Surely, the girl didn’t forget, surely…
The Gate Realm slammed down around her and her Key, the Sun of Marden, gleamed in her hand. It was a familiar occurrence, one that often came from the close proximity of sudden, often violent death.
If only it wasn’t her…
She saw the waterlogged girl’s eyes glassy with the look of the dead and her heart tore. Her feet moved to bring her closer, feeling the bitter roll of tears slash over her cheeks.
“I can’t swim,” the girl said apologetically.
There were times when people had a chance to be brought back from the brink. Drowning wasn’t one of them. Water was always the domain of death and offered no second chances.
She took the girl’s hand in hers and kissed it, knowing her fragile hope of love had been dashed to pieces, but led the girl to find peace beyond the Gate anyway.
Once firmly back in the Realm of Men, she cast her eyes away from the western sea and started walking south, not quite sure where she was going. She walked for hours, fighting off anyone stupid enough to think she was easy pickings.
Her feet never once took her back to the home of her father and he never bothered to look for her. It was possible that the disappearance of their daughters had caused them great shame and destroyed the deal between them. She wished she could say it was because they ran away together and lived happily ever after.
The reality was an impromptu job with Wriglin Shipping and long days loading boring wooden boxes onto boring wooden ships to send them away over an ocean she could never forgive for stealing her first love away.
Brat was alone in the Vault; the mercenary had abandoned them.
The kid clutched their cloak to them helplessly as the pounding at the Vault door grew louder. Brat yelped at every creak and dent marking their inevitable entry. Still, the kid looked around as if maybe, just maybe, there was still a way out. There had been that trap door into the catacombs, right? Surely there was one here too!
There wasn’t.
The Guards crashed through the mangled door. Brat had tried to hide behind the broken pedestal and splintered remains of the chest, but they kicked it aside like toys. Even the Flame was gone and the only thing they could find was that bundle of cast iron lockpicks.
Brat didn’t draw them out as a last ditch effort, just clung to them, ever hoping the mercenary would strike them down. Even as the first sword laid open the soft tissue of their belly and the kid’s cries pierced the air, Brat still clung to hope.
‘Mister…’ Brat screamed, not even knowing the name of the man that had betrayed them and left them to die.
He sat up, crying out as he did, feeling the cold blast of air on his sweat soaked skin. Before he could even register the hellish scene was but a dream, he felt Cherry’s arms pulling his head down to her chest so she could rake her hands through his hair.
His breath rattled as he yanked her into his lap, his hands frantic as they ran along her back.
“It was just a dream,” she told him.
No shit. It was a cruel thought so he kept it to himself, burying his nose against her neck to take in her smell. Dreams could always fool your sight, your touch, your sanity, but they never did justice to smells.
Even when he was sure she wouldn’t fade into another cruel mirage, he held her close.
When all was said and done, Gods appeased and Maidens saved, would this be little more than a dream too?
The sobering thought made him push her away gently, depositing her just out of reach. She drew her legs up against her body and watched him, helpless to reach wherever he had gone.
He tried for a smile, but grimaced at the demons still tormenting him from the edges of that dream.
“Go back to sleep, Cherry. I’m fine now.”
It was meant to be an assurance, but he saw the shadows of rejection as she turned away. He reached out his hand but it fell limp and ineffectual back to his side before the urge to follow through had gained strength.
“Good night,” he murmured, knowing it was too low for her to hear it as she rustled her bedroll, keeping her back to him.
He should have gone over there and gathered her up, told her he admired her kind heart, buried himself in that long red hair.
He didn’t.
It would have been more practical to cut close to the Coliseum with the beacon protruding just behind it, but comfort trumped practicality and he lead them along the less sinister stretch of the western border of the Yggrem Sea.
These were ‘luxury ports,’ where the more affluent citizens would embark for the islands dotting the horizon. He knew that from another life, so the memory was more of a footnote dangling on the end of a useless ankle.
Once more, his actions had assured that Cherry was placing as many bodies between them as possible, which was all for the best. He had enough on his plate fighting the irrational garble of emotional garbage the intact Coliseum wreaked on his sanity.
The other downside being that none of the women were speaking to each other. They knew better than to ask him anymore on the events of the night before, but it created a tension that stretched over all of them. Even another offering of a dockside breakfast had offered little more than nods and appreciative grunts, although Dolly had squeaked out an immediately regretted thank-you.
He hadn’t even bothered to bathe or change out of the clothes bloodied and sliced from the day before, just shrugged back into them when he had woken before the others. It was possible his smell alone was keeping them at bay. It changed the directions of quite a few passersby for that matter.
There was a sense of relief when the beacon’s trajectory broke free of the top of the Coliseum. He had begun to dread that the next Rain Maiden might be another Brute, some woman barely cutting through opponents. Absurd thought since whatever decided which women be born Maidens wouldn’t risk a Gate on such a choice.
His mood improved the moment the Coliseum was at his back, so much so that he had worked up an appetite the moment his stomach was not twisted up into those terrible knots.
Rather than a tavern, he decided that this time he would rather sit in a proper restaurant. It was never a preferred choice before, but with four women in tow, it was certainly less suspicious.
Although Dolly and Brute did pass for a couple the way they had taken to each other. Dolly had certainly dropped the expression of a hostage somewhere along the way.
His apprehension returned when he realized why the street they had turned down had seemed so familiar but by the time he realized it, a familiar face had already recognized him.
Time had not been kind to the girl, but then brothels had that effect on people. Her blond hair was still piled in girlish ringlets, though not nearly as charming as Dolly’s. Those sharp brown eyes were lined with bags poorly disguised by the skincolored paint and thick fringe of false eyelashes. Even the silks she wore hung like a sad mural on a thin but sagging body.
He cringed to think she had been Brat’s age when he met her over a decade ago. A time when thinking that ‘boy whore’ was his dream job.
“Stranger!” she gasped, in a tone suggesting anything but unfamiliarity. Scuttling over to him, she bore a smile short a few front teeth as she hooked her arm through his. “I heard you were dead!”
“Glad to disappoint,” he murmured. “Wish I could stay and chat but I have a few friends who are probably as hungry as I am.”
She peeked around him and waved at the women behind him.
“Not a problem! Davi won’t mind if I use his kitchen and I’m still one hell of a cook,” she said with a wink that revealed why she still had clients. There was still some charm left to her.
He would have liked to object, but she didn’t drag him into the front of the brothel, taking him back through the alley towards the kitchen in the back instead.
The others had followed, if only because of the curiosity, but after shoving him down into the chair, Angel (one of his old names for her) had politely ges
tured for the other girls to sit. They did so, locked in the same polite muteness.
Angel tightened the silks around her and tied on an apron, flitting about the kitchen with the speed of someone who definitely wasn’t a stranger to one.
He could feel the varying intensities of the Maidens’ stares and avoided looking at any of them as he reclined with an ease he didn’t feel.
“So, where did you two meet?” Cherry drawled, with venom in that sweet tone. It was a question made loud enough for Angel even as she bore holes in him.
Angel laughed.
“Here, of course. Scarcely remember a day in my life I haven’t been here. We’re old friends. Helped him find a job when he was hard up,” Angel called back over her shoulder.
“A job, is it…” Cherry murmured, and he could hear Sunday squirm in her chair next to Cherry, probably putting distance between herself and the storm cloud that threatened to burst.
“It didn’t work out,” he added, saving Angel the hassle of saying so. He could tell from the way she had hung her head that she wasn’t happy for her part in his failure. He never blamed her for that.
He’d never told anyone about the events that changed his life before he had told Brat that night under the well cap in the storage closet of the King’s own kitchen. He wasn’t hiding it, but the idea of talking about it again exhausted him.
In some of his cruelest dreams, that hand that had closed around him would unman him with one fierce yank.
He quelled a shiver of revulsion as he opted for a lazy smile instead. His eyes dared to meet Cherry’s and he tempted death by winking at her. He could see the Maiden warring in her features and looked back towards Angel.
“Tell them what I told you,” he prompted her and Angel shot him a surprised look.
“Oh. Sure,” Angel replied timidly. “Shoulda seen the poor boy when he came here. You would have thought I handed him a ticket to heaven when I said he could work here. Told me his parents had been killed and he’d be dead too if their killers knew where he was. Couldn’t turn him down after that.”
Again, his eyes met Cherry’s but she still shimmered with anger even though the flickering of change had been suppressed.
“It’s usually better for people to just assume I’m dead though,” he told Cherry.
Some of his missions had benefitted from the same assumption. He wouldn’t bother to go back for his pay sometimes and often when he could steal more than enough, it was far more beneficial for his client to think he had died completing it.
“If you try to pull that on me, you’ll wish you were,” Cherry warned.
Brute startled everyone with a sudden burst of laughter, clapping his back. It interrupted his composure and damn near knocked him out of his chair.
Dolly giggled nervously, Sunday letting out a pent-up breath and fanning herself.
“What are you making? Can I help?” Sunday stood up, glad to break free of the tension and distance herself.
Angel grinned at her and pointed at a cutting board.
“Just a quick stew. Chop some vegetables then?” Angel suggested, Sunday happily accepting.
Cherry however still held her cool gaze on him.
“I won’t leave you,” he told her.
A sappy sigh escaped Dolly’s lips.
Women…
“I won’t let you,” she corrected with clipped certainty.
He grinned and dared to tilt forward over the table.
“Growing fond of me, are you?” he teased.
She leaned forward too, elbows and clenched fists propping her up in challenge. Her smile was anything but sweet.
“We have a deal,” she reminded him.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
He wished he hadn’t said it when rejection flashed her eyes back to their human vulnerability at the meaning behind that jab.
She started to lean away, breaking eye contact, but this time he grabbed her retreating hands and held them. Brute and Dolly watched with rapt interest.
‘Sorry,’ he mouthed.
She yanked her hands out of his reach, but she blushed and her eyes were conflicted, soft but uncertain.
“The stew is smelling good. Can’t wait to eat,” Cherry murmured, realizing how intently they were being watched and embarrassed by it.
The silence resumed between them once the food was served, but he was at least content that the dams had come down enough that the women were speaking to each other again. He listened to them for a while, but slipped away to stand outside alone once he finished eating.
A dizziness struck him, a sudden tingling in his hands.
“Fuck,” he gasped, fumbling in his cloak for the antidote as he stumbled back inside.
The Rain Maidens were all face down on the table and Angel was petting Cherry’s hair fondly.
“I can see why you like her. Such lovely hair,” Angel murmured.
“The Triumvirate got to you,” he wheezed, struggling to keep himself conscious.
Angel smiled crookedly.
“You’re a hard one to kill, Stranger… Or should I say Lord— ” Angel started.
He punched the wall, the thrall shooting through him and shattering the plaster.
“Say nothing, bitch! Ever again.”
He lunged forward, grabbing her throat.
“Don’t you want to know who I work for?” Angel gasped, struggling to breathe.
“It doesn’t fucking matter.”
Flaming talons sprouted from his fingernails, shredding her throat like an iron maiden, only the intact spine keeping her head from rolling away as he released her. The still beating heart worked desperately to feed her dying brain, but the blood cascaded useless over her limp shoulders until he released the corpse to start a pool on the dirty floor.
He hurried to tilt the contents of the vial down each of their throats, unmindful of the blood he spread in his urgency to do so. As the women gained consciousness, the blood at their mouths added a grotesque visual to the remains of their feast.
Sunday was the first to notice the mangled body of their host, her eyes lulling over to his.
“What happened?” Sunday rasped.
“It doesn’t matter…” he repeated, stony with how costly it had been to overlook his usual policy on trust.
“Blood?” came Dolly’s high-pitched voice, but Brute was helping her over to the sink to wash it off.
“Clean up and we’ll get going,” he mumbled, berating himself as he stumbled outside once more.
Twenty-two years, no… ten years passed and they were still after him. Planted seeds everywhere he had left a trace, taking away any place he had ever been. That was all he needed to know, all that was worth remembering.
Trust no one.
Cherry found him reclined against the building once more and clutched her pack as she approached. He knew it was her even with that scarf back in place, just by the way her feet fell when she walked.
“We weren’t sure what to do with our clothes. We left them on the floor,” she said.
He nodded, but his thoughts were somewhere else.
“You should get changed too.”
He let a bitter laugh escape, shaking his head.
“Later. The beacon is already weakening so we can’t waste time.”
Cherry didn’t argue and the lack of reaction showed she wasn’t going to. She stepped in front of him and he let his eyes wander to her face. It was clear she wanted him to say something more, but he wasn’t a mind reader and nothing came to him.
“She wasn’t lying about your parents, was she?” Cherry pressed when the silence hung too palpable between them. “It was another life.”
Her eyes narrowed at the dismissal.
“My parents died too. In this life. I helped them cross the Gate myself,” she said with a defiant tilt of her chin. “Why do you speak of your past like it was another life?”
Something flickered in his eyes, but his walls were up once more. Life bef
ore the Mark. Or perhaps it started when the Triumvirate killed his parents. He didn’t fucking know and it made little difference. He could tell her and a part of him ached to do so, but he was growing too soft by far.
“Later… This place already has too many secrets.”
He settled on those words as the other girls filed out of the kitchen, even if it was a lie. He didn’t intend to tell her at all.
“Ready?” he asked, shifting his pack.
Brute looked him over.
“You look like shit,” she informed him.
“Better that than ‘adorable’…”
He stepped back into the kitchen, seeing their soiled clothes piled over the mangled corpse of the woman he had named poorly. He reached for the flint and sparked it to life, letting it ignite the pile of clothes. He watched to make sure it caught then headed back out.
The fire had caught quick enough that he heard shouts and saw the black curl of smoke as they rounded the block
Would that he could destroy all of his past so neatly.
Maiden, my ass…
He supposed it had been his own false assumption that ‘maiden’ would be a literal term, that Rain Maidens would be chaste creatures.
Certainly didn’t think the next of them would have little miniature versions of herself tugging at her skirts. Not only did they look like her, but the grating little chirps of ‘mommy’ squeaked out of their sticky mouths.
Whatever else this mission was, it wasn’t the sort kids should be tagging along for. Brat was different, he amended. He could lie and say that he had done Brat a favor taking them along, but that had only been true in hindsight. He had been selfish then and he was this time as well. He sure as hell wasn’t dragging kids along and mostly because he didn’t fucking like them.
He could see the other Rain Maidens pondered in different states of uneasiness. He could already tell he was going to have to be a total bastard. Wasn’t the first time, wouldn’t be the last.
“Dolly,” he called, hearing her shuffle up to him.
“Ah, yes, sir?” she asked, awkward with how to address him.
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