Bloodflower

by K. J. Harrowick

Sumaha had no right to be angry at her.

  “Ashe and his brothers saved my life, and I will be forever grateful. These men are not villains. They protect me, and I’m trying my hardest to protect your world,” Jàden said.

  Ashe was alive, but all the anxiety of his brush with death, coupled with Evardo’s dooming dream, boiled to the surface.

  “So don’t any of you dare tell me I’m a destroyer or that the outlawed Rakir I call brothers are. You know nothing, Sumaha.”

  “I still do not trust them.”

  Jàden clenched her fist to hold back her irritation as Sumaha regarded her with a stony gaze.

  “Come.” Sumaha trudged deeper into the field.

  Soon they were surrounded by tall grasses forming a barrier around a large willow. Sumaha pressed aside the curtain of leaves, gnarled branches twisting away from the trunk in a dozen directions.

  The air cooled beneath the willow’s shadows. Trying not to shiver, Jàden stepped through the far branches, hanging in a curtain of leaves.

  Low ultraviolet light blazed across a second clearing, this one larger than the first. Rows of corn and tomato, leek and gourd, filled every inch of the wide-open space. Tall willows and almond trees arched high overhead, the canopy of branches like a dome keeping the light inside.

  Jàden walked along a row of tomatoes, touching the soft fruit with her fingertips. Peppers grew on the other side, green and purple, red and yellow, balls and long, curled arcs. She breathed in the heavy aroma, a blend of flavor and a symphony of color. She ached to pull off a smaller tomato and pop it in her mouth, but she refrained under Sumaha’s hawkish gaze.

  “I do not believe you are the Guardian,” Sumaha said abruptly.

  Light pulsed along the ground, catching Jàden’s eye and disappearing into the dirt. Ignoring Sumaha’s comment, she crouched over a plastic tube and traced her fingers on the arced section looping above the ground. The light flashed again, power surging in waves from one end to the other.

  This was Hàlon technology.

  She followed the line of plants. Several more tubes arced above the ground, no more than a zip of light from one patch of muddy soil to the next. They pulsed in the same direction. As Jàden passed rows of pumpkin and patches of herbs, the light converged into a pattern. Rock rose ahead, a sharp plymouth covered in lichen and soaring into the high canopy.

  It’s a starship.

  Except this one didn’t have her zankata painted on the side but the orb and trailing legs like her dagger hilt. Jàden tugged her shirt over the knife sheaths as if they somehow cursed her.

  The top of the tail fin was nearly invisible, black shield plating and sharp edges burrowing down into the rock. She followed the line of the craft, guessing it to be a small cruiser with the nose buried far beneath the high meadow.

  Unease tugged at her gut. A war, the gates shut down. Hàlon.

  “What’s inside that ship?” Jàden asked.

  Sumaha waited for her by a large sheet of glass standing upright in the dirt. Rocks and flowers lined the base, bright yellow blossoms unfolding between the tight spaces. “You will show me what’s inside. Put your hand here.”

  Biting down on her lower lip, Jàden stepped to the shield glass and held her hand up. A pang of guilt thrummed through her chest. She so desperately wanted to see Kale again, but she definitely did not want to call Frank to her location.

  She let her arm fall to her side. “No.”

  “Open the ship, Guardian.” Sumaha nocked an arrow onto her bowstring and aimed at Jàden. “You are a Guardian. You must know how to open it. I do not want that shadow”—she gestured to the orb symbol—“over Veradóran lands.”

  “You’ll die if I touch that screen.” Jàden glared at her, almost daring Sumaha to try and shoot her. “I won’t—”

  “Sumaha!” Alida’s loud shriek reverberated across the garden as a dagger slashed through Sumaha’s arrow. “How dare you threaten Herana.”

  Jàden eased back, happy to let Sumaha take the brunt of Alida’s fury.

  “She is not to be trusted.” Sumaha had a fire all her own as the two went head to head. “A woman who rides with northmen and brings their hunters to our land. Why do you believe in this legend?”

  Their argument escalated, and both fell into the soft rhythm of a language Braygen had spoken earlier in their travels.

  Jàden eased back until they no longer noticed her. But she couldn’t keep her eyes off the ship and the strange painted marking. Someday, she’d need to understand where it came from, but today it only seemed to present danger.

  And the last thing she needed in her life.

  It was time to find Kale. Find the beginning and put an end to her journey.

  CHAPTER 46

  East of Veradóra

  Éli seethed. He wanted Jon’s woman, but the sky beasts were making a mess of everything. The nearest one opened its belly, dimming its fires.

  Granger put the spyglass to his eye. “What are you thinking, Commander?”

  His men spread out across the ledge, uncertainty in their eyes. They’d lost five soldiers to those shifter bastards in the last two days, and the Guardian’s trail had disappeared. Now more sky beasts were following, but this was the first time he’d spotted one on the ground.

  Several figures emerged from its underside and spread out across the field. One kept poking something on his wrist while others set up a tall silver tower.

  “They look human, sir,” one of his men said. “How is that possible?”

  From what he’d seen in Nelórath’s harbor, humans controlled the creatures from the inside.

  Éli wanted one for himself.

  If he could figure out how to control it in the sky, he could capture his woman and be halfway across the sea before Jon could blink.

  A figure removed his helm—her helm. Bright red curls tumbled past her shoulders, but the woman pulled her hair back in a knot and shouted orders at her companions. The woman was too far away to hear her words, but the body language was clear. She was in charge.

  “They’re looking for the Guardian,” Éli muttered, anger gripping his chest. Another question among thousands burned through his thoughts. It was time he learned where the Guardian came from and why Jon protected her. And he sure wasn’t going to let these bastards get to her first.

  “I’ll be back.”

  He clapped Granger on the shoulder. “Kill them all.”

  Slipping away from the others, Éli circled quietly through the woods until one figure was no more than a dozen yards away, pressing his back to a tree. The helmed figure wore bizarre gray clothing, a flame inside a circle on his shoulder. He wasn’t Sandarin and, by the black weapon slung over his arm, would likely go on alert with any small sound.

  Crouching on his hands and feet, Éli crept into the overgrown grass, careful not to rustle even a single blade.

  Easing close to the figure’s feet, he rolled onto his back and swept the man’s ankles. The bastard slammed onto Éli’s chest, hands already on the weapon.

  Grabbing the figure’s neck, Éli twisted until it snapped.

  Éli yanked the glass helm off the dead man and stripped away the gray uniform before elbow-crawling back to the tree line. He pulled the gray uniform on, hiding his clothes and sword deep under a knot of thick foliage.

  Lighter than his uniform, the gray material was loose and warm, but the smell was terrible. Éli tugged the helm over his head. Strange symbols illuminated the bottom corner, but he could see perfectly through the glass front as if the sun shone brightly.

  Voices spoke in his ear, but he ignored them and grabbed the weapon, blue light glowing from its embedded firemark.

  Everything had gone to shit again and again.

  This time he wasn’t going to lose.

  As if Sebastian watched from the grave with his approval, Éli kept his eyes on the beast as he stepped into sight of the others. Someone shouted in his he
lm, and he hit the side. Now was not the time to be hearing voices.

  “Tower assembly complete,” a woman said in the Guardian language. Her voice was sharp and rough. Pain throbbed in his skull. Éli shouldn’t be understanding her words, but each phrase melted into the silk of his power, leaning him into comprehension.

  “Rogers?” Her voice came through his helm again. “Quit playing with your bugs and help us get this thing working.”

  Laying the weapon across his shoulders, Éli raced toward the sky beast and into its belly. Metal lined its insides, threads of light weaving patterns toward its main intestinal system.

  There must be a way to control it, maybe near the head. Tossing the strange weapon aside, he unsheathed his dagger and pressed his back against the wall, peeking into the intestinal hall.

  Lights glowed along metal seams in a narrow corridor filled with curved, alien lines that made his head pound.

  Éli crept along the smooth walls, overhead squares glowing with a soft light. Sebastian had told him once about bugs that lit up inside their bodies and the jungle filled with bioluminescent fungus. But this place gave him the creeps.

  A door slid open at the end of the corridor.

  Two figures sat side by side, a man and a woman bound to their seats.

  The man turned around, anger etched into his features. “The fuck are you doing, Rogers? General Ka—”

  Éli drove his blade into the man’s neck and grabbed the woman’s throat. “How the fuck does this thing work?”

  She pressed a patch of light.

  He yanked the dagger out of the man’s neck and slammed it through her hand. “Where’s the Guardian?”

  The female screamed, tears forming at the corner of her eyes. Blood leaked from her hand into the lights. She started to speak, but Éli tightened his grip on her throat.

  Glass spread over the front of the three-seat room, small symbols scrolling across the bottom in a series of boxes.

  Éli pulled her face close, practically smelling the fear roll off her in waves. “You’re going to help me find her.”

  A noise echoed his words, speaking in the language of the Guardians.

  The woman seemed to respond to the voice, tears leaking onto her cheeks. “Wh-Who are you looking for?”

  He narrowed his eyes, taking in the lights and symbols on the glass, almost grasping their meaning. “Guardian Herana, my wife.”

  A strange ache pressed on his chest.

  Jon’s wife—his wife. He hadn’t really thought about it before, but what if Jon had bound the Guardian too? The idea of his enemy possessing magic set Éli’s nerves on edge.

  The woman panted in her seat, her pained features tight from the knife buried in her hand. Rapid-fire noises came from somewhere outside the beast.

  She showed Éli her other palm then slowly lowered her hand to press a lit circle.

  “General, we have a—”

  “You’d better have good news.” A face appeared on the glass, sandy brown mohawk crowning an older face with a thick beard. Ink lines tattooed the man’s neck, which stretched tight as he pulled a cigarette out of his mouth. “You. The one with the small boy.”

  Éli growled.

  The bastard from the first sky beast whose leg had been twisted the wrong way. He’d recognize the man anywhere by the steel flint etched into his wrinkles. “Who the fuck are you, and why are you chasing my Guardian?”

  The older man slammed the glass. “Costa, get that fucker in a cage and bring him back to the lab. He knows something.”

  Get out of there, Evardo screamed into Éli’s thoughts, voice panicked. They want to hurt you.

  Images flashed in his head. The Guardian screaming inside a glass cage. Her body deteriorating until she was skin and bone.

  The pain and tears ripped into the blackest part of his soul.

  Éli had spent his life suffering that kind of anguish. Watching the light fade from Sebastian’s eyes and screaming as the Rakir dragged him away. He’d never buried his brother, the body discarded with hundreds of others inside a giant kiln.

  His eyes stung as he clutched the woman’s throat tighter. “How do I fly this thing?”

  Commander, run!

  The woman’s hand shook as the translation reached her ears. She closed her eyes, tears sliding down her cheeks. “I’ll never tell.”

  He slammed his hand on the lighted symbols, black fire burning through his senses as he unleased the Flame’s power building inside him. “Get this thing in the sky!”

  Something solid pressed against the back of his head. “Step aside, asshole.”

  Releasing the dagger, Éli dodged to the side and slammed his elbow into a glass helm. Loud noise screamed into his ears as he twisted around the second figure and snapped her neck, the woman dropping to the ground. He ripped off her helm, red curls spilling onto the corrugated metal.

  He grabbed his dagger and shoved it into the seated woman’s throat, blood spilling down the front of her uniform.

  The man in the glass shouted a string of obscenities. “When I find Jàden, I’m going to hunt you down and put a dozen holes in your head.”

  Éli wiped his blade clean. “Stay the fuck away from my wife.”

  A loud noise rattled his ears, the beast’s belly starting to close.

  Run! More are coming.

  Ignoring Evardo’s cries, Éli bolted down the corridor and leapt out of the beast. His men circled the field, but the other armored soldiers had disappeared. Probably dead on the ground.

  Éli ripped the helm off and threw it at the sky beast, roaring in frustration.

  Evardo sat astride their own horse now, thanks to the men they’d lost, but Éli grabbed their shirt and threw them to the ground. “I told you to stay the fuck out of my head.”

  Curling up into a tight ball, the servant covered themself and tried to stutter out an apology.

  “Shut the fuck up.” Éli grabbed Evardo’s scruff and dragged them to their feet. “Tell me where she is!”

  The idiot wiped an arm across their tear-stained cheek and pointed south, an entirely different direction than they’d been traveling all morning.

  “Stop crying like a blubbering idiot and be a man.” Éli shoved his servant aside in disgust. If it wasn’t for Evardo’s ability to see through the eyes of others, Éli probably would have killed the bastard weeks ago. “She’d better be in my grasp in the next forty-eight hours, or you can say goodbye to that head of yours.”

  Seething with fury and certain the mohawked man would have another sky beast on their ass, Éli gathered his clothing and weapons and climbed on his horse. “We don’t stop until I find my prize.”

  CHAPTER 47

  Veradóra

  Jàden’s thoughts raced as Ashe paced back and forth, both of them worried that Jon and the others still hadn’t arrived.

  “You shouldn’t have slept so long,” he growled at her. “We should leave this place.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” She wove her hair into a single braid.

  She’d made up her mind on the verge of sleep that the Tahiró hadn’t inked their skin to be part of a club. They knew something—she just didn’t know what yet. She and Ashe needed to get back to Jon and the others, but maybe here she had a real shot at finding Kale and figuring out what to do next.

  “Where’s Braygen?” she asked.

  Before Ashe could answer, she spotted Braygen on a high bridge and trudged toward him.

  A life on the run was something she couldn’t continue, and fear lurked in the back of her thoughts that maybe something bad happened to the others.

  Braygen met her halfway.

  “You said you learned the truth when you took your ink,” she said. “Where’s Kale?”

  He tightened his jaw and glanced around the village as if trying to decide what to say. Finally, his stormy eyes found hers. “Commander Jason Kale entrusted the Tahiró with a secret. I know who
you are, Jàden, but some of the others aren’t so sure.”

  “Commander?” Last time she’d seen Kale he’d been a sergeant. He must have been promoted during her absence. But before she could dwell on that, she needed to know what this big secret was. “Show me.”

  He nodded once. “Come.”

  Several villagers crept onto the walkways. They did not draw their arrows but watched with an eerie anticipation. Alida and Sumaha stood together on a higher path, arms around one another, appearing to have resolved their argument.

  Ashe stuck like glue to her shoulder as they followed. “What’s with them?”

  “They want to know if she is the one.” Braygen led them across several wooden bridges, though he held tension in his hands as he opened and closed his fist.

  Jàden wasn’t certain if it had to do with Ashe or something else, but it reminded her of Thomas when he was fighting pain in his muscles.

  “The one what?” Ashe asked.

  “You will see.” The bridge led to a muddy path along the valley wall. Roots and brush dug into the mud, clumped together to form a narrow alley between the leaves. Thorns pulled at her clothing, but she slid through the brush and stopped next to Braygen.

  Jàden’s heart raced at the steel door closed within airtight seams.

  Etched into the brushed metal, a tree with branches reached skyward, its roots digging toward the earth below her feet.

  Three symbols stood out along the trunk. A zankata at the top, a wolf in the middle and a horse near the base.

  She swallowed a lump in her throat—her zankata. “Kale.”

  Bits of wire dangled from a steel wall, clinging to a frosted plexiglass plate. Jàden gripped the smashed light pad. Lichen grew along the surrounding cliff face, dusting the components with verdant green life. Her fingers slipped between the panel’s loose wires. The circular fitting was still snug in its stone fixture.

  “Someone give me a firemark,” she said.

  Braygen pressed a glass orb into her palm.

  Cupping her hands around the firemark, she blew until it glowed and then pressed it into the holder. The orb pulsed once, and the light box illuminated.