Tranquility's Grief Read online

  Bethany pulled a Blessed Blade from her back scabbard and used the other hand to balance the discarded shield.

  “Got ‘em!” A feminine voice shouted over the noise.

  “Another bastard! Up there!” Eve shouted back. Bethany kept her head ducked and her shield up. Two arrows sunk into the wood, vibrations shaking Bethany’s arm and teeth.

  “Amber, Drea! Move! Get behind the line Kiner is forming,” Bethany snapped.

  Bethany looked behind her and saw Apexia walking circles around Torius. She had not claimed his spirit yet. That meant…

  “Drea!”

  She poked her head out between Kiner and a regular soldier named Jackson, the new head of Bethany’s personal guard. Drea was pale, wide-eyed.

  “Torius is still alive. Make him stay that way.”

  Drea, though visibly shaking, managed to maintain her haughty composure and ignored Bethany, disappearing once again behind the formation.

  Bethany turned to speak to Kiner when a hot burning sensation shot up her leg. She lost her balance, the sharp pain buckling her muscles.

  “Knight down!”

  “Bethany!” Lendra shrieked.

  “Fucking arrows!” Bethany spat the words. Strong hands slipped under her arms and dragged her back. She looked down to see a broken shaft sticking out of her thigh, just above her knee, where the padding was the thinnest.

  “He’s down!” A masculine voice shouted.

  Bethany laid on the ground, still holding her shield above her, and took several deep breaths. The shard was embedded enough that there was no way to pull it out until after the fight. She stumbled to her feet, wincing at the pain.

  “You all right?” Kiner asked.

  She nodded.

  Bethany looked over her shoulder. Jud sat next to Lendra, his shield over their heads, cowering. Bethany surveyed the area, looking for where the shot came from. She saw an archer on a rooftop, balancing precariously on the blackened stones of what used to be an ironmonger’s shop.

  “Get him!” Eve shouted back, quickly releasing arrows as fast as she could draw them, along with every other archer.

  Bethany turned to take a last look at Erem, who was now face down, lying on his hands. Torius, Drea, and Lendra were surrounded by a dome of shields and out of view. “Erem, you still alive?”

  He vomited in reply.

  “Stay that way,” Bethany ordered. She turned to Kiner. “Keep my sisters alive.”

  He nodded, his dark eyes focused.

  Bethany pointed at two of the youngest girls there, both civilians. Probably scavengers or orphans. “Girls, get help. There are soldiers at the old fish dock. Get them. Tell them Father Torius is injured.” Bethany glanced at the dome where her sisters hid. “And tell them my sisters are under attack.”

  “Yes Lady Bethany,” the taller of the girls said.

  “Run as fast as you can,” Bethany said.

  The girls nodded and rushed from the shield wall, sprinting as fast as their youthful legs could take them. Arrows pelted the girls but they dove down over the edge. Bethany could hear them screaming as they fell. She let out a breath when the girls shouted back a moment later that they were unharmed.

  The arrows had mostly subsided. Two, maybe three archers left. A full minute, perhaps even two, wasted.

  “Bowmen, stay back with Kiner and take aim. Swords, with me,” she shouted over her shoulder as she pushed forward. The soldiers changed positions slightly but most already knew what to do. She just wished she wasn’t so queasy from the early morning brandy.

  It didn’t help with the fog in her mind, either. She should have foreseen another attack. It had been nine days since the last one. They were due.

  No time for regrets.

  Bethany led her group quickly toward the buildings, still standing burnt, carefully maneuvering through the alleyways and rubble. They moved as swiftly as possible, arrows still raining down on them, but the fallen trees, buildings, and rubble hindered them.

  A whomp of exhaled air escaped the regular soldier next to her, an elorian from Ellentop, and she collapsed to the ground without a sound. Bethany turned long enough to see an arrow sticking out of her cheek. She grimaced, but kept walking.

  A body slammed to the ground in front of Bethany and she nearly tripped over her own feet from fright. She let out a string of curses, as blood splattered them and oozed from the corpse. One more archer down.

  Only the occasional arrow came at them now. A slow shooter, not an expert, for sure. A figure rushed inside a burnt building. Bethany motioned toward the building, but they did not change their pace, waiting for any traps or archer from above. Once near the building, she motioned for several soldiers to circle it.

  Bethany crouched and winced at the stabbing pain in her thigh. She really needed to get that stick out of her leg. Six soldiers settled down next to her, small crossbows, swords, and maces already in hand.

  “We’re going in?” Rah, an elorian Knight, asked.

  Bethany nodded. “I’ll go first with,” she pointed at the young human from the low ranks assigned to her as part of her personal guard. “Chet, right?”

  “Yes, Lady Bethany.”

  She nodded. “Chet, we’ll go in first with swords. Jackson?” she asked, and spotted the regular human soldier crouched behind her. He sidled up next to her. “You’re coming, too. Crossbows stay behind in case our archer sneaks back out. Shoot anything that moves that isn’t us.”

  “Can’t you just do that thing you did at the temple?” Chet asked. “With the Magi?”

  “That’s enough,” Jackson snapped. “Sorry, Lady Bethany. He’s new and just a kid.”

  Bethany licked her lips and, keeping her voice low, she answered, “No, I can’t just turn it on whenever I want. I have never used my Power like that. I have no idea how it works. What happened at the temple...I don’t know how.” She held up her Blessed Blade. “I know how this works, though. Any other questions?”

  The others shook their heads. Bethany wanted to snap the man’s head off (not with words, but with her bare hands), but even she knew it would do no good. She couldn’t control her innate Power, the source of the divine in her veins. The only time she seemed to have any grasp on it was when she was angry beyond measure. And, in that, she could not control it. So, her choice was a Power that could kill her, and nearly had, or the comfortable strength of a sword in hand. She preferred that option best. It was what she knew.

  More than that, it was what she was. A soldier in the Elven Service.

  Bethany kicked open the door and flung herself back, in case a bolt waited for her. Nothing came. No noise, no motion. She peeked inside and, with no signs, motioned for Jackson to follow her. They crept into the ash-littered building. Bethany deftly stepped over crushed stone, exploded from the intense heat of the fire. Chet, still learning the ropes, kicked rocks and swore too loudly. Bethany shot him a look before Jackson threw up his hands in frustration and backslapped the kid’s head.

  Training. Too many new kids picked up to replace their losses and not enough training.

  “Archer, surrender yourself and I will spare your life. If you do not, I will show no mercy when I capture you,” Bethany shouted.

  Silence.

  “This is your final warning.”

  She heard the scuffle of feet moving against rubble. Bethany crouched behind a toppled wooden bench. An emaciated man, part of his face blackened and peeling, stepped out from around the corner. He held his bow up.

  Compassion for the man filled her. Perhaps he was the owner of the crumbled stone building, one of the very few to survive in this area. Perhaps the violence of that night had turned his mind.

  Or, perhaps, he was a Magi.

  Bethany had taken too many risks before, only to have them end in further bloodshed. She would not waver. She’d promised the dead bodies of an entire orphanage of children that very fact.

  Never again would she waver in her duty.

  “How ma
ny of you are in here?”

  “Me.”

  She glared at him, pushing aside the pity she felt for his condition. “Why shoot the priest?”

  No emotion came from his face or his eyes. Cold, black eyes that sent a chill down Bethany’s spine. He tipped his head, almost reptilian in motion. His words were labored and she winced. The facial burns, no doubt, made it difficult for him to speak. When her cheek had been sliced open, the repairing skin stung and burned. She could only imagine the pain of a man half burned.

  “I was aiming for your heart. I missed and hit the elf.”

  Chills spread through her body, causing her hair to stand on end. She believed him, and though it wasn’t the first attempt on her life, it was a natural reaction to have one’s blood run cold at the mention of assassination.

  “Why?”

  “To add your soul to the collection.”

  Bethany’s grip tightened on the hilts of her Blessed Blades. She had no idea what he meant. She didn’t care, either. “Surrender your weapon and do not protest. If you do this, I will not kill you. Resist or threaten my soldiers in any manner, and I will cut your throat.”

  “You cannot stop the collection.”

  Bethany could hear Jackson step forward, attempting to overtake her. She held out a steadying hand to stop the soldier from making any sudden moves. Clearly this man was insane. There was no point in antagonizing him further. If he was a Magi, between the insanity from Magic use and whatever he’d endured in the battle, he was no longer whole. And, if he was just a man, he’d been through enough already.

  “Surrender,” Bethany said, keeping her tone even and as calm as possible.

  He tipped his head in her direction and crouched down to rest his bow on the debris-filled floor. Then, he stood back up, staring at her with his dead eyes. “Lady Sarissa bids you good day.”

  Bethany sucked in a breath. “I’m sure she does.”

  “You think you killed her.” Amusement filled his voice. He cocked his head again, a strange, foreign movement. “You did not succeed.”

  Bethany steeled herself against the various emotions that slapped her. Dread, relief, confusion all battled for dominance in her mind. She’d dug the blades of Sarissa’s own swords deep into her torso. Blood poured down Bethany’s hands and arms, flooded the ground. Every single night, she saw her sister die in her arms.

  “She lives.”

  Bethany licked her lips and took a small step forward. “Sarissa died in the temple’s courtyard. Now, come with us.”

  The man chuckled, a high-pitched laugh followed by a moan of pain. A small trickle of bloody pus seeped from the edge of his mouth, where the parched skin cracked. “I was there. You stabbed her. Two swords into the heart. Then, you unleashed unholy Power upon us all. Anyone who practiced Magic felt the crush of your might. But not all of us who attacked were true Magi. You did not freeze us into submission. We pulled Sarissa from your feet, while you brought the rains of the sky down. We rescued her.”

  The hairs on the back of her neck and arms stood on end and she gulped. She did not see Sarissa’s body after she’d dropped her sister to the blood-soaked ground. The Power inside Bethany had broken through, splitting the edges of reality and time. When the last of her body’s strength was sapped, Bethany had collapsed for nearly a month, lost in a dead, torturous sleep.

  No one ever found Sarissa’s body. “No one could survive that wound.” Bethany worked to keep her tone flat, despite the mounting fear inside her.

  The man shook his head. “Magi can make oils that could heal. They transfer the life of one creature to another. Enough lives were poured into her to bring her back from the brink.”

  She shuddered, her chest constricting. Horrified was the closest feeling she could muster. She thought killing her sister was bad. Failing at killing her sister was far, far worse. For everyone.

  “She is collecting. I hoped to send you to her. Instead, I will send myself.”

  He pulled a dagger from his hip and, with a flash, slit his own throat. Blood sprayed the room and he stood for a moment before collapsing forward, gasping and gurgling. Bethany stood there, speckled with blood across her body, a too-familiar feeling. She’d not yet wiped the blood of her sister off.

  And there she stood, coated in the blood of yet another one of her sister’s victims.

  Chapter Nine

  There will be no comfort. There will be no escape. The end will come. All will be judged. All will be found wanting.

  -Aleu’s “The Agony of the Diamond”

  Arrago pressed himself against a stone wall in the alleyway and hoped the clutter of barrels and drying laundry would conceal his presence.

  “Is it just me or are there guards everywhere we go?” Edmund whispered.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Arrago whispered back. “How did they know to look for us so fast? It’s only been a few days.”

  “We’re still two weeks from the border.” Edmund let out a sigh. “We’ll never make it if the snow keeps coming like this.”

  Guards shouted and both men instinctively pressed themselves tighter against the stone wall. Arrago cringed as the ice candles pressed again his back, soaking through his jacket and tunic. He looked at the clothes hanging around them and frowned. It was nearly all children’s clothes and women’s undergarments. He had no use for lacy underthings, but he really needed dry, clean clothes.

  “At least we still have money,” Arrago said.

  Edmund scoffed. “What’s the point of money when there’s a thousand gold bounty on each of our heads?”

  “We can’t stay here. We’re surrounded.”

  Running had not gotten them any closer to the Taftlin border. In fact, Arrago wondered if they had strayed further away from it. Every temple that they had come across had been burned or abandoned, so they had not even been able to rely on the elves to help get them out. Arrago had never felt so alone.

  “Father Weiler! Stand down.”

  Arrago snapped his head in the direction of the booming voice that shouted in the streets. The guards seemed distracted by something, or someone, and weren’t looking into the alleyway. He dared to cock his head forward enough to see several soldiers surrounding a priest of Apexia’s Order; his dark orange and burgundy robes were unmistakable against the backdrop of muddy snow, and more snow falling.

  “I know that priest,” Arrago whispered. “Father Weiler was a friend of my father’s. He moved to a different monastery years ago. I thought he went back to Ellentop. He’s elorian.”

  “If he’s a half-elf, then he would have learned how to fight, right? Before becoming a priest, I mean.”

  “There’s eleven soldiers out there. He can’t take on that many. He doesn’t even have a sword. We should help him.”

  Edmund kicked him in the calf.

  “Ow!”

  His friend looked up at him. “We can’t take on eleven men and we have swords. Let’s get out of here.”

  But Arrago did not heed his friend’s warning. He wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his sword and slowly drew it from its hip scabbard.

  “Ah, shit,” Edmund muttered behind him. “Not again.”

  Arrago took two deep breaths. “Try not to wander far from the alleyway. The archers can’t get at us in here. We’ll grab the priest and run.”

  “Just where are we going to run?”

  Arrago ignored him. He would not allow any friend of his father’s to die at the hands of Daniel’s guards. He crept from the alleyway, and crouched enough to slash across the exposed flesh of one of the guard’s back thighs. The guard fell to the ground, screaming. Two other guards, ones Arrago had not seen when he’d first looked out, rushed him. Edmund kicked and slashed one, grunting and swearing as he always did.

  Five guards, fanned out around the priest turned to charge Arrago. Bolts from at least two crossbows scattered to the ground near him, and Edmund yelped in surprised.

  “Father Weiler!” Arrago shouted. �
��Run!”

  The middle-aged priest did not run. From the pockets folds of his priestly robes, two daggers appeared and the priest grabbed the tabard of a running guard and jabbed the steel through the man’s neck, severing arteries and tendons. Arterial blood sprayed the falling snow, and sprinkled the ground in red rain.

  “Now!” the priest bellowed as he dropped the still-jerking body to the ground.

  A flurry of orange, burgundy, brown, and beige streamers floated across Arrago’s vision, matching the midday sunrise. Steel glinted and priests and sisters and initiates rushed from buildings, carts, and corners and en masse charged, ringing out their individual battle cries in too many languages for Arrago to follow.

  A sword swung in Arrago’s direction. He snapped out of his daydream, cutting the man down. Arrago tried his best to not kill anyone outright; he only wanted to injure them enough to escape. Still, his life was in danger and he’d take theirs to keep his.

  The dust settled soon enough and Arrago found himself and Edmund surrounded by ten members of The Order of Apexia…or at least people who stole the robes from a temple.

  Father Weiler approached Arrago, his daggers and hands dripping blood. “Thank you for the assistance. Now, who are you?”

  Arrago smiled. “I supposed you wouldn’t remember me. The last time you saw me I was covered in pig slop.”

  Father Weiler remained silent for a moment before a large grin spread across his fat face. “Arrago? Arrago Cedar?” He grabbed Arrago and squeezed him in a giant bear hug before Arrago could even answer the question.

  Arrago patted the priest’s back and choked, gasping for air. “It’s…good…see…you.”

  The priest released him from the hug and instead shook him. “My boy, we’ve been looking for you. You hide very well.”

  The townspeople began skulking out of their houses. Folks whispered until the air had a distinctive buzz to it. Above the hushed tones, Arrago could hear his name repeated over and over.