by Jacinta Jade
Which would leave only one person chasing down the runaways.
Great way to die quickly—catch up to Falir and the other Resistance soldiers and then be killed by sheer numbers as the hunted turned on the hunter.
Or worse, be captured.
It was the type of tactic Siraay might have used herself, and she was fairly sure that Falir could come up with something even more cunning.
Too bad she hadn’t been the one to discover Pyron was still alive—one quick slip of her blade, and no one would have been the wiser. Ah well, next time, she thought. For now, it was time to retreat and get Pyron back to the city.
So Siraay paced rapidly back to the sergeant, dropped to her knees and swiftly assessed the chief archon’s injury.
She bit her lip.
His neck had been slashed open by Falir’s arrow, and the edge of the arrowhead had cut deep, causing blood to soak into Pyron’s hair, clothes, and skin. In fact, the injury seemed to be right where—
‘Lady?’
The sergeant’s voice cut into Siraay’s thoughts, and she stirred, shifting her focus back to the task at hand.
‘Alright—lets bind his neck and then move. Do it fast.’ Acting even as she spoke, Siraay grabbed on to the lower section of her already torn top and ripped it further, tearing away a long strip relatively easily. This she wadded up and pressed against Pyron’s wound. ‘I need something to hold this in place.’
The sergeant’s hands were moving before she had even finished speaking, and an instant later, he produced a spare strap from a pocket on his gear. He wrapped its length around Pyron’s throat, then tied off the ends securely over the fabric Siraay had pressed against the wound.
When they were finished, she stood, wiping her bloody hands against her pants as she spotted Drosni, Lifron, and Torina standing guard. Obviously, the other Xarcon soldier who had been taken prisoner during the fighting had not survived.
Siraay nodded to the two lower-ranked soldiers. ‘You’ll both carry him. Drosni,’ she said, pivoting with the intention to tell the head of her unit to fall in behind and tail them to be sure no one ambushed them, but she paused when another groan sounded behind her.
Siraay spun, tensing, but didn’t see anything. Then another groan and a feeble gesture from the ground a body length away.
An injured Resistance soldier.
‘Oh, we missed one.’ Drosni’s dry tone was enough to tell Siraay that he had already dealt with any other Resistance members he had found alive. He moved past her and drew a blade from a boot.
The groan came again, finishing on a higher note. A female.
Then a thought occurred to Siraay. ‘Wait,’ she ordered Drosni. ‘Bind her arms instead.’
Drosni pivoted to look at her, frowning. ‘We’re taking a prisoner?’
Siraay shook her head. ‘We’re capturing intel.’ She motioned to the female still groaning a few steps away from Drosni. ‘Get her up and let’s move. Mother knows those mud-scraping vermin could come back at any moment.’
Drosni nodded and walked across to the fallen soldier, yanking her up cruelly enough to make her cry out.
Siraay smiled.
***
They were moving as fast as they could while dragging along the injured Resistance soldier and carrying the unconscious Pyron when Torina called out to Siraay.
‘Uh, lady, I think the chief archon has stopped breathing.’
Siraay sighed irritably, gesturing for the two soldiers to lower Pyron to the ground, the pair treating him with far more care than Siraay thought he required.
This stop would cost them time, and they still weren’t close enough to Xarcon City to be safe yet.
What’s more, the absolute darkness meant they had to be even more careful about footing and alterations in terrain.
Siraay hurried the few steps back to Lifron and Torina, noting that the sergeant made their female prisoner halt a little way from the rest of the group.
Drosni also kept his distance, and from the corner of her eye, Siraay could see his head continuously swivelling as he scanned the surrounding gloom.
Siraay bent over Pyron, placing a hand on his chest. She frowned, then bent still closer, positioning her ear above his mouth. After a moment, she was certain. He was still breathing, but barely.
She sighed, brushing stray hairs back from her face in annoyance, then flinched when her fingertips grazed her neck, the odd injury she had taken beginning to burn with pain once more, hotter and sharper than ever.
Siraay looked down upon Pyron’s unconscious face with loathing. They all needed medical attention to some degree, including their prisoner, who could provide them with valuable information about the movements of the Resistance and explain why they had been hiding out in these mountains in the first place.
So if Pyron was going to die, she wished he would just hurry up and do it.
Torina and Lifron were looking from her to the chief archon and back again, but it was Drosni who spoke what they were all thinking.
‘You can do it, can’t you? Heal him?’
Siraay stilled. So they knew about that. Part of her felt annoyed at Drosni for asking—what better way could there be for Siraay to be free of Pyron and his aggressive attitude than for him to die here? Now. But if she refused to heal him, or hesitated, Chezran would learn of it from Drosni, or through other channels.
She let out a huff of breath, then studied her hands. She had healed Genlie—brought her friend back. But how had she done it?
Suddenly, her neck burned, the pain swiftly spiking to an intensity that almost made Siraay pass out. Her breathing grew shallow and rapid, and she began to sweat, her hands going to her neck.
Almost. Her palms were up at chin level when she noticed the glow.
Then the pain seared through her again, and she slapped her hands down on Pyron’s chest, wanting it to be done, wanting to heal herself. She could feel it now—that spring of power within her, uncoiling and running free as it traversed her body and flowed through her and into Pyron.
Siraay gasped at the sensation. It was like part of her was almost being sucked in, Pyron’s body taking what it needed from her. She wondered how long she could maintain the flow, how long it would be until that store of energy within her ran out.
But soon Siraay’s breathing began to grow easier, and then she felt a cool breeze against her sweaty face and neck.
A loud gasp and the chief archon sat up, his blue eyes moving wildly beneath the mask. ‘What happened?’
Siraay snorted in disgust and rose from her crouch at Pyron’s side, taking a long step away from him. It was that movement that made her realise that her neck and arm no longer hurt. Although, her arm was still covered in her own dried blood.
Startled, Siraay lifted one hand to her left cheek, and then she breathed out a sigh—part relief, part confusion—that her facial scars hadn’t diminished at all.
She didn’t know whether to be happy that she had healed herself or disgusted that Pyron would now continue to live and annoy her. She could decide later.
Looking up, Siraay saw Drosni, the sergeant, Torina, and Lifron all gaping at her in what seemed to be varying levels of awe.
‘Keep moving!’ she snapped at them, her voice like the crack of a whip breaking through their thrall. She was done with this day.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
AS SOON AS Siraay’s little group reached the borders of the city, the sergeant signalled those patrolling the tops of the outer walls, and they were met just outside of the main gates by Xarcon sentries.
Siraay heard the sergeant giving orders that a messenger should be sent to Lord Chezran immediately, and that the chief archon should be escorted to the palace, having been recently injured.
After pausing for a moment to watch a sentry take off running towards the city gates, Siraay decided to carry on alone. Drosni and Lifron were busy helping the sergeant secure the prisoner and see the Pyron into the care of the sentries, so it wa
s only Torina who saw her begin to slip away.
The female opened her mouth as if she would announce that she would escort her lady through the city, but Siraay caught and held Torina’s eye and shook her head slowly.
The female froze, her lips pressing together into a thin line, and Siraay knew that she was thinking of her orders. Yet after a moment’s hesitation, she simply gave a quick nod of acknowledgment and pivoted away to assist the others, allowing Siraay to disappear through the gates and into the city.
Siraay made her way quickly through outer structures towards the palace, following the straight stretch of street. There were few people about, given how late the evening now was. As Siraay thought about what the Xarcon people would all be doing now in their homes, it made her mind wander to her own needs and wants.
And as soon as she did that, the hunger hit her—a roiling emptiness that felt like it might consume her. Siraay was surprised by the intensity of it, as she had eaten earlier that day while she and the others had been out on patrol, well before the events of the evening. And yet this urgent need for nourishment seemed to grow with each step she took through the city.
She was about halfway there when she stumbled, managing to catch herself against a wall of one structure—a weapons forgery, if she was judging the shadows correctly—using its solid support to combat her sudden weakness.
Could her hunger really be the cause of this? Siraay shook her head, as if doing so might force her body to come to its senses and erase the dizziness in her head and the limp feeling in her arms and legs.
I just need a hot meal, she thought to herself. And standing here wouldn’t help in the least. So she pushed off from the wall, using the momentum generated by the shove to get her body moving in the right direction.
For several paces after her brief rest she was fine, then Siraay began to feel weakness once more spreading through her limbs. No. She wouldn’t fall here, like some undisciplined trainee. She was a warrior now. A Lady of Xarcon. And she was strong.
She stumbled again.
Mother curse this body—I’m not going to make it. At least, not on my own two feet … her mind supplied the solution.
It took Siraay a great deal of focus and a lot of her remaining strength, but she did it. She Changed.
Now standing on four tall yeibon legs, she could still feel the weakness. Still felt the ravenous hunger. But she was stable. Yeibons were natural rovers and sometimes walked great distances in short periods. Thus, bending her horned head to peer down the dim city street, Siraay concentrated on moving forwards, knowing each step brought her closer to rest and food.
She was drawing close to the inner gates that secured the yard and the palace from the rest of the city when a large shape, darker than the surrounding, raced out from between them. The shape seemed to tilt its head for an instant mid-stride, then abruptly altered its course so it began to run down Siraay’s street instead of the one it had initially been headed along.
Behind the shape, other figures ran out from the gate, heading straight down the road before them, not noting the large shape that had deviated from their course.
Siraay had managed to stagger forwards a few more lengths before the shape was running straight at her, merely a few leaps away. In her yeibon form, strong instincts began to rise within her, a panic and natural inclination to run from this threat.
So strong were those instincts, that it was all she could do to plant her feet and stand, still as possible, as the large shape slid to a stop beside her and smoothly Changed.
‘Siraay! Are you hurt?’ Strong hands roamed over her body, searching for any injuries. When the quick examination revealed nothing to her questioner, rough hands slid around her chin and guided her large head downwards. ‘Look at me!’
The male’s voice was filled with command, which rivalled any instinct that had been directing Siraay’s movements, and she obeyed.
Her Xarcon lord stood before her, his eyes blazing with anger and panic. ‘Change—Change now!’
The snap in his voice was like a whip in Siraay’s mind, and without thinking, she tried to conform to his wishes. She found that core of herself and was focusing on it when the last of her strength seemed to give way … and that leash of power she held, the lifeline between the two forms she was transitioning across, the map from one mind to the other, was lost.
As blackness crept in around Siraay’s vision and she felt the core of who she was slip through that mental grip.
And then she was afloat, in endless black depths.
***
She appeared to be standing in a world made of darkness. But the fact that she could discern that it was dark told her that this new world did indeed have some light.
And maybe it was her eyes adjusting, but as soon as she registered the thought, the light seemed to expand just a little more … enough for her to be able to see her own hands, legs, and feet.
She was dressed in dark clothes that had a gold X emblazoned on each shoulder. Clothes that appeared to be made for hard wear.
She frowned as her mind tried to grasp at something then, but even as she tried to pinpoint it, it slipped away from her, elusive, like water through spread fingers.
She shook her head, trying to clear away the fogginess, and tried to focus on something else.
Her breath caught in her throat—she didn’t remember anything else.
Her heart pulsed faster. Who was she? What was her name? She closed her eyes and cast a thought deep into herself, a desperate search for something to grip on to, a search for a lifeline in a sea of forgetfulness that was threatening to drown her.
She nearly missed it, so small was that glimmer of information in her otherwise bare mind. But one lone fact was indeed drifting there in the dark—a sound.
She held it tentatively in her thoughts at first, unsure what it was. She examined that sound in her mind.
And it seemed to ground something in her, make some kind of survival reflex within her grab on to that one word with a strength that could have torn down walls had she been able to project it.
Siray.
It meant something, she was sure of it.
She decided to repeat it out loud.
‘Si-r-ay.’ Her mouth seemed dry—had she ever spoken before now?
She said the word again, and this time it rolled more smoothly from her tongue, some other forgotten sense helping her along.
‘Siray.’
As if it were the wind that had held back a storm, as the word rolled off her tongue, her mind was hit by a barrage of images, and she felt her knees buckle under the mental onslaught.
A dark palace with glistening stone rose up in her mind. A training hall with shirtless males, a female with eyes that missed nothing, another female whose face told of hatred, and a battle …
She was a captive audience as a slaughter played out in a forest, as a red-haired female Changed into a black-and-silver creature and proceeded to decimate a small group of fighters.
The scene sped up, and now that same female bent over a barely breathing male on the ground, her hand emitting a soft glow as it rested against his neck—
Then her mind was cast forwards again, and she stood watching two dark shapes, one of which became a towering, dark-haired male with a flowing cape.
‘Change! Change now!’ he yelled.
The shouted words were a command to the tall horned animal that stood before the male, and she watched as the animal shuddered once, twice, then seemed to shrink in on itself …
To become the female she had watched initiate the earlier fight.
But something was wrong.
Back in her normal form, the female’s eyes didn’t open, and instead of straightening, her form merely collapsed, her face going blank.
No, not blank. Empty.
‘No …’ The male seemed to breathe out the word, but even though she seemed to be standing paces from him and the female, she heard each word perfectly as if he were whispering into
her ear.
‘Wake up!’
The male’s sudden yell at the unconscious female startled her.
‘Siraay! Wake up!’
At those desperate words, her mind was released, and the scene that had been playing out before her disintegrated.
Siraay. That was her name. And she was a Lady of Xarcon.
She looked about her at the darkness that surrounded her on all sides and knew two things to be true.
Her name was Siraay.
And she was lost.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
LOST. It was hard to fathom, when Siraay now knew who she was, and remembered the events that had caused this.
She had tried to Change. Mere reaction, really, to the command Chezran had given her. But too fatigued, both mentally and physically, to focus, her mind had lost its grip on her true form.
And that was all it took, Siraay knew, for one to become lost.
To lose their mind.
To become a Lost One.
Her breath was coming faster now, as she realised what the surrounding darkness actually was. She tried to get herself under control, even as her hands shook slightly.
She attempted to quell her rising fear, by telling herself that she was a weapon and that she would find or fight her way out of this place.
It was working … until a cackle sounded from of the darkness.
Every hair rose on Siraay’s body as that high, cold laugh floated out from the black. She—or rather, her former self—had heard that laugh before …
Without realising it, Siraay began backing away, darkness pressing close around her.
Then the cackle came again … from behind.
She spun, her chest rising and falling faster now as she scanned the darkness. Nothing. She could see nothing.
She took another step backwards …
‘It’s only a matter of time.’
Siraay twisted, raising her hands to a defensive position.
The first thing she realised was that a patch of light, about the size of a small room, now existed before her. It wasn’t lit by any manner she could discern, yet still the space was illuminated.