Killers, Traitors, & Runaways

by Lucas Paynter

  Poe felt fine. He craved neither food nor water nor rest.

  “I don’t seem to need such mortal indulgences any longer.” He recalled Yetinau, and his love of wine. “Even so, I think if I desired rest, I could have it. But I may function as well without.”

  Jean pushed away from the window with a yawn. “Must be real fuckin’ nice. Fine. You can have the damn job, Guardian.”

  She stepped aside, and Poe settled in in her place. It seemed a waste of his status, but there was little else to do; he wasn’t going to rush ahead before his companions. Past impulsiveness had caused him a great deal of distress.

  “Yo, Poe?” Jean hadn’t made it more than two steps. “When this is over … Mack—”

  “I’ll help you find him,” Poe promised, though he didn’t know if there was anything left to be found. Perhaps he could go back and look, when he understood how to do it at will.

  “I’m surprised,” she admitted. She was trying her hardest to give him an earnest smile. “Thought you’d figure little shit like this was beneath ya.”

  “The little things matter,” he said. “Though, even if Mack is to be found, what resolution do you hope to meet with him?”

  Jean shook her head. “Dunno yet. Just can’t let shit end the way it did with him. Need to see his face again, let him know I’m sorry. Hear him say it’s okay.”

  “What if he can’t forgive you?”

  “Mack will,” she said with conviction.

  Poe wished to know for certain. But while he could fumble his way into memories of the past, there was no going forward. He couldn’t see what had not yet come to pass.

  * * *

  A tin cup shook in Zella’s hands, clasped tight to keep the steaming tea from spilling out. Zaja sat opposite her, vexingly at peace despite what awaited them. There would be no casual approach to the Living God’s sanctum, and if anything, resistance was assured.

  People were going to die.

  “Guardian Poe should be braving this alone.” Zella spoke with reservation. Poe, at the distant window, did not stir at his name. “This is no longer our affair.”

  “Cold feet?” Zaja teased.

  “Absence of faith,” she replied. “Tell me, Zaja DeSarah, what is left that we can contribute? We guided a mortal to divinity, and in doing so, he has eclipsed us.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Zaja gave a downcast glance.

  “It does,” Zella affirmed. “Whatever protection Poe grants, your lifespan will stand diametric to his. You’re already unwell.” She took Zaja’s hand, and stroked a finger across the damaged skin of her wrist. “If you falter—”

  “Then I die.” Zaja’s certainty chilled Zella, and she took her hand back. “Better to die useful than live useless.”

  Zella fell back in her chair. There was no arguing, neither from stance nor belief. Although Zaja was speaking of herself, it was Zella whose death could aid the cause of her father or his foes, all depending on the circumstances. It was Zella whose continued existence aided none and put all in danger.

  Useful or useless.

  At last, her hands stopped shaking.

  Zaja shared a soft smile as Zella walked by her, not knowing it would be for the last time. She gathered her belongings; there would be no goodbyes. Chari was sleeping, and Jean was settling in; her back was turned, and she didn’t even notice Zella peering in. Shea had stepped out for a smoke with Flynn in her company, and so only Poe remained at the entrance.

  “I’m getting some air,” she told him, keeping her belongings out of sight.

  Poe barely looked at her. “Be careful out there.”

  “I shall. Thank you, Guardian.”

  There was more she wished to say, but it was not the time. If he knew what she was doing, Poe might try to stop her—she had to hurry, until he could not find her except by chance.

  Zella shut the door to Chari’s house softly, and felt the brisk night air tickling her skin. It was a decision she should have made long before, but wasn’t prepared to commit to. Time and again, she’d hoped her heart would find peace in the sacrifices to come, but Zella simply didn’t believe. As she hurried down the road, she was afraid to look back, that someone might convince her otherwise.

  “Not even a goodbye?”

  She froze in her tracks. It was the voice she feared most, one of reason and guile. “Flynn.”

  He stepped out from the shadows, hopping over a root to meet her. “You knew—” she accused.

  “That you would leave,” he agreed. “Even before you did.” No sooner had she asked when, than he interrupted, “Since the Isle. Maybe before then.”

  Zella was disgusted with herself. “You know me better than I know myself.”

  “I gathered what conclusion you would reach.”

  “Then you’re here to stop me?” she accused. “Why else would you make such a timely intervention?”

  Flynn placed a hand on Zella’s shoulder. “I’m here to talk.”

  At last, she looked back. No one had followed, not to save her. She resigned herself, and sank onto the engorged root of a massive tree. Her sweat-beaded skin chilled in the breeze. Flynn sat across from her, his eyes glowing eerily in the moonlight.

  “Why now?”

  “I have seen death before,” she confessed. “I have watched it, felt it near my neck—” She caught herself, and for once knew what Flynn might say before he did. “This is not about the incident on Breth, though it all started there.” Zella shook her head. “Never before have I been reduced to a bargaining chip. But I have faced circumstances in your company that were either fight or die, and I did neither.”

  “We’ve defended you as best we can,” Flynn said. “If you leave, there is no one who can protect you from the Reahv’li should they find you again.”

  Zella resisted insulting the value of Flynn’s protection; she surmised he knew as much when he said it.

  “You have,” she concurred. “And I know what I surrender in leaving. But what are my alternatives, Flynn? To trail you across Terrias, watch you kill the worshippers of the Living God and do nothing?! All while they howl for my blood to make the cruelty stop?” She shook her head, sickened. “I have been changed by my experiences with you, and I’m uncertain I like what I’m becoming.”

  “Then wait here,” Flynn suggested. “We’ll come back to TseTsu once—”

  “NO.” It was sharp and loud and firm. “I’ve avoided violence long enough, all while reaping the rewards it has to give. It’s hypocritical, to have others fight for you while looking down on them for doing so.”

  Flynn ground his palm against his brow. Was she frustrating him, giving some argument he couldn’t readily rebut? Or was he only holding back, trying to find some way to convince her, rather than worm his way inside her head?

  “I promised to keep you safe. No matter how many Reahv’li come, if I had to weigh all of their lives against yours—”

  Zella stood up. “And that is what it all comes to, Flynn: for both my father and you, it’s the weighing of lives. Value against virtue. It’s a sick war … and I wish no part in it.”

  She set back for the road before Flynn could say anything to stop her. But he did not reach for her or call her name.

  “There are two ways out, from here,” he said. She stood her ground, resisting the urge to make eye contact.

  “Speak,” she urged.

  “A stepped fountain in the center of town, and a subterranean chamber beneath the mansion on the hill. Both lead to Sechal. The latter finds an island that connects to Airia Rousow’s sanctuary, and through there are paths I never got to explore.”

  Her feet wanted to carry her away.

  “I may use neither,” she told him. She didn’t want him knowing how to find her. “I may find my own way.”

  “You may,” he agreed.


  Zella’s lips pursed. She wanted to leave it at that. But she’d known Flynn longest, befriended him back on Earth, even if the persona he’d shown her then was a lie. She hadn’t expected to see him again, let alone in a gilded cage beside her own, rendered nearly unrecognizable.

  “Goodbye, Flynn.”

  She took off quickly, and could not hear his response, if he gave one at all. She would never be one of them, would never fight beside them and, even in death, she would be alone.

  This wasn’t the first time Zella had set off on her own, nor the first time she would be on the run from those who demanded the ultimate sacrifice. But for the first time, there was no turmoil in her heart, and Zella felt lighter; she felt free.

  * * *

  Shea was waiting just where Flynn had left her: at the base of a Goddess statue, a near-finished cigarette gently smoldering between her fingers. The Goddess’s hand above her had been reduced to an ash tray, a column of smoke spiraling around it. As Flynn settled down beside her, he said, “I’ve got the scars to prove they don’t take kindly to blasphemers around here.”

  Her smile was mischievous as she replied, “Hapané objects? Let’s hear it from herself.”

  As if compelled, Flynn surveyed the streets in both directions. It was all moonlight and shadows, and he was more concerned with what a band of vindictive guards would do than what any irate goddess might. With nothing further to contribute to the matter, he closed his eyes and settled in.

  She gently elbowed his arm, lobbying for his attention. “Handled your errand, mate?”

  “Yeah, it’s … it’s taken care of.”

  The specter of Zella’s recent departure wasn’t something he wanted clouding this moment; Shea could learn of it along with the others. The harrowing atmosphere of Keltia and the company of his friends had afforded them little private time since their first encounter months ago, and it was something Flynn wished to savor while it lasted.

  Still, she wasn’t as content to enjoy the silence as he was.

  “Ready for the morrow?”

  “Dreading it,” he answered absentmindedly.

  “You too?” She sounded surprised, and plucked her cigarette from her pursed lips to hold it out in offer. He contemplated it, tempted, but gently pushed her hand away. “As you like it,” she said, retracting it. “’Bout pissed myself, trying to guess what’s coming.”

  The comment puzzled Flynn, who realized after a short time that he couldn’t relate. The next day’s events were not the source of his dread. “What are you expecting?”

  “’Nother bloody war.”

  The very words sounded dead as they rose from her smoky mouth. And Flynn knew it was a realistic prospect—however far they might infiltrate Terrias, the Reahv’li would be on them the moment they were spotted. Death would follow, but this wasn’t what bothered Flynn. These things were all in line with the plan.

  “How do you sleep on nights like these?” he asked her.

  Shea’s face lit up at the question. “Starters? Don’t think of tomorrow. Day after instead.” But for her bravado, her hand still shook like a leaf.

  “Does that work?”

  “Helps,” she replied as she took a final drag to calm her nerves. She rolled the cigarette out between her fingers, and went on. “Tomorrow will come. No help there. But after … pint with your mates. Good smoke. Roll in the sack. You know…” she concluded with a shrug. “Pleasures.”

  “Something to live for,” Flynn finished.

  “Right.” She pointed the extinguished cigarette at Flynn and then, remembering, tossed it to her makeshift ashtray above. Flynn hoped it was Shea’s last for the night, as he’d prefer her company without the smell of smoke between them; it masked her natural scent. “So what’ve you got?”

  Flynn tried to find an answer for her. Rather than the future, he found himself looking to the past—his deceptions on Earth, his escape with Jean and Mack; Airia’s plea for renewed balance, which Flynn had desperately accepted to atone for his crimes. And now, with Poe deified and the confrontation with Renivar nearly before them, Flynn had no mind for it. There was nothing after tomorrow.

  As he looked to Shea, trying to piecemeal some offering to placate her, he found himself entranced by the way she looked back at him. There was nothing significant about it—in fact, her expression seemed to be bordering on impatience—but he remembered that soldier he’d first seen in the courtyard of den Vier Manor, and the way she’d made him curious. It was an interest that hadn’t abated yet, and one he was coming to realize might not fade at all.

  “Flynn?” Her strained tone jerked him from his trance.

  “Lost my train of thought,” he confessed with an earnest smile. “You spend so long imagining what a day you’re waiting for is going to be like, that you don’t know what to do once you get there.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I expected—I don’t know, something transformative. To come out of this different and somehow at peace with myself. But whatever happens tomorrow, succeed or fail … live or die … I’ll still be the same. I won’t change.”

  Shea shifted, her hand accidentally brushing against him. “No more than you have, you mean.”

  “Not where it counts.”

  But it wasn’t entirely true. He had changed, though not in a way he’d prepared for. The way he pined now for Shea’s companionship, it was like nothing he’d felt before. Flynn had many times played a part—he’d seduced and led hearts along, but felt nothing himself. The things he’d pretended to feel for Rebecca Saul were nothing compared to those he truly felt toward Alicea den Vier. The thought of this ending, that she might one day travel a separate path, disturbed Flynn in a way he wasn’t prepared to handle.

  “I just know I don’t want to be alone,” he concluded.

  She softly punched his arm, then set her hand back down. Another momentary brush.

  “No danger, then. Got the lot of us at your side.”

  “Tomorrow, sure,” he agreed. If we all come out of this alive. “But it won’t be that way forever. Some of you are going to leave. Some sooner than others. I can go anywhere, but how long will anyone follow me?”

  She didn’t jump to answer. “Too far ahead. Few years’ holiday seemed the ticket when I deserted. No thought where I might land. Bit soon to look, I’d say.”

  Flynn shifted uncomfortably where he sat. “I don’t like not knowing how things will turn out.”

  By chance, or subconscious design, his hand had landed on hers. If it had been only an innocent mistake, he’d have withdrawn it immediately and drawn no attention to it. But he felt Shea’s hand warm his own and stayed too long before pulling away.

  As Shea rubbed her hand, she looked at him, then back at it. “You fancy me?” She betrayed neither hope nor offense in the comment.

  “If I did?”

  It was a transparent evasion; they both knew exactly what he meant.

  “Wouldn’t go there. Done things, both of us.”

  “What difference does that make?” he asked.

  “Too much alike.” She seemed almost amused by this. “Seen enough of you to know the stories true. Don’t hate you for it; won’t pretend you’re all decent either.” Flynn hung his head, admonished by this rejection. “Chin up,” she said, raising his head with her finger. “Not the only one who’s damaged. Killed eight ’fore we met, number’s climbed since. Blood on my hand’s blood on yours.”

  “So even during your time on the front, you’ve never—”

  “Laid with a few mates, aye,” she said. “Cold comfort when you think you might die. Not looking now, and not what you want anyway.” She shook her head, smiled. “Both bastards, our own way, made as we are.”

  She smiles. Hides her guilt that way. The voice had intruded without welcome; Flynn winced, startled, but betrayed nothing of what was going on
inside his head. Too proud to be won over. Doesn’t think so hard when things are rough. Cut at her heart. She’ll cling to you when it breaks.

  Flynn stood up suddenly, taking a few steps away from the statue.

  “Not trying to hurt—” Shea started.

  “No, I just—give me a minute,” he replied as he massaged his temples.

  Flynn wasn’t used to being denied what he desired; this just happened to be the first time it involved the love of another human being. And while it might have been too soon to use the parlance ‘love,’ it suited this moment.

  She sat quietly behind him, fondling her cigarette case and thinking of lighting another.

  And why can’t I have her? he asked himself fleetingly. If he were to break down Shea’s emotional barriers, none of his friends would recognize his technique. The only one with whom he had shared what he could do and just how he did it was Zella—and she was gone.

  But for all her flaws, Flynn respected Shea. If she could be torn down so effortlessly, it cheapened her and everything he admired within her. And if she only loved Flynn because he might convince her it was all she deserved, it wasn’t genuine or worth having.

  Perhaps it could be done, but Flynn resolved then to never find out. He reached back his hand for her.

  “It’s late. We have a busy day tomorrow, soldier.”

  She studied his hand for a moment, finally satisfied that he harbored her no ill intent. With her acceptance, Flynn pulled Shea to her feet, and released without delay. The warmth of her touch lingered, and he put the feeling away with everything else that would go unspoken.

  * * *

  The noise of the crowd outside woke Zaja long before the sun or her companions could. She wasn’t pleased to be up so early, her eyes sore from only a few hours’ rest, but after the night she’d had, she wasn’t eager to go back to sleep. After tossing the bed covers onto Jean, who snored on obliviously, she looked out the window long enough to remember that Chari had been part of a church, and the crowd outside was likely her former flock.