“I’ve failed you. I’ve failed you!” Abbott howled, gripping his father’s hand tighter than he’d ever done in his life. “I’ve failed you.”
“You have failed no one. Your mother will be welcoming me home. I can see her face now.” Edmund’s bloody hand caught a tear streaming down his son's cheek as he proclaimed his victory. “I can see her again.”
The richness in Edmund’s eyes diminished. His life was fading fast. The gash Lilith left in his stomach turned a dark hue.
“What’s happening?” Abbott whimpered. “Why’s it turning black?”
Quinn came close to his shoulder. “Her blade. She’s poisoned it, Abbott.”
Amidst the sorrowful picture, the heavens unrolled in faint rain and wept for Edmund.
“Promise me that you will cherish love? Love is all we have in this world. Love is— life’s true purpose.”
“I—I—promise,” another flooding of tears broke from his eyes. “I promise.”
As he said his final words, the heavens lifted his spirit to the land beyond. Edmund’s chest rose one last time. He trembled and let out a sigh of relief. He could finally be at peace without the pain of his physical body.
His eyes went blank, his skin turned white as snow, and he no longer was a part of this world.
Abbott clutched his father’s lifeless body pressing their foreheads together and grieved. The drizzle poured down harder than it had ever fallen before. “Father, I need you…please,” he said as tears mixed with his father’s blood. “Please.”
32
Snowfall concealed Gorwin's tracks.
The mountainside beyond burred away into oblivion.
Elise cursed at the wind under her breath as she turned to see Moonlight’s footprints, too, had disappeared. She knew in her gut where he was headed, but how would they get there? That was a mystery. Elise could think of only one way. The ancient trail from the past, but she loathed the idea of taking the route. It was riddled with horror legends. But the lost sword has been found, and now it is headed to the enemy.
It was all her fault.
The bandage covering the wolf bite was ripe with new blood. Elise felt the cold droplets glide down the inside flesh of her arm. The constant motion was tearing stitches, as a result, her vision was growing hazy. By tomorrow this time, she’d need to figure out another solution to contain the blood. But stubbornly, she pushed that to the side.
Billy’s arms were frozen stiff around her warm body. The tips of his fingers throbbed as the blood flow attempted to circulate. “What now?” he asked, watching the vapors from his breath freeze before his face. “Do you know where they’re going?”
“Unfortunately.” The word fell from Elise’s mouth. It would open a myriad of questions. In truth, there was a lot her new companion did not know. But she did not want him to know. These were secrets she needed to keep hushed for her protection. It’d been a while since she’d trusted another person. The last time she did, it had not ended well.
“You smell that?” Billy asked. “Smells like a campfire. Look.” He pointed western towards a few lonely trees bending under the weight of snow. “You don’t think that’s them, do you?”
“No,” she said sharply. “But I do imagine they must have seen something. Gorwin had to have come directly through here, but which way he went afterward is a mystery. I can’t track him anymore, especially with the snow blowing in.” Elise pulled back her mount’s hair and steered them to the thicket. The closer they came, the clearer the smoke smelt of a sweeter nature. Nonetheless, she was on guard. There was no telling what sorts of absurd folks were willing to spend a night happily under these conditions.
There was a shelter made of branches and stuffed with foliage erected by a fire where a skinned animal roasted. But nothing else and no one else. “Abandoned?” Billy glanced into the shelter. Empty.
Elise was not convinced. An ambush, she alleged as she withdrew her knife. She was keen on these sorts of scenarios being a plunderer and all.
They circle the perimeter multiple times to be certain of other guests, but nothing came. Billy headed straight for the food over the open fire. “I’m starving,” he confessed. As he reached for the hot meat, a rope closed under his feet, and he somersaulted into the frozen air. At the moment, an arrow shot past his face, clipping the top of his earlobe.
It was an ambush.
Elise's gut was true.
A figure leaped from underneath the snow with a blade in hand, one of Gorwin’s men, a rooftop stalker. He was draped in tree fur. He charged at Moonlight wild-eyed with a thirst for blood. Elise pulled back her small knife behind her head to throw, but as she did, she felt a pop in her arm. Another stitch had broken. How many were left? The knife fell from her hands and disappeared under the white. She cursed again. Unarmed, her shoulder throbbed with excruciating pain.
The stalker tore Elise from Moonlight’s back. The wind knocked out of her. This was it, she told herself. Death. As the figure came close to striking her down, she noticed a clear slit of brown eyes where his hooded ended. They were engorged with rage. She tried to crawl away— to crawl towards the fire, but the figure pulled her back towards them. She was going to die. Her vision began to fill with white spots, and her peripherals dimmed.
The stalker grunted and hoisted the blade over his head in a killing blow.
Elise could do nothing but welcome it. She was weak with no strength to fight back. Perhaps this was the result of the reckless lifestyle she’d been living. She knew eventually it would get her killed.
Gowin’s man muttered a few words in foreign tongue, almost ritualistic before Elise closed her eyes and waited for the sinking sound of the next world. The sound sunk, but she exhibited no discomfort. By chance maybe it was that simple, but her vision was restored, and Billy was standing over her with the man’s blade in hand.
“What have you done?” she asked, returning to the land of the living.
“I believe I’ve saved your life.”
Moonlight trotted cautiously to join the two in the snow.
“But why— now?” Elise turned to see the man lying face down in the white. “ You’ve killed him? You actually—”
“No. He’s not dead— unconscious, but not dead.” Billy motioned to the hunk of firewood next to his head. “After I cut myself loose, I knocked him out with it just before he tried killing you. Didn’t seem like you were frightened, though.”
“I was— I just blanked. My vision blackened.”
“No matter. I suggest we take what we can and leave before he wakes up. Don’t expect he’ll be happy when he sees my face.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Billy wiped the red streak from the side of his jaw. “Just nicked my ear. Not nearly as bad as you.” Even he could see the crimson stain from beneath Elise’s clothing. “I suggest closing that thing up before you do end up dying.” The flesh in her face was pale, and he knew it wasn’t because of the weather. “You should cauterize it…with fire.”
Her mouth filled with salvia as if preparing herself for vomit. “Absolutely not! I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s terrible actually. Do you realize the amount of pain that brings with it?”
“Do you have any other ideas? Because infection will be next and then death.”
“Can we not do this right now?”
“Do what?”
“Worry about me? I’m fine and I don’t need your help. I’ve done just fine without you.”
Billy crossed his arms. Clearly, she was doing just fine without him, forgetting how he just saved her life. “There’s a fire and this may be the only one we see. I’m judging fires don’t randomly start in the snow, do they?”
Elise sighed. She dug into her satchel for a strip of leather and a glass bottle. “Fine,” she said bitterly.
Billy stuck the end of a log into the fire to heat up.
“Use this.” Elise handed him her knife. “Use the edge of it. It’s
cleaner.”
Billy nodded and drove the pommel over a bed of hot embers. “Was the strip of leather for?”
“To bite.”
When a medium glow gave of the iron of Elise’s knife, Billy carefully grabbed the cold end with a handful of snow. Elise stripped back the clothing on her shoulder and slowly removed the bandages. She’d broken all but one stitch. White puss was leaking through where both bites of skin held on by nothing but a cracked scab. She shoved the leather strip in her mouth between her molars and nodded her head.
Apprehensively, he pressed the iron to her purpling wound.
Elise gritted her teeth at its sharp touch and groaned loudly.
When he was done, she covered the burn mark with the contains of a glass bottom, forming a grey-like paste over it, and then re-wrapped the wound. It stung hotter than when the wolf had torn into her flesh. The pain increased and jolted down her arm every time she tried moving it. Her right arm would continue to be useless. She couldn’t fight anyone. Let alone defend herself. For the first time, she felt utterly helpless.
“Can I ask you something?”
Elise raised her brows to reveal the redness in her eyes. A single tear slid down her cheek, but she removed it without delay.
“Why didn’t you fight back? You just sat there like you were accepting your fate.”
“I’ve already told you. I blacked out.”
It was not the answer he wanted. From what he knew, near-death experiences did the exact opposite. He knew this because of what happened in Lochwald. His senses heightened as if his animal instinct of survival were kicking in, keeping him alive. And when he thought death was near, his instincts pushed back harder.
Elise was too weak to scale on Moonlight’s back. Billy had to help her swing over her leg and lift her. When they were both mounted, Billy offered to guide Moonlight, but Elise denied the attempt. He didn’t know where they were going, only she did. But he could catch the scent. They were headed straight for the brooding shadows on the horizon, back to where he’d come.
33
The glass walls dulled.
Time suspended, dead in its tracks as sadness flooded Abbott.
His heart, torn.
His father's hands were frozen to the touch. His eyes, empty.
A choking of tears suffocated the words from his mouth. He could barely think. He had failed what he set out to do. His father was dead. It was all his fault.
Abbott held his father’s limp body to remember the intricate details of his face— his wiry mustache and his bright emerald eyes.
This was a nightmare ladened with agony. Around him, the noise ceased to exist. The blood in his veins failed to carry forward. Numbness spread with each fading breath. He would die of heartbreak.
Quinn’s fingers loosened over Inedal as she succumbed to his loss. All she could do was sit back and watched in horror as he grieved. She felt helpless. The tragedy had brought back unresolved tears to her reddened cheeks. She never had the chance to tell her father goodbye, but she knew somehow at this moment, it was for the best. Goodbyes were uncomfortable to her, but it was all she could think about.
The iron blade rang against the hard floor.
Edmund was dead.
They had both lost.
Abbott thought of the armchair, the day of the celebration. He wished he would have never left. He would have rather faced the demons in Woolbury than watch them destroy him in Evinar. And that was all they were doing— destroying him. It grieved him to think of the books he read with happy endings. This nothing in comparison.
The chamber was a room of white noise.
“We should go,” Quinn said apprehensively. “She could come back… with an army to take back this sword.”
He knew she was right. The sword was in their possession. Lilith would bring the fight to them. Her time was running out, she would be desperate. But he did not care.
“What difference does it make?” he said, looking through Quinn like she was a ghost. “I’ve already failed. He’s dead. Why does it even matter if she gets the sword or not?”
Quinn was mute. The sword made all the difference, but how she could tell him without being insensitive? She remained silent and searched around the room.
Lilith’s tower held many secrets. And with their time was nearly up, Frostbite would be leaving to hide back in his cave. They would be left to find their own way out of the Vail. She could not let that happen. She was an inventor, and she’d invent a way out of this situation.
She rifled through the chamber for remedies to accompany her idea. Quinn needed a few things that would not be uncommon for this very tower to hold: black powder, candle wax, a fuse, and a spark to set the entire invention into motion.
“What’re you doing?” Abbott looked up from his father’s face. His eyes, bloodshot.
“Making something to signal Frostbite— have him come to us. We’re getting out of here.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“No,” she said dryly. “But we're going to take your father with us. He deserves to be out of this place.”
His eyes came to meet the gravity in Quinn. He wanted that. “I want to take his body home. Back to Woolbury. And bury him there.”
“I can do that for you.”
Abbott sniffled back tears.
Quinn continued to work on her plan. She collected one of the many candles circling them and shaved down an end to reveal a quarter-length fuse. “Good, now I need…” Quinn said to herself, whilst finding the different items she lacked. She rummaged through Lilith’s desk drawers, spiderweb covered chests, and foggy glassed bottles. “A spark, a spark, I need… one there it is.” She took one of the already lit candles from the balcony.
“What are you making?”
“Remember how I collapsed the corridor in Mornia?” Quinn smirked, holding canisters in each hand. “Let's just say, that’s not what I intended for. What I meant to do, was create a ball of sparks to divert their attention. But I added too much black powder, and the whole thing blew up. I think I have the measurements correct this time.”
“What if you don’t?”
“It won’t end well for us."
“At least we have each other.”
“That we do.”
Abbott lowered his father’s eyelids and stood up to help Quinn. “You’re going to use this to signal Frostbite?”
Quinn nodded her head. “And hope to Soren he comes.”
At that very moment, a clamor erupted from the stairwell. Clanking armor plates and heavy breathing ascended the walls of the tower like a pack of bloodthirsty wolves. Something was coming. Fast. They would not be alone for long.
Quinn peered out the long hallway. A group of armored men was headed straight for them. Coward, she thought to herself. Lilith commanded her men to collect the sword. She was weak and wounded.
Quinn braced the tower door by its iron latch. It would not hold for long, judging on what would be on the other side. “This better work,” she muttered to herself. The canisters were in her hand. “Here. Take this.” She tossed the broadsword. “Better you keep it than me.”
Abbott stared tentatively at it and tucked the blade under his waist belt. All of this for a sword.
“Here goes nothing.”
In a loud bang, the contents of the canister exploded inside the tower room and collapsed the keystone of the arch over the door frame. They came tumbling down on the enemy lurking behind. “Oops,” she said. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.” She opened the second canister and dumped a handful of black powder onto the floor.
“Hand me your torch,” Abbott said. Quinn tossed it to him. “I’ll try to get his attention with this.”
Quinn lit the wick of another canister and aimed it into the sky. “Come on, Frostbite,” she muttered in optimism. The canister exploded into a ball of red flames, igniting the brooding sky. Quinn had already begun putting another one together. But this would be her last attempt. Time w
ouldn’t allow another.
Abbott flickered the torch’s beam high in the sky. “Come on,” he said, gritting his teeth. “We’re over here.”
The canister was aimed once more and worked as she planned. The red sparks jetted high into the sky again, floating in the air before disappearing. Quinn could feel the men getting closer and closer as she watched from the ledge.
Abbott searched in the sky for any sign of help.
Quinn habitually found another weapon in consequence. “I guess we’re going to fight our way out of here.”
The shimmer of black armor stuck out through the rubble as men wadded through it like snakes. They were outnumbered. The Vailïc had battle axes the sizes of guillotines in their hands. And all of their humanizing traits were hidden beneath a case of iron.
“Vug natur ysthie,” one of them said. Hand it over.
“Fytr camit logvine.” Kill them slowly. Another one said.
Quinn raised her guard. She wasn’t familiar with the tongue of Vailïc, but she’d heard that saying enough times to know what it meant. Everyone in Evinar knew what it meant “Stand back,” she said, swiping her sword. They all laughed at her.
Abbott stood over his father’s body with Inedal drawn. If this was meant to be it, then he’d go out in fire with a friend by his side.
“So be it,” the Vailïc soldier said in the common tongue.
A deep primal roar echoed through the blanket of clouds and entered the tower at the speed of lightning. It was Frostbite.
Quinn turned to the sky to see his brilliantly colored body sparkling in the dark as he evaded arrows shot at him from below. Frostbite dominated the skies with fiery. He landed, wings wide open, on the railing of the balcony.
“Quickly, get on,” Frostbite roared, neglecting to tuck in his wings.
“Shoot them!” commanded the cruel voice.
Quinn’s head darted to see the collared man harboring her dagger. Remus tore a crossbow from one of his soldier’s hands and aimed it at Frostbite. He pulled the trigger and launched the bolt at his head. “Fire!”
The Shadow of Our Stars: The Tales of Evinar Page 27