by Matthew Wolf
Finn spoke softly. “Meira… I asked you here for more than just telling you that I missed you. There is something else…”
Despite the chill air, her face flushed, knowing, fearing, and hoping.
“… something you’ve known for years, but I’ve never had the heart or courage to say until the other day. Seeing Ezrah and his compassion for his grandson made me think… and then these days of preparing, of battle and war brewing like a storm of swords on the edge of the horizon…”
She gave a soft snort. “Poetry, Finn? Are you trying to woo me?” Meira looked away to avoid his gaze, sighing. “Really, don’t we have better things to discuss?”
Lightly, he touched her chin, turning her to look up into his eyes. “No more. Those tongue-in-cheek words won’t work on me, Meira. I know you. All of that, it is just a guise that I’ve played along with, and I refuse to buy it any longer.”
“I…”
Finger upon her chin, he pulled her gently but firmly closer. His breath was sweet but hot, his lips lingering closer. Her heart was loud enough she feared it would pound its way free of her body. “The truth I’ve never been able to say is not that I love you, Meira, but that I’ve always loved you.”
She swallowed. “Finn… I…”
But he silenced her with a kiss. And Meira lost herself in his touch. Distantly, she felt him wrap his arm around her waist, pulling her tight to his body, and she moaned against his lips from the strength of his touch. In that moment, worries, fears, and even hopes seemed to disappear, pressed against his hard body and soft lips.
For once, she forgot about it all.
For once, since Morgan’s death, Meira felt peace.
Reunion
THAT SAME NIGHT, GRAY STILL COULDN’T sleep. He wandered the Tranquil House restlessly. A group of Devari and Reavers approached from the opposite end of the hall, and he did not need the ki to feel their tension. Again, many cast him quick, simple bows, and though he’d grown more accustomed to it, still his skin crawled. Who is he? Their eyes seemed to demand.
A tall, powerful man led them, a Reaver he recognized—Dagon.
He opened himself to the ki, wanting to sense the powerful man’s intentions, but was interrupted. Deep in thought, the black haired, four-stripe Reaver’s course clashed with Gray, and they bumped shoulders. He shuddered. The group passed. He breathed a sigh.
A feeling of malevolence filled him. Like the danger of death—the purpose of blood.
Gray felt goose bumps prickle along his arm, the feeling following him like a clinging fog. He strode through the halls lit by flickering torches. He cast his mind from it, continuing, taking in his surroundings. The bright orange torches banished a night that pressed in from all angles, as if seeping through the windows. But that only seemed to remind him of the darkness in the tunnels and of the sword upon his back.
Morrowil is mine now, he vowed, not the other way round.
He found himself in the quainter side of the Tranquil House, near Zane’s rooms once more. He saw the brass handled doorknobs and memories returned.
A room…
Darkness…
A bloodcurdling cry…
Suddenly, the cry seemed to echo again, not as shrill and painful, but still…
No, he thought. That was real.
“You deserve death!!” A voice boomed angrily.
He twisted and saw it was Zane’s room at the far end of the hall.
Gray gripped his power and kicked the door with threads of wind powering his foot. Splinters exploded in the air. He felt the nexus roaring with life inside him. Through his anger and stillness—a haze of red and white—Gray took in the scene.
The small room was in tatters, furniture flung to one side. The plain rug was singed with flames, and the simple walls with landscape paintings held black scorch marks. In the center of it all, Zane held his sword to Faye’s neck, and flames were beginning to crawl up the steel, inching closer to her face. Her expression was a strange mix of fear and acceptance.
“Zane!” he bellowed, “What in the seven hells is going on?!”
The man turned, pain and wrath flowing in his eyes so strong it nearly took Gray to his knees. They burned red. Not like Kail’s, more copper, but still it was a gaze he’d seen before—in Seth. “She killed them, Gray,” the man seethed, tears in his eyes. “She killed Hannah and the others… ”
Dread, fury, and confusion flooded Gray. “What… What are you talking about?”
“She just told me everything. She led them into the pit and betrayed them, giving them to Darkeye to die. They’re dead, Gray. Ayva, Darius, and Hannah… They’re dead, and this lying witch is to blame…”
Zane’s attention split, Faye suddenly twisted, ducking beneath his sword. She pressed against the wall, kicking him with both feet, and the fiery man grunted as he was sent flying back.
As if standing in the center of a tempest, Gray’s rage and serenity pulsed.
He shifted.
Wind flashed around him, and he suddenly stood before Faye, Morrowil to her throat.
Faye’s eyes were wide in shock. “That move…”
“Why?” he breathed, ignoring her. “Why did you do it?”
The woman before him didn’t flinch, but her eyes held a hollowness Gray could barely fathom. “You’d never understand.”
“Speak or I will end you right now!” he cried.
Faye looked away and spoke, “I live with blood on my hands, but there is one life I was not willing to let go,” she answered coarsely. “One life I cannot see spilled, no matter the sacrifice. I never wanted to betray you—despite what you did to me. You are unlike anyone I have ever met, Gray, and you have this strange and, at times, almost infuriating effect on me. But I never wanted this.”
“Then why?!” he bellowed, pressing his sword tighter, cutting deeper.
“For my sister,” Faye said in fury and sorrow. “Darkeye has my sister…”
“Sister?” he questioned. “You sacrificed my friends for your sister?”
“I could not let her die, or worse, become me.”
Become you? But he didn’t care. “You saw them die?” he asked.
“No,” she replied shaking her head. And hope bloomed inside Gray. Suddenly, he felt a voice in his head, and anger. A presence. What is that? Then it clicked. Zane. He was threading.
The room flared with heat, searing Gray’s back as a flame roared for Faye. Releasing an even breath, feeding off his anger and serenity, the nexus spiked. With a casual flick of his hand, a gust of wind rushed through the air and dissolved the angry molten fire to nothing, blowing Zane back, slamming him into the far wall and dropping him to the ground.
He looked down. Morrowil was shaking in his hand. The sword is giving me power. He remembered. Stealing too much from Morrowil will consume me just as it did Kail, he reminded himself. Yet for now, his nexus had control. He twisted to Faye. “I thought I knew you. I trusted you…”
Faye leaned in, lips brushing his ear. “Trust is a misguided notion, my dear Gray. It will only be your death.”
“I don’t believe you. You have good inside you, Faye. I’ve seen it!”
“You saw what you wished to see,” she answered, looking away, her pale red lips made a tight line.
With the wind, he lifted her from the ground, feet dangling as he held her in the air. He read her eyes as she flinched. “What are you hiding? Tell me!”
“Death is not what I fear for you friends,” she admitted, wincing beneath Morrowil’s edge as faint eddies of wind flowed along the blade. “It’s a life of servitude.”
“Then you know nothing,” he snapped. “Ayva and Darius would never fall to shadow!”
“Perhaps, but Darkeye has a talent for breaking even the most righteous. No matter their strength of heart,” she replied, eyes flashing as if in memory. “He finds a way.” She made the words sound personal and painful all in one.
“Then why did you return? Just to die?” he asked,
gripping a veil of serenity. For if he gave into his anger, his power would shatter. He knew the nexus was the only thing saving Faye from certain death.
Faye’s amber eyes watered. “Because… I had to…” Abruptly, she gripped Morrowil’s handle and gasped in pain, and Gray knew the agony Morrowil was giving her, having seen it before. Still, she held on, pressing the blade closer to her throat still, more blood flowing forth. “Finish it!” she seethed. “I care nothing for my life, but know in so doing that you are risking thousands of others…” Her eyes held his, swirling with pain. How could I trust those eyes? “I have information on what Darkeye is planning. I came to inform you all, to tell you and your grandfather, the Arbiter.”
“Lies,” he breathed. “I can never trust you.” He thought about Ayva and Darius, and sorrow rushed through him until he thought he would collapse from the weight of it. He raised his hand, forming threads of furious wind, anger growing. The nexus began to shudder as his serenity faltered.
A voice sounded.
“Gray?”
That voice… It was so familiar, soft and yet strong.
He twisted.
Ayva and Darius stood in the dimly lit doorway, firelight flickering behind them, silhouetting their frames. A young girl who was obviously Zane’s sister, Hannah, and a small dirty boy were at their side. Each looked ragged, their clothes soiled, oddly wet and in tatters, but they were alive…
The nexus faltered, anger wavering.
He dropped Faye to the ground and stepped towards them. “Am I dreaming?” he breathed.
Ayva rushed forward, and he met her, embracing her deeply, and then Darius—the rogue lifting him from the ground, laughing and smiling. “Dice, Gray, you’re alive! I knew it! That Devari would never have let you out of his sight…”
Victasys… Gray’s heart winced but Ayva’s smile pulled him back to the moment.
“Zane!” Hannah cried, hurrying to the fiery man who lay slumped beside his cot, unmoving. “What’s wrong with him?” Gray cringed, feeling guilty. Perhaps I used too much force. Hannah pressed her fingers to his head.
Zane suddenly grumbled, he rose and rubbed the bump on his skull. The girl can use the spark? Zane saw Hannah and his face twisted, his visage of fury becoming one of joy. Wordlessly, he gripped her, pulling her close, and she hugged him back just as fiercely. “I thought you were dead…” he breathed.
“I was so frightened,” she said. “Never leave me again, deal?”
He laughed, scrubbing her hair. “Never,” he voiced, eyes blazing in mirth.
Darius and Ayva’s eyes suddenly noticed the woman behind Gray, and fury filled their expression.
“What in the seven hells is she doing here?” Darius seethed and unsheathed his leaf-shaped blade in a ring that filled the small room. He strode forward.
Gray stepped in between him and Faye.
“What is this? Move aside, Gray.”
“No.”
“Gray,” Ayva said quickly, gripping his arm, “Faye is not who you think she is. She—“
“—I know,” he said.
“No—you don’t,” she said, her eyes flared. “She betrayed us! Without Lucky, we would be dead.”
Lucky? Gray wondered, eyeing the small boy in rags that barely fit his skinny frame. That must have been whom they meant. “Faye admitted her betrayal already.”
Ayva shook her head, baffled, eyeing Faye. “What are you planning?”
Faye remained silent.
“Wait, Lucky saved you?” Zane asked.
“I’m a hero!” Lucky exclaimed, “Thanks to this!” and the boy thrust a hand-sized statue into the air of a stout little man bearing a sword.
“My statue…” Zane whispered. “How in the…”
And Lucky blushed red. “I swear I was going to give Dared back, Shade!”
Dared? Shade? Gray questioned.
“Yes, yes, the statue,” Darius said. “That’s terrific, but why is no one addressing the fact that we’ve a traitor and a murderer in our presence?”
“I’ll deal with it,” Zane replied, gripping his sword and rising, his blade wreathed in sudden flames.
“Not if I finish her first,” Darius answered, hands wringing his leaf-blade and stalking forward, and even Ayva’s hands glowed with a strange golden-white light, anger in her eyes. Faye simply gave a dark, empty smirk as if beckoning it. And Zane bellowed, raising his blade. With thick threads of wind, Gray reached out and gripped every person in the room. He raised his palms, lifting them into the air. He felt energy flee his body, sapped as if he’d just run for days. His left knee buckled to the ground, and he winced. It felt as if he carried all of their weight upon his shoulders, but still he held on.
“Enough,” he retorted in fury and stillness. “No more!”
Zane sneered, hanging in the air. “Let me down! The foul woman deserves death!”
“I will not have it!” he answered, and he fell to his other knee, arms trembling beneath the strain. “Faye does deserve a dark fate, but this is neither the time nor the place. No… more…” And he dropped them to the ground with a breath.
When he looked up, Ayva was at his side, Darius as well, preventing him from falling over. With their aid, he rose to his feet. “She betrayed us, Gray,” Ayva said. “She tried to kill us. I cannot let that go so easily.”
“Nor I,” he said, “but she has news Ayva—information about Darkeye and his plans that surely has to deal with Sithel and the Citadel. If I can prevent hundreds from dying in the battle to come, then I will gladly spare her life for now. She will meet her fate, but not now. For the time being, she is too useful.”
Ayva sighed. “So be it.”
Zane grit his teeth, “As long as you keep her away from me.”
“And me as well,” Darius said, staring daggers at the woman. But he seemed to brush the matter aside with his next breath. His fingers flit eagerly at his side, a trait just like Maris. “So what’s comes next? And what’s this business about a war?”
He opened his mouth when Lucky yelped throwing the statue into the middle of the wood floor. “Ouch! It’s hot! Dared just burned me!” The statue glowed gold, sucking in the light.
Zane spoke, “I think we’re being summoned.”
“What do you mean?” Ayva asked.
“That statue, it’s Ezrah’s,” the fiery man replied.
Gray stared up, as if he could see his grandfather up through the floors of wood and walls of clay, and he spoke. “Then it’s time to return it to its owner.”
A Traitor’s Truth
WORDS OF PROPHECY DANCED IN EZRAH’S head.
They lingered one moment, and vanished the next as his eyes scanned the page. It was a torn piece of parchment cradled in an old book for safekeeping. Candlelight shined off the parchment’s ancient ink stains and long dried water spots—each as familiar to him as freckles or scars upon his weathered hand.
Suddenly, a scream sounded, jarring his reading. He ignored it and kept reading, when it came again… a bloodcurdling cry echoed through him, one that would make men shudder, women weep, and children tremble. With a long breath, he shut the book and looked up.
Aside from the ticking clock, the room was utterly silent. Outside the window, the courtyard stirred with life, but inside, shadows flickered across the wide four-post bed, wide table, and several chairs. Even the grand fireplace sat cold and black.
He knew the screams weren’t real.
They were memories—the darkness enveloping him reminded Ezrah too much of that cursed torture chamber.
Flashing images came to life.
Stones scraping.
Fire searing.
Dark mold clogging his lungs.
All of it stealing his life, bit by bit, in an attempt to break him, to turn him. Ezrah’s gaze narrowed on his hand. It trembled. Reluctantly, he threaded a spell of flesh into his own mind and breathed a sigh. It barred the images, or at least threw them to the recesses of his thoughts. It was dang
erous. Threads of flesh cast upon oneself were forbidden, even for an Arbiter, but Ezrah had more important things to do than fear.
Still…
He waved a hand. A fire roared to life in the nearby hearth, crackling and eating away the darkness and, before him, the candle burned brighter. He focused his attention back on the worn parchment, its bottom edge ragged. It was only half of the prophecy. For the thousandth time, he wished for the other half, wondering who had it. He had his guesses but, whoever it was, they were doing well to counter him at every turn.
A knock sounded and he turned calmly. “Yes?”
“It’s me,” a voice answered.
With a subtle smile, Ezrah instructed, “Come in.”
Gray entered, the others close behind. Silently, Ezrah surveyed his guests with a watchful eye. At Gray’s side was a young woman, perhaps a summer younger than his grandson. She was a pretty girl. Despite her outward softness, he admired the strength in her bright blue eyes—a light. Yes, I see the resemblance now. The light of truth, Ezrah thought with a smile. “Your name, my dear.”
“Ayva,” she replied, swallowing beneath the weight of his gaze. “Ayva Yuni.”
Gray looked to her curiously. “Yuni?”
Ayva nodded. “My last name, after my father.”
“How come you never told us that?” said a young man at Gray’s side with wild brown hair.
She shrugged. “Well… You never asked.”
“A pretty name,” Ezrah voiced, drawing their attention. And much different than your predecessor.
He turned to the next, raising a brow. The wild haired young man stood at Gray’s other side. He wore a bright green shirt and dark trousers, and had the look of a scoundrel reformed. Beneath his scrutiny, the young man shrugged uncomfortably, scanning the room as if looking for an exit. And yet, there was a mystery to him. Then Ezrah saw it. The sword on his back… A leaf-shaped blade that pulsed faint green despite its sheath, and a handle engraved with runes of old. The blade. It resonated with power—a power Ezrah couldn’t see, but could feel. The flow. He’s retrieved his weapon already? What did that mean for his power? It was clear that the boy, despite his nature, was powerful.