Sora grabbed Aquira and backed away slowly. The lust in Kazimir’s eyes was replaced by terrible rage. She lifted her leg over the sill and stepped out onto the slanted roof, her eye never leaving her captor.
The racket in the city was deafening. Metal clashing, screams of agony and war—death all around her. Out of her peripheries, she saw the low palisade wall on the landlocked side of the city. Gray-skinned Shesaitju from the detainment camp swarmed over it like ants from a nest.
The image of Troborough burning at the hands of the Black Sands flashed through her mind. She tripped on a loose tile and rolled to the roof-ledge. Aquira flew from her arms, but Sora caught her by the tail.
As Sora struggled to pull the squirming, squealing wyvern back up, she stared through the steeple’s broken window. Kazimir stood in the light, his skin flaking away, smoking like parchment under the heat of flame. He clenched his jaw but never made a sound. Instead, he knelt, scraped his knife along the ground to coat it with Sora’s blood, and lifted it to his lips.
Sora felt a nibble on her finger and looked to see Aquira fluttering below. She let go, and the wyvern drifted downward.
She quickly returned her attention to her assailant. His eyelids flickered as he licked off every last drop. His skin seemed to shift a to a lighter shade. The sun’s blisters slowly faded as he stood and rolled his neck with a series of pops.
“Your blood is like a storm,” he said with renewed vigor. “Come, my dear. We have so much to accomplish together.”
Sora panicked. She looked down, then back up at the monster bearing down on her. The sunlight dried and cracked his skin, but the marks healed faster than they could form.
Sora didn’t think. She pushed off the wall of the church with her feet and let go. Air rushed up around her as her heart sank into her stomach. The fall ended abruptly as she crashed onto the flat roof of a Panping Ghetto home. Her ankle banged off something, a sharp line of pain streaking up her leg. Her back felt like it had broken in two. She thanked the gods she’d crashed through a galler bird cage and into in a pile of feed. It wasn’t soft, but it was better than the unforgiving ground. Groaning, she flipped over and noticed Aquira had already taken to stalking one of the freed birds.
She wanted to lay there forever, exhaustion tempting her to close her eyes and pass out, but one look back at the broken-down church and she saw Kazimir preparing to make the leap.
“C’mon!” She grabbed Aquira and swung her up onto her shoulder just as the wyvern went to snap at her unsuspecting prey.
Behind them, Kazimir made the jump like it was as easy as walking. He stretched his arms out wide, like a bird in flight, and then at the last moment, flipped head over heels, landing with the grace of a prince.
Sora’s ankle burned, but she pushed her legs as fast as they could go. Blood coated her hand from the glass shards digging in, and she flung a ball of flame back over her shoulder. Kazimir spun out of the way and kept moving. She’d never seen anyone move like him.
She jumped between two flats. Where only the day before she found herself cursing how the Glass Kingdom had crammed together the houses of her ancestors, now she was grateful for it. From roof to roof she went, not daring to look back. Kazimir’s footsteps—if they even made a sound—were drowned out by the unseen chaos overtaking the streets of the city.
“Running is futile,” Kazimir said, not even panting as he chased her. “With me, you’ll be so much more than some thief’s plaything.”
Sora glanced back, and her foot crashed through a tarp covering a devastated structure at the edge of the ghetto. She crashed through wooden beams, then through a flimsy floor. Aquira slipped from her shoulder, but not before one of her claws ripped off a small chunk of skin.
By the time Sora stopped falling she was at street level, covered in dust and bits of wood. Her dress was torn at the seams, half her scratched torso exposed, one sleeve missing.
“Aquira?” she moaned. Her vision was spotty at best, but she didn’t see her new friend anywhere.
“Alva shueth!” someone barked in Saitjuese. Before she could see where it came from, a gray hand pulled her from the rubble. Her gaze met those of a Shesaitju soldier wearing scaled leather armor and a waist-coil of black wooden plates.
Sora was in so much pain she couldn’t think straight. She knew she had to keep moving, but the sight of a Shesaitju again transported her weary mind back to that fateful day Troborough burned.
“Get off me!” she snapped, tearing free of the soldier and igniting a fire around her hand. There was so much blood it enveloped nearly her whole arm, burning hot and bright. A second soldier aimed a spear at her neck and cursed her in Saitjuese.
Before any of them could make a move, a knife sliced across each of their necks. Blood squirted as they fell to their knees, pawing at their throats.
“Nobody but I will ever touch you again,” Kazimir said.
Sora spun and fell backward, her magic abandoning her. The white-haired devil emerged from the ruined structure, mindlessly flipping a throwing knife by the blade.
“G… get away from me,” Sora stammered. She reached inward for that well of power she so often relied on but was too petrified.
“I—” Kazimir was cut off when Aquira appeared on his shoulder and dug her teeth into his neck. He howled and fell to one knee, smoke sizzling out of the wound as if the wyvern’s teeth themselves were made of fire.
Kazimir ripped her off him and held the flailing creature by its neck. Rage contorted his features. His fangs extending like swords. He drew another knife and raised it to Aquira’s throat.
“Enough!” he roared. “I tire of chasing you, mystic. Perhaps killing your friend here will show you that I will not be denied.”
“Please don’t!” Sora begged. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll… I’ll do anyth…” She didn’t finish because she noticed that while the marks from Aquira’s bite were healing, Kazimir’s flesh was beginning to flake away again from the sunlight. His hand crackled, allowing Aquira to squirm free and hide between Sora’s legs.
“Just leave us alone!” The chance to fight back energized her. Sora raised both bloody hands, and a pillar of flame exploded from them. It struck Kazimir on the hip and sent him flying back into the rubble.
Smoke and embers danced, but he didn’t stay down. He flung a plank off his body and hopped back to his feet. Now, from the shadows, he watched her.
Before she could catch herself, Sora’s eyes lowered toward a stain on the floor. His followed, and what he saw made him grin.
He knelt down to the tiny pool of Sora’s blood gathering around his boots. Sora looked deep into herself. Her whole body was numb from pain, but she drew on all her worst memories. She knew summoning another flame so soon might make her pass out. Elsewhere sapped her body like it’d spent a week harvesting barley every time she did it.
But she had no choice. Fire swirled around her hands once more as Kazimir raised her blood to his lips.
She heard another voice behind her, sharp and sudden. She glanced back, just for a moment, and saw a cluster of Shesaitju warriors staring at her, clad in golden armor and faces were covered by masks in the visage of snakes. At their center stood a breathtaking warrior unlike any she’d ever seen. Despite the chill in the air, he was shirtless, his gray skin covered head to toe in white tattoos.
When she turned back, Kazimir was gone.
Sora scanned the shattered remains of what appeared to be a home in the middle of the Panping Ghetto. Fear had her crippled, both physically and magically. She turned back toward the impressive Shesaitju man.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I could ask the same of you?” His gaze wandered momentarily toward her exposed midriff before he caught himself.
“I… I...” Between sheer exhaustion, relief that Kazimir was gone, and the overwhelming presence of the man standing before her, she could hardly speak.
The man looked down at the two dead Shesaitju warriors, then t
o the smoldering wake left behind by her magic where Kazimir had stood only moments before. Some cloth smoked amongst the embers as if she’d completely vaporized another attacker.
“You did this?” he asked.
Sora hesitated. If she said no, she’d need to tell them about Kazimir. Who would believe there was an upyr chasing her through the streets of Winde Port? If she said yes, they might lash out and kill her on the spot. Again, she was rendered silent.
“Very impressive,” he said. “My people were ordered not to touch a single dwarf or Panpingese. They clearly deserved their fate. Am I right men?” The soldiers flanking him said nothing. They stood silent beneath terrifying, golden, serpentine masks.
“Our people have no qualms with you or yours, mystic,” the man continued. He went to touch her shoulder, but, instinctively, she recoiled. However impressive he seemed, she couldn’t ignore the rage growing inside of her. His was the gray skin of the people who had senselessly slaughtered Troborough.
“You deny me, mystic?” he questioned, his features hardening.
She was about to correct him—to tell him she was no mystic and he was responsible for burning down the town she called home. She was also about to summon fire to the tips of her fingers and burn him to a crisp. Then she remembered Whitney and the man after them.
“No, my head is just fuzzy from the fight,” she lied. If she tried anything rash, she’d die with him. Which meant Whitney, wherever he was hiding, would be left alone against Darkings, Kazimir, and an army of Shesaitju who wanted all Glassmen dead.
“Well, I assure you, I will have word spread that any of my men caught harming one of your people will be punished in kind.” He lay his hand upon the dilapidated wall and closed his eyes in deep thought. “This place… it is a graveyard for your people. A cesspool of filth and no place for one of such stunning beauty to dwell.”
Just then, Aquira skittered out from behind a pile of rubble. The snake-faced warriors moved to attack.
“No, stop!” Sora shouted. “She’s mine.”
“Yours?” the man said, raising his hand for his men to obey. “No one can own a dragon.”
“She is my companion,” Sora corrected. “But she is also no dragon. She’s a wyvern. I know as well as anyone, dragons are no longer with us on this plane.”
“In that, I’d argue you are wrong, mystic. My people believe there are plenty of dragons who remain, but like so many in Pantego, they’ve retreated into solitude in response to the heavy hand of the evil, vile, King Liam and his ilk.”
“Is that what this is?” she asked. “A battle for freedom?”
“That is how it began.” He took a step toward her. “But then the Child-King Pi dared imprison our great Caleef. His unprovoked attack—”
“Unprovoked?” Sora interrupted. “Your people burned towns to the ground. Homes and businesses—destroyed people’s lives.”
“How dare you speak to Afhem Muskigo with that insolent tone!” One of the snake-faced men moved toward her, readying the back of his hand to strike her.
“Stop,” Muskigo demanded. The soldier froze immediately. Never had Sora seen a man command such respect. His baritone voice even raised the hairs on her arms. “She is right.”
Sora wasn’t sure who was more surprised at the response, her or his men.
“War makes villains of us all” Muskigo said. “I’m not proud of that which must be done.”
“What must be done?” She recognized the name Muskigo from so many rumors on the road to Winde Port. He was the rebel who caused it all. Again, the rage built in her, the storm now crashing upon the shores, tearing trees at the roots and foundations from the earth. She could feel Elsewhere reaching through her very pores, the energy desperate to explode out of her and claim vengeance for Wetzel and so many others.
And then Muskigo spoke again. “You saw those villages?”
Sora thought carefully about how she would answer, and as she did, she noticed the unmistakable pangs of sorrow in his eyes. She didn’t know many people throughout her secluded life, but she’d seen that same look every time after Wetzel used to scold her.
“No, but we hear horrible things here at the center of the world,” she said, trying to fight back the surge of energy in her fingertips. If she told Muskigo she was in one of those villages, he might know that she was as unimportant as the folks living in the Panping Ghetto. But she still wore her fine dress from the guild, tattered as it was. And he’d seen her with a wyvern, using magic like a true mystic of old—he didn’t have to know it took leaking blood for her wounded body to summon it.
Use my assets, she thought.
Suddenly Whitney’s lessons didn’t seem quite so asinine. She remembered the way Muskigo had eyed her figure when he first saw her. The same way the boorish mercenaries in the caravan by the gorge did. If Whitney—the most cynical and sacrilegious man she’d ever known—could pretend he was a priest of Iam, she could pretend she was more than a girl from Troborough. Until the time was right.
“But I suppose you’re right…” Sora said, edging closer and standing up straight, no longer cowering. “They’ve held us down for far too long. There are likely many of my people in this city who are grateful for your… interference. I would count myself among the lucky for my powers to be put to use against the petulant King and his crazed Queen Mother.”
Muskigo exhaled. “It is good to see someone with reason. May I ask, are you from this city? I don’t mean to presume, but… a wyvern… practicing magic, you don’t—”
“I am not,” Sora interrupted. She knelt and extended her arm toward Aquira. The wyvern quickly slithering into the crest of her arm, terrified. “I’m from Yaolin City, but I moved here with my husband, Tayvada Bokeo when we joined the Winde Traders Guild.” She hated using poor Tayvada’s name like this, but at least it may help her stay alive long enough to get vengeance on the man who murdered him.
“The Traders Guild?” Muskigo said. “I hadn’t realized they took on people of your descent. You and your husband must have great influence in your homeland with the Order of Mystics dissolved.”
“Late husband,” Sora blurted, almost forgetting to hang her head in sadness.
Stupid, Sora. Remember what Whitney would do—keep the subject of your lie wanting.
Despite her mistake, the word “late” put a sparkle in Muskigo’s eye which he couldn’t mask even if he’d tried.
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” he said. “I hope it wasn’t due to this unfortunate fighting?”
“No, he was murdered. Some time back. But he lives on in Elsewhere, always waiting until the day I may return to him.” A bit of truth never hurt the illusion. She wasn’t sure if Whitney had told her that, but was sure she’d learned it from watching him. Tayvada was indeed murdered, and from her studies, she knew that her ancestors didn’t fear Elsewhere—the spirit realm—the way the children of Iam and other gods did. To them, it was merely the next step in the soul’s journey reflective of a life lived on Pantego.
“I hope that day is long from now,” Muskigo said. The sincerity in his voice was unmistakable. “We came here to strike the heart of the Glass Kingdom. Yet seeing how your people are forced to live beneath them, the glory of your ancestors thrown aside, forced into churches of a God in which you don’t believe, forced to ignore the flicker of power so many of you are blessed with—I see now that perhaps we have come here for more people than my own.”
Sora stuck her chest out and stated, “Or have you merely come here for more allies?” She felt ridiculous, the way she fully annunciated each syllable like the men and women she’d seen in the guild that night. Like she’d grown up in some fancy mansion on the right side of town and not in a basement below a dilapidated shack.
Muskigo’s cheeks went a darker shade of gray. “You see right through me…”
“Sora,” she said, bowing slightly.
Muskigo returned the bow. “Beautiful name. Though it doesn’t sound Panpingese? And y
our speech; even I can hear you have not the slightest hint of your home in your voice.”
Sora’s heart raced as she somehow maintained a stoic façade. She knew her chances of survival were slim if she didn’t play her cards right. Maybe the Shesaitju were sparing her kind, but not those who try to trick their ahfem. Especially not those who wanted him to pay for his crimes.
“My parents were worldly, or rather… they had to be after the Glass Kingdom disbanded the Order.”
Muskigo’s dark eyes lit with wonder. “They were Council Mystics?”
Sora nodded and cursed herself inwardly. Stop spiraling further! All Whitney’s dumb lessons were garbled around in her head, but she knew that the more layers she added to her lie the easier it’d be to slip up. Simple is better.
“What surprising things we find here at the edge of despair.” Muskigo went to wrap his arm around her waist, earned a growl from Aquira, then lightly took her arm instead. Even the way he stepped was not so brazen anymore, which meant Sora had him intrigued… she hoped. The noblest man she’d ever met was Torsten Unger, and he was impossible to read.
Muskigo regarded her arm, sliced and bleeding in more than one location. “My men did this to you?”
She lowered her head. “They were not so kind as their leader.”
“Again, I cannot express how sorry I am. What can a simple afhem do for a true daughter of the mystics to make amends?”
“I… I could use a good meal and some rest.”
“Of course, where are my manners? If you waited any longer, you might mistake me for a Glassman. The men of the Black Sands treat our women as we treat the palms…”
His words trailed off there as if he expected her to finish. She tilted her head, then regarded Aquira, who was now starting to get more relaxed.
A crooked smile formed on Muskigo’s face.
The Redstar Rising Trilogy Page 53