by J D Franx
Sephi, guarding the clearing's eastern approach, called over her shoulder. “How do we get back to camp without him waking?”
“I'll jump us,” Ember said softly. “It's only a few miles.”
“You can't,” Max argued. “You're too weak to risk it.”
“She'll be all right,” Yrlissa offered. “The Vai'Karth didn't have a chance to drain her soul. She'll be exhausted, but it's the only way to get Kael secured safely—for us and him.”
“All right, everyone,” Nekrosa yelled. “Settle in close to Ember.” Magic swirled around Sephi and she lifted Katarina over her shoulder, turned, and walked back, taking Cassie's hand.
“You've done this before, Cassie,” Yrlissa said softly. “Close your eyes and hold my hand tight.”
“Yes, Mynerha,” she replied, cuddling in close.
“Max, drag Sythrnax and his assassin over here before you get Kael,” Yrlissa added quickly. “I’ll destroy their pendants. We cannot risk leaving them here for someone to find or revive them. The way this day is going, nothing would surprise me.”
He nodded his agreement and brought the dead bodies first. As Max dragged Kael closer, Yrlissa smashed the amulets. While she did, Cassie put her other hand on Kael’s shoulder.
“It will be all right, Kael,” she whispered. “I will help you. It’s my turn.”
“Ember,” Yrlissa said. “Only account for Sythrnax and Savis’ weight. Their magical energy will be inert.”
“Are we ready?” Ember asked. A round of nods was all she needed. A blaze of white lit up the clearing, and they were gone, whisked away by Fae magic.
DORMASAIN MILITARY CAMP
PEDDLER’S VALLEY, DORMASAI
As Kael fought his way back to consciousness, he was not sure what hurt more—his face or every nerve ending in his entire body. He sat on a dirt floor with a row of wooden desks at his back and his esoteric senses told him he was in a cloth tent. It was not much of a leap to assume he was on the Elloryan side of the battlefield. From what he had heard, even the DormaSain king would never welcome the Dead Sisters to his country or be in league with demons. It was the only explanation for the blank in his memory.
Realizing he was secured by heavy metal chains, he opened his eyes and examined the ornate symbols forged into the metal cuffs and along the lengths of chain trailing to the collar around his neck. He flexed his neck muscles but felt no pain from a Gyhurra collar. It mattered little. He recognized the symbols burned into the cuffs. Ancient magic. Ri’Tek magic. It had to be the Dead Sisters, then. He snorted. It would not hold him for long.
“You find something funny?” a voice demanded behind his back.
“Was she real? I’m surprised Sythrnax left me alive. Or was it just more Dead Sister or demon illusions?” he asked
“It was real, Kael. Ember is resting a few tents over. She can’t heal, and the jump back here wiped the rest of her strength. Though, I’m not a Dead Sister. I promise you that much.”
Lifting his chains, Kael laughed. “This is Ancient magical script invented by the Ri’Tek. Only a Dead Sister or an Ancient would have access to this magic and seeing as Ember would never side with either of them...”
His voice trailed off.
“True on all counts, but a Guardian would also know Ancient magic. It was their responsibility to kill your kind when you succumbed to the corruption after all.”
“Of course,” Kael mocked. “The corruption—more proof you know nothing about my kind.”
“More proof?”
“What you call corruption is merely magic you don’t understand, and were you yourself a real Guardian, your spell back in the forest would have killed me.”
“It should have. Believe me, I put everything I had into it. You are different, though, aren’t you? The Guardian spell was designed to kill a living DeathWizard. Not one like you.”
He slid his chains so his captor would not hear the sizzle as he fried the script from the links using the little bit of magic he could access. Kael smiled as two of the symbols melted back into the metal and the smallest amount of his magic returned.
“You have no idea.”
The voice hesitated for only a second. “I’m pretty sure I know better than anyone what you are.”
Kael frowned. “Yeah, everyone keeps saying that. Then, they find out they’re wrong, I lose my memory, and lots of people die. You don’t know shit about the magic in my blood. If you knew the truth, the word corruption would never leave your goddamn lips. Blasphemy.”
“I have seen it first hand,” she replied, “hundreds of times over more years than you can imagine. I know exactly what that corruption can do.”
“It is not a magical corruption!” he bellowed. “It is a magic you cannot begin to understand. I am not going to waste my breath explaining what little of it I understand—and I discussed it at great lengths with an entity you cannot imagine as well as one of my own kind.”
“Did you see her on the other side?” Her voice trembled with suppressed emotion.
“Who?” He gasped.
“Jasala Vyshaan.” the woman asked. “Did you see her?”
Kael’s heart jumped and took off as he tried to keep himself from falling into the flashback magic that was always so close to the surface. “I did.” The woman sighed, but she coughed immediately to cover. “Why would you care?”
“I already told you. I am a Guardian. I was her Guardian.”
“You lie, witch! A fallen god protected Jasala.”
“Do you know who Assani is, Kael?”
He smiled. “Nice try.”
“She wasn’t always the goddess of assassins you know.”
“I know that,” Kael replied softly, his mind starting to whirl. “But do you? Because no Dead Sister would. From what Jasala told me, no one alive in the last five thousand years knows that story.”
“Assani was once the Elvehn Goddess of the Hunt. It was why the Dyrannai Elvehn were chosen as the first Guardians, and it is how we became the Broken Blades.”
Kael’s mind whirled at the possibility—if it were true. “And then the gods demanded you kill all of my kind,” he stated. “Those alive after the war and any born thereafter, including Jasala.”
“Yes. And for disagreeing with my brothers and sisters, my godhood was stripped.”
“Assani, the fallen god.” Kael sighed. “If you are really her, then tell me why Jasala was so hard to kill. There were several Guardians loyal to the gods at that time. The spell you used on me would have killed her otherwise. She didn’t have the protection I do.”
“She was protected in another way.”
“Obviously.” He snorted. “Answer the question, or we’re done talking.
“Assani… I protected her from the Guardian death spells.”
“How?” he snapped.
“You have come across the Orotaq in your time here? You know of them and their shamans?” she asked.
“They’re damn hard to kill.”
“The branding on the shamans is more than just scarring. The warriors wear theirs as a sign of battle feats or honor, but the shamans... it is what makes them—combined with their natural defenses—it makes them completely immune to most types of magic.”
“Including the death spell?” he asked.
“Yes. Jasala’s brand was placed at the back of her neck when she was a child by a shaman who was indebted to a certain goddess of assassins.”
“Assani. Of course,” he replied.
“When you have lived as long as I have, you earn favors and procure debts.”
“You don’t need to live a long life for that,” he stated and paused for several minutes. “I have a message from Jasala, but it is not for Assani.”
“I may have been Assani once, but it was a very long time ago, Kael. I don’t even know whether another has taken up my—Assani’s mantle. I am Yrlissa Blackmist now, and that is all that matters.”
“Let me see your face,” he said. Shifting his
weight made the chains rattle, again, and three more Ancient symbols vanished from the cuffs. More magic trickled back into him. Yrlissa stepped around him and knelt, looking him straight in the eyes. “I saw her,” he said. “Jasala… she wanted me to tell you something. Would you like to know?”
“Yes.”
“She knows who killed her.” Kael watched closely her reaction. Only the real Yrlissa would be affected by what Jasala had told him to say. “She said, it wasn’t your fault, that she doesn’t blame you.”
Her eyes glossed over with moisture, and she nervously chewed her bottom lip. “Thank you. I tried to stop her.”
“I know,” Kael said quietly. “I have her memories, now. All of them, the good...”
“And the bad,” Yrlissa finished for him. “A god’s genetic memory is tough to handle at times, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but not as bad as a scrambled mind. You should let me go, Goddess. I can’t tell reality from illusion half the time—not after months with the Dead Sisters. Then two hundred years in the afterlife—decades of those with the demon queen. You can’t help me.”
“Reetha’s Ichor...”
“You know there’s no cure,” Kael said, nodding. “So, set me free and let me continue doing what I was. Let me kill as many Ancients as I can before the day comes when you or someone else will have to hunt me down to kill me.”
“You believe now?” Yrlissa asked.
He nodded, again. “You spent the last five millennia thinking Jasala blamed you for her death. She knew it was your sister and never doubted you for a minute. Jasala was loyal to a fault.” She sighed and collapsed on her backside, so he carried on. “Dead Sisters can do a lot of things, but they can’t feign empathy or regret, and demons can only use your own memories against you. I hope this means I’m actually back.”
“You are, Kael. We have heard what you did in the north for Queen Bale and even for Giddeon. You are here in the living world, but you can’t leave us now. What about Ember—”
“Is she really alive? What about Max?” he interrupted.
“They are both alive and here, but—”
“Then, that is exactly why you have to let me go. I’ll be nothing but a danger to her and to Max. Akai will remove the magic stopping you from healing her.”
Yrlissa sighed, but it quickly turned into a laugh. “Ah, Kael. There is so much you don’t know. Let me bring Ember to you. Remove the Vai’Karth’s magic, and you will see for yourself. Ember and Max have done well here since they arrived after you. You’ll understand so much, finally. Please, you are everything we have been fighting for. Reetha’s Ichor can be balanced with help from—”
“No!” he barked. The mere thought of facing Ember or what he might to do her in the throes of a bad flashback turned his stomach to ice. “I’m not safe to be around even on a good day. Even after more than two hundred years, I cannot control the magic I was born with. I can’t control the power that came back with me from the other side. Mix the Ichor into that and… no. Remove these chains, and I’ll summon my blades. Akai can remove the silence magic in Ember, so you can heal her and then I’ll leave. Tell her... tell her… I...”
“Tell her what?” Ember whispered as the tent flap eased to the side, and Sephi helped her inside. “After everything we’ve gone through over the last year and the year prior as we tried to find you… tell me your goddamn self instead of running.”
Kael averted his eyes but said nothing.
Sephi supported her as she sat across from him. Slowly, he looked back up at her, ashamed of all the things he had done He was far more afraid she would be torn from his sight or killed like the millions of times he had envisioned it happening before. He caught his mistake too late as his mind slipped back into his memories. Grabbing his head, he screamed at the pain hammering the inside of his skull.
Ember grabbed his face between her hands and pulled him close. “Push it back, Kael,” she ordered him. Her words barely registered with him before the memory swallowed him whole.
“What’s wrong with him?” Sephi asked. Moving to Ember’s aid, she slid behind Kael and held him tight.
“His eyes are black and silver.” Yrlissa gasped. “Is it Fae remembrance magic? Ember? Or?”
“It’s not prophecy,” Ember hissed through clenched teeth. “Fae magic is pulling him back into his memories, but he doesn’t know how to move away from or control the bad images, the nightmares.”
Kael’s hands shot up and both cuffs snapped. “I can’t hold him for long!” Sephi growled as magic flared around her and she wrestled his arms back down.
“Quick, Ember!” Yrlissa barked.
“I’m thinking,” she snapped back. “It’s an inherent magical ability and part of who he is! I can’t just shut it off!”
Black and purple magic sparked to life in Kael’s right hand while his left snapped outward, grasping Ember by the throat.
“Kael, listen,” she began as Sephi struggled to hold Kael’s magic-filled hand down. Yrlissa grabbed his hand and tried to pry his fingers from Ember’s throat.
“Naolass Sai’eed!” Ember finally gasped.
The spell slammed into Kael’s mind and yanked him from the dark before hurling him through a flashing tunnel of lights. Seconds passed before his mind burst from the far end. The DormaSain tent and Ember materialized out of the silver and black covering his eyes.
He released the only woman he had ever loved and pulled his magic back from his right hand. More magic invaded his mind and did nothing to affect his thoughts, but calmed the caustic images struggling to surface. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You are not safe around me.”
Instead of being repulsed, she wrapped her arms around him and whispered in his ear. “I thought I lost you. We will get through this, love. There’s so much you don’t understand.”
Kael closed his eyes, terrified that the incredible feeling would not last long enough for him to draw a single breath—or worse, it would last only to be torn away weeks or months later, again. “I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I am so sorry.” She let go and leaned away, wincing from pain.
“Take this collar off,” Kael ordered.
“Is that wise—”
“I need my blades to remove the magic stopping you from healing her.” Kael interrupted Sephi mid-sentence, the urgency in his voice bordered on anger. He scoffed and used his magic to melt the last of the Ancient symbols from the collar. A pop of underworld power echoed in the tent, and the collar and chains fell to the floor.
“Never mind,” he muttered as the Vai’Karth appeared in both hands. Sephi stepped back and drew her blue daggers. “I remember you, Sephi of DormaSai,” Kael added. “You told me a long time ago that I was welcome in your country.”
“You are.”
“Then, put your blades away, Your Highness, so I can remove the magic affecting her. The spirit in the blades will attack anyone with a weapon drawn.”
Yrlissa gasped, and Sephi did as he requested. “Are you talking about Kin Akai? The entity created during the weapon’s creation?”
“Yes and no,” Kael answered and refocused his attention to the weapons. “Akai is the spirit who possesses the blades, but he was not created at their forging.” Placing one handle over the other, he flexed his wrist and forced them together. With a grunt of effort, he drove the blades into the dirt between him and Ember.
“Vai'Karth Aytto. Kin Akai T'Seanah,” Kael whispered. The cracks along the top of the handle separated and smoky gray magic flowed out before coalescing into the form of a man. “Akai. Tai Seanah. Ayttosah megin.” Kael nodded as the spirit hesitated. Finally, it huffed and turned. Kael watched Akai closely as he fell into Ember’s body. When, he rose back out again, he pulled strings of pure black magic with him. Akai took the magic into himself and spun back to Kael. Bowing, the smoky man slipped soundlessly into the handles of his weapons, and the blades disappeared.
Kael looked back down Ember with shock. He could sense h
er wounds healing and rapidly.
“How?” he asked. Bending forward, he slowly lifted her shirt and peeled back her bandages as the wounds in her sides closed. They healed even ten times faster than he did. The stitches fell from her skin without leaving a scar. “Fae accelerated healing... has to be,” he muttered. Her eyes glowed a celestial green as he stared at her. She smiled back. “You’re...”
Ember nodded. “Fae. Yes. It seems you and I were born to help save this world, or to at least try and stop it from being destroyed.”
Kael shook his head. The absurdity of her words almost broke him. “You sound like there is no apocalypse coming, Ember. All of you,” he said and looked around the tent. “The Ri’Tek will not destroy this world—not in the way you are all thinking. Instead, they will bring everyone in it to their knees in subjugation. We can’t stop it because most people will do it willingly—happily even.” A silence followed his words.
He pushed his hands through his hair in frustration and a hiss rushed passed his lips. “Shit. All we can do is kill as many of them as possible before—”
“Kael,” Yrlissa said. “We can stop this. If we can unite Talohna.”
“You’re insane.” He snorted. “Do you not understand that we are the bad guys here? Who are you going to unite? Huh? Cethos won’t be able to help anyone—including themselves—and for some time. The civil war just ended and most Cethosian citizens have idolized the Ancients to the point of nearly worshiping them as gods. The Wildlands natives will be into Ynasu before the year is out—especially seeing how Queen Bale has now called back her army from the peace border. The Yusatan army is the only presence on the border, and they can’t cover more than a quarter of it.”
“We can fight, love,” Ember said. He could tell she was shocked at his response, but she had no idea what had been happening elsewhere in Talohna. “We have to fight,” she persisted. “This is our world now, our home.”
Kael shook his head, again. “I will fight to my very last breath—for a second time—but the Ri’Tek are after something, and I’m not talking about freeing their people or returning to their former glory. They will open every seal, yes, but Talohna will return to times past. A time when the Ri’Tek ruled Talohna as the lone supreme race.”