by M. A. Nilles
Her heart sank in grief from the memories, but they morphed into her first sight of Je'Surana, the half-blood who had destroyed the obelisk for which Je'Rol had searched, and that led to other wanderings of her mind.
"How is Je'Surana?" she asked.
Lord Je'Kaoron reached inside his coat and pulled out a folded parchment, which he handed to her. "She asked me to give you this but I thought it best to wait since we had company. She was disappointed that you did not visit this morning."
"I'm sorry. I couldn't…"
"I understand."
Amid a streak of guilt for not visiting, because of her guilt for the wound she'd inflicted, Nadia took the paper and unfolded it.
Nadia,
You should not feel ashamed about hurting me. I am doing well. Lord Je'Kaoron knows this, but he forbids me from seeing you off, insisting that I rest a day more.
I wished to thank you for teaching me to protect myself, and I promise that I will practice and do better for when you return.
I always wanted to say how sorry I was about the loss of Je'Rol. He was a very inspiring man. I was jealous that he had traveled around the world, seeing magnificent sights and living free, while I was forbidden from leaving Mount Serako. But Je'Rol told me how dangerous it was.
Still, I fear more for my father than myself in his absence. He has done much to upset the other demonlords by killing Je'Rekun. He is a good man. You must know that, and I know you are a good person. I trust that you will stay with him. He doesn't think he needs protection, but he is one man with many enemies. Please look after him so he returns to me.
Thank you, Nadia, for all you have done.
Jes
Nadia stared at the note and the flowing script of the girl's handwriting. The words did little to ease the burden on her mind of what she had done.
"It was my choice," a soft voice said. "I wanted a reason to keep her behind. In that, I used you."
Nadia looked up at him riding close beside her.
"I should be asking your forgiveness."
"Why?" It would have been a part of Je'Surana's training, a teaching moment, anyway.
He huffed in an almost laugh. "You deserve more respect than I have shown."
"You're protecting her. There's nothing to forgive. You're right. She's too young and inexperienced." But if Je'Surana continued training, she would at least have a chance of surviving in the harshness of the real world, if she ever had reason to leave the security of Acropa Je'Gri. Although Nadia would like to see the day the half-blood girl could beat her, a restlessness grew in Nadia to stop the other Adepts from riling the demonlords. Finishing her training to Nadia's satisfaction might not be feasible if Je'Surana hoped to stop the sects from carrying out their revolution.
Lord Je'Kaoron's face relaxed in a clear sign of relief. "Thank you, my lady. Now, forgive yourself."
So, that was it. She should have known Lord Je'Kaoron would use it as a teaching moment on her.
There was a time when he had scolded her for attacking Je'Rol. She had seen Je'Kaoron's anger, but realized later that he had only been angry that she would kill half-bloods. Since meeting Je'Surana, she understood why. It hadn't been about Je'Rol for him, but what that represented to him. She understood now, and it changed how she saw things.
"I will…in time," she said, the burden already lifting from her mind.
She folded the note and tucked it into a pocket of her leggings.
They rode on in quiet through the day, Acropa Je'Gri disappearing as they passed the mountain and the catacomb exit where Je'Rol had escaped Je'Rekun with the help of a guard that the then high lord had asked her to torture for his betrayal. In the quiet of the ride, Nadia thought back to that crucial moment…
She felt it in the back of her mind, a shadow whispering conspiracies and seducing her with its promised power, but she had let go of her anger. She pressed the knife to the tiger's skull, the spell whispering from her lips making the blade glow with the power to take away life.
Je'Sikar, the orange tiger guard that had aided Je'Rol's escape, whimpered and mewed softly, his eyes pleading for mercy. They had shackled him with enchanted manacles in the round chamber with the high walls, weakening him to the point that her dagger could affect him. She had seen it already, as had High Lord Je'Rekun.
The tiger let out a mournful "urmf" that stayed her hand, but he dared not move. She had to finish the task. Je'Rekun observed closely. But if she killed Je'Sikar, the demonlords would learn as she would that she could kill their kind under the right circumstances. It would confirm the potential danger of the Adepts to their power.
Nadia gazed into the amber eyes of the tiger and licked her lips.
"It is in my interests. I assure you." Je'Rekun's soft voice vibrated with a purr of satisfaction.
His interests in punishing Je'Sikar's betrayal, or his interests in testing her abilities?
Although Nadia wanted to know for herself how far she could push the demonlords to death, Je'Rekun was the last of them for whom she wanted to demonstrate the abilities of the Adepts.
A whispered word changed the spell the moment before she drew blood. The tiger thrashed and howled in mournful agony. Unlike her first attempt, his body didn't blur. Instead, he flopped against the chains for a few seconds and fell still, his sides again rising and falling rapidly.
Nadia sheathed the dagger at her hip and waited.
Je'Rekun strode around the panting tiger and stopped opposite her. "Prepare to depart, Huntress. You have a half-blood to kill."
Lord Je'Rekun had wanted to see if the dagger could kill. She had wanted to know too, but that had changed. Now, she hoped it couldn't and wouldn't risk another testing it on those she cared about. Destroying it would be the surest way to know that no one could use it. She had seen what happened when items or living beings passed through the arch of the Nik'Terek Gate—they didn't emerge on the other side but disappeared. It would be best for their world if that dagger disappeared.
Dangerous sounds from nearby stirred her from the memories. Over the rustle of horse legs and the accompanying tigers through tall grasses came the clicking, slurping, chittering sounds of hungry natters.
"The natters have reclaimed their preferred breeding ground," Lord Je'Kaoron said, his eyes on the barely seen opening behind a tuft of tall grasses, which moved in a way unnatural to the waving from the breeze. The single line of movement split into four lines moving towards them.
Nadia's horse stood with ears pricked at the top of a head held high.
Something hissed nearby, but several tigers broke off to take on the attacking demons.
From a distance, she could help. Using the dispirit power she was born with, she reached out to the simple minds of the approaching demons. They were focused on the smell of living flesh, their ravenous desire for fresh blood driving them from their den, from being eaten by others. The simple instinct to feed and to defend their nests drove them into the open.
A sense of fear spiked when she touched their minds, but it hadn't come from her touch. She felt the confusion already sweeping through them and looked aside. Kaelen had turned his mount to face the cavern.
Two demon hunters. She had almost forgotten about him.
The cavern soon exploded in a wave of skittering, crawling, slithering, oozing monsters that could overwhelm an untrained Adept and easily kill anyone without the dispirit power to stop them. Natters had an uncanny sense of self-preservation that drove them out in hordes when an Adept was near.
However, she wasn't the helpless girl of around the same age as Je'Surana that Je'Rol had saved long ago when a similar swarm attacked her, before she was discovered to be an Adept.
Nadia choked away the memories and the flotsam of regrets they stirred up and refocused on the horde as tigers roared and lunged at the beasts. The natters slowed, many freezing while the demonlords transformed into armored warriors to fight them off.
The battle soon ended, leaving the grasses fl
attened with various parts of at least a dozen different natter types strewn across a wide area and discoloring the hides of demonlords in the forms of lords and ladies and tigers.
"The caverns must be purged once more," a voice muttered next to her. She turned but Lord Je'Kaoron watched the returning tigers with his nose wrinkled. Even she found the odor of dead natters overwhelming and couldn't imagine its assault on the sensitive noses of the demonlords. "But this has decreased their numbers. The aid of demon hunters is appreciated." His eyes slid from her.
She followed his gaze to the other black-clad rider. Kaelen approached with a scowl on his face.
"Come, Huntress." Lord Je'Kaoron turned his mount in the direction of their travel, and Nadia gladly turned her back to Kaelen. Tigers rejoined them, their coats stained with the innards of the natters. "They will be eager to find the river."
The river. The blue water shimmered ahead, a ribbon through the green between mountain rises. Je'Rol had followed that river.
Nadia shook away the thoughts too easily resurrected while riding in quietude with the demonlords sedate around her. Five months she had grieved and healed, but this journey brought back a new grief, one of regrets for her previous life. If only she had understood then the truth that Lord Je'Kaoron had shown her, she would bear no such regrets.
They soon reached the river, where the tigers waded in deep. The horses splashed through a shallow crossing and paused to lower their muzzles to drink.
Once across, the party continued onwards in a line directly opposite the setting sun. More east than north, they traveled away from the valley through which she had tracked Je'Rol's escape five months ago.
Lord Je'Kaoron said nothing and wore an expression that weighed upon her with the sense that she shouldn't dare to interrupt. Kaelen remained behind, separated from them by the many tigers.
That changed near sundown. At an unseen cue, half the tigers dispersed, running ahead in pairs and trios. Hunting parties, she guessed.
The rest of them continued, until they reached a copse of trees, several with trunks thicker than her, and Je'Kaoron signaled to halt.
Something rustled in the grass.
Tigers fell silent, several moving into positions around the trees.
Nadia waited.
"Come out." Lord Je'Kaoron's voice broke the quiet hush of the wind.
The rustling stopped.
Nadia reached out with the dispirit power and felt it—a demon mind but far more aware than the natters. She recognized what it was.
From the shadows broke a shape no higher than her waist, a dome of a light green head catching the last light. Fanlike ears drooped. The goblin curled its shoulders to shrink from the circle of demonlords around it.
"Have you a message for High Lord Je'Dron?"
The goblin shook its bald head.
The squeak of leather accompanied Lord Je'Kaoron's shift in the saddle as he twisted to look back to Nadia. His eyes searched past her for a moment, a frown on his face. "We will leave him to you, Huntress, and return after our hunt. I'd like to know why he's here alone."
"Yes, my lord." So would she. Goblins didn't usually travel alone but preferred the company of demonlords. She had only had such an encounter on one other occasion, and it had taken the demonlords accompanying her putting some distance between them for the curse to lift.
His frown shifted past her again, but she didn't have to guess why. "You will do as she commands, Hunter."
"Yes, my lord," Kaelen grumbled from close behind her.
Lord Je'Kaoron waited, his attention on her and Kaelen until the others ran off, then took up the rear of the pack of tigers and riders.
Nadia dismounted, her eyes unwavering from the goblin except to look past at the disappearing demonlords. It would take a while before the curse lifted and the goblin could speak.
The squeak of leather came from behind, followed by the thump of Kaelen's feet hitting the ground.
"I thought goblins lived with demonlords," he said as he stepped up next to Nadia.
"Only the ones who serve."
"Don't they all?"
"No." The knowledge of the Adepts had been incomplete regarding goblins, as she had discovered.
To her relief, he fell silent, no questioning or trying to bully her. He'd learned long ago those tactics only aroused her defiance.
The goblin didn't run, but he had straightened upon the disappearance of the demonlords.
"One helped me find Je'Rol. He was…a scholar."
The goblin tilted his head and blinked.
"The goblin was a scholar," she corrected.
The goblin before her gave a nod. They were more intelligent than her teachers had indicated, not the servile whipping posts of the demonlords that were usually witnessed around the feet of their masters.
Kaelen said nothing but stood with a frown, brooding under that black hood. He hadn't even heard what she said about the goblins. She had mentioned Je'Rol, and that was all he'd heard. He had always hated her mentioning Je'Rol.
"I killed him, you know…Je'Rol," she said quietly, to get a reaction.
"You always said you would."
Typical. He had never accepted that she could love a half-blood. Her hatred of Je'Rol had been another matter, usually one Kaelen had supported. But this was something else. Kaelen had always been jealous, saying that her vehemence to Je'Rol had hurt her because of how deeply she had loved him and that she had been naive to believe a half-blood could love and that she had mistaken her awe of Je'Rol saving her from natters as an act of love. None of it had been real, according to him, and she had believed him, which had only fed her hatred of Je'Rol for tricking her. Only upon seeing him again had she learned otherwise. Half-bloods and demonlords were indistinguishable from humans with perhaps more humanity in some cases. "At least he left to protect me, not to hurt me."
"That wasn't what you said eight years ago." He muttered the words in a neutral tone, but that he had said it confirmed that any mention of Je'Rol still bothered him. Good. Maybe he'd leave her alone if he had to hear the truth.
"I was young and stupid then. I've changed."
"But you don't want to listen to me?"
"I said I was young and stupid. And what you did is unforgivable." She had done all she could to forget.
"But you could forgive a half-blood. Hm?"
"Shut it, Kaelen! It's not the same." Nadia clenched her fists and stepped away to let her temper cool. First Je'Rol and then him returning to her life. It couldn't get any worse. "I'm not talking about this now. We have a job."
"You're the one who brought it up."
To test him, and he showed no remorse for what he had done. After all those years, he hadn't changed. There were no excuses for the way he had mistreated her.
Or perhaps he was angry that she had finished her training and he couldn't accept that she had proven herself a worthy demon hunter. That would explain why he was so adamant about claiming the dagger himself. He thought her unworthy of any of it.
Damn him. Damn them all for trying to force her to comply with their version of what they thought she should be.
The demonlords respected her. Why couldn't he?
She stopped near the goblin and knelt to his level. "Can you speak now?" She'd rather hear the piercing voice of a goblin than relive the pain of her past. Of all the other hunters they could have sent, they had chosen the one who had ripped apart her soul.
The goblin opened his mouth but, when nothing came out, he put a hand to his throat and shook his head.
Damn. That meant Kaelen would want to talk.
"Do you have a message?" she asked.
The goblin nodded.
Hopefully the demonlords went out of range soon. She had never determined the distance of the curse to prevent goblins speaking in the presence of demonlords. Supposedly, the first demonlords had set the curse upon all goblins and their descendants. From her experience with Skar, she could only guess that it had been t
o spare their ears from the shrill voices of the goblins. Or maybe it had been to make dominating them easier. Then again, the goblins seemed to serve demonlords willingly, taking abuse by the commands of some.
"I wish you could tell me who sent the message." She hated waiting, especially with Kaelen's eyes burning through her.
The goblin looked from her to him and crossed its arms.
That it waited meant the message must have been important.
Kaelen stepped away from her, drawing his sword as his eyes fixed on a rustle among the trees.
"I—"
The squeak from the goblin stole her attention from whatever Kaelen stalked.
In a blur of motion, the goblin whirled and hissed at something in the trees. A high-pitched shriek accompanied the squish of something soft.
"Natters," Kaelen confirmed. The goblin returned with only a light splattering of dark liquid glinting on his clothes.
"They smell flesh," the goblin said in a voice deeper than she expected but no less grating on the ears.
"You can speak." Kaelen stood aside where he could watch the trees and the goblin.
"Demonlords far enough now."
"Then tell me what you came to say, before they get too close," Nadia said.
"Wark came not for High Lord of Je'Gri. This message for Guardian from Magworsh clan leader."
"Guardian?" Nadia looked to Kaelen for an answer, but he only shrugged.
"Leader sends warriors to find Guardians, First Ones."
"First Ones? Do you mean Old Ones?" The goblin Skar had referred to what humans called the Master Race as the Old Ones. Could this goblin, Wark, have another name for them?
"First Ones guard lesser races. Old Ones no more."
That was more unclear. If the Old Ones weren't the First Ones…"Who are the First Ones?"
The goblin's shoulders rose and fell with a heavy sigh, and he shook his head. "You must pass message to demonlords to reach Guardians. We observe bad things possible and First Ones needed to stop like long ago. Goblins observe, keep promises to Old Ones and Guardians."