Irreor forced the man back, using both longsword and Synien to weave a cloth of hopeful death.
He'd kill this man and free his friends. He'd see Abennak fall.
But Wisk wouldn't die. He thrust away each strike, danced and slid and matched Irreor's attack. He spun around Irreor to place his back to the Mad King.
"Boring," Abennak said.
Wisk swept aside Irreor's sword and dagger.
Pain erupted in the base of Irreor's left hand, followed by a sickening splat as something struck the ground. He gritted his teeth, attempted to ignore the pain, kept his gaze pinned to the assassin. Searing heat. Agony like he'd never felt. He still clenched his dagger, but more loosely, as if....
As if he'd lost his small finger. He readjusted his grip, but the Synien felt like a snake, slithering and attempting to escape.
It clanged against the stones.
Abennak giggled and clapped. "Can or can't."
-But it's never that easy, is it? No, though I wish it were. He'll harden to match the castle's pillars. Rise so high, so thick. Ah, how I wish I didn't have to do this.-
I won't lose! I won't let—
Wisk carved a shallow line into his forearm. The assassin was moving faster than before. Faster than should've been possible. Again and again he struck, like a whirlwind, not to kill, but to injure.
Irreor managed to duck beneath some attacks, block others, but not even his father could've stopped this. Shoulders, ears, thighs—blood oozed from all. His arms felt like clumps of lead, his chest like an overworked forge. The assassin lashed one final strike into the flesh of his right arm, and his longsword joined the dagger.
The courtyard swirled. Spots flashed and vanished and flashed.
When they cleared, Abennak stood before him and the assassin had vanished. The king's lips twisted into a smile as he patted Irreor's hand—the injured, mangled one—and fresh pain throbbed.
"You've a job to finish, my sweet little melon," Abennak said, and he thrust out his chin to indicate the still-prone spearman. "That was and was my deal. The assassin, your friends, or that man."
That man.
Irreor couldn't look at him, and instead he glanced to the merchant, who returned his gaze with a stony, unreadable expression. Fear? Anger? Because Irreor had brought them here?
Because he'd lost.
Gar Tsi still knelt, his wife's back pressed against his chest, his arm draped across her. She'd recovered enough to lick her lips and offer a slight shake of her head.
"Do what you're thinking you've got to do, boy," Gar Tsi called out. "We're not being here to judge."
"But I am," Abennak hissed. "Judge and jury and big scary axe. I've seen it fall. Now kill him!"
This isn't right. Void take me, it isn't—
Irreor stepped closer to the spearman. He had no choice. This man must die to save his friends, but the Mad King would pay. Not today, but soon. Irreor knelt to swipe up his Synien, to plunge it into the spearman's throat, but Abennak halted him with a touch.
"No, no, no," the king said. "That's too easy."
"What—"
"Do it with your hands. Squeeze and squeeze until he's not there."
Irreor gulped.
"No," the spearman said. He scurried backward, but the king's boot stopped him. "Please don't—"
"I'm sorry," Irreor whispered.
He knelt atop the spearman and wrapped his hands around the other's throat. His mangled hand, missing its small finger, oozed blood and pain across the man's neck, but Irreor squeezed.
Squeezed.
How long did it take to strangle that man? Minutes? Hours? To Irreor, it was an eternity. Light faded from the spearman's eyes oh so slowly, and his muscles spasmed near the end. Drool seeped from the corner of his mouth.
Irreor stood.
"Want some melon?" Abennak asked, and he held out a handful of orange goo. "It's hard on the outside, but mushy and gushy on the insi—"
"No."
"Oh. Well, this is embarass—"
"I'm leaving."
"Ah, of course you are. But you're not leaving here a melon, are you? No, no, of course you're not." Abennak patted his shoulder and continued in a soft, understanding tone. "You're a seed. Hard and gristly and—"
"You'll choke on me."
"I already did, my little seed. Already did."
Irreor stumbled from the king, grabbed his weapons, and shouldered his way through the ring of guards. His hand throbbed, but it didn't matter. Not compared to what he'd just done.
-Ah, and while that first death will hurt, the next few will be worse.-
He managed to make it to Gar Tsi and Teel, and they helped him through the gates and into the streets. He cast a final look over his shoulder, to the courtyard, to the guardsmen, to Abennak waving and smiling and slurping up bits of rotting melon.
"We're needing to find Kinslek," Gar Tsi said. "Teel, get our wagon. I'll help the boy, and we'll leave before the sun's sank an inch more. No time to be wasting—"
"Kinslek won't listen to us," Irreor rasped. "The man—"
"He will," Gar Tsi said grimly. "The man's being my cousin."
Chapter Twenty-Three
Villeen edged open the door of her private study.
Silence greeted her. All the servants must've accompanied Abennak to the castle's courtyards, just as her brother did. Rippon's castle reeked of sweat and grime and filth, and gobs of dirty wax pooled beneath the candelabras. The channels of water that flowed from where floor met wall—once so sparkling and soothing—had begun to fill with green waterweeds and darkened insects.
At her back, a single candle guttered and died, plunging her study into blackness.
She'd scrubbed away the puddle of whitened, gooey flesh, and removed its traces with her own gentahl, but her brother would guess. Somehow, he always knew when she used the power.
He might not sense it today or tomorrow, but he'd know.
She should've let him see her failure to begin with. It would've been easier. Better yet, she should've told him what she planned. But they couldn't afford to waste precious time arguing about what she should and shouldn’t tell him. She'd done what was needed. Period.
True, it was horrible, but it was also too late.
Her father had changed the island. He'd polluted it, warped it, altered it so that nothing, not even the strongest gentahl, could change it back. She couldn't even replicate it. The dust, these parched people, perhaps even Abennak's madness—all were placed by his hand.
It would worsen.
She strode through the halls of Abennak's castle, past the withered dining-hall, past the overturned statues and heaps of grimy wax. The candles had long-ago burnt out, and the halls here were dark, windowless stretches of stone.
The Mad King had requested her and her brother, but why? The man had a reason for everything, despite his madness. Oftentimes his reasons were locked in riddles only he understood, but that didn't change anything. Like her father, he tossed his own dice.
She opened the massive door to the courtyard with her shoulder, and the sickly-sweet scent of melon settled over her. Sunlight shone through the opening, weak and flickering, unable to lance through the clouds above.
The door creaked as she pushed it.
Fier stood on the other side, his tattooed face bowed, his arms crossed to clench his forearms. His eyebrows drew to points above his nose. He gnawed the inside of his cheek, then faced her as she stepped to his side.
She swallowed hard, uncertain what to say. "I'm—"
"Too late," Fier said, and he pointed. "Look at him."
Fifty paces away, Abennak knelt in the middle of the courtyard—his back to her, his arms hanging limp at his side. He looked toward the gate to the city, and his body shook as if he laughed or cried. A man lay at the king's side, staring up at the sky with wide, unblinking eyes. A ring of guards surrounded both king and corpse, and they contemplated one another as if unsure what to do.
Se
conds ticked past, yet still the Mad King knelt.
"How?" she said.
Her brother licked parched and bloodied lips. "Because I learned the opposite of safety. So many things are clear now, Vill, but they're also dirtied and smudged beyond—"
"Make sense."
"Our father said his general will lead them from safety. He also claimed sacrifice without meaning is no sacrifice at all." Fier pulled in a calming breath. "Vill, the opposite of safety is sacrifice. Simplistic but brutal, isn't it? Think about it. A man is safe if he sacrifices nothing. If he holds himself close, never willing to take a chance, he remains untouched. But a sacrifice is always painful. Always."
"But Father said his general will lead them from safety. If what you're saying is true, then he meant the general will lead them from sacrifice. That doesn't make sense—"
"Exactly."
She threw up her hands. This day had been too long, too filled with things she'd rather not remember. Her brother's riddles, the way he calmly dissected events—they were too much. "King's cock, Fier—"
"Listen."
He told her of the tournament, of how the assassin, Wisk, had hacked off Irreor Ark's finger. How Abennak had forced Ark to kill another to save his friends.
The story was bleak, terrifying.
"I felt something in the swordsman," Fier said. "It almost felt like a thread of gentahl, but it was so, so subtle. Like the barest whisper against my neck. Vill, I'm fairly certain he's our father's general."
She balled her hands to fists.
The general. They'd searched for him for so long, almost as long as the instrument. Could her brother have truly found him? Their father's notes described him as the man who would pierce Abennak's side like a thorn, then watch as the instrument defeated Abennak—but only after a war.
Only after tens of thousands more died.
"The king knew him." Fier wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "I saw it in Abennak's eyes. A brief moment of sanity, but it was so sad. He hated what he did, but he did it anyways."
In the courtyard below, Abennak thrust himself to his feet. He wiped bits of melon from his beard, then grinned as he skipped to her—one hand flung out then the other; one foot stretched far then the other. Up the stairs he bounced, and he skidded to a stop two paces from her.
His guards waited at the base of the stairs.
"What would you do to keep your brother safe, my dear?" Abennak twisted his fingers together. "Don't judge me. Aiieee! What would you do to keep him happy and giggling?"
"Anything."
"Would you kill or let others kill?"
She pressed her lips together, refusing to answer.
The king nodded, a strange, serene bob of his head, as if he'd somehow anticipated her answer, then he brushed past her to enter the castle. His guards stomped past, keeping their attention on the ground, and the last man shoved the door closed.
The final edge of a thin, gray cloud drifted past the sun, and heat struck Villeen like an opened furnace. The cloud drifted south, to Alkar, to the place Abennak would hurl his armies. With the sun high and bright, a small bird with white feathers landed in the courtyard, pecking at the half-rotted melon.
So much had happened. So much time lost.
For an instant, Villeen considered asking her brother what the king had meant, but then discarded the idea. She didn't have time to waste, and Abennak was insane; she couldn't expect rational behavior. Plus there were more pressing issues.
She sat on the steps and motioned for Fier to join her.
"Why let him go?" she asked.
"Who?"
"The general."
"Somehow, in our father's mind, safety is sacrifice. I don't know how, but the reason might not matter. Irreor Ark led his friends from sacrifice. It all fits, Vill. The pieces are perfectly placed, but their edges are round where we thought they were square."
She frowned. "But why let him go? We could've held him here and disrupted Father's plans—"
"It wouldn't have worked—"
"You can't know that."
"I can, Vill. We need more, and you know it."
Simply imprisoning a man wouldn't force their father's hand. They'd need something more, like a loss or a murder or a sorrow. And it couldn't be just any man—it must be a man of importance, at a very specific time, when they knew their father would see it.
In a low voice, Fier said, "I found more."
Of course. I spend the day creating a monstrosity, and he uses his time to discover Father's general.
Still, she couldn't be annoyed if he'd unraveled a string.
"I need you to trust me, Vill," he said.
Gentahl—the power to change reality, to alter that which none thought alterable, the power her cursed father had discovered—it wiggled into her mind. Like a musician who caressed the strands of a favored lute, Fier plucked, twisted, and he must've altered his own mind in that same instant.
Villeen closed her eyes.
Warmth turned cool. A moment before, she'd been sitting upon smooth, grimy stairs, but now grass swayed against her ankles. Waves rolled against a beach somewhere far in the distance, and the caw of a seagull pierced their rhythmic crashing. Salt and dampness hung heavy in the air.
She opened her eyes to a blue, cloudless sky.
"It's hard to think he's about to destroy it," Fier murmured, anger dancing in his words as he pointed. "That entire village, it's almost like our father doesn't want anything left at the end of this. All of them will be gone, Vill, as if the entire island were designed for his enjoyment."
Targ. It was a mid-sized village of a few thousand on the edge of the Skuven Bay, surrounded by a peninsula of low, rolling hills and vibrant plants. The northernmost village in Alkar, its people snagged fish from the sea, then salted and shipped them across the island.
On the far side of the bay, too far to see, stood Rippon.
If her brother was right, the northern kingdom would attack this place. If he was right, these people would all die. Houses would burn. Children would scream. Axes would fall. Maybe there was a way to stop it, but maybe it needed to happen.
He shifted to his left, to a home on a knoll thirty paces away. "He's the miller, just like the one described in Father's notes. He's the instrument."
A squat, sturdy house overlooked the village. The scraping sound of saw against wood drifted from the home's sun-bleached planks, and a merry trail of smoke twined from its simple stone chimney. Tall grass had been hacked from the entrance, and a wide path led to the village below.
"Works in a shop with wood, has a loving wife," Fier said. "He's Father's instrument, Vill. Do you think he even knows?"
"How can you be sure?"
Fier tugged their father's book from his robes, flipped through its pages, and recited it in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. "'My instrument's home will sit upon a knoll. Sun-bleached planks, smoke, hacked grass—I must remember all these things. He'll love his wife, ah, how he'll adore her. And I'll forge from him my world's savior.'"
He snapped the book shut, and the sawing in the home ceased.
"I've read it dozens of times, hundreds." Villeen tore her gaze from the home to examine the village and its twinkling bay. "He never writes the name of the village, not anywhere. There's no woman here. No, we can't be certain. Keep looking, Fier—"
"Look," he demanded.
She did.
A woman stood upon the home's stone steps, blonde hair draped down her back. A man's arms enveloped her waist, and she nuzzled her face against his chest, giggling in delight. Her stomach was swollen with pregnancy. She pulled her head back to look up at him, and he matched her smile.
"I'm sorry, Vill," Fier said.
Her father's words—the notes she'd meticulously memorized over the years—returned to her. She mumbled them through dry lips. "'He'll envelope her pregnant waist, and she'll nuzzle her face against his chest, giggle in delight, and oh, how I wish I didn't have to do this. I must. He'll match
that vibrant smile.'"
This man, with his kind eyes and gentle embrace, was the key to his entire prophecy—that much she knew from the book. She needed to force her father's hand, bring him out from the shadows. Killing his instrument would prompt him to reveal himself.
It was a thin, fickle hope, but she clung to it.
"You don't have to do this," Fier said.
Villeen's reply plummeted to her gut, into a pit of darkness she'd never wanted to imagine or contemplate. Yes she'd planned for this, anticipated and wanted it, but now it stared her in the face.
Her brother clasped her hand.
There was no other way. A tear dripped to Villeen's cheek, slid down it, and splattered against the ground. That man, her father's instrument, she'd slaughter him like a sheep in its pen.
She didn't have a choice.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Irreor crammed the last of his supplies into a coarse brown sack, careful not to push too hard lest the stump of his half-healed finger tear. A white, crimson-stained rag was tied around the center of his hand, more to hide than protect. The wound throbbed, some days more than others, and he couldn't grip his Synien as well as he used to. In a way, he deserved this.
It reminded him of what he'd done, and also of what he faced.
He tossed the sack over their donkey's back, cinched the straps, and climbed into the wagon. Only a blackened patch remained of their camp, but even that charred circle would fade in the following weeks.
Things fade, even memories. They just do.
The spearman's slack face, the way his muscles tightened and loosened, his pleading voice—these things had haunted Irreor for the past week, silent as a leaf falling in the darkness.
Fade. Forget. Void take me, it's so hard.
Gar Tsi sat beside him, and Teel rode in the back, half asleep, legs and arms sprawled. They'd crossed into Alkar one day before. In some ways, Irreor had expected the crossing to ease his mind, but it hadn't. Abennak was now a week behind him, but the Mad King would follow with an army. A month? Two? The timeline didn't matter. What mattered was finding a way to stop it.
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