by Gwynn White
But Oren didn’t give any obvious signal. No whistling, no fanfare of magic.
So Arwin and I kept to the shadows. If the legate managed to talk Oren out of a fight, I knew there would be no winning this for us—we would have to run. And I wanted the two of us as close to the road as possible in case that was necessary.
“What did these two children do to you?” Oren asked.
I wasn’t sure if he was genuinely curious or just stalling for time, but I urged Arwin along just the same. In the back of my mind, I was worried that we hadn’t seen or heard any other men with Karver. Had he come alone? Or were they lurking unseen somewhere nearby?
“One is a thief. I caught her in the act and gave chase,” Karver explained. “When I cornered her, her partner took me by surprise and knocked me unconscious.” His voice dropped as his face twisted with anger, high cheekbones pressing against the taut skin of his cheeks, and he raised his one fist to the light as if to make a point. “I woke chained to the wall like a dog!”
And then I saw them: the pale scars of recently healed skin. A ring of unaligned circles marked where the barbs of the metal cuff had pierced his flesh after I’d commanded the iron to adhere itself to the brick wall.
“Stealing a loaf of bread is a minor offense, one I am willing to overlook,” Karver continued, his voice raised again. He spun in a tight half circle to address the woods. “I am only here for the boy, the metal acolyte. No one else has to die here tonight.”
Those words sent a spike of fear through my core, and I turned to try and meet Arwin’s eyes in the darkness. I wanted to know where her heart lay in all of this. She had the bag of gold, more than enough to start over. She had her freedom from Beyland, unless the brigadier pulled a Karver and left Pointe in pursuit of us. All she would need to do was turn on our makeshift partnership and hand me over to the vengeful legate who’d been bold enough to walk into the woods without any form of support.
And he wasn’t here to take me in.
Karver was after blood, and only when I stopped breathing would he deem it enough.
Her actions in the moment had saved us back then, but now I was fervently wishing Arwin had never had the bullheaded idea to nick that loaf of sourdough bread that had sent us on this flight from the law.
“Mal, I’m not going to hand you over, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Arwin said suddenly, intruding on my thoughts.
“You aren’t?”
“Not a chance.”
“I…I don’t know what to say. Arwin, I’m touched—”
“Oh, that doesn’t mean it didn’t cross my mind,” she said quickly, overriding me. “Our plan was to get to Cleighton, pawn off the swords and shields you made and smuggled away from whatever forge you ended up at, and then live like kings.” She hefted the coins Pilor had given them. “That plan isn’t necessary anymore; this is enough for one person to live off of for a whole year or more.”
“Then why are you still with me?”
Arwin sighed, then came in close enough that I could see her smile through the gloom. “Because we’re friends, right?” Before I could respond, she leaned back with another gentle sigh, then pulled her dagger free with deliberate slowness. “And besides, I don’t trust the legate. He has no reason to leave any of us alive if he gets the chance to end this now, here in the woods, in total anonymity.”
“So we fight?”
“We fight,” she confirmed.
I rolled my shoulder experimentally. The pale patch where the inchworm had stitched together my flesh felt limber, and none of the discomfort I’d felt the previous day was there now. It would hold up in a fight.
Unfortunately, all I had on me was the snuffed lantern. Its hard metal housing might hold up for a swing or two, but it would dent and warp far faster than whatever blade the legate surely carried with him.
Still, it was the only plan we had. I just had to hope it was enough.
“We’ll go on three, okay?” Arwin whispered.
I squeezed her hand once and then readied myself. My fingers clenched and unclenched around the handle of the lantern. They felt clammy, and my chest grew hollow as nerves took root. If Oren didn’t join us, didn’t see through the charade Karver was weaving, this would be a very short fight.
“One,” Arwin started.
A low breeze kicked up a few scattered leaves and set the upper boughs of the trees to creaking.
“Two.”
I pivoted on crouched feet and felt more than heard the ground crunching beneath my tattered soles.
“Thr—”
“They’re over there!”
Arwin broke off on her count and we both turned to face the new voice. Only it wasn’t a new voice, it was a newly familiar voice—that of Morena Belva. I couldn’t see her from where Arwin and I were crouched, but her voice rang clear and true through the quiet night air.
“By the uprooted tree!” she continued. “Take the boy and please spare the rest of us. We have done nothing to wrong you.”
In the silence that followed her words, I heard the unmistakable shnick of a sword leaving its sheath, and then determined footsteps from the center of the grove coming toward our hiding place.
“That traitorous bitch,” Arwin growled. “We should have let her stay at the carriage to get killed.”
“Like you said, we still have to stand and fight.”
“But now we’ve lost the element of surprise!”
I tried to control the jittery nerves that were causing my limbs to shake. Arwin was right, the whole situation had gone downhill fast, and I couldn’t see any clear path out of it.
“Mal? Are you okay? Mal, he’s getting close.”
And then sudden realization washed over me. I didn’t know if it was the panic in Arwin’s voice that had triggered the epiphany, or if the ceaseless bouncing of my leg was finally recognizable as some indicator of the truth. But it dawned on me that tamping down this excitement was the exact opposite of what I needed to do. The rush of blood, the adrenaline, was precisely what I needed right now.
It made me feel stronger. And I would need every ounce of strength necessary to overcome Legate Karver. We couldn’t run right now; he was close enough that it would only end in our swift recapture. No, it was on us to end this fight here and now.
Instead of fighting my anxiety, I let that nervous energy flow freely, flooding my arms and legs and chest until it felt like my heart would swell to bursting. I was still scared. I didn’t think any other response in that moment would have been acceptable. We were outclassed in every way, and Morena had just sacrificed any final hope we’d had of making it out quickly and quietly.
But Depths take me, I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
“Let’s do this,” I told Arwin.
When Karver was within just a few steps of peering over the log and discovering our position, Arwin and I sprung out from opposite ends of the fallen tree. She lunged with her dagger and drew his attention first. With almost arrogant ease, he twirled his blade up to parry her clumsy attack, then jabbed with the closed fist of his other hand, knocking her back.
On his blind side, I swung the lantern down with all the force I could muster. Its bottom edge sliced through the air and collided with the back of the legate’s head. The man shifted at the last moment, though, and the blow was only glancing. A thin line of blood sprouted from that superficial wound, but Karver turned on me in an instant.
“The acolyte at last,” he said, sounding triumphant.
I took a step back at the hungry wolf-like gleam in his eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Hmm, pity. To be given such a gift and then cursed with ignorance.”
“Legate or not, you’re not going to take him from us,” yelled Oren, jumping into the clearing, his eyes ablaze. “The boy acted out of desperation, I’m sure.”
“And besides, you didn’t die,” Arwin said, gaining her feet.
Karver paced a tight circle and kept his swor
d half raised, always holding at least two of us in his sight. “I take that as a small comfort, as I’m sure you can understand.” He turned to face me then, ignoring the other two entirely. “Had I wanted to, I could have cleaved your head clean from your shoulders. But I didn’t, because even though I sensed something was off about you, I still expected you to be reasonable, a law-abiding citizen. Theft. Resisting arrest. Assault of an imperial soldier. Explain yourself however you will, but in the eyes of the Empire, you are a criminal.”
He held our mutual glare for another moment before breaking it off and addressing the other two. “And as for you…harboring a criminal. Resisting arrest.” Karver stared down Arwin. “Assault of an imperial soldier. For these crimes, I cannot allow you to escape custody again.”
“So you’re going to kill us all?” Arwin demanded. “Because we made sure we didn’t starve back in Mitbas after escaping a truly mad bastard who took over our town? Really safeguarding the interests of the Empire, you are.”
Legate Karver stood up straighter, if that was even possible, and crossed his sword over his chest for an instant before bending his knees into a warrior’s stance. “I never go looking for a fight. But disrespect the law, and you have no one to blame but yourselves. The escalation was all yours; I am merely seeing it to its natural end.”
“They are only children,” Oren tried to reason, but the legate shook his head.
“Stay out of this, Cleric. A man of the faith need not throw in with lowly urchins.”
“Actually,” Oren sighed, gesturing over the body of his robe, “I ceased being a cleric as of roughly twelve hours ago. Even so, I would cast my lot in with theirs. I do not know their full story yet, but I know enough of mine to say that it will not end here.”
“We will stand united against you,” I said to the legate.
“But we would also really prefer not to die,” Arwin said, holding a hand up. “Or fight any longer. We needed that bread to survive, don’t you see that? You chasing me down was your choice.”
“And then your friend attacked me.”
“He defended me,” Arwin argued, her voice softening. “There’s a difference.”
“Enough talk,” Legate Karver growled. “The only way is forward; I cannot go back with this score unsettled.”
Oren was the first to strike—sort of.
He extended a closed fist out in front of him as if punching the air, but as soon as his arm reached its full extension, he uncurled his fingers and threw something at the legate. It flew through the air like a determined swarm of lightning bugs, looking more like one fist-sized orb than individual insects, and then the ball exploded when it was within a foot of Karver. Brilliant white light burst brightly enough that I had to shield my eyes behind a raised hand, and when I lowered it again, Karver had staggered to his knees.
“What did he just do?” Arwin asked, bewildered.
I shook my head and frowned. “I don’t know.” Clerics of the Lord of Light hadn’t been a frequent topic of conversation at the dinner table with Answorth. In fact, most nights under that roof had been spent with me gnawing on leftovers after Answorth had retired for the evening, my thoughts drifting to what life was like outside of Pointe.
If I’d known then that stealing a loaf of bread could have spurred on a legate of the Empire to chase us for leagues upon leagues, I might have been content to stay huddled in that little shared hut.
“Come on, we have to help him!”
“Are you sure?” Arwin whined. “We have the gold; we can just go.”
I was already moving, bounding across the open space between me and Karver. The line of blood from his scalp had continued down his cheek, and I saw the dark liquid dripping from his pointed chin as I closed the distance. The light was so dim, I worried I might miss in the darkness. I swung my leg, though, and my foot connected surely with his jaw, snapping it shut with a click of teeth and a pained grimace transforming Karver’s face.
He grunted in pain and fell flat on his back.
Heavy footsteps came up from my left, and I turned to see Oren arrive at my side, his eyes glowing fiercely. “We should end him,” he said.
“I agree,” Morena muttered with a scowl.
Arwin came up on my other side, a large rock in hand. “For once, she’s right. We can’t even tie him up and hope for the best; he’s gotten out of bindings before.”
“And what happens when others notice he is missing?” I countered. “I doubt he would have set off from Mitbas without telling anyone where he was going, or when they could expect to hear back from him. At the very least, they’ll have our descriptions,” I said, gesturing to include Arwin in the assertion.
“What do you want us to do, Mal?” Oren groused. “You want me to magically disguise myself as the legate, march back to Mitbas, and tell them it was all a big misunderstanding?”
“Can you do that?” I was ninety-nine percent sure he was putting me on, just spouting the most absurd option that came to mind to make me realize how foolish I was being in letting Karver live, but even so, that remaining one percent was hopeful.
Oren was a high-ranking priest of the Lord of Clouds, after all. He had abilities the likes of which I couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
And for a brief second, the white-robed man hesitated, telling me all I needed to know.
“You can do something about this,” I pressed. “Something beyond killing him and leaving his body lying in a ditch in the middle of the woods.”
“I won’t deny it,” Oren said, “but what would I have to gain by putting myself out so much?”
I stared at him in disbelief, sure that my mouth had dropped a few inches.
“I am no priest of the Lord anymore,” Oren added. “Getting sidetracked over a hundred leagues to get you out of your problem doesn’t sound like an enjoyable adventure, sorry to say.” He drew an orb of fiery light into his palm. “Besides, now he knows my name. It would be better to kill him and be done with it.”
“How can you be so callous?” I glanced around at my party members and found no sympathetic faces staring back at me. Even Arwin was in favor of killing the man, and for what? We were criminals. “I’m willing to steal bread when hungry or help out a friend for doing the same”—I glared Arwin down as I said this—“but this is cold-blooded murder, pure and simple.”
“He would have done the same to you or any one of us,” Morena said, her voice lofty.
“And so returning the favor makes it right? Now it is just, simply because we are the ones wielding the sword?” My heart felt heavy as the words poured forth. Deep down, I knew they were right. It was beyond stupid to let an enemy as accomplished as Karver continue to draw breath. But that was the problem, I didn’t see him as an enemy; he was just a man doing his duty.
I stalked off a few feet away from the group. “No, I refuse to believe it,” I said loudly, not caring even when Arwin flinched. “Oren, you can do something about this. Don’t pretend otherwise.”
“Fine,” the man muttered.
I whirled around to face him. “Fine?” I echoed.
“Yes, I can help without killing him,” Oren said flatly. I wasn’t sure if it was from weariness of arguing this with me, or if the former priest had had a crisis of conscience, but for the moment I wasn’t going to second guess the lucky stars shining down upon me.
“Really? How?”
“I can tamper with his memory, make him forget the last twenty-four hours even happened.”
“Can you extend it to a week?” I asked, feeling nervous for pressing what was already a tremendous gift. “We ran into him several days ago in Mitbas, and he has apparently been chasing us since then. I just want to make sure there’s no opportunity for him to remember us.”
Oren scratched the shaved top of his head, where the faintest stubble was starting to grow in. “That’s cutting it close, Mal. I’ve never gone further than three days, and that was under ideal conditions.” He shrugged and lifted his hands
out flat to either side. “These are not ideal conditions.”
“Still, you can do it?”
“I would have to get in there deep,” Oren said. “The further back you go, the more pervasive the memory is—once you account for his traveling so far, likely requisitioning provisions, armaments, fresh mounts to ride nonstop…there are ripple effects even from the almost negligible memory of you and the girl stealing bread. I could end up wounding more than I mend.”
“The girl’s name is Arwin,” my friend interjected.
“No harm meant,” Oren said, raising a hand.
“Two days,” I said, trying to sound more decisive than I felt.
“Aye…two days could be done.”
I thought hard about exactly how long it had been since we had fled Mitbas. A night ago, Arwin and I had been on the road with Mabaya, asleep in the back of her cart. Half a day before then, I had successfully rescued Arwin from Karver in that back alley, and bound his wrists to the wall using his own metal cuffs against him. The bread had gone missing shortly before then.
It might be cutting it close, but I didn’t want to pressure Oren for any more time than he’d already promised. “Thank you,” I said instead.
The former priest nodded, a dim silvery glow already surrounding his left hand as he held it steady over the fallen imperial legate. Though unconscious, Karver’s eyes rolled around behind his eyelids as Oren started to work his magic, rifling through the memories of the past forty-eight hours and expunging anything related to Karver’s quest to hunt down me and Arwin.
“Is there anything else you need?” Morena asked, being uncharacteristically thoughtful.
Oren grunted. “Just quiet,” he said.
Arwin snickered, glad for any opportunity for the high-brow woman to be put in her place. Morena arched an eyebrow at her but said nothing.
Something told me the process of removing memories wasn’t going to be a quick one, so I found a nice, flat bit of earth and hunkered down for the long wait.
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