Strayborn

by E E Rawls

Huntter’s boots trekked lightly through the undergrowth of the Outer Woods. Insects trilled in the tops of the canopy. The serenity of the night forest was lost to him as emotions stormed in his mind. Cyrus couldn’t be left to live in such a dangerous city! If the vempars found out the truth about her, it could mean her life.

  He understood her refusal to live among humankind, but at least she’d be alive, not a corpse left in some forsaken ditch.

  His right fist tightened. Cyrus was sweet, yet naïve when it came to the ways of the world. Just because you hope for something doesn’t mean it’ll turn out right—he’d learned that lesson well, years ago. Fist loosening, he raked his fingers across the back of his head.

  He recalled the day he first met her. He’d been four years old, and was captivated by her large eyes the shade of lilac flowers, surrounded by a messy sea of scarlet. She hid behind her dad’s leg, shy and afraid ever since the loss of her mother. The memory was stamped in his mind like permanent ink.

  He’d decided, from then on, never to let her feel pain like that again—never to let her cry like that again. He promised. She was his betrothed, decided by their parents when they were toddlers. It was his responsibility to take care of her, and he’d been watching over her from a distance ever since. He doubted she remembered their betrothal; no one else living did, except for her dad. But one day, he would have to bring the matter up.

  Huntter slowed his pace and closed his eyes. He would keep that promise to her, as best he could. But he also had another promise to keep: to become an Argos and take revenge for his massacred family. It wouldn’t be easy keeping both promises at the same time. He raked his hand through his hair again.

  He could give Cyrus some time to enjoy whatever happiness she thought she had found in Draethvyle. Maybe it would benefit her to learn how to use her Ability. And who knows, with time, she might decide on her own to leave, when things get too tough. ‘They won’t accept her any more than Elvenstone did,’ he thought. And she would grow tired of it, tired of the malice, and leave—and he would be there, waiting to take her wherever she wished to go next.

  “Aken...” Huntter growled at the mere thought of the vempar who seemed to have a friendship with Cyrus. He wasn’t about to let it go any further than that. No life-sucker was going to lay a hand on her while he still breathed.

  Huntter edged around a cluster of ferns and climbed over a fallen trunk, orange fan mushrooms sprouting from the bark’s rot. It would be more than difficult to check in on Cyrus regularly. Draevs made their rounds around the city perimeter and the Outer Woods edge, day and night. He’d almost been caught twice already. He was only an Argos apprentice—he wasn’t ready to take on a full-fledged Draev.

  A frustrated sigh escaped his parted lips. It would take a lot of risk and effort, but he would check in whenever he could.

  Ff-ssssshh!

  Leaves in the canopy whistled as something rushed through the air. Something fast. A dark blur, high above him in the trees.

  Huntter ducked low, one hand wrapping a camouflage cloak around himself. But the thing, whatever it was, had vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

  It wasn’t a Draev, he was sure of that. But from the brief glimpse of a shape and cloak, it was no creature of the forests either. An almost humanoid thing, yet not. Corpse-like...

  He was about to uncloak and continue on, when a faint rustle in the underbrush reached his ears. He kept low near the fallen tree and slowed his breathing.

  A long wait of complete silence passed, and then he could hear faint footsteps.

  For the steps to be so quiet, almost non-existent, it had to be a Draev. The patterned two-foot stride told him it was nothing four-legged, and the few two-legged animals there were would have heavier steps and breathing. A vempar’s breath was deep...calm...silent as death.

  From his concealed crouch, he spotted a dim figure as it strode through the trees and underbrush. A top hat, a stray moonbeam reflecting off of white gloves—that was all Huntter could make out before the woods and shadows swallowed it.

  Only one vempar? Were they going after that corpse creature, or...?

  Huntter breathed in through his nose and hurried on. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t any of his business.

  Chapter 22

  “Whoa, hold on. You mean Scar-face actually let you see inside his workshop?” Aken exclaimed. “He’s never let me see it, as much as I beg him!”

  Cyrus muffled a laugh in her palm, as they made their way up the spiraling walk outdoors that ringed the moon courtyard, its ceiling blocking the stars from view. Warm night air spilled past the rails and narrow support columns to moisten her skin. Reaching the fifth-floor, they took a side door into Harlow’s entryway.

  “I only peeked inside for a second,” she said. “I didn’t see much. I was kind of nervous to, honestly.”

  Aken guffawed. “Maru can seem creepy with that weird Ability of his. Did you know he can trap people inside that sap-wax and turn their bodies into amber?” He mock shivered. “I don’t think he’s ever done it; but then again, who knows. Some of his puppets do look too real...”

  Cyrus elbowed him in the gut. “Stop trying to scare me!”

  A grin parted his lips. “Anyway, I can’t figure why he’d let you—someone he just met—see secret stuff he won’t let me or Bak or any other comrade see! So not fair.”

  An image of reckless Aken and Bakoa tearing through the workshop, with Mamoru freaking out in the background, crossed her mind. “I think I understand why,” she murmured. Aken looked at her, and she coughed. “I mean, the workshop is Mamoru’s solace away from people—especially loud, troublemaking people.”

  She waited for him to understand, but he just blinked. “Never mind.”

  Reaching the dorm rooms, Aken looked ready to say something, but then his gaze dropped and he exclaimed, “You’re bleeding.”

  Cyrus raised her left hand: A cut on her index finger leaked red. “Sheesh, take better care of yourself. What’s it from?” he tutted.

  The cut from when she’d stopped Huntter’s gun blade had reopened. “M-maybe the dinner knife?” she mumbled. Master Nephryte had graciously saved leftovers for them.

  A red droplet trickled, and a sudden surge of anxiety rushed through her before it could be suppressed.

  Blood...

  The nightmare flickered awake.

  “Are you okay?” Aken’s tone was concerned, and she realized her shoulders were shaking. His hand moved to take her wrist and guide her. “It’s no big deal. C’mon, I’ll Heal it for you.”

  He led her inside his messy room, a disaster zone that he tried but badly failed to keep clean. She sucked in a breath. ‘Aken isn’t a monster; he’d never hurt me. What Huntter said is wrong,’ she told herself.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Aken’s voice cut in. He paused at the foot of an unmade bed, kicking two shirts and a pair of boots aside. His hand took hers, and he raised the bloody finger to his lips.

  Cyrus’s heartbeat thrummed like a woodpecker in her ribs. “W-what are you—?”

  “Your Healing must be real slow, Cy,” he teased. “Cuts like this should be easy for you to Heal on your own.”

  “Why your mouth?” She struggled not to let him feel how much her hand was shaking.

  He tisked like a teacher. “It’s easier to transfer Healing super-cells through saliva. We’ve been learning about it in class. You really don’t know anything, do you?”

  Clenching her free hand up in a knot, Cyrus tried to think of flowers and pretty sunsets to keep the nightmare’s claws at bay.

  His lips closed around her finger.

  She held her breath as seconds ticked by, and then Aken released her hand. A strange look of reluctance flashed across his face.

  She cupped her hand to her chest, and eyed the cut: every trace of it was gone. Incredible; if only she could have inherited Healing from Mother. Her genes took after her human side too much. Oh well, moping about “If onlys” never made a
difference.

  She looked up to thank Aken, and found him staring at her. His forehead creased, as if debating something.

  She tensed, fear sparking anew, fueling the panic she’d tried to supress.

  “Your blood.” Aken took one measured step toward her. “It’s not normal. It’s so...sweet.”

  Her heartbeat pounded like a mad drum in her ears. “What?” She couldn’t get out words. She took one unsteady step back.

  “Sweeter than honey. How’s that possible?” Aken continued, and she tried to wet her dry lips.

  He stepped closer. She backed away farther.

  “Where are your fangs?”

  She barely heard the question above the rapid pounding in her ears. She raised a shaky hand to the fake fangs in her mouth, and found them missing.

  After dinner, she’d rinsed them out in the bathroom sink, and must have forgotten to put them back in.

  “Cyrus...what are you?”

  The question echoed, and the room seemed to tilt around her.

  Huntter’s words repeated inside her mind: “Do you think they won’t shout Enemy when the truth comes out? The only human they like is one drained of life.”

  Her back pressed against the wall, trapped—how did she wind up trapped?

  Aken’s shadow loomed. His blue captivating eyes, once friendly, held hers. She couldn’t look away.

  “You’re not...a vempar...” He paused, and the world fell still around them. “Are you?”

  She couldn’t read his expression or gauge his feelings.

  All of her careful planning had come undone and been for nothing. She was a liar, a fake, to be seen as a possible human spy—a threat to Draethvyle.

  She let her hand fall back to her side. There was no point in fighting Aken. She was no match for him or any vempar in her untrained state. If he was going to kill her as a traitor, he could do it easily. As if that wasn’t pathetic enough, fear wouldn’t even let her focus to make her fists metal.

  ‘I should have known better.’

  Aken planted a hand on the wall beside her shoulder. She squeezed her eyelids shut, back and arms pressing against the wall in a futile hope it might open and allow her an escape.

  ‘Huntter was right.’

  Something pressed against her forehead. Her breath trembled.

  A long moment passed...and nothing happened. She peeked one eye open. Aken’s forehead rested against hers, his slow breath warm on her cheek. Then he stepped back, holding her by the shoulders at arm’s length. His steady gaze glowed in the dark of the room. “Tell me the truth. What are you, really?”

  Cyrus blinked several times, making sure she was still alive. “I’m half-human,” she admitted, no more than a whisper.

  “Half-human...” Aken repeated. She thought back to the bitterness in his voice the last time she’d heard him say the word human. He stared sidelong at the wall for a while. “Ah, who am I kidding?” he finally said. “I’m a Scourgeblood, the worst of the worst. What right do I have to judge you for being born different? Besides, we made a promise. I don’t go back on my promises.”

  Aken’s finger rose and flicked her forehead.

  “Ow.” She rubbed the spot.

  “That we’ll keep moving forward, despite everything. That we’ll never let the past weigh us down. That we’ll look out for each other, to the end,” he recited.

  She couldn’t speak—surprise and relief, confusion and tears, mixed together in a messy torrent. All the fear and tension she’d been holding inside for days wanted to burst out in a flood.

  She fell forward into Aken, hugging him. Her dripping eyes and nose buried in his chest, soaking his maroon shirt.

  Aken let out an awkward laugh, lightly patting her back. “Didn’t mean to scare you, buddy,” he told her. He tried easing her tight grip.

  “Are you mad?” Cyrus mumbled without looking up from his shirt.

  “I don’t know. It’s not like you were trying to hurt me. I get why you kept it secret,” he said, then had to swallow. Maybe a part of him hurt, after all? “Hey, Cy.” He gently pried off her squeezing arms. “You’re from a human town then, right? How did your parents end up together: a vempar and a human? And what made you come all the way up here?”

  Rubbing her eyes and nose dry, Cyrus backed away.

  The truth gradually poured out: how her mother had pretended to be human when she married her dad, and how the town despised her for years after once they found out the truth. How Mother was found murdered one day, and how Cyrus—being a half-blood child—had to put up with the town’s malice. She told about freeing Gandif, who in turn brought her here for a chance at a new life and a place to master her Ability.

  Cyrus felt like a tense rubberband that was finally starting to unwind, relieved to let out the truth to someone. Aken listened to every word, sitting cross-legged on the bed across from her.

  “It feels like I don’t fully belong anywhere,” she concluded. “I’m stuck in-between worlds, forced to pretend to be something I’m not, whether I’m with humans or vempars.”

  Aken pinched at the fabric of the bedspread, dorm life beyond the window making background noise. “There’s something I should tell you... Something that everybody else knows.” His head lowered until his ears touched his shoulders. Cyrus waited silently. “When you asked me before what a Scourgeblood was, I said it’s just something people called my family, but...there’s more to it.” He sucked in a breath. “Scourgebloods were a different breed of vempar, a breed that no one wanted around. And I’m the last one left.” He paused. “When you came along, for once there was somebody who didn’t know what I was, who didn’t judge me, and it was nice. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you.” He fell silent.

  “Were they that bad?”

  He shrugged. “I haven’t bothered to research—don’t really want to. But if you need an example, you know that evil Emperor from the Swan legend? Well, he was a Pureblood, what people now call a Scourgeblood. In other words, I’m the last in a legacy of monsters.”

  After he said it, he couldn’t look up. Seconds ticked by on the nightstand clock. “Are you...afraid of me?” he asked, as if not wanting to hear the answer.

  Her hand moved to pat his. “I won’t pretend to understand what Scourgeblood means. But I’d be a real loser if I dumped my friend just because of some old legend, or because others don’t like you.” Cyrus smiled. “If you can accept a pathetic half-human, then I can accept a pudding-head Scourgeblood.”

  “Pudding-head?”

  “You know you are.”

  Aken lifted his chin, chuckling. “Sounds like a good deal to me, buddy. Sounds good to me.”

  AKEN FLAPPED HIS SHIRT collar to cool off from the warm night air, while they sat lost in thought listening to the crickets and random laughter carrying across from the other dorm levels.

  “You never said who killed your mother,” Aken said carefully. “I felt too bad to ask earlier, but was it other humans?”

  Cyrus took a moment, shutting out unwanted images. She spoke in almost a whisper, “I heard it was a vempar, one or two of them.” She swallowed. “But the culprits were never found.”

  “Your mother was killed by her own race?” Aken exclaimed, then lowered his voice. “That’s a crime punishable by death! Only an authorized Draev can carry out executions—and it has to be approved of by the big guys in charge, as ol’ Nephryte said. Unless...” He mulled over it further. “Maybe it was a Draev who went rogue, turned criminal?”

  Cyrus looked startled. “Are you saying the killer could be a Draev Guardian?”

  Aken tapped his cheek in thought. “It’s possible. I mean, your mom had an Ability like you, didn’t she? She could defend herself against an ordinary vempar. So, the culprit had to be someone powerful.”

  Cyrus rubbed at her wrists. Images from the repetitive nightmare whirled along the rim of her subconscious. Why had Master Nephryte’s face shown up in her nightmare? Younger, with a blood-stained shirt.


  Maybe this nightmare—as much as she didn’t want to admit it—was more than a figment of her imagination and an actual memory. A memory of that day. Had her two-year-old self witnessed Mother’s murder, and survived?

  ‘How did I survive?’

  She shook her head. “Until there’s solid proof, I can’t be suspicious of every Draev.” Aken side-nodded in understanding. She slumped back against the wall. “Let’s change topic.” Sweat dabbed her brow and neck, her stomach queasy. The thought of a Draev murdering Mother was too much to bear.

  For now, she was just grateful Aken didn’t turn on her for being secretly half-human. She doubted the city would be as accepting if they found out.

  “Are you sure you’re not mad?” she asked again, and averted her gaze. The lamp’s dim light made his eyes glow like pools of mountain sky.

  “It’s the world we live in that I’m mad at. Why can’t we all just get along, and forget where we came from?” he said.

  She watched the floor, pondering that. “The darkness inside won’t let us—sin won’t let us.”

  Aken leaned toward her.

  She tensed. “What?”

  “Hmm, I was just thinking.” His head cocked to the side. “For being a different race, you don’t seem all that different from me.”

  “It took you how long to figure that out?” she stated sarcastically.

  He laughed. “By the way, who was that human? That broody boy who tried putting bullets through my chest?”

  Cyrus sucked in a breath. “Yeah, Huntter. He came to see how I was doing.”

  “And to take you away?”

  She gave him a brief look, then tugged on a red strand of her hair. “Growing up, Huntter was the only person who never despised me for being a half-blood. Though, I still don’t know why...”

  “Hmph.”

  She tried to read what Aken must be thinking, but he hid it well. “There’s something else we should talk about,” he said quietly, as if the walls had ears. “Other people don’t need to know your secret, but you should tell Harlow the truth.”