Redemption (The Alexa Montgomery Saga)

by H. D. Gordon

  Redemption

  Book Four of The Alexa Montgomery Saga

  H. D. Gordon

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright by H. D. Gordon, all rights reserved worldwide under Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission. If you have this file (or a printout) you are depriving the author and publisher of their rightful royalties and are punishable under law.

  First edition December 2012

  The author acknowledges the copyright or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: McDonalds.

  This one is for you.

  Prologue

  Alexa

  In the end, we all die. This is not of question. Inarguable. No mystery lies here. The mystery dwells in two questions: How long will our story be, and what will be left on the pages? Perhaps I am of a morbid mind. Perhaps I simply believe in destiny in its truest form. But I felt certain that, in the war that lay ahead of me, one of our stories would end as prophesized. Knowing now that the prediction was not about me, but about my little sister, my Nelly, I dared hope that somehow I could manage to swap her fate for my own. Take the bullet. Make the ultimate sacrifice, like so many have done before me.

  Though it flickered deep down inside me, I would not allow myself more than a candle of hope that both Nelly and I would defy the Fates and see our stories continue at much greater lengths. The book of life I was writing would become illegible, useless, if the one my sister composed ceased to give it explanation.

  This is not to say that I have no self-worth, or that I seek death as a hero; only that I believe in my soul that I understand the meaning of life as it applies to me, that I accept it, that I embrace it if it chooses to test me in its truest form.

  If fate is a real thing, if destiny finds us with or without our hands in the matter, and destiny truly had pegged my sister to receive an early death with the return of a liberated people, I could only hope that the universe would accept my exchange. Even this would be a defiance, though not a worst case scenario by any means.

  However, I have never been good at taking orders, and my spiritual belief in few things is very strong. As I raced toward a war that promised death and heartache and destruction, toward fate and destiny, that candle of hope cast shivering shadows inside me. I had to allow for the possibility that life, even one such as mine, would inevitably have a fairytale ending.

  But, in truth, I had stopped believing in fairytales long, long ago.

  Part I: Sacrifice, Secrets and Sides

  The son of a King is dead.

  The girl who killed him is an unknown Savior who was prophesized to die in liberating her people from this King’s rule.

  The girl’s sister is the one everyone thinks is this Savior.

  A Sorcerer is also dead, killed by this King who has more than a few tricks up his sleeve.

  People with investments in these happenings, large and small, are taking sides.

  War is knocking on the door of this world.

  The fates of many hang in the balance.

  For some of them, this is the final stretch of the journey.

  The Villages

  There were whispers. No one could pinpoint precisely where they originated, but they had spread through the villages of the unwanted in all five of King William’s territories. Old men and women, mothers and fathers and children alike were speaking low with an excitement that was unseen to those like Benny, those who had spent the entirety of their existences in the enslaved cities that they called home.

  It was as though the very air had taken on a lighter, more pristine quality. A heaviness that had been lifted from the atmosphere and replaced with something else that was new to Benny and other young “lifers” like himself. Something like hope.

  The talk was of a girl. Not just any girl, but the girl. The girl they had all been waiting for, the one they had stopped letting themselves hope was coming. Never before had such a rumor been uttered, and in its anomaly, more and more people were beginning to hold it as truth. No one was smiling–not yet, not openly–but a match seemed to have been struck behind their eyes, a rekindled spark of something that had been left to smolder and die long ago.

  Benny’s source of the rumor had been a surprise. The old hunch-back woman in the dismal hut two spaces down had told him this morning while he hauled water back and forth from the well to his own dismal hut. Benny hated doing this task. His arms always hurt from where his blood was constantly being drawn. The buckets of water made his muscles ache and the hunger in his stomach sharpen. The hunch-back–Norma, her name was–had seemed to be grinning at Benny—not with her mouth, but with her old, glossy eyes—every time he passed by with his haul of water.

  On his third trip by, he set the buckets down on the dusty earth at his bare feet and rolled his ratty sleeves up, looking only six years old of the nine that he actually was. He strolled over to where Norma sat in her parched garden and leaned over, glancing around to ensure that his father was not near. He said, “What is so funny, ya old crack?”

  Benny knew this was a disrespectful thing to say to an elder, knew that his father would be very disappointed if he knew he’d said it, but he couldn’t find it in him to care today. He could see no humor in his labor, no humor in anything at all. Her sly smiles were salt to a wound that Benny found unnecessary. And, it had kind of just come out of his mouth before he could stop it. No going back now.

  He half-expected a slap in the face, which he supposed he sort of deserved, but Norma had only smiled at him and leaned forward as if preparing to tell a secret. And, boy, was she. A huge secret. A huge and awesome secret, he had learned.

  That night, after his bland dinner had been eaten and his portion of blood pulled from the small veins in his thin arms, Benny asked his father what a Sun Warrior was.

  The look his father gave him was one that Benny could not decipher. But his father answered his son’s questions, felt the boy had a right to know as much as anyone else who had been forced to live this dreadful life. He told him the stories of the Savior.

  When Benny asked why his father hadn’t told him before, he said, “I didn’t want to get your hopes up, son. In case…in case it’s not true. And even if it is, we don’t know anything about this girl. Who says she’s willing to die for us?”

  The last part of this had been hard for his father to say. But the boy deserved the truth of the possibilities, as great or as devastating as they may turn out to be.

  But it was too late. Benny did have his hopes up. Way, way up. The possibilities that occurred to even his young mind were so enormous that he lay in bed that night exhausted but unable to sleep. His thoughts were of freedom, a term with far too much meaning for such a young soul. He smiled into the darkness where he lay on the dirt floor of the hut he shared with his father, and he hoped. He hoped like hell.

  And he wasn’t alone. Hope had descended over the villages like the first snowfall of all time, white and fresh and unexpected, like the birth of a new day.

  Alexa

  An endless day.

  Soon, it would be over. That’s what I kept thinking, and yet the hours dragged onward, every second passing by as pronounced as the agony it carried with it. A wrongness and wretchedness hung over me that was so profound that it burned. From the inside out.

  The last few hours were a blur. Just flashes of past-happenings in my mind. Things gone sour. Blood run cold.

  So m
uch had been lost, and for what? Right then, I couldn’t tell you. It seemed to me that no progress had been made. No good had been done upon my entering of this world. I saw no bright horizons ahead, no way for this to turn out all right. So much had been lost, and so much more still lie ahead.

  We hadn’t been received well, I knew that. Showing up in a city of mythical creatures who agree to live peacefully with a dead Werewolf in your arms is not exactly the best way to ensure a popular vote. I’m sure being covered in blood didn’t help, either. The looks on their faces had been of wariness and suspicion and perhaps a little contempt. I knew it well. It was the same way humans had always reacted to me, though no one here was human. Lowered heads and whispered voices and furtive glances. It told me that they thought we smelled like trouble. I couldn’t blame them. They weren’t wrong. We did smell like trouble; that, and shit.

  No one in the Outlands had tried to stop us from entering, though. No one had said a word as we passed through the hidden city with its wonders and charms. I could feel the tension in the air around us, could see it in the darting movements of the tiny Pixies that fluttered about the flowers and trees, in the silence that fell among the Fae as we passed by. I could smell fear. Not a lot. But it was there.

  And I couldn’t have cared less. In fact, the sadistic, animal part of me perked up its head at the scent, almost hoping one of them would try and halt our arrival, to interfere and force me into…drastic actions. I could use a kill right now.

  It had never before seemed so simple as that. A kill. Like a drug. And I needed a hit.

  There is plenty to come. Can’t you feel it?

  Oh, yes, I could feel it.

  I just couldn’t seem to remember what exactly I had been fighting for.

  It was the Monster in my head that voiced an answer, though even its tone was numb, almost dead-seeming. For her, of course.

  Yes, for her.

  Nelly

  I was a child again. And I was running. Something that felt like branches was scraping against my arms, my legs and face. It was hurting me, I knew that, and yet, I felt no pain. But I was terrified.

  Chased!

  Yes, I was being chased. I could hear my breath pushing in and out of my lungs, could feel the panic rising in me like boiling gorge. A sick feeling. One of dread and fear and nightmares.

  When I fell, my feet seemed to disappear out from under me, my body pitching forward and meeting a ground that I knew was cold and hard but felt oddly like nothing, nothing at all. And still the terror rose in me, hot and wet. I had to go, go, go! I knew that, and I couldn’t find my feet.

  A laugh from behind me. A cold, dead laugh. The laugh of a boy who has not been spared too many rods in his days. I don’t remember turning, but there he was, looming over me. I knew who he was instantly, and now my heart seemed to not be beating at all in my chest, but instead had gone frozen and ill with fright.

  “I told you I wasn’t done talking to you,” Riley said, and an ugly smile played around his lips. I tried to speak and found that I could not.

  And then Riley was gone, and another laugh was rising from somewhere, beginning faint and low, and steadily growing with every dreadful passing moment. This was not the laugh of some high school bully. This laugh was that of The Beast. I knew it well.

  Alexa.

  And there she was, right in front of me, the brilliant blade of her Gladius tucked under Riley’s throat where he kneeled before her. My horror rose to titanic proportions and I tried to scream. And I couldn’t. I could only watch as the scene played out before me, a spectator to some gruesome performance.

  My sister’s face. A crooked smile and burning brown eyes turning her lovely face into something else, something awful. A devil’s grin. A heartless regard. There was so much joy there as she drew the blade across his throat. My cries were silent and huge and heart-breaking.

  The scene changed. Riley was gone. In his place was a man in a black tailored suit, diamonds glittering on his fingers, more jewels around his neck, glistening red from where his throat had been freshly opened. Sprawled on the ground and dead, a snarl gone stiff on his old face.

  And I thought: Long live the King.

  But beside him was Alexa, silver vines and lilies covering every inch of her visible skin save her face. Her lovely face. Brown eyes staring wide and heavenward. Chest still and Gladius still clutched in her red hands. Dead.

  Now, I screamed. And it was loud enough to wake the angels in the heavens above and the demons in the deepest depths below.

  Alexa

  “Nelly? Shhhh.”

  I sat down next to my sister on the bed and took her hands into mine to try and soothe her. Her scream had jolted me out of my chair over by the window, where I had been staring out at the gardens that surrounded Camillia’s sister, Silvia’s, house. Night had finally fallen, and soon this day really would come to an end. I felt like I deserved a sticker or something, like the ones teachers give children for making it through another day of preschool. Here you go, Alexa. Have a sticker for surviving another day of insanity. Not everyone made it, you know?

  I took a breath and a tear escaped my eye. Yes, I knew. I looked up at the clock on the wall. Eleven PM. It was almost time.

  When I looked back down at my sister where she lay on the bed, her hazel eyes were wide and moist, her face in a cramped expression of something like fear, her gaze holding me the way a drowning man clings to a life preserver. I tried to give her a smile, and failed. “You were dreaming,” I said. My voice was gentle the way it only ever was with her.

  Nelly’s chest rose and fell once, hard. Then she was huffing and puffing and her arm was covering her eyes. “Shh,” I said, the panicky feeling that I always got when I saw her upset filling me up. “Everything is okay now, Nell. A dream. It was just a dream.”

  I reached up and pulled her arm from her face. She squeezed her eyes shut, and my heart hurt when I saw that she could not bear to look at me. As if she had heard this thought—and really, maybe she had—Nelly opened her eyes and pulled herself up to a seated position with so much effort that it made my chest go tight.

  “Broken. She’s so broken,” I thought.

  Then we must fix her, Warrior, responded the other voice in my head.

  “Oh yes, genius, and please, tell me, how is one broken thing supposed to fix another?”

  With love.

  Now I tried for another smile and half-succeed this time, though the feeling of any joy was still like something long forgotten. “Everything’s okay, Nell,” I repeated. It felt like a lie, because it was.

  Nelly knew this. The look she gave me was one of so much sorrow and too much wisdom. I realized then that my sister was not a little girl anymore, despite her only being seventeen years old. She had seen too many things, had felt too many losses. Not a trace of innocence was left to be found on her young face. The pain of seeing this was like a final stone added to a structure whose foundation could not support the stones that had already been laid before it. Nelly’s innocence had been so much a part of her, a part I had tried with all my might to keep safe and intact, because innocence was one thing I had never possessed. And now it was gone. For better or worse, but for always, it was gone.

  And her voice was flat when she spoke. “None of this is okay, Alexa.”

  I pulled her to me then and held her tight, remembering the answer to the question that ironically my Monster had provided me with.

  How is one broken thing supposed to fix another?

  With love.

  And, oh, how bad I wanted to cry in that moment. How bad I wanted to let my soul pour out, to spill some of the poison through salt water and sobs. A release. It would have been almost nice. But it was not an option. Nelly felt guilty enough. She hurt enough, and her hurt was for me. I would not add to it by showing her just how right she was, just how broken I was. I would not cry.

  Nelly came first. Always.

  “I know,” I whispered, breathing in the sce
nt of her honey hair, holding her close in hopes that my love for her could somehow transfer straight from my soul to hers. “But it will be, Nell. You will be okay.”

  I pulled back from her and stood, glancing at the clock on the wall, almost grateful that the time had come to see through the final act of this endless day. I had to get out of this room, with its darkness and shimmering lilies painted on the walls. I would not let her see me cry. But I needed some air.

  “Is it time?” Nelly asked.

  I nodded.

  Nelly swung her feet off the bed and stood beside me. I stood in front of her, the effort to do so somehow more than I had ever known it. My voice was smaller than I intended when I spoke. “You don’t have to come,” I said, swallowing the lump that had grown in my throat. “You’ve never liked funerals. I won’t be mad if you want to…sit this one out.”

  She studied me for a long time, her eyes searching my face for the pain she couldn’t find there. I could tell that she wanted to accept my offer, to “sit this one out.” But she shook her head. She would not leave me to say goodbye to him alone, because as much as I would do for Nelly, she would do the same for me. A love so great was the one we shared.

  I nodded and headed for the door, but Nelly stopped me.

  “Alexa?”

  I turned back to face her, my shoulders consciously square. “Yeah?”

  She held up my Gladius, the sword that anyone other than Nelly would not have dared touched without my permission. “Take this,” she said, and tossed me the weapon.

  I caught it out of the air and tucked it into the back of my pants. Opening the door, the awfulness of where I was going hit me like a jab to the solar plexus, and the pain right along with it. But the crooked smile I gave my sister as I tucked my weapon in place was not entirely forced.

  There were still so many questions I had to ask her, so much more of the road ahead that was yet to be travelled, but I didn’t ask her any questions. I could tell by looking at her that she wasn’t ready to answer any. Or maybe it was I who wasn’t ready to hear any.