by Lucy Smoke
Tears continue to leak quietly from my eyes as the previous host lowers his head and the executioner reaches for the lever. I turn away. I can’t watch the death of an innocent man. I won’t. A startled scream erupts from my throat as something tightens around my own neck. I open my eyes to find that I am no longer one among the crowd. Instead, I stand before them with death’s noose around my own neck and their fearful eyes watching. Judgement day has come, but the person facing his doom is no longer the man. It’s me.
“Nerys Newblood, you have been judged and found guilty of hosting a spirit guide.” The King watches and states the crime with a neutral tone, no inflection at all.
“I didn’t have a choice!” I scream.
“You are a threat to this kingdom. You will ruin us if I give you the chance. You have been sentenced to death.”
“No!” All around me are people’s faces. Some are sad, crying in anguish. Some are happy, jeering at me and calling me a monster. Some are apathetic, watching without any hint of emotion in their eyes. They are the worst. I turn to face my executioner.
“I’m sorry, Nerys,” Coen says from beneath his mask. “You’re just too dangerous.”
“I haven’t done anything,” I tell him as he wraps the length of rope around my neck. Tears are still pouring from my eyes, running down my face, dripping into the hollow of my collarbone and sliding between my breasts. I can’t reach up to pull it away, my hands are bound behind my back. “Please, Coen. You’re my friend. I would never hurt anybody, you know that!”
“You’ve been judged.” The thread of rope hanging from my neck breaks free, but even as I fall, I know it’s too late to escape.
Chapter 2: Strangers to Innocence
“Nerys? It’s time to wake up.”
Coen’s gray eyes hover over me as he jostles my shoulder, his broad shoulders blocking out my view of the room. The stale air smells of old farm animals and the lack of water dripping onto my face when he backs away lets me know that we’re indoors as my vision clears. Stiff straw pokes me in the back, somehow managing to wiggle its way under my cloak and into my clothes in little bits. I scratch my sides and sit up taking in our surroundings. Dilapidated wooden walls are held up by the weariest of frames, old wood all around. The barn looks like it was built over a hundred years ago. There’s no place for electric lamps of any kind, just hooks for the old gas powered ones.
“Where are we?”
“Couple miles outside the city.”
The two strangers haven’t deserted us yet, I notice. Blue Eyes sits with his back against a leaning post. The wood has molted holes through its middle and mud caked around its bottom. It looks as though it might collapse if he pushed with the lightest of efforts. Blue Eyes flicks the tip of a knife beneath his nails, cleaning out the dirt. The other stranger is laying on his side with one arm propping his head up, watching us with shifting brown eyes that jump from me to Coen to Blue Eyes.
It’s a little brighter, though clouds still linger outside muting the sun’s rays. Coen continues to hover protectively around me, eyes assessing the two strangers. In the dim lighting, I can see them better than I had the night before. Both are young, the lack of lines around their mouth and eyes combined with the agile way that they move tell me that they must be closer to our age.
Blue Eyes is paler than the brown eyed stranger, but his muscle mass is slightly more defined beneath the tight pull of his shirt around his biceps and shoulders, ridged, edgy, tense. While the other stranger is leaner, relaxed. He seems perfectly at home in the barn, laying sprawled out as though he doesn’t have a care in the world. What I wouldn’t give to feel that comfortable. They’ve both thrown off their wet cloaks. They, along with my own, are hung up to dry over a beam above our heads. Someone must have climbed up to the loft to put them there. The wet cloth drips onto the wood and straw beneath us.
“So,” the brown eyed stranger begins. “Just out of curiosity, what’s a girl like you doing with a bottle of dragon blood?”
I tense, glaring over at him. “You went through my bag?”
He shrugs, unconcerned. “You were passed out. I got bored. But, it does seem a little odd for fugitives of Matric’s Kingdom to be carrying around something so hard to get if they don’t have any plans for it.”
“It’s none of your business,” I snap, striding forward. I snatch my bag off the dirt flooring and rifle through it quickly, checking to make sure everything is still there. It is. A familiar hand on my arm jerks me behind a wall of flesh and muscle as Coen growls at the strangers with his hand on his longsword. The inky man is strangely silent. “It’s fine, he didn’t take anything,” I assure Coen.
“He still could.”
I roll my eyes.
“Hey, we’re fugitives too,” Brown Eyes says.
“Yeah, which begs the question: What did you do?” I reply tartly.
Coen doesn’t relax his stance, edging closer. “You tell us, we’ll tell you.”
There’s something about Brown Eyes, a sadness lingering in his molten eyes that is hidden well by the teasing jokester persona.
“I don’t believe I agreed to play this game,” Blue Eyes says.
“Come on.” Brown Eyes rolls over and springs to the balls of his feet, shrugging off the cloud of dust and dirt he sends out, and a few stray particles get sucked into my nose and I sneeze against Coen’s back. “Don’t be a spoil sport.”
“I shouldn’t play the game,” Blue Eyes amends. “Because I’ve already won.” All eyes turn to him as he continues flicking dirt out from under his fingernails.
“What do you know?” I demand.
“You have a spirit guide.” The air lingering above us filled with dust and the decay of the barn and all of it disappeared at his words. I couldn’t breathe for several moments and the silence that remained was strained.
The potential violence that doesn’t seem to affect Blue Eyes finally gets to me and I step from around Coen and approach him, ignoring the growls of irritation at my back.
“If I had a spirit guide,” I hedge. “Why would you think that?” My self-preservation stands at the forefront of my mind, the only voice of reason in my head. I don’t want to trust two guys whose names I don’t even know, no matter that the consequences of their actions in being my ally for a few hours might lead them to their deaths.
“Because I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you escaped on the same night as him,” Blue eyes gestures to Brown Eyes. “And me.”
“Why did you leave?” Coen asks. Blue Eyes shrugs, closing his knife with a snick and sliding it back into it pocket.
“Why anyone else would, I suppose,” he says. “I was asked to.”
“King Matric doesn’t ask people to leave.” He grins at me, the action causing his face to transform from mildly stern to incredibly attractive. The saliva in my mouth evaporates.
“I didn’t say who asked me to leave, now did I?” He chuckles at my expression before reaching into his back pocket and unfolding a soggy yellow parchment. I reach forward and accept the paper as he hands it over.
“Lovely handwriting, isn’t it?” He asks as I read. “Feminine scrawl is so much easier to read, don’t you think?”
The scribbled letters on the page are familiar, the light sharp edges of the capital letters and the flicks across the T’s that are always slightly too long. It should be familiar because it’s mine. The words themselves are a jumble of directions and times. I lean forward pressing my nose to the paper.
“That’s–” Coen starts, bending over my shoulder, his hand falling away from the sword.
“My handwriting,” I finish, yanking the letter away from his eyes and quickly folding it and tucking it away into the scabbard of the dagger sheathed at my hip.
“So you did send them.” Blue Eyes stands, towering over me. The other stranger reaches into his own clothing and produces an exact same replica before waving it about in the air.
“And me,” he says.
&nb
sp; “I-I didn’t,” I reply, shocked. “I–”
They needed to be there. I pause as the accented voice reminds me of one other person who could have sent them. Did you do this? The inky man’s answer is silence, but it’s answer enough. How could you...I halt my thoughts at the realization. You took over my body? Anger pours into my core. Trust.
How can I trust you?! How can I be sure you won’t do it again?! Fear grips me as I realize he could have been doing this to me for months. Have you ever done this before? I demand. The inky man goes quiet once more.
That doesn’t mean he has, I tell myself. But, it also doesn’t mean he hasn’t.
“She’s turning red,” Brown Eyes whisper-talks to the others as I attempt to calm my rolling anger.
“She’s talking to him,” Coen replies.
“Him?” Blue Eyes inquires. “How do you know it’s a him?”
Coen shrugs. “She calls him the inky man, I don’t know how she knows it’s a him. But, ever since he started talking to her he’s been a him.”
Answer me, damn it! I’m practically frothing at the mouth as the strangers watch me with confusion and Coen reaches out to snatch the dragon blood and my pack away from Brown Eyes. Brown Eyes turns an exaggerated hurt look on him, but other than a twitch of the lips, Coen acts unphased.
You’re angry, the inky man says.
Really? What gave me away? Of course I’m angry!
Trust me. We need them. I want to ask for a better explanation, but I know it’s futile. Arguing with him will get me nothing but short answers with no substance. Someone’s stomach growls and all eyes bounce to Brown Eyes.
“Uhhh…” he says rubbing one hand over his abdomen, pressing his shirt tight against what looks to be a very hard stomach. “You wouldn’t happen to mind sharing that meat I saw in your pack, would you? I didn’t exactly plan in advance.”
Coen is the one that answers. “We’ll share our food with you if you answer a few questions for us, both of you.” Brown Eyes shrugs and hurriedly begins building a fire while Blue Eyes leans back against his post, slowly sliding back down to sit cross legged. He looks up at me, interest clear in his sky blue eyes.
We will discuss this later, I snap silently. The inky man doesn’t reply.
By midday, a small fire burns hot in the driest corner of the barn. Unfortunately, because there are more of us than I had originally foreseen, we have to cook all of the meat I have brought. I frown as I set out the dried and spiced meats. It was supposed to last Coen and me at least a few days. I glance back at the guys and take in their sizes. We’ll be lucky if this much even fills them for one meal. It takes forever to brown the meat through enough to eat. An electric stove would have been preferred.
“Okay, first question—” Coen says.
“What are your names?” I say before he can ask something else. He looks at me, but I keep my eyes averted. I can’t keep calling them by the color of their eyes in my head.
“Holden.” Brown Eyes grins.
“Titus,” Blue Eyes says.
“Okay,” Coen looks at me as he speaks as if judging whether or not I’ll interrupt him this time. It makes me want to do it and not do it at the same time. I want to interrupt when he least expects it, but I’ve also got nothing else to say at the moment, so I smile innocently and wave my hand for him to continue. “Now that we’ve got that covered…” He continues to look at me, arching his brow before giving in. “Why are you running from Matric’s Kingdom?”
“Did you not look at the letters?” Holden asks, shoveling a bite of meat into his mouth. For someone with such a beautiful voice, he sure lacks table manners, I note as juice dribbles down his chin.
“Need a table to go with your food?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. He looks up at me, blinking before he wipes away the juice with the back of his hand. I sigh. “I suppose this,” I wave my hand at him and Titus, “is because of me as well,” I admit. “Or because of him, I guess.” I can’t withhold my grimace as I include the inky man in a decision that I wasn’t privy too.
“Yeah, I get that,” Coen says. “What I don’t understand is why you,” Coen pointedly looks at them, “actually did it, run away that is.” Both Titus and Holden seem to find the old barn suddenly very interesting. Their eyes wander and Holden shrugs in a manner that seems nonchalant.
“I don’t believe that ‘running away’ is the proper term,” Titus replies. “I would prefer to judge this as more of an adventure. It’s not like I had anything better to do with my time.” His tone sounds bored. His body says there’s much more that lies beneath the surface. I sigh again. There always is.
“Curiosity,” Holden agrees. “Plus the fact that living in the Matric’s kingdom is suffocating—so many rules, no work, little money unless you sell yourself or you’re born rich. I wanted to explore and I guess I just saw your letter as a sign from the Gods.”
We eat a bit more, the conversation falling quiet for a moment or two. Coen, I can tell, is trying to think of important questions that will reveal just who these guys are. I know they must be trustworthy because the inky man wouldn’t have contacted them otherwise. He wouldn’t risk me because, in doing so, he would risk himself. Coen doesn’t have that self-assured luxury.
“So, you know our names, but we don’t know yours,” Titus says. “Seems a bit unfair.”
“Her name’s Nerys,” Holden says, biting off another chunk of meat and chewing slowly.
Coen and I stare, and together we ask, “What? How?”
“Oh that.” He shrugs, his mouth still full and motions to Coen, “He said it earlier when he was trying to wake you up. For someone so small and cute, you sure do snore”
“I do not!” Red faced, I turn to Coen for confirmation, but the way he averts his gaze tells me everything I need to know. “Oh my Gods. Are you serious? I snore?”
“Like the old trains. You know, the ones where they had honking horns and whistles to warn people they were in the area.” I cover my face with my hands. He smiles, leaning forward. “The ones in progressive cities are almost quieter than a mouse.”
“How would you know?” I demand, trying to change the topic.
He shrugs, but the teasing glint in his eye is only muted for the moment. “When I was younger and the king wasn’t so crazy, I was allowed on trips with my old man. He was a tradesman back then.”
“And they have trains in other cities?” I ask, genuinely curious. I’m also surprised someone from Matric’s Kingdom has actually seen the technology outside of the walls. The king is so close-mouthed about what’s out there that the only way Coen and I know anything about it is because of the holy women. We were educated in the same manner as the other schools and orphanages run by the Holy Order. So we know, but we’ve never seen, any of the technology we’ve learned about.
“I’m sure you’ll get an opportunity to look at these…er…trains when we get to um…well, wherever we end up, I’m sure they will have some there. I assume not every place outside of the kingdom is so domineering,” Titus announces before fixing his gaze on Coen. Before he can open his mouth and ask, I answer the question brimming in his eyes.
“His name’s Coen,” I say. “And he’s not a threat. He’s my best friend.”
“And how do you two know each other?” Holden asks.
“We grew up together.”
“Hmmmmm,” Holden smirks as if at some private joke.
“Anyone else going to miss you if you’re gone?” Titus asks. We shake our heads.
“What about you?” I ask. A pair of blue eyes and a pair of brown eyes settle on me. “I mean, won’t your families wonder where you are?”
Silence settles over the space between us before Titus mutters a quiet “no” and Holden says the same. They draw their gazes away and focus on eating, stiffness evident in their shoulders. Something sinister has taken hold of their lungs and the inky man steps forward in my mind.
Through the shadows we all must walk. I don’t know what his ex
act meaning is, but I do know that shadows aren’t the only things that hurt people and that both of these boys–Holden, the lyrically voiced jokester and Titus, the blue-eyed, golden haired, risk taker–are both running away from something just like I am.
We stay the night in the abandoned barn, Coen sticking close while Holden climbs up into a loft area that looks rickety and unsafe. I don’t say anything, especially since neither he nor Titus have talked to me since I asked about their families. Even though I want to know more about them, I’m more concerned at the moment with planning our next step.
“We could head south to Ragnarok,” Coen suggests. I scratch my head and lean back against a pile of moldy straw. If I scrunch up my nose and focus on something else, it really doesn’t smell all that bad.
“We would stick out like sore thumbs,” I argue. The sound of a coast city like Ragnarok sounds good though. The warmer air, the water, the travel. There’s a university in Ragnarok that’s well known for its magical students. It would have plenty of jobs and trades to choose from. The only thing stopping me from readily agreeing is the fact that everyone there isn’t as secluded as those from Matric’s Kingdom. To them, we’re country bumpkins. Neither of Coen nor I are very familiar with the world outside of Matric’s kingdom. All we’ve known is the city we grew up in and I worry, picturing Coen emaciated and starving. The picture is even worse when I think of King Matric getting ahold of us.
“There are so many people in Ragnarok, it’ll be hard for any of us to stick out,” Coen counters. I’m surprised he is including Holden and Titus in our plans, but considering our roles as absconders, it’s smart. The more people we have with us, the safer we will be.
“How do you know? You’ve never been there.” What we need to do is find jobs and save up money. Maybe we could get a house, nothing fancy, just what we need to survive. He stares at me. “What?”