by E. A. Copen
“The rest of you, prepare to move,” Ash shouted. “We’ve already lost two days. We’ll need to make good time if we want to get back on schedule. Ember…”
I put a hand to stop him and went to Dex’s side as he knelt by the body. “I don’t want to talk to you right now, Ash. Just go.”
His tone softened. “But…”
“Go!”
Something dark flashed in Ash’s eyes. He glowered at Dex for a minute before he, too, stomped away.
I squatted and put a hand on Dex’s shoulder. “How can I help?”
Dex looked from the head to the body blankly. “We can’t leave him here. Like this. Kenny… He had a girlfriend and a kid on the way. They shouldn’t see him like this, but we can’t just carry the body around. Not with vampires. And I don’t want to bury him out here where they can’t come to pay respects. It’s not right.”
I nodded. “I’ll see if I can talk Foggy into lending his ax to cut down some trees. We can build a pyre.”
He looked at me, his eyes still unfocused. “But the convoy… They’re moving on. We’ll get left behind.”
“We can make up any lost ground and catch up to them tomorrow if you still want to finish the hunt.”
He stood. “I have to now. For Kenny’s sake. Because this wasn’t a guild sanctioned hunt, his family will get nothing. But if I can bring back something from the dragon, I can sell it. I can make sure his family is taken care of. Without that, they’ll be on the street. I can’t let that happen.”
I nodded and put a hand on his arm.
Zia slowly stepped forward, fidgeting with a cloth draped over her arm. She’d donned a pair of black gloves.
Dex shot her a hard glance.
Her hands went up. “I know you think I’m on Ash’s side, but I’m not here to take sides. As a necromancer, nothing is more sacred to me than the dead. Respectfully, I offer my assistance.”
“And what would you do?” Dex shook his head.
Zia looked at the body. “The dead should be handled with care and respect. Allow me to clean the body and prepare it for cremation. It’s the least I can do after you put your life on the line to save mine. You can observe if you wish, but as a necromancer, I consider tending to the fallen as one of my duties on this hunt.”
Dex looked at me before nodding. “Okay. Yeah. I… wouldn’t know how to do that.”
She nodded and knelt carefully. We watched as she positioned the body, carefully placed the head back in place and pressed her fingers to the severed skin on either side. Zia closed her eyes and magic flared. A moment later, Kenny’s body was whole again. Zia rose, carefully draping the cloth she’d brought with her over the body. “I’ll have a small tent erected and my supplies brought down from the wagon.”
“Thank you,” Dex said, almost sheepishly.
Zia bobbed her head. “I am, and always shall be, at Death’s service. Wherever He goes, we follow.”
The Institute slogan usually felt hollow and cheap, but when Zia spoke it, she made it sound like a prayer.
I linked my arm in Dex’s and forced him to turn away. “Come on. Let’s go see if Foggy will help us.”
Dex cast one more long glance behind him before coming with me.
Chapter Sixteen
Foggy and Ike cut down a handful of trees and asked nothing for it. They worked in silence, jaws set, axes swinging, sweat on their backs and brows. I had the distinct feeling they were imagining swinging their weapons at Ash instead of tree trunks.
The convoy moved on without us, leaving behind only the wagon with the vampires for Zia to follow. It was a somber moment, standing in the woods while the wagons rolled out of sight against the sound of axes chipping away at trees. I told myself I’d catch up with them later, but part of me didn’t want to.
It would be safer for me to slip away unnoticed and pretend that Ash and I had never been reunited. He’d look for me, maybe even find me. Then what? How would I explain abandoning the only friend who’d stuck with me since childhood? Murder seemed like a good reason, but was it really murder like Ike had pointed out? It seemed like murder should’ve been black and white. Either it was, or it wasn’t. Instead, everything had turned gray.
But if I followed the convoy, if I caught up with Ash, what then? How far would things go before I found another excuse to run? Things couldn’t go back to the way they were before because I was infected and Ash… Ash had gone from shrieking at the sight of spiders to beheading men on a whim.
How certain was I that this really was Ash and not some impostor who looked like him? He had Ash’s memories, and Ash’s body as far as I could tell, but was that enough to make him Ash?
I glanced over to the small tent where Zia worked in the shadows, preparing Kenny’s body for cremation. Dex sat despondently on a stump outside the tent, staring in, but not seeing. His eyes were unfocused, his mind wandering elsewhere while his hands turned his hat in circles. I knew that grief. He was lucky to have a body to grieve over, but that didn’t make it any easier to lose a friend.
People have to be more than their memories and their bodies, I thought. If that’s all we were, we wouldn’t mourn the dead. That mourning was for the loss of something more, the things that really mattered. The smiles, the laughter, the tears. We were more… The Ash that had walked into that rift was more.
Then what is he now? I looked down at my hands. Maybe the thing that had come back through was never Ash to begin with. Maybe he wasn’t completely human anymore. That was what the rifts and magicite did, wasn’t it? They twisted things, wound them up with magic and spat them back out as something new, something terrible and powerful. Something fearsome.
I had to know the truth. That alone would drive me to follow Ash as long as I could stand it. It was dangerous, even more so than I had thought. If he found out what I really was, he’d kill me as fast as he’d struck down Kenny.
I pushed up from the stump where I’d been sitting and went to Dex’s side. He didn’t even look up as I approached. “Are you okay?”
He swallowed and shook his head. “I don’t know. We came out here, knowing it could be our last job. Every job can be the last one, you know? You just kind of accept that in our line of work. But seeing that… Nothing can prepare you for that.” He was quiet for a minute before he let out a bitter laugh. “You know the funny thing is, I can’t stop thinking about how it might’ve gone differently if I was here instead of playing at being an elf.”
I sat down on the stump with him. “Dex, you couldn’t have known.”
“I was just so damn distracted by what I wanted. I should’ve been here for him. With him. Then maybe…” He broke off, eyes glistening, put his hat back on, and rose. “I’m sorry. I just… I don’t want company right now.”
“Of course. Take all the time you need.” I felt helpless, watching him walk off into the woods. For all his flaws, Dex seemed like a good person, and he was hurting. I wished I could take that pain away from him.
Ike dumped an armload of chopped wood nearby and wiped sweat from his brow. “That should be enough.”
Foggy leaned on the handle of his ax and glanced over at me. “Surprised you stayed. You and Ash seemed rather attached.”
“Don’t be rude, Foggy.” Ike stripped off his work gloves and put them in his pocket on his way over to me. “She didn’t expect that any more than we did. Ash surprised all of us.”
I closed my eyes. “I’m not sure that is Ash. At least, he’s not the Ash I knew five years ago. He’s changed, and not for the better.”
“People always change.” He put his ax down and sat in the grass next to me. “We’re shaped by our experience in the world, the things we see and do. It happens to all of us. If you’d been together those five years, it would’ve happened in inches, increments so small you’d never have noticed. It’s not your fault, Ember. There’s nothing you could’ve done to change what happened. Ash made a choice, and he will have to answer for it.”
My ey
es snapped open, and I frowned at Ike. “You heard him. Even if you tried to handle things through the courts, he’d barely get a slap on the wrist.”
“You assume Kenny’s murder is his only crime.” Ike opened his canteen and took a long, deep drink.
“What do you mean?” I spun around to face him.
“All I’m saying is that you might be right. He might not be the man you think he is, Ember.”
“If you know something, you need to tell me, Ike.”
Ike exchanged a worried glance with Foggy.
The dwarf sighed, picked his ax up off the ground, and swaggered over to join us with a sigh. “I told you this wouldn’t work. The lass is too smart, I said. She’ll catch on. You should avoid talking to her. But do you listen? No. All it takes is a pretty girl and you’re a puppy ready to spill his guts. It’s as if you wanted us to get caught. Bloody idiot. Well? What are you waiting for? You might as well bare your stones. She’s onto us.”
“Okay,” Ike whispered, “but you’ve got to swear you won’t breathe a word of this to anyone else. Especially Zia.”
I crossed my arms. “How do you know I won’t just break my promise?”
“Because you’re a poacher. You don’t have the backing of a guild, which means you’ve developed a reputation. Reputations are built on trust, and trust only happens when you keep your word. Poachers live and die by the bond of their word, more so than guild bonded bounty hunters like Foggy and me. I trust you to know the value of a promise. Besides, I believe you want the same thing we want.”
“Which is?” I raised an eyebrow, waiting.
“To stop that bloody idiot before he kills someone else,” Foggy muttered.
Ike ignored him. “You want to help Ash, even if that means saving him from himself. I respect that.”
I pressed my lips together in thought for a moment before nodding. “Okay. I promise. Whatever you say doesn’t go beyond us. Now spill.”
“A week ago, I returned from sparring practice to find an unnamed agent waiting in my office,” Ike began. “He was a strange one. He gave no name, introducing himself only by the badge he carried.”
“DEMO.” Foggy spat off into the forest. “Bloody spook division.”
Ike nodded. “He told me he’d gotten a tip that a man going by the name Ash would soon come into my city and post a job looking for dragon hunters. I was to join the hunt. Watch. Report what I saw and find out his next moves. Initially, I refused, but the agent made it clear that my participation wasn’t voluntary.”
“He blackmailed you, lad. Nut up and tell it like it is or don’t tell it at all.” Foggy folded his arms.
DEMO. This was the second time they’d gotten involved.
“What does a DEMO spook want with Ash?” Almost as soon as I asked, a feeling of dread swelled in my chest. I already had the answer. Ash had already given it to me when he talked about building his own empire.
“No idea,” Ike said, shrugging. “I didn’t ask. Wasn’t much room for questions. Now that we’ve been traveling with him, I can see why DEMO might have an interest, though. Ash has some sort of innate magic like I’ve never seen before. I don’t know what he did to that heretic when he was interrogating him, but it was dark magic. You don’t get that from sitting around doing nothing.”
“And you don’t get a loyal institute dog as a bodyguard for being nobody.” Foggy gestured toward the tent. “Ash is up to something no good, lass. It’d be best you shared any knowledge you had with us.”
I glanced from Foggy to Ike. Suddenly, the conversation felt a lot more like an interrogation. “Wait a minute. You don’t think that I’m on his side, do you?”
“Are you?” Ike’s tone was flat.
I stood. “I’m not on anybody’s side. I’m here to hunt a dragon and make enough money to… To live for a while. I don’t know where Ash has been all this time, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell some DEMO spy.”
My fingers curled into fists at my sides. I couldn’t explain why I was so angry. Everything Ike and Foggy had pointed out was true. Even I had questioned Ash’s motivations. There was just something about hearing other people question him that struck a nerve. They didn’t know him, didn’t know what he’d been through, how much we had struggled and suffered to get where we were.
This had to be a misunderstanding. There must’ve been something I wasn’t seeing.
I stormed away, but Ike caught me by the wrist. I turned back, glaring daggers at him.
“I only want the truth, Ember,” Ike pleaded gently. “If there’s something at play here that I’m not seeing, help me understand it.”
I yanked my hand away. “If you’ve got any brains at all, you’ll go back to your guild and tell DEMO it didn’t work out. If you decide to keep going and follow Ash and the convoy… I won’t tell him about you, but I won’t protect you when he finds out either. And he will find out. You two are the worst secret agents ever.”
I stomped away before I said or did something I knew I’d regret.
When I was a good distance away from everyone, I plopped down on a patch of moss between two trees and flopped onto my back, staring up. The tree branches looked like veins against scaly green skin. Here and there, the mid-day sun worked its way through the leaves, only to be scattered by the time it struck the ground.
This had all gotten so complicated. How did I get thrust into the middle of DEMO spies, elven legends, and a would-be empire? I was just a lone bounty hunter, trying to get by until the magic claimed me for good. My life was supposed to be simple.
I closed my eyes, sighed, and listened to the birds in the trees, letting my mind drift. For a while, I hovered on the edge of sleep, resting but aware. A small part of my mind stayed awake and alert, sorting through my options.
After a long time, I sat up. Heat had settled in over the forest, held in place by the treetops. Somewhere nearby, cicadas buzzed in a dull chorus.
As much as I wanted to turn around and leave after everything that had happened, I couldn’t. Part of me felt responsible for Ash. I’d been looking out for him ever since we were kids. If he was going to do something stupid, I needed to be there to stop him.
Ike and Dex carried Kenny’s body to a pyre of wood and dry grass. Zia made a torch and lit it, handing it to Dex to do the honors. Dex stepped up to the body wrapped in white cloth, hesitating just a moment. He said nothing as he thrust the torch into the pyre.
I took his hand as he stepped back a safe distance and squeezed. There were so many things I felt like I should say, but I couldn’t form any of them into words.
Foggy brought out his stringed instrument and plucked a few strings, adjusting them, before he began to play. It was a wordless tune, deep and low. Each note was drawn out yet flowed easily into the next like the march of tired feet ever moving forward.
The song echoed in my mind long after he stopped playing it, even after the last flames were embers, and the five of us began our journey to rejoin the main convoy. The mood of our march was as somber as the tune had been. Zia drove the wagon at a measured pace while the rest of us walked. She would occasionally click at the horses, or say something to urge them forward, but no one said anything to anyone else.
By the time we caught up with the main force, it was edging toward evening. Normally, the convoy would slow to a stop, but Ash had given the order to press on.
I put a hand on Dex’s shoulder. “Are you going to be okay?”
He nodded. “I’ll be better once that dragon is dead, and we’re all headed back.”
I nodded.
Zia stopped the wagon and traded places with someone else, taking his horse. “I’m riding to the front to tell Ash we’ve returned.”
“I’m coming too,” I said. “I need to talk to him.”
“Ember.” Ike caught my attention and shook his head. He was afraid I’d go back on my word and rat him out to Ash.
Maybe I should have reassured him I had no intention of telling Ash about his dea
l with DEMO, but I was still angry at him. I let him sweat and turned my back to Ike without a word.
Zia frowned down at me for a moment before offering a hand. “Okay. You can ride with me.” Zia pulled me up to sit in the saddle behind her.
“Thank you for what you did for Kenny,” I said, wrapping my hands around her middle so I wouldn’t fall off.
“Still hate necromancers?”
“I don’t hate you. It’s the vampires I don’t like.”
Zia shrugged. “Well, we are a package deal.”
“I guess nobody’s perfect.”
We arrived at the front of the convoy, where Ash and several of his people were. He had Scorch walking alongside him, her saddle empty. Ash’s face was blank as Zia and I rode up to meet him. He glanced over at me before turning forward again. “Here for the horse? She’s yours, whether you stay on the hunt or not.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Ash.”
He gave me another glance, gestured to his people to keep the convoy moving, and guided his horse—and Scorch—out of the way of the wagons to join us.
Zia stopped the horse, and I dismounted. “Thanks for the ride.”
“You keep thanking me and I’ll start to think you like me,” she replied with a wry smile before addressing Ash. “The others have returned as well.”
Ash frowned. “Ike and the dwarf?”
“Moping in the rear, but present.”
“Thank you, Zia.” He nodded to her.
She nodded back, glanced at me, and turned her horse around.
“Will you ride with me?” Ash gestured to Scorch.
I mounted the horse and settled in, expecting him to go back to the head of the convoy. Instead, he led me further into the forest. We kept the convoy in sight, moving parallel to it, but out of earshot of anyone in it.
“You’re angry with me,” he said at length. “Ember, someone had to make a decision. The man was dead either way.”
“It’s more than that, Ash. It’s… everything. You’ve been so different since the start of this. If I didn’t know your face, I would think you were a different person.”