Slowly, she turned her gaze toward Alexander.
The prince had not moved an inch since Sacha’s battle cry had stopped his fight for survival. His mouth worked as if he were trying to say something but couldn’t. His eyes were wide with amazement and confusion.
Sacha met his stare, attempting to show him love and encouragement while hoping beyond hope that he would not come to understand who she actually was.
Finally, after several agonizing moments, her husband staggered forward. “For the love of Eos, how did you do that?!”
Before Sacha could answer, the trees behind Alexander burst apart. An ogre lumbered out of the woods, a huge stone club clutched in its calloused hands. The trees that had been struck fell to either side of the giant goblinoid with a loud crash. “Oomans!” the ogre roared as it charged forward. In its wake followed more hobgoblins and men armed with a forest of miscellaneous weapons, ranging from pitchforks to pikes.
Memories of Jagger’s minion, Ragg, flashed in Sacha’s mind. She remembered thinking the beastly creature unstoppable with all of its aggression and power. Now, however, things had changed. Almost eagerly she began to prepare herself to enter the monster’s mind. Overwhelming an ogre in such a way couldn’t be as inherently evil as doing the same to a man, she reasoned.
Sacha’s amber blade formed out of habit, but she discarded it quickly for the ugly spike of mental power that was best for destroying barriers. She flung it at the brute with an exuberant shout. The spike pierced the layers of the ogre’s mind as easily as an arrow through rice paper. She dismissed her weapon just as it burst through the third gelatinous barrier to avoid killing the monster. She pushed through the holes and quickly found the raw, shambling humanoid that was the ogre’s truest sense of self. Working quickly, Sacha wrapped the figure in mystic power to create an image of herself, but as a friend of the beast. Not just a friend but one with whom it had enjoyed many savage fights together, side by side, and would go on to enjoy many more if only the irritating goblins, men, and hobgoblins around them could be made to run away.
It took only heartbeats, and Sacha was exultant as the ogre stumbled to a halt not ten feet from Alexander. The brute blinked its piggy eyes in confusion until it found Sacha and recognition dawned. Sacha exited the ogre’s mind and sagged from weariness. The mystic power she had stored was again exhausted.
Several Wildmen charged past the ogre, waving their makeshift weapons at the first target they saw: Alexander. The prince danced away from the first attack but was forced to parry the second, barely escaping injury. The ogre stared briefly at the smaller figures surging around in combat before bellowing with rage at the hobgoblin attackers. Heavy slabs of arm muscle coiled under the giant’s thick skin as it swung its club in a vicious, sweeping arc. The club smashed through the head of a hobgoblin, ripping it violently from its shoulders but barely slowing. A second hobgoblin folded over the speeding club with a sickening crunch and was flung more than a dozen feet away to land in a lifeless heap.
Alexander retreated from the ogre as it raged against its confused cousins and countrymen. The Wildmen began to run in all directions, fleeing the rampaging death storm that had been their principal ally. The prince’s teetering, backward steps brought him closer until he came to a stop next to Sacha. He continued to stare in shock at the battling ogre. “Sloane... What in Mot’s fire is going on?”
Sacha didn’t answer. There was nothing she could say. If they survived long enough to talk about it, maybe she could figure out a way to explain away what he had seen, but first they had to get away.
Horns blared from beyond the tree line. Within moments, savage men, wicked goblins, and bloodthirsty hobgoblins charged from the southern side of the glade. Whether they had come for Sacha and Alexander or whether it was bad luck that dropped them here on the way to engage the Basinian forces mattered little. One and all, the new troops shouted in excitement when they spotted Sacha and Alexander. Sacha knew that if they stayed, they would die.
“Run!” she screamed at Alexander.
The prince didn’t hesitate in following her as she sprinted for the trees. The ogre gave them a distraction by falling on the new arrivals with renewed shouts of anger and liberal mayhem with its club. Together, Sacha and Alexander dove into the thick oaks and tangles of underbrush. Even with the ogre wreaking havoc behind them, she knew their pursuers would be close behind.
“There!” Sacha cried when they broke from a dense portion of the woods, pointing to a grouping of broken tree trunks and brambles. She charged headlong into the mass of vegetation, paying no heed to the cuts and scratches from the dead and reaching sticks and thorns. She continued to force her way deeper into the makeshift hiding place until she came to a sheltered hollow deep within the deadfall.
Alexander wriggled into the hollow after her. There was just room for the two of them in the shelter of the dead trunks. He laboriously worked his way to a sitting position with his back against a fallen bole. The filtered light from outside showed his face grimacing in pain as he set down the sword to massage his wounded arm. “Eos, that hurts,” he said through heavy breaths.
Sacha drew more power from the world around her and leaned forward. The small hollow came alive as the Shamonrae filled her. Damp mildew from the rotting vegetation filled her senses, but she could also sense the voles, centipedes, and ants busily breaking down their shelter. Above all, she was aware of Alexander, the warmth of his body, the scent of his clean sweat and the blood—his own and that of his enemies—that stained his coat. “Let me have a look.”
The prince eyed her for a moment. Instead of the wholehearted confidence and love she had become accustomed to, she saw a glimmer of doubt or perhaps distrust flicker across his features before he offered up the wounded appendage.
She probed his injured arm with the same arcane sense she used to distinguish an individual’s signature, only this time focusing solely on Alexander’s damaged bone and tissue. It was definitely broken, in two places in fact. “I’ll have to set this,” she whispered.
Alexander nodded silently.
“Here.” Sacha offered him one of the many small branches that littered the ground around them. “Bite down on this.”
He did so in calm silence, then waited for her to proceed.
Sacha had seen an arm set once. Sir Bolen Gantre had dislocated his shoulder and broken his forearm in a jousting tournament several years before she had been exiled to the Monastery. The wounds were horrid to look at, but the physicians had put them back into place to the knight’s thundering protests. Unfortunately, she’d never actually done the procedure herself. There wasn’t much choice but to try at this point. I’m sorry, my love, Sacha thought, as she took hold of Alexander’s wrist and placed a foot on his shoulder. This is going to hurt.
Alexander took a deep breath. He locked eyes with her and then gave a quick nod.
Sacha jerked his arm while straightening her body to the fullest.
The prince gave a muffled, agonized groan as she pulled, and his breath hissed around the dirty bark as his teeth bit deep. Muffled pops and grinding noise were clearly audible within his arm. His eyes fluttered, and he slumped over, unconscious.
Sacha listened intently to hear if any Wildmen had been alerted to their presence. Their calls were still distant, but it was only a matter of time before the wargs sniffed them out. She reached out once more with her power and went to work. Sacha breathed a sigh of relief when her senses told her the bones had been fit back together. What she had learned so far about healing with the power was essentially to hurry along the natural healing process so it helped the bones knit almost instantaneously. If the bones had not aligned, she could have permanently deformed Alexander’s arm. He would have use of the arm again in moments, but since the resources for this process came from the prince himself, he would be ravenous for days.
Power channeled through Sacha into Alexander’s hand. She watched with her arcane sense and gently directed the po
wer as the torn muscle and fragmented bone reknit. Within a few moments, the damage was healed as if it had never been.
Alexander moaned, and his eyes blinked open. “What happened?” he asked in confusion. “Where are we?”
“We are safe for the moment,” Sacha answered soothingly. “You fell from the sky.”
The prince rubbed his temples. “Hector is dead.”
It wasn’t a question, but Sacha felt inclined to say something anyway. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
The prince grunted in acknowledgement and then flexed his injured arm. He rolled his shoulders with no ill effects. After examining the newly fixed limb for a few moments, Alexander settled his gaze on Sacha.
She knew this look. The last time she had seen its like was the day her father sent her to the Monastery.
Without preamble, he said, “You are not my wife.”
Tears blurred Sacha’s vision suddenly, and she managed to choke out, “But I am.”
“You are not Sloane,” Alexander pressed.
Sacha had known that one day, the truth would come out. She’d hoped against it, even tricked herself into thinking there was a chance it wouldn’t happen, but deep down, she had known better. What truly surprised her was the amount of pain the revelation would bring. It crippled her, leaving her unable to move or even speak as she watched the one kernel of hope she had dared to cultivate wither and die in this man’s hard gaze.
“Answer me!” Alexander growled through clenched teeth.
“No,” Sacha confessed with a sob. “I’m not.”
“Where is she?!” Alexander surged forward and gripped Sacha by the shoulders painfully. “Where is my wife?”
She tried to pull away, but he held her fast.
“Tell me!”
“Dead, damn you,” Sacha cried. “She’s dead!”
Alexander went rigid with shock, eyes wide.
Howls of wargs ripped into the sudden silence between them. Filtering through the leaves and debris were the accompanying calls and cries of men and goblins.
Grief washed out the anger in Alexander’s face. He released his grip on her shoulders and slumped against the deadfall, staring at nothing.
Sacha’s heart broke for him, seeing his pain. His loss. He had truly loved Sloane, and no duplicate could fill the void she had left behind. For the first time since this charade had begun, Sacha knew without a doubt he had been loving Sloane all along, and she had been a thief of all the joys and moments of happiness that he had given her. They had all been Sloane’s, never hers. Sacha fell back against the side of the hollow, dejected and forlorn.
Rylan. Her daughter’s name drifted into her melancholy, lighting a spark deep within that drove her to action. Even heartbroken, she could not sit here. “Come on,” she hissed at the prince. “We have to move!”
Alexander did not stir from his spot or acknowledge Sacha’s warning. He just sat, broken and staring past her.
Sacha scrambled over to the prince and grabbed hold of him. “Get up!” She yanked on his collar to bring him to his feet, but his unresisting body was too heavy. She glared into his vacant eyes and growled, “You are the future of your people. You are my future. My daughter’s future. Now get up!”
For a brief moment, he focused on her. The hazel eyes contained a world of betrayal and loss with glimpses of hatred and fury. He would not be moved. He was already lost.
“No. No, you will not give up!” she yelled, furious herself now. “You have a reason to live and a destiny to fulfill.” Before she realized what she was doing, she had fashioned her mental blade and opened her arcane sight to view Alexander’s mind.
His virtual self hung there in front of her, twinned globes of heart and mind floating in the ether of her mindscape. She found herself fascinated by the sparking electricity that shuddered around the globes. This was her husband. The only thing in the way of their happiness was the memory of what she had done.
Revising memories was beyond explicitly forbidden; it was a crime punishable by death according to the law of the Monastery. Teacher’s voice brushed her conscious thought as she considered the memories she wanted to remove. In their lessons, she had asked about how such a thing might be done, but Teacher had shaken his head. “But what is a person if not the sum of what it is they have experienced, pupil? And who might you be to have such a right as to remove a portion of that person’s life?” According to Teacher, the manipulation of another’s mind was tantamount to murder.
But, Sacha reasoned, what I am going to do is saving him. If he doesn’t move, he will die, in fact.
“Semantics,” the vision of Teacher scoffed. “If he dies mourning his losses, then he dies free. If you change his choice, then he lives as your puppet, a mockery of the man he would have chosen to be. Ultimately, this is his life, and you have no right to make his decisions for him.”
But he doesn’t have to die, she argued. I can help him!
“Yes, and you have been doing a lovely job so far. May I say how much I enjoy the scent of decay in your current abode?”
Ruthlessly, Sacha stamped out the image of her mentor and then settled in the loam across from Alexander.
Her knife slid smoothly and quickly between the intervening space. Sacha’s conscious mind was drawn along in its wake. As she had expected, bypassing his defenses was simple. The prince had done a fine job of disciplining his mind, but the chinks in his armor were an open invitation. When she passed through the cloudy layer, she was interested to find that it was both thicker and more active than any mind she had visited save Teacher’s. She could see after a fashion as she passed through, but the level of movement in the mists was unprecedented. The final barrier between her and her prince was most like a finely woven lattice of winewood, stretching away into the distance. She didn’t even have to cut it. She merely merged with and through the gaps, leaving the wall intact behind her.
When she emerged on the other side of the wooden barrier, it was raining. Sacha ignored the shadowy form of what could only be Terrandal rising in the distance and focused on the signature she knew would be Alexander’s core self. Thunder rolled from everywhere and nowhere. Just in front of her, a battle was in play. Specifically, it was the battle she had interrupted only moments before they ran for safety, but this time it was being played out on a field of mud puddles. As she drew nearer, a representation of herself burst from the underbrush, halting the combat. But instead of a wordless battle cry, she came in screaming, “Sloane is dead! Sloane is dead!”
Alexander went rigid with shock, and his enemies began to fall upon him.
Despite herself, Sacha leapt to the prince’s aid once again. The arcane blade shifted into a floating sword. The steel of the blade shone with orange-red fire in the wetness. Even before the transformation had become complete, the sword interposed itself between the hobgoblins and the stunned Alexander. Where it cut, opponents exploded into burning motes of dust that were quickly destroyed by the unceasing rain.
The Sacha from Alexander’s memory charged forward, transforming into a twisted wreck of humanity as it came. The only thing left of the creature to indicate that it had been Sacha was the crystalline blue eyes that could belong to none other than the royal house of Pelos.
Sacha gaped in horror and sorrow at the abomination the prince had turned her memory into. She lashed out at the beast with her floating blade, cutting it to ribbons. When no more enemies stood afield, Sacha turned her tear-filled eyes to Alexander.
“You,” he said simply.
She knew without asking that this Alexander knew exactly who she was. There was no more opportunity for deceit here. “Yes. I came to see if there is a future for us.”
“A future? For us?” he repeated. He seemed to be testing the words in his head as if he were not entirely certain of what they might mean. He mulled over the statement for some time, then shook his head. “No. There wasn’t even a past. It was all a lie, and you have used me.”
Sacha had expected his
rejection, but hearing the words tore at her soul. She shook away the pain. For Rylan.
Grimly she moved close enough to grab Alexander’s arm. He resisted, but her hand had already sunk into the flesh of the mental representation of himself, just as she had done with Teacher and the numerous Wildmen before. There was a world of difference now. Now, she was in control and she knew what to expect.
Alexander’s recent memories came at her in a torrent. She wept when he remembered them making love for the first time, and she laughed aloud when she felt his pride in her when she had beat him back to the aviary. It was so easy to get lost in the play of memory that it was a surprise when she once again watched herself charge into the glade.
Sacha summoned her gauntlet of amber fire. It pulsed with heat and energy around her clenched fist. As the memory of their skirmish with the Wildmen played out around them, Sacha opened her hand and drove her fingers into Alexander’s head, grabbing hold of the thoughts.
Alexander screamed, here in his mind and out in the material world.
Sacha gritted her teeth, ignoring his pain, and ripped the memory free.
The battle scene surrounding them vanished as if a torch had been extinguished in the dead of night. The only light came from a pale, glowing orb that lay trapped in Sacha’s gauntleted hand. She stared into its swirling surface and saw herself throwing lightning at the goblins covering Hector’s body. The memory struggled against her grip in an attempt to make its way back to Alexander, and a low humming resonated through the darkness, striking a nerve. She wasn’t sure what put her on edge about the sound, but she didn’t have time to ponder it. With no small amount of remorse, Sacha crushed the glowing orb.
As fiery cinders drifted from her palm, the darkness was banished with the coming of a new memory. Sacha watched herself facing down the ogre, and she felt the resonance again. She pushed on, tearing the buzzing memory from Alexander’s mind and smashing it.
The next memory to appear was when she had healed his arm. When Sacha grabbed hold of those thoughts to pull them free, she suddenly understood what the resonance was. It was his realization that she was not who she had claimed to be. The betrayal he felt tainted that memory and everything associated with it. It made her queasy to understand just how much pain he felt. She also found herself to be more than a little resentful. It wasn’t as if any of this had been easy for her, and none of it was within her control. She tore the memory out and destroyed it like she had the others.
Book of Sacha: Dark Fate (The Dark Fate Chronicles 3) Page 24