by Jane M. R.
As the coach – not the one taking me to Hell – bumps along the road back home, I try to think if this Sunday did any good for Zadicayn’s cause. The priest was more passionate than ever about demons and magic and almost everyone said prayers of protection as they walked by the Faewraith in the catacomb –
No. No this Sunday was no good. We’ll try again next Sunday. And the next, over and over until Zadicayn can find a home in society again. I am grieved that I won’t be there for him, but Corden and Joseara will be. I’ll make sure Joseara reports his progress to me after I’m married.
Our coach passes two constables on horseback, ambling along as if trying to appear casual, about the same pace as someone on foot. Why…
A black coat flashes in my window.
Zadicayn. They are following Zadicayn who is walking back to his castle.
A hive of bees barbs my chest.
“Stop!”
The driver’s voice coos to the horses and the coach rumbles to a stop.
My father looks sharply at me but before he can question, I fling open the door just as Zadicayn steps passed.
“Hey!”
He stops. I see the indecision on whether he should pretend to know me or not.
“Do you need a ride somewhere?” I ask, nudging my chin in the direction of the constables who have stopped, watching us.
He sees them as if just now realizing what threat they might offer. “Yea-s. Thank yew.”
“Father, can we give him a ride?”
He hesitates for a second. He can question me all he wants when we get back to the house but right now, I need to get Zadicayn out of sight of the constables. “Well… of course sweetie.”
I motion Zadicayn inside. He ends up sitting right next to me because between my mother’s tiable dress and mine, they are each too voluminous for us to sit side by side. My green sued skirt ends up folding a little over Zadicayn’s knee.
“Thank yew again.” Zadicayn holds his hand out to my father. “I am Elden.”
My father shakes his hand with a nod. “Fabrin. My wife Janella, and my daughter Brinella whom I believe you met at the Anniversary party.”
Zadicayn pauses. Likely calculating how to proceed with caution like I am. “I did.”
“What brings you to Valemorren?”
My heart is galloping like a herd of horses. I look out the window to the constables we left behind. They are watching the coach go.
“You’re a nephew to Corden?” my mother sounds pleased, though her eyes assess the wizard to find the resemblance that isn’t there. “Cousin to Madrin? Madrin is a sweet thief.”
Girl. She said girl.
“And Corden is good company the brief time we had him. Would you like to join us for lunch?”
I can see Zadicayn is fighting to not look at me for guidance, sitting beside me as he is.
I can’t decide if having him lunch with us would be an issue. If he refuses, then where would we drop him off at? Because wherever that is, that would be “Corden’s house” and if ever my parents decided to thread the needle on the blanket of friendship they thought they might have with him and they went to “Corden’s house” for a visit…
I hate lies. It is like trying to plug all the holes in a sieve before the water of truth spills through.
But Zadicayn must remember what dinner at grandmother’s was like because he says, “I shall decline. Thank yew. I wish yew not to take me further than yewr own house so at that point I will walk the rest.” His dialect has likely already alerted my parents so his oddly structured sentences are not standing out on their own.
“Are you certain? It is not a bother, really.”
“It tis a nice day. It tis good for the lungs. Yew have certainly saved me the greatest part of a walk, anyway.”
“Well, be sure to tell your uncle to call on us for lunch sometime.”
“I will.”
The end of two more miles ends in our driveway where we exit. Zadicayn replaces his hat, tips it to my father, wishes all of us a good day, and proceeds on foot back to the road.
I look but it does not appear the constables have followed.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
ZADICAYN
Brine had given me permission to relocate straight into her room during her absence so I can visit with Corden and Joseara and discuss my life options further. She reassured me that the house staff left behind would not be frequenting her room. But despite those reassurances, she said she still planed on the house staff being in her room because she has as much privacy as the portrait hanging in her foyer. So she would place the bloodstone inside her wardrobe so I would still be hidden if the staff happened to be in her room at the time I relocate. It seems sound advice not to trust the facts, given what I’ve picked up on how life has been treating her lately. It seems my appearance has rearranged things for her.
I have a bloodstone in my pocket for the return trip, so pressing my thumb to the spot of blood beside the Fae Gate, a pop heralds me into a dark space and I’m being smothered by dresses laced with honeysuckle. After listening a moment for any sounds of life in the room, I crack open the door.
Clear.
I trip on her shoes, sending both wardrobe doors swinging open wildly upon my fall. I pull my pride upright again and fix her tiny shoes back in their place in the wardrobe before closing the door.
I open her window and stare out; listening, watching. I close the window and utter the spell. I’m relocated onto the blade of grass I had focused on and then follow what I hope is the same path through the trees toward where I think Corden’s camp fire is.
Within the hour, my hopes and thoughts do not betray me because Corden and a masked Joseara wave at me from their blooming fire. I wish the thief would not mask herself. Masked men were the ones who threw me into the vault.
But I have enough sense to separate my fears from those I socializing with who may not understand them. She wore a mask for a reason less sinister than those who vaulted me, I’m certain.
I sit across the fire from the aging man who hands me a plate with mashed tubers and a trickle of watered down beef bouillon gravy.
Corden pulls my ice and fire twig out of a bag at his feet. “I was able to reach out to some friends I trust since last time we met, and two out of the three confirmed their support. The third knew nothing of what I was talking about. Due to the church preaching against the sins of magic and the three families of Valemorren silencing the rumors and the people speaking them, the Fae Wizards have turned into just fun stories and myths. Most people haven’t even heard those. Valemorren is small, so I can garner what support I can with the few people I know and then they can pass the word on to London and Bristol.”
“That hast to be done carefully, however,” I caution. “Because upon every three souls in support of the Fae Wizards, ye shalt have one who shall report me to the church. Ye art challenging an entity who pulls their beliefs from a book written before Moses was a babe. Something that deeply engrained shall nary be swayed so easily or too soon, and I art nary going to let thee nor Joseara get hurt in my name anymore, so I shalt travel about as I can and see what I can doeth. Ye hath already suffered losses greater than my own. No one shall die upon my name anymore.”
“That’s fine noble of you, wizard, myself and Joseara have already accepted the risks long before you left the vault.” The old man’s gray eyes look up. Footfalls crunch the leaves behind me. “Hello. How can I –”
Cloth scratches across my face. Stupefied, I surprisingly don’t react until Joseara’s piercing scream shatters me two seconds later.
Panic and bile fill my throat and instant flashes of men bagging me and dragging me to a stone vault turns my blood into hot shots of terror.
I stand. Reaching behind me, I grab the man’s ears and hunch forward. He hollers as he rolls over my back, crashing into the fire in a spit of sparks.
I rip the bag off my head just in time for more men to reach for me. Joseara’s bucking b
ody clamped between two men and terrified screams fade to the background as I sprint through the trees.
Running feet crash behind me like hounds pursuing a fox. Are these the men who want me vaulted again? The church who wants to smash my amulet?
I shove away the clotting terror in my head aside and focus on the spell for –
A body slams into me. Together we tumble to the leaves. I begin the first word to summon fire to do something when the man’s hand clamps around my amulet that had fallen out of my shirt.
The blood gem bucks at the touch and a tremendous burst of air blasts over my head.
Cree-ok!
“What the –” The man’s next word is a scream as the Faewraith swoops down and clamps his skull between two fat jaws.
I shuffle backwards on my hands. The creature swoops after the other two men running away. They are not successful.
When the Faewraith dives back for me, I relocate a branch through the creature’s chest. It makes a half attempt to stay aloft before crashing to the dirt.
Joseara.
I didn’t notice when her screams died away. I sprint back to the fire, adrenaline zapping bolts of lightning through shaking knees. Corden is picking himself off the ground. Their campfire is a busted mess of scattered logs. The man I had tossed into it is gone.
“Corden!” I drop to my knees and help him stand. “Ye a’right?”
“Yes, but I think they meant to kill me.” He’s clutching his chest, breathing heavy. “One of them grabbed my head as if to twist it but he whispered in my ear to act dead, so I did. They took Joseara.”
“Whence to?”
He points.
I scatter leaves on the man in my hast to turn around in a sprint, wishing I knew the relocation spell to fly. Hooves pound the soft earth ahead of me… or is that my heart beating in my ears?
Leave them alone! Tis me ye want! Leave them alone! My life tis nary worth theirs!
Air rushes down my throat with every gasp, burning my lungs, breaking loose tears blurring my vision.
Three horses stand clustered with their heads together, waiting for the three men killed by the Faewraith. I don’t remember how to ride, so I dash past them onto a foot path snaking between the trees. I don’t see or hear the horses anymore. Still moving in the direction Corden pointed, I shudder breath into my lungs and pant upon the words to relocate the moisture in the soil to rise to the surface. It takes a couple of tries to communicate that effectively through my rampant breathing to the Fae who would grant the spell however they understood it, but it finally works. Shimmering liquid glistens on the ground in patches everywhere within my sight.
Most importantly, it pools in the recent horse tracks, now glowing under the light of the moon. Following the tracks, I focus on the furthest tree I can see and relocate.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
JAICOM
It will be okay, I want to lie to her to muffle her screams ripping into my soul as she bucks against the arms that hold her stretched across two horses.
It will be okay but it wouldn’t. My father will kill her and if I stand in the way, he will kill me too and my sister would lose all thread of innocents as my father yanks her into a world of murderous greed.
But as long as it isn’t Brinella. As long as Brinella is safe. This girl is nothing to me. I don’t know her. She is a thief. She deserves –
Her screams sharpen and the man holding her head drives his elbow into her face.
I have to shut out the clawing guilt in my chest. If I die, there will be no one left to stop the monster of my father. More innocents would die. I was able to save that old man because I volunteered this venture. The other men with me would have witnessed me break his neck. At least it is just the girl going to die and not both.
I grip my resolve inside gloved fists against the reins.
She isn’t silenced long. She screams again, punctuated with sobbing which, somehow, drives the guilt deeper into me.
Varrica will be protected from all this.
The thief bucks.
The old man is alive.
The thief works an arm free and the man snatches it back.
Brinella will still live. If all the blame is placed on this thief I will be free and clear. I have to remain alive, pretend to go along with my father so I can be an ally to everyone on the inside. Some might die along the way, but I know I can minimize, if I can’t stop, them all from dying.
That doesn’t make her screams any quieter.
We round the lumber house and muted hoof beats on the damp river bank rumble on for another two miles. We reach the tributary trickling into the river and turn a hard right into the forest until I raise my gloved hand to halt.
Old trees needle the area, void of anything else except leaves and a wire and green wax bush seemingly at odds with the rest of the voidish landscape. The burley mercenary holding the thief’s flashing head clamps a meaty hand over her mouth to muffle her crying as he drags her to the fake bush I have dismounted to stand next to.
Grabbing the stiff leaves of the wax bush, I lifted up and set it and its foundation of a board it is affixed to out of the way. The three mercenaries file down the wooden steps into the underground hovel. I follow last, replacing the bush over the opening.
My father is already lighting a match to the wood he had stuffed into the brick kiln in the far wall, though it is not to destroy the evidence of a Faewraith tonight.
The mercenary drives the thief to her knees, held down on either side by a man holding each arm. My father brushes his hands together as if he had just done the dirty work and approaches.
My stomach cramps. I look at what I have access to in the room and think furiously how to save this girl’s life without compromising my own.
My father fists the girl’s mask and yanks it off. Thick scarring masks her face already. Patches of some colored hair between the baldness does nothing to compliment her.
“Joseara Isendell,” my father sneers. “Dying the first time should have taught you to leave fire alone.”
My heart is already so full of everything else that I don’t have room for the shame to realize the story I fed my father about Joseara being the thief was accurate. I made it up to get his compass of Brinella. I shove the shame away. My father needs to die, father or no. A knife on the table is within reach. Two steps and it could be in my father’s heart.
My father crouches so he is eye level with her. “But I am merciful, you see, for even though you will die in fire since you should have died in the fire over two years ago, you may not have to suffer as badly if you tell me who freed the wizard from his vault.”
Joseara’s screams turn into sobs, reaching for compassion since terror isn’t working.
“Rest assured the wizard will not die,” continues my father’s strained attempt at reassurance. “We captured him, too. We just want him back in the vault where he will live.” He stands, all pretense of kindness hardening. “Who freed the wizard?”
The knife. Grab the knife. It doesn’t matter that he’s my father, that it will leave my mother widowed. He is evil. He is hurting other people for his greed. Grab the knife.
Killing is not so easy a thing when confronted with the option. It is extinguishing a life; forty-three years silenced in a moment.
Grab the knife.
A thick plume of smoke curls out of the burning kiln from behind my father, nearly filling the hovel. He sprints over and slams the cast iron door closed but smoke continues to pour out of the vents and around the seals on the door.
“Something’s clogged the pipe.” He points at the third mercenary who stands as if irritated he hasn’t been paid yet. “Go outside and find out what is obstructing the smoke stack.”
The mercenary unfolds his arms as if to object, but a swift glance from my father and the man stomps up the stairs.
Placing an arm over his nose, Aklen creeps back to hover over the girl. His fingers on his other hand lash out like the jaws of a snake
biting Joseara’s white throat. “WHO FREED THE WIZARD?”
Grab the knife.
“I did!” Joseara’s last cry falls broken on my father’s shined shoes.
He purses thin lips and pats her near-bald head. “I believe you are lying but I can’t prove it. I will still be merciful for you, but only because I don’t want to hear your screams for longer than I have to.”
He grabs the knife off the table next to me. The suddenness causes me to flinch. He looks at me without raising his head. “Would you like to do it, son?”
The question zaps all of the air out of my lungs. I fish around for a good excuse but I take too long.
“Next time, then,” he says, apparently reading my hesitation as being too scared.
The mercenary stretches Joseara’s left arm straight out to her side. Her small, lean body fights but it makes no difference. My father lays the blade beneath her arm pit and pulls back. Blood dumps into the dirt. Screams and tears mesh into a single gasp of defeat from Joseara.
A life muffled before me. I could have stopped it. Could have picked up that knife as easily as my father had. Sheathed it in the man’s body. I’ve never killed before. Had no reason or desire too. But now instead of the haunts that would come because I watched a girl die in front of me, I’ll be haunted more because I could have stopped it.
My father tosses his head toward the still heavily smoking kiln, his eyes very obviously watering. “What is taking that bloody man so long?”
The two mercenaries drag Joseara forward. She thrashes uselessly.
A flash of blue from the stairs punches into my vision. I look in time to see the wizard lunging at Joseara. Still mid-air in his leap, his hand clenches the back of her shirt and they both vanish, a roar of fire filling the hovel as they do.