by Kel Kade
“If you hate them so much, why did you raise me? Why not send me to someone else?”
“You are our savior. It was agreed that the strongest should protect you. Besides that, only I held the power to suppress your own for so long.”
With every question she answered, with every explanation, Mathias’s nerves burned hotter. “If I’m supposed to be this powerful savior, why would you suppress my power? Why not teach me to use it?”
“A little magic boy running around Goldenwood would draw attention. Each member of the bloodlines is known and registered. If some random child exhibits power, people will investigate. Only the council and your parents know of your existence, and we hoped to keep it that way until you were grown and fully trained. You have not yet realized this, but I have been teaching you magic. The dead languages, the artwork, the meditations, even some of the dances, are spells. You know them already. Once you learn to connect with your power, it will not take long for you to learn to apply them practically.”
Mathias’s anger finally overcame his curiosity. “You’re saying that nothing in my life has been real?”
“Don’t get snippy with me. I know you, Mathias.”
Mathias started to protest, but the words died before reaching his lips. His grandmother—no, Magdelay—was right. He wanted this. He wanted it more than he wanted to have known his parents, and that made him angry.
“You’re ri—”
“Shhh,” Magdelay said with urgency as she drew her horse to a halt.
Mathias pulled the reins, then reached over to loosen his sword. The moon was but a sliver, and the stars were obscured by a thin haze. Darkness surrounded them such that he was unable to discern a single tree. He had no idea how Magdelay had managed to keep to the road, but as high sorceress, she had her ways, he was sure. Still, he heard nothing unusual over the rustling branches and hollow breeze.
It was the motion that caught his attention. A silhouette hurried toward them from behind. With blood pounding in his ears, Mathias barely caught the scuff of boots over the rough road. A flicker of light drew his attention away from the figure. Thin tendrils of purple lightning snapped around Magdelay’s fist and twisted up her forearm as she turned to face their stalker. Her determined gaze reflected the violet light as she drew back her arm.
It was too late. Fire scorched his back as Mathias was thrown from his horse. The attack had come from the other direction. Before he knew it, shadows were converging on them from every side. Magdelay was screaming something, but he had no time to consider her words. He reached for his hilt and couldn’t help crying out at the ripping of flesh across his back. The smell of roasted meat and burnt hair reached his nose, and he knew it to be his own. Somehow, it didn’t hurt as badly as he would have thought. With the shadows getting closer, he knew he needed to get to his feet. He tucked his legs under him and drew his sword as he rose. The night was abruptly lit with the gold and purple of fire and lightning. Mathias’s blade flashed in the light, then clashed with the weapon of the nearest assailant. It was then that he got his first look at the enemy.
Before he could wrap his mind around the truth, a searing pain tore through his calf, and he faltered. He caught a glimpse of the feathered shaft sticking from his leg as his assailant’s axe fell toward his head. Struggling to raise his blade in time, he knew it was for naught. He jerked, falling to one knee, his lungs ceasing to take breath as something jabbed into his back. Another arrow, he thought. He watched in agony as the axe-wielding creature in front of him was suddenly split into two, showering him in milky white blood and gore. The tightness in Mathias’s chest finally released, and he gasped to capture every bit of air he had missed in that eternal, excruciating moment.
His lust for survival overrode his pain, and Mathias struggled to his feet, then turned to meet his attackers. An arrow sliced across his arm as he lunged to stab one of the creatures through the throat. Grabbing the dying fiend, he used it as a shield to block two more arrows while simultaneously searching the forest for the archer. The only light now came from a few bushes set ablaze during the initial attack, and Mathias realized the flicker of purple lightning had gone.
“Magdelay,” he called. “Magdelay, where are you? Grams?”
Mathias’s head began to spin, and he blinked to clear his vision. If Magdelay wasn’t there, then who was fighting the other creatures? Who had saved him from losing his head? He glanced around, seeking the source of the sounds of battle, but he could only see two dark silhouettes struggling in the trees just beyond the road. He wheezed, and then hot liquid shot up his throat. Black in the darkness, his blood spilled over the pale flesh of the creature behind whom he hid. Coughing and sputtering for breath, he could no longer hold his own weight, much less the weight of another. Mathias crashed to the ground, half buried under the fiendish corpse.
Movement from the trees caught his eye, and he grasped for his sword, which he didn’t remember dropping. Pawing at the dirt, he searched in vain as another of the creatures scurried in his direction. A shout from his other side drew his gaze, and a dark figure ran toward him. He glanced back to his attacker just in time to witness the descent of the blade that would take his life. It happened so fast. The sword had impaled him, thrust deep into the ground beneath him, faster than he could have blinked. But he didn’t blink. He saw every glint of firelight slither across the mottled blade. He sought the face of his killer, the foreign beast that had robbed him of life, of his destiny, but the creature was gone. Abandoned. The chosen one—alone in death, reduced to insignificance before his journey had even begun.
I’m real!
He blinked as the stars glittered above him through a break in the haze. How had he never noticed such brilliant beauty?
I’m real!
Was that a sound? It was so far away. Should he try to find it? The stars were winking out, one by one. Only one was now left, and he feared to look away lest it disappear, too. He didn’t want to be alone in the darkness.
Something massive blocked his view of his last light.
“I’m real, Mathias! Don’t die. Mathias, breathe! Mathias!”
He knew that face, and he knew that voice. He was not alone.
CHAPTER 4
“I’m real, Mathias! Wake up! No, Mathias, no!”
Aaslo shook Mathias, then grabbed his face. He looked into his friend’s distant gaze and saw with brutal clarity that the light had left. Panic threatened to overcome him, but he knew he had to make it right. Somehow, he had to fix Mathias. He looked into the trees and saw a distant purple glow. It was far from the road—too far. He couldn’t leave Mathias. If more of those creatures lurked nearby, they might take Mathias away. Then how would he save him? Mathias was the chosen one. It was his destiny to save the world. He couldn’t die on the first day of their journey. The world needed Mathias to live. Aaslo needed him to live.
Aaslo pushed a creature’s corpse off, then waited. Magdelay would return. She was the high sorceress. Of course she would return. As he surveyed the carnage, his gaze roved over the pools of blood, milky in the firelight and smelling of tannin, save for the one human corpse beneath him. Its blood was dark and held the sour scent of metal. He spied a familiar sword lying just inches beyond the reach of Mathias’s outstretched hand, the fallen savior’s fingers still gripping the dirt where they had searched for the weapon. Aaslo took Mathias’s hand, warm as a living man’s, and placed the hilt within it. Looking back to the trees, he could see the purple glow intermittently lighting the trees, so he knew Magdelay lived. He waited. He had to protect Mathias.
Eventually, his panic subsided, and a dull emptiness settled inside him. He leaned down to examine the creature he had pushed off Mathias, though the dwindling fire in the bushes did not provide much light. The fiend was unlike anything he had ever seen. With its saggy purplish skin and milky white eyes, it seemed otherworldly. It was monstrous, and its vague human likeness made the creature’s appearance all the worse. This specimen wore
leather armor, like most of them, and had wielded a sword. A few of the others were dressed like common folk, some bearing swords and hatchets or axes, and others wielding sticks and rocks.
When the sorceress finally returned, he had just finished searching the bodies nearest Mathias, finding nothing of use. When Magdelay saw him, the purple lightning erupted over her hands, but it was dim compared to the vivid blast he had seen earlier. Aaslo stepped in front of Mathias’s body and paused.
Magdelay’s voice hissed with vitriol as she said, “Why are you here, and how did you follow us without me knowing?”
“You know why I’m here. He’s my brother. I came to join you, but I found their trail in the forest. They were following you, and I followed them. Their trail turned away from the road, and I realized they were taking a shortcut to ambush you at this bend. I tried to catch up to warn you, but I was on foot, and you were riding.”
While she did not release her power, she did appear less likely to attack him. “Well, the horses are gone now,” she said. “How’s Mathias?” She nodded toward what she could see of Mathias’s body. “He is injured. Is it serious?”
“I’ve been waiting for you—it seems like forever. You need to fix him. Use your magic,” he said as he stepped to the side.
He knew she would be upset when she saw Mathias sprawled lifeless on the ground with a sword through his heart, but he didn’t expect the shriek that erupted from the doggedly poised sorceress.
“No! What—No!”
Magdelay rushed to Mathias’s side, glanced at the sword, and then slapped Mathias’s face.
Aaslo said, “I left it in—the sword—you know, because they say to leave it in or it’ll bleed more.”
“It’s through his heart, Aaslo! He’s dead!”
“But you can fix him. You’re the most powerful magus in the kingdom! You can fix him!”
“No, Aaslo, I cannot fix death!” She fell onto her rear in the bloody mud and buried her face in her hands. “I failed! All these years, the plans, the preparations, and I failed. We’re doomed. There is nothing to be done. The savior is dead, and we have not even a fool’s hope.”
“What? No. You have to fix him! You fixed the horse. Fix him!”
She shook her head, her expression one of defeat. “I could heal his body, but I cannot return his soul. No one can. He’s dead, Aaslo.”
Aaslo had never felt anything like what he was feeling in that moment. Nothing made sense, and he had no desire to pick and choose his words. “You were supposed to protect him! It was your job. You left him here in the road, all alone with these, these, things!”
“He wasn’t alone. I realized it was you right before they attacked. Mathias was trained for this. He could have prevailed but for the magus. The magus somehow masked their presence from me. I cast a wide net that should have sensed them from miles away. It should have sensed you. Yet, it did not.”
“Not until I stepped from their path,” he said. “You sensed me when I took to the road to warn you.”
Magdelay sighed. “Yes, he must have masked their path somehow. He attacked Mathias first. I didn’t see it coming. The magus was more powerful. I didn’t think I could defeat him, so I led him away to keep him from attacking Mathias again and to give you two time to escape should I fall. It was only by luck that I prevailed.”
“By what luck?” Aaslo said. “Does he live?”
“No, he lit a fireball while standing under a fiergolen tree.”
“Why would he do something so stupid?”
She shook her head, but her heart seemed absent—defeated. “I don’t believe they grow outside the Efestrian Forest. He likely didn’t know it would explode. This—” She waved a hand over the slaughter. “We cannot stay here. I must inform the council. The king will also need to know. You should go home, Aaslo. There is nothing more you can do.”
“Go home? What about the enemy? What about the impending doom?”
“We have already lost,” Magdelay said. “It will probably be a while before they reach Goldenwood. Enjoy what time you have left.”
Aaslo clenched his fist. “By the time they reach Goldenwood, there will be no one left to help us.”
“No one can help anyone.” She nodded toward Mathias, where he lay still as the dirt beneath him. “Only he could save us, and he is dead.”
“That’s absurd,” said Aaslo. “If one man can do it, another can as well.”
“No, I told you, every branch of the prophecy ends in defeat except his, but he has to be alive to make it happen. I don’t know how or why, but it had to be him. He must have had some special skill or power or a connection with the enemy, or the blessing of the gods.… It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Aaslo growled, then said, “If you think I’m going to sit back and wait to die, then you don’t know me at all. These things killed Mathias, and they’re threatening to kill everything else. We need to stop them.”
“You think to take up Mathias’s banner? You are not the savior.”
“No, I’m a forester. Foresters do what needs doing, even when no one else wants to. Beyond that, you don’t know what I am. You said I wasn’t in the prophecy.”
“I said you weren’t in his prophecy. I told you that I checked with the prophets. You have your own branch.”
“Well, what does this prophecy say about me?”
“Death. Your branch is death. So say all the prophets.”
“If my branch is death, then why did you let me befriend Mathias?”
“You did not cause his death, Aaslo. You are not responsible for this. If anything, you gave him a fighting chance.” She waved at the corpses littering the ground and said, “You killed all of these, didn’t you?”
Aaslo nodded, then tilted his head to stare at the night sky. He didn’t want to look at the bodies. He said, “Mathias was severely injured. Otherwise, he could have done it himself.”
“Yes, I know. That was my fault,” she said, her voice quavering.
Aaslo finally looked at Mathias, his friend, lying there as if waiting only to be told to breathe. “I’m his brother in all things. That’s what we always said. Brothers in all things that matter and those that don’t. If this was important to him, then it’s important to me. If he can’t finish his destiny, then I’ll finish it for him.”
Rising to her feet, Magdelay said, “I appreciate the sentiment, Aaslo, but it is for naught. I must get to the council quickly. If you truly want to help, you can take the news to the king.”
“The king,” Aaslo echoed. “The king in Tyellí?”
“Yes, the King of Uyan, our king.”
Aaslo took only a breath to contemplate the trip to meet the king, and he was greatly disturbed. “There are no forests near Tyellí.”
“No,” Magdelay said, with patronizing patience, “you will have to leave the forest, and you will need to take proof. The king does not know you, and this is something he will need to see for himself.”
“You want me to take Mathias to Tyellí? How? That’s weeks from here by horse, and we seem to be out of those.”
“No, you are right,” Magdelay said, looking down at the body. “You cannot take his body. Cut off his head.”
Aaslo’s stomach heaved. “What?”
“I will cast a preservation spell upon the head so that it won’t decompose. The king will need to see the mark.”
“I can’t—I can’t travel to Tyellí carrying my brother’s head. What’s wrong with you? You raised him. Don’t you feel anything?”
Magdelay glared at him. “Of course I do. I grew to love that boy as my own. I regret that I didn’t tell him that when I revealed truth of his birthright, but we must prioritize, and our feelings fall very, very far down the list. In fact, they’re not even on this list.”
She picked up the axe of a fallen creature and held it out for him. “You must do it.”
Aaslo’s stomach continued to flip and spin, and he thought he might become sick. He looked at the oddl
y shaped axe, crusted in old blood, and his lip curled in disgust. “No, I’ll use my own.”
“So be it,” she said.
The sorceress created a glowing green orb over her head to light the ground in front of her. She walked to the side of the road and waved her hands in a strange pattern while muttering unintelligible words. The ground began to peel away in layers to form a deep trough with a mound at one end. Then the sorceress—Mathias’s grandmother—turned away.
Aaslo said, “I’ll be right back.” He shuffled down the road a short way to where he had first stepped off the enemy’s path. There, he found the pack he had discarded in his haste. All he could hear as he collected his belongings was I should have run faster.
His steps were noticeably slower upon his return to the scene. The scent of tannin soured the air around it, and he wanted nothing more than to turn and go back the way he had come. He tried not to think of what he was doing. It’s just like cutting a log, he told himself. It’s Mathias, his heart replied.
Releasing his pack, he grabbed the hilt of the sword in Mathias’s chest and wrenched it from the ground before launching it into the forest with as much strength as he could muster. He then picked up his axe and stood over the body.
“I’m sorry. If it has to be anybody, then it should be me.” After taking a deep breath—and then another—he raised the axe and brought it down with a thwap. Something broke inside him. It was as if he could hear the crash, like a glass shattering in his mind.
“Is it done?” Magdelay said.
Aaslo’s gaze fell on the bloody stump of Mathias’s neck. He looked up to see that the head had rolled a few feet away and was now staring at him. He didn’t vomit. He was surprised. He had thought he would be sick, but his stomach felt like an empty pit. Aaslo picked up the head by its wavy golden locks and stared into the empty, lifeless eyes—not at all like Mathias’s. They were the eyes of a man he didn’t know.