embrace. She sobbed, and tightened her grip on the dagger and touched the tip to her mother’s chest.

  “Just a bit higher up, dear.” Ashrava whispered, adjusting her aim. “You want to make every strike your best, and most importantly your first.”

  Devinia let out one final sob, and plunged the dagger to the hilt. Her hand became hot and slick with blood. Ashrava let out a drawn out sigh and became still.

  Devinia held onto her mother for several seconds, crying. Shortly, the matron pulled the two apart. Ashrava’s body lay on her back, the dagger protruding from her breast.

  “A perfect strike to the heart.” The matron said bemusedly. “There’s truth in the saying that no one can cut you to the quick like your family can.”

  Devinia only stared up at the matron with her vision blurred in tears. Drawing in a ragged breath, she stood. Her legs and arm were splattered copiously with her mother’s blood.

  “You did everything I asked. You get to live.” The matron replied. “Go forth, lost seed. And may fortune find you a place to take root.”

  The three assassins collected their lost or unconscious comrades and departed, leaving the now nameless girl standing over the body of her dead mother. The dagger was sticking out from her mother’s chest like a grave marker.

  It was a strange sensation, killing. She stared down at her bloody hands in shock and tried wiping them on her shirt and pants.

  “You did well.” The voice replied, coming from below her. She looked down and saw a female rising out of her shadow. She jumped back as another assassin appeared before her. This one had no mask, and the dagger mark buckles on her leathers marked her as an agent of the Poisonblades. The elf’s hair was similar to her mother’s, but her eyes were slanted just enough to seem naturally cruel. Her lips were a cruel slash that found frowning easier than smiling.

  “I was quite surprised you managed to make your first kill, and only at twenty?” the assassin whistled, dropping to one knee and touching the girl’s chin. “That’s like a human child of ten proving to have more mettle than most of the adults. I see you have the eyes, and the potential. I think they were fools to put you on the kill list. You would be much more useful as an assassin instead of victim.”

  “I…” The now nameless girl started. “I have nowhere to go. I… I could work for another house.” She tried to reason.

  The assassin clicked her tongue. “That’s not so simple, young one. You see, you’re too young to join. Your body isn’t developed; they would not train you until your growth comes to an end.”

  “So what do I do?” The girl asked.

  The assassin pulled the knife from the cooling corpse and pushed it into the girl’s hands. “You survive.” She said, the blade feeling a thousand times heavier than it should. “And if you are still alive and fully grown in exactly six years from now, I will personally bring you before our matron, Pieranelle. Then you will have the chance to prove yourself to us.”

  “Six years.” The nameless girl said. “I… don’t know where to start.”

  “If you can survive the first few days, you’ll have it about figured out.” The assassin replied, turning and striding away. “I’ll be here in six years from suns down to suns rise. If you can show up, show me that dagger.”

  With that, the assassin slipped into the shadows and was gone. The girl looked down at the dagger and wiped at the tears in her eyes, only managing to smear her face with drying blood. She realized that she looked a mess. She pushed the death of her family out of her mind. Her grief wouldn’t help her survive alone, surrounded by elves who would consider her the least amongst their kind until she either started her own bloodline or was accepted into a new house.

  First thing’s first. She needed to get cleaned up. After that, she could take stock of her situation and try planning from there.

  Before she left, she checked her mother’s body. She was able to retrieve half a dozen blades of varying sizes, one vial of poison and four throwing knives. There were sheaths for a dozen, but the blades must have been thrown out of sight or were still in the bodies of the females the Nightsever matron had retrieved.

  She turned to flee, and spotted her mother’s discarded pack. Though the clothes wouldn’t fit, there were valuable supplies that could help her the first few days.

  She looked at her mother in the plaza as she stood at the entrance. She had arranged the body so that she looked at rest, if you could ignore the blood and the signs of violence all over the area. In time, a few elves who pursued cleanliness and burial rituals would arrive to make the plaza serviceable to the normal elven citizens passing through.

  She considered what it was she could do. She knew a bit about both her mother and her father’s work. However, she quickly discarded weaving. It was then she decided. Leave silks to another elf. She would become an assassin like her mother. She would become one of the best assassins known to Salthimere. She would build up power, money, and influence. And when she did, she would break from the Poisonblades and form her own house. House Ashrava.

  But for now, she would need to find a way to survive in Salthimere without any of the resources available to an average elven child. She would make it work, though. She didn’t have a choice. She wasn’t going to let her mother’s death be in vain.

  Chapter: 02

  She didn’t go back to her mother’s house. She would have been seen as a thief and imprisoned. She no longer had any right to the clothes or food in there, not even the small things she'd played with as a baby. She had no money, no supplies and no prospects. She had nowhere to go, and spent most of the night trying to find somewhere she could be safe.

  She instead found a place underneath one of the parks that littered the city. It was a secret place underground, long since forgotten by the elves that had originally used it as storage for
the workers digging out the sewage system that kept the city clean. She couldn’t hide in the sewers themselves; water elemental custodians swept the tunnels daily, clearing out rats and refuse alike.

  She was fortunate, though, to have been sleeping near one of the drains when she found out this fact, otherwise she would have been drowned that first night. Instead, sputtering and soaked, she'd picked herself up and observed the tunnel. She dozed as best she could while soaking wet and cold, waiting, taking mark of the time by the passage of the moons. She was awakened when water surged down the tunnel and she was drenched again.

  Rolling out of the stream of water, she checked the night’s passage. Two hours had passed. She dragged herself to her feet and climbed into the tunnel. With her eyes, she could always see in the dark, so she was able to keep her footing and avoid running into objects or pitfalls. It was the one thing that could help keep her alive.

  She managed to find the storage room only forty minutes into the tunnels. The locked door, however, took her another hour to figure out how to open. She’d never been taught anything about lock construction or how to pick them, even though her mother had surely been able to do it. Instead, she searched through her mother’s survival pack, found the lock picks, and nearly broke all of them trying to get the door open. She could hear water gurgling in the tunnels when she finally got the door open. She slipped inside, pushing the door closed.

  Searching the room, it proved to be old and partially full of rotting storage containers. They looked to have dried out and fallen to splinters instead of rotting away in moisture. She figured then she would be safe from the water.

  She set her packs down, and took stock of the room. There were no signs of pests, and a quick examination showed the boxes were empty of everything but dust. She sorted out the broken boxes over the ones that were mostly intact. Thinking, she stacked the most intact ones a few feet away from the back wall, and then piled the crumbling and broken ones around the front of those. If it worked out like she planned, she would have a place to sleep that wouldn’t be noticed under casual observation.