In truth, if Khate wanted to get back to Celesti as quickly as possible, she would have asked Bryn to take her all the way into the Trident to Luton. From there, it would have been a short two-day journey to her home. But after their narrow escape outside of Kent, she much preferred to continue on foot.
“Wait up!” Bryn called.
Khate stopped and turned to find the old sailor hobbling up the pier toward her. “Did I forget something on the ship?”
“No, no,” Bryn said. “But you left without paying me the final installment for bringing you back.”
“You know as well as I do that the last of my coin is either at the bottom of the ocean or lost in the charred husk of the River Raider,” Khate said.
“ ‘Course I do,” Bryn said with a smile. “So I’ll just have to follow you until you get me my money.”
“Oh no you don’t,” Khate said. “I see what you’re trying to do here. I told you before and I’ll tell you again, where I’m going is no place for you and the boys.”
“Don’t try and stop me,” Bryn said.
“Have you already forgotten what happened the last time you ignored me?” Khate asked. “You nearly died, and Kaeden did. I’m not letting you talk me into changing my mind. I’m going home alone, end of discussion.”
Bryn frowned. “At least let me tag along to Penrythe.”
“Why?” Khate asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Bryn said. “I’ve got no ship. Without a ship, I’m out of a job.”
“What about the Water Lance?” Khate asked.
“You expect me to sail around in that thing? Might as well paint a target on my back that says, ‘Here’s the idiots who stole your ship, come kill us and take it back,’ ” Bryn replied. “By the way, something’s been really bugging me.”
“Hmm?” she asked.
“When we were escaping Kent, one minute we’re within inches of being shark bait, and the next all pursuit simply ceased,” Bryn said.
“Is there a question in there?” Khate asked, deflecting. She didn’t feel like explaining to Bryn what she’d done. She didn’t even really understand it herself. One minute she was a normal person, the next she had the power of a god and he was telling her to mimic some nearby power. At his instruction, Khate had cloaked the entire ship and made it vanish. How, she didn’t know.
Bryn shrugged.
“So, what do you plan to do now?”
“Got a guy in Penrythe who lost a bet to me nearly a decade ago,” Bryn said. “Supposedly he’s some big-shot mercenary. I think it’s time to collect—with interest, of course! So what do you say, lass? Care to let an old man accompany you a little while longer?”
Khate crossed her arms and tapped her foot. It was only a day’s journey at the most. What could possibly go wrong? “All right,” she said. “Get your things and let’s go.”
“Already ready,” Bryn said, beaming as he held up his sack.
“What about PD, Aden, and Sylas?” Khate asked.
“They’ll hang about Westbarrow for a few days,” Bryn said. “Consider it a well-deserved holiday. The ship’s got enough supplies on it to last a while, though I imagine they’ll need to get creative if they plan to do any drinking. Either way, they’re not your concern, lass. They’re big boys, they can take care of themselves.”
“Fair enough,” Khate said. “Try to keep up.”
The destruction was full and complete. Ocken’s heart ached for the people of Celesti as he and Robert walked through the midst of the ruins. Only the structures crafted from stone still stood, and even then, their integrity was weakened and many had crumbled.
Ocken recalled the last time he had been in Celesti. Children had been playing in the streets, farmers had been readying their crops to sell at the market, and the townspeople rushed to and fro going about their lives.
Now, instead of people, only the cold mountain wind filled the city. Ash and smoke blew through the air, causing Ocken to raise his arm to his mouth and cough. He stood still as everything sank in, a sense of loneliness and despair washing over him.
Robert continued walking. If Ocken felt this way, he couldn’t begin to imagine the pain that Robert was going through. Celesti had been his home—where he had grown up. Childhood memories, loved ones, and everything he had ever known had gone up in flames with the city.
Robert’s face was flat and stalwart, staring straight ahead as he walked. He was five feet in front of Ocken, but he looked to be a million miles away. If Ocken didn’t do something fast, Robert was going to go into shock.
“Hey,” Ocken said.
Robert’s neck slowly craned in response.
“Can you show me where you lived?” Ocken said. “Maybe we can find some clues as to your mother’s whereabouts.”
“She’s dead,” he stated.
“You don’t know that,” Ocken said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t possibly know that. I’m sure she’s a smart woman if she raised two boys like you and Will.”
“Three,” Robert said.
Ocken cocked his head.
“Three boys,” Robert continued.
“You had another brother?” Ocken asked. “What happened?”
Robert sobbed, and his breathing grew ragged.
Ocken winced. Wrong question. He needed to change the subject, fast.
“So I’ve only been here once, can you tell me where we are?” Ocken asked.
Robert took a deep breath and pointed at the building next to them. “This was the armory. Finest leather in all of Celesti, or so they claimed.”
A few feet farther down the road, he stopped at the foundations of another building. At the center sat a large brick oven and an anvil. “This was the—”
“Blacksmith,” Ocken finished. “Yeah I got that.”
“What you don’t know is that it was attached to a tavern, The Raging Raccoon. The blacksmith, Gus, owned both. He was a… family friend,” Robert said, his face falling. “When my father died, Gus looked out for us. There were other taverns in town, but my father had always treated Gus fairly and made sure all the city guards spent their off hours here, rather than at a place like The Bearded Bard.”
Ocken was beginning to doubt the wisdom of his tactic. On one hand, the boy was talking, and if he was talking he couldn’t be going into shock. But on the other, all it did was bring up memories of people who, by anyone’s guess, were dead now.
“Come on,” Ocken said. “We should keep moving.”
Robert sighed and nodded.
Ocken let Robert lead the way as they wound through the carnage. What rubbed Ocken the wrong way was that despite the full and utter destruction of the town, they’d not discovered one body in all this mess.
Evidence of them was present—bloodstains, scattered weapons, and the like. Ocken was pretty sure he’d even seen a severed finger, but it was too blackened to tell for sure. But where had everyone gone? Ocken hoped that more people had escaped than he’d initially feared.
Robert led them to the north side of the city, just outside the town center. The spacing between the buildings widened a bit, and Ocken could tell they left the business district for the residential area.
Ocken’s heart began to beat as his thoughts once again drifted to Khate. He looked around, trying to get his bearings and recall where she had lived.
“This was my house,” Robert said, stopping in front of a heap of charcoaled wood and ash. With slow, purposeful steps, Robert stepped into the blackened area, debris crunching beneath his book.
Ocken stayed back to give him some peace, but also to do some recon of his own. Closing his eyes, he tried to recall the surroundings of Khate’s house. This seemed to be the general area, but it had been a long time since he’d visited and the destruction made spatial referencing near impossible.
He walked a hundred feet up and down the road in either direction, but it was a lost cause. At one point Ocken had thought he’d found it, seeing the remains of a familiar por
ch, but the house across the street had a similar feature and so did Robert’s. As hard as he tried, Ocken could recall nothing unique enough about her house to differentiate it from all the others.
“Looking for something?” Robert asked.
Ocken debated telling him. For all he knew, Khate had been their neighbor. Robert and Khate’s children might have been best friends. But then Ocken reminded himself it was better left alone and decided against it.
“Just trying to figure out what happened here,” Ocken said. “That’s all.”
Robert forced a smile.
“What?” Ocken asked.
“I think I found some good news,” Robert said. “Or rather I didn’t find bad news.”
“Oh?”
“My mother’s armor and dagger weren’t in the wreckage,” Robert said. “The only reason she would have taken those was if she planned to fight against the invaders. It doesn’t mean she’s alive, but at least I know she wasn’t slaughtered in her sleep.”
“Well, then let’s hope she and the rest of these people are in that cave you mentioned,” Ocken said.
Robert nodded. “It’s over there,” he said, pointing toward the Frostpeaks. “There’s a road just south of the abbey gates that winds up the side of the mountain, then wraps around the back. The entrance is there, just out of sight from here.”
“I’ll follow you,” Ocken said.
Robert took off with a slight spring in his step. Ocken smiled, glad to see him shake out of his fugue. He just hoped the boy wasn’t setting himself up for disappointment later.
Aside from the abbey that was built high up on the mountain, the most iconic structure in Celesti would have to be its library. Celesti was renowned for its knowledge, and scholars would make pilgrimages from across the land to visit their library.
Of all the buildings in Celesti, the library was the one that seemed the least affected. Standing tall at the heart of the city, it seemed out of place in the now sparse streets.
It hadn’t escaped destruction entirely, though, as the giant dome roof had caved in, and the magnificent pillars that had once stood at its entrance lay on their side.
For a brief moment, Ocken wondered if the townspeople might have sought refuge inside. Further inspection revealed that chunks of the ceiling had broken loose, crashing onto the steps below, making it impossible to go inside.
Something in the library must have still been burning, as a great plume of smoke continued billowing up into the sky. As they started to walk around the great structure, Ocken realized the smoke wasn’t coming from within the library, but behind it.
What they found nearly stopped Ocken’s heart.
25
There, in the city’s center, lay the bodies of the people of Celesti. The pyre was at least a hundred feet wide and twenty-five feet tall at its highest point. Still alight from top to bottom, there wasn’t much left but blackened shells—hair and clothing had been burned away, their features unrecognizable.
Robert raced forward, but Ocken grabbed his waist and pulled him back.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Ocken said. “They’re gone.”
Robert heaved and shuddered under Ocken’s grasp, fighting back tears or anger or both, Ocken didn’t know.
“I’m going to kill them,” Robert said, seething. “I’m going to find who did this and then burn them alive.”
“Easy,” Ocken said. “Don’t let emotion cloud your judgment. If you act rashly all you’re going to do is get yourself killed, and that won’t help anybody.”
“You don’t understand, you—”
“You’re right, I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now,” Ocken said. “I’ve never witnessed everyone I’ve ever known slaughtered and burned. But I know about loss, and I know that people do dumb things when they’re in pain. Sometimes absolutely wicked and terrible things.”
Robert couldn’t possibly know the weight of that statement. All of this—Celesti being destroyed, the elves being freed, everything—was because Alexander Drygo hadn’t been able to control his pain. He’d lashed out, he’d pushed everyone under his thumb, and he had been killed for it. And with his death, the all of this had followed.
All because one man responded the wrong way.
The hard part was that Robert was not the only person who had lost someone. With a pile that large, it was hard for Ocken to imagine that Khate was not among them. He feared the curiosity, the nagging question of whether she had died or not, would be far worse than the pain of her actual death.
Short of tearing apart the entire pyre, there was nothing Ocken could do about it. And even then, it would be nigh impossible to determine identities. No, both Ocken and Robert would have to live with this, there was no other choice.
“I know it looks bleak,” Ocken said. “But there might still be survivors, remember? You can’t give up hope. Not yet. Do you understand me?”
Robert took a deep breath and nodded his head.
Releasing him, Ocken watched to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. Seeing how the same blood ran in both Will’s and Robert’s veins, Ocken knew it was only a matter of time before he did.
The absurdity of that statement registered and Ocken stifled a fit of laughter.
“What?” Robert asked.
“Nothing,” Ocken said.
Will and Robert technically didn’t share blood anymore. It brought a whole new light to the phrase. Similarity had little to do with actual blood and more to do with relationship. Yes, most of the time that referred to one’s biological family, but more often than not it ran deeper than that.
Ocken couldn’t help but think of Riley. If ever he called someone “friend,” it would have been her, but in many ways she was more. Though Ocken had been only twelve years her senior at best, she’d been like a daughter to him.
“Seriously, what’s funny about this situation?” Robert asked.
“You’re a lot like your brother,” Ocken said. “That’s all.”
“Hey, I’m the oldest, so if anything, he is like me,” Robert said. “Let’s get that straight.”
“Case in point,” Ocken said.
Turning back to look at the pyre, Robert said, “And I see yours. There’s nothing we can do here.”
As they continued toward the abandoned mine, Ocken couldn’t help but mull over everything in his life. One tiny change and the outcome could have been different.
What if he’d never gotten his brother Thren that job with the city watch? Maybe he wouldn’t have died. What if he had gone with Khate when she’d left Shadowhold? Maybe they would have had a family together.
What if he had gone in with Riley and Will to face Drygo? Maybe Riley wouldn’t be dead. What if he hadn’t saved Drygo the day he’d obtained the Soul Siphon? Maybe none of this would have happened.
He could play the “what if” game all day long. He knew he shouldn’t. He understood that dwelling on hypotheticals would only lead to guilt and depression. He couldn’t change the past, so there was no use dwelling on it.
No amount of anger, sadness, or guilt would change what was already done. He had no choice but to move on and make the most out of each day as it was given to him.
It wasn’t long before they found the small, overgrown trail south of the abbey that led up the mountainside. Patches of grass sprouted through the packed dirt and shrubs crowding in on it; Ocken could see why this path was easily missed.
The road quickly ascended the mountain and narrowed, leaving enough space for a single man hauling a wagon and nothing else. Ocken leaned over the edge and peered down the sheer drop that awaited whomever took a wrong step.
“People used to work up here?” Ocken commented.
“It had always been a hazardous job,” Robert said. “And after the collapse, the risks outweighed the reward and it was abandoned. Each year at least one person died, either from mining accidents or falling off the edge when it rained.”
“And your mother let y
ou play up here?” Ocken asked, kicking a large rock off the edge. He watched as it fell down, bouncing off the wall and splitting in two as it slammed into the ground below.
“Just the opposite,” Robert said. “But that never stopped me. She would have killed me if she had found out I disobeyed.”
“So what are we going to find when we reach the top?” Ocken said.
“About half way up the mountain this trail levels out and starts to slope back down. The path will turn and then cut back suddenly,” Robert said. “The entrance is well hidden. I think the lord or lady of the abbey at that time wanted the operation kept secret. Before long, though, it became a major employer. When they shut the mine down, it displaced a lot of—”
Several stones tumbled down the mountain from above, coming to rest at their feet. Ocken looked down at his feet and then turned his attention skyward just as something fell down on top of him.
His back slammed into the ground and his head hung out over the edge of the cliff. The last thing Ocken saw was a fist flying for his face.
“All right, so let me get this straight,” Sowena said. “Alexander Drygo really was a god, or as close to one as a man can be, and you’re telling me that you and Queen Maya are as well? And that there are two other gods out there—but they are the original gods from a thousand years ago—they escaped their prison, and now want to kill us all, does that about sum it up?”
“Pretty much,” Will said with a nod.
“If I hadn’t seen what you did with that soulfiend, I’m fairly certain I would think that you’d been speared,” Sowena said.
“Excuse me?” he asked
“What?”
“Speared?” he asked again.
“Oh, sorry,” Sowena said, blushing. “It’s a Lutonian phrase for off-the-wall crazy—completely insane.”
“O… kay,” Will replied. “You’re going to have to explain that one.”
Soul Shade (Soul Stones Book 2) Page 19