by Amanda Twigg
Jex was her priority. She ran to his sprawled body and placed her hand on his chest. His body shuddered under her gentle touch, and blood gurgled at the back of his throat. His eyes hadn’t registered what his body knew as truth. It wouldn’t be long.
“Why didn’t you wait? I would have tried to look after you,” she said, desperate, lost. She snarled at the sound of incoming boot thuds, raising her head to view the second Warrior’s approach. His blade whined as he swung it in his deft grip. She sprang to her feet and interposed her body between the Warrior and Jex.
This was her time to fight. Without the chance to recall Winton’s training or Thisk’s moves, she reverted to her true self. Scrap! Fury burned behind her gold-flecked eyes as she raised her stolen sword.
Her enemy paused for the flame-haired Warrior to join the attack. They were strong, one was armed, and their training was unmatched. What are you waiting for? A shared glance between them suggested they knew who she was. And?
Disgusted, she thrust her sword blade below the flame-haired Warrior’s chest armor, angling it up so it grated on ribs. Awareness faded from his amber eyes as his aura released.
Landra knew she’d killed him before others registered the fact. Had any Warrior died on the Run before? She couldn’t recall, but the knowledge didn’t make her feel strong. Rather, bitter thoughts made her feel corrupted and weak. Murderer. Assassin. It’s what I’ve become.
Despite her dark mood, she readied her attack when more armed Warriors approached. Her long blade was wedged in her victim, so she pulled a dagger from his waist and shielded behind his falling body. Training rules didn’t matter here.
The approaching Warrior swished his blade. Once it was in motion, he couldn’t alter the direction, so she twisted away and allowed her victim to fall. The slashing blade clanged on the wooden floor. Before he could recover, she charged at him, leapt into the air, and landed her feet in the man’s groin with enough weight to jeopardize his manhood. It was the least of his problems because the dagger in her hand plunged into his neck.
Blood gushed in rhythmic spurts, spraying Landra with the evidence of her misdeeds. Worse, her victim’s aura broke free in an explosion of blue mist. His departing Soul swamped her in dying thoughts of his children, but the transient sharing dissipated almost at once.
True death.
This carnage was ghastly. She thought she was hardened by the murdering acts, but killing two honorable Warriors felt like a disgraceful way to end her days. She refused to think, ripped her weapon free of the slumped form, and ran back to Jex.
He curled on one side with his skins slashed open to show gaping flesh. Crimson blood pooled beneath his large frame.
“Come on,” she said. “The scribing rooms are near. We can escape through there.”
Jex wheezed. “No. Go without me.”
The words shocked Landra. She’d thought him unconscious. “Hardly.”
Her glance took in the surrounding mayhem as she tried to judge the direction of the next attack. Warriors were engaged in battle on all sides, but none were coming close, as if they were avoiding her space.
Idiots. Is it so hard to kill the chief’s daughter? Preston would have shown you how it’s done.
She tugged on Jex’s arm, but he didn’t move.
His throat gurgled before he rasped out some words. “You don’t have to die.”
“Yes, Jex, I do. That’s why we’re here.” She gripped his arm and started to haul his body up.
Jex touched her face. “No.”
She held him, not wanting to listen to the finality of his word. Of the many reasons she hadn’t allowed her feelings for him break free, bearing his death topped the list. This was why she’d kept him distant and been cold when he followed her into the underlevel. He was a good man, honorable. He would have been easy to love. The emotions were there, trapped behind trauma and buried beneath dread. Quiet tears betrayed her understanding. She hadn’t saved anyone’s pain, least of all her own.
“We knew this would happen,” Jex said. “Leave me and save yourself.”
“Nobody survives the Warrior Run. Helping you is as good a way to die as any.”
There was too much blood. With mortal suffering distorting his familiar features and his aura too wide to maintain shape, she sensed him slipping. A glance up made her quail. Carnage littered the battlefield with all runners slain and every Warrior heading her way.
“Live for me,” Jex said, just before his aura drifted free.
She made a grab for a thread, but it was too insubstantial to hold. She’d cared for Jex in her own stunted way, and now he was… She couldn’t think the word. “This isn’t fair.” Jex’s death felt like the culmination of her suffering and loss, and it would be easy for the Warriors to descend on her to end it all. She was broken, done, but peace never came easy for Landra. Really, Jex? Live for me? Thundering steps vibrated the wooden floor.
She grabbed Jex’s Templer pin from his collar and pulled herself free. Ignoring the approaching hoard, she ran. Sorrow drove her strides as instinct took over. She’d been a victim too long. No one bearing the Hux name should die as one. Her steps took her to the nearest shaft door, but she didn’t slow. Magic had doomed her. Now, she would own it. Raising her arm, the elba band bloomed to life. Dark leaves unfurled, and the stem glowed red. With pain driving her magic, Jex’s death gave her power in abundance. She knew he’d gone. She had sensed his passing, but the almighty agony in her chest came from her not capturing his aura thread. Another Soul lost beyond eternal reach. She yelled again, too rushed to take in the loss. Pink light exploded from her staff wrapped around her wrist, and the door shattered apart.
Charging through the splintered gap, she saw the open trap to the underlevel. Of course. What swamper heads back to the mud when they’ve chosen death on the Run?
“Me,” she answered her thought aloud, letting it echo around the dismal space. She stowed her dagger beneath her skins, descended the ladder, and accepted the cold.
I’m Landra Loni Hux, magician and chief elect, and I refuse to die.
Chapter 57
Vibrations shook the ladder before she reached the bottom. Landra had expected Warriors to follow her into the underlevel. Marked for death. You won’t give up. Fine! Her broken heart was set on making her Run special—one to fill the history books. She fastened Jex’s pin to her skins and ran away through the mud.
Seven Warriors formed the chase party, but the underlevel was Landra’s domain. Faded light couldn’t hide the deep mud patches from her scrutiny or rocky ridges that formed safe paths. Her pursuers fell behind as they struggled with the unfamiliar terrain.
She turned her mind to the target. Warrior Hall would be heavily guarded, so she plotted a course for Ring Six. The shaft there would emerge onto the temple concourse, in sight of the great doors. From there, she knew the route to Warrior Hall like the face of an old friend. Oh, Thisk, I went there with you. Another chasm of grief opened in her chest, forcing unbidden tears to roll. Some chief elect I am. Don’t cry—fight.
The ceiling’s thickening tree roots led her toward Central City’s hub. The path took her ever-closer to her target shaft—until Warriors appeared on a ladder ahead. Scuttling to a stop, she changed direction. More Warriors. Every way she twisted, battle-clad forms filled her vision, descending shaft ladders or trudging through mud. Surrounded, she wobbled. It had all come to this. Landra’s abduction had set inescapable events into motion.
Never a way out. Never a way home.
She took in the Warriors who pursued her now. They should be friends, but they wanted her head. For this many to arrive, messages must have flown and all the other runners had to be dead. Her breathing rasped as she recalled the fallen—Jex her friend, the proud veteran, and the foul-smelling wretch. All gone. None of them deserved this end, not even the grumpy soldier who’d started a fight. She didn’t deserve this either.
Mist balls, her anger exploded, twisting knots in her gut. T
he world was ugly. Did its people even deserve saving? Not today, Gramps.
Rather than charge at her fate in a suicidal frenzy or attempt to run, she stilled. The noise of approaching soldiers came louder, and Warrior auras brightened into glorious view. Sadness showed in their colors, along with anger, dread, and distaste.
So, stop. Just stop.
Death closed in, and she could only wait. At the glint of drawing swords, a whiff of sweat, and with Warrior-blue armor filling her vision, she pulled her dagger in hopeless defiance and set a fighting stance. The day had started with thoughts of dying as a soldier, but Landra wanted to live. Shelk, she wanted to live. Grief clenched her heart as her bracelet staff flared to wakefulness. She couldn’t submit—couldn’t.
Old pains lurked beneath her veneer of sanity, so summoning magic had never been easier. Jex with shredded guts, Father showing love, committing murder on Preston’s orders, Mendog’s hands, missing Dannet, Thisk… Her aura burgeoned in a dangerous display of red and blue, and her staff blossomed to life.
The Warrior’s Run was about accepting a soldier’s death, but Landra wasn’t a soldier anymore. Power throbbed inside her chest, through the cells of her body, and along every line of her growing aura. Tendrils grew from her staff, trailed up her arm, and flourished in a ring of lush leaves around her neck. Flame-bright flowers erupted like a magical necklace, matching the shades of her Soul.
“I’m not ready to die,” she yelled at the oncoming Warriors.
A blade sang, and Landra’s power flashed red through the underlevel. It struck like blood-shaded lightning, brief and catastrophic. Swords fell, yells silenced, and armored forms smacked into mud. She gaped at the stricken soldiers, intentions beyond survival not having entered her thoughts.
Her stomach lurched as she searched for signs of life. Blue still glimmered in the Warriors’ auras and a few of them twitched, but their bodies sprawled in slug-laden mud. She’d downed them all. Questing grubs gyrated in anticipation of a meal and moved closer to feast.
Shock weakened Landra’s limbs. She’d not meant for Warriors to die, and there was no way to save them. Her fingers trembled over dry lips as the grubs engulfed the nearest victim. She thought the battle armor might deter them, but the slugs targeted the soldier’s face and found flesh. He was close enough for her to see them devour his flesh.
A scream erupted, piercing Landra’s Soul. The soldier was conscious. Did a family love this man as she cared for Dannet? It didn’t matter that he would have slashed her to death; his gruesome fate was her doing, and there seemed no excuse. In numb disgust, she wondered what Father would think of his chief elect now.
In a final bid for life, the Warrior reached out a gloved fist and found Landra’s ankle. She pulled free, but the slugs had already burrowed inside the neck of his toughened armor and consumed the flesh within. The glove fell away to bob on the mud, with only bones and slugs inside. Bile erupted from Landra’s empty stomach, and the slugs ate that too.
It’s the nature of the Run. Not my fault.
Stricken, she lurched from the scene, as much to escape the horror as to continue the Run. Not all the Warriors had died, and the survivors were rousing. Her dagger dangled in her fist at her side, but she wouldn’t use it on them. She clambered over a torso, kicked a flailing arm aside, and headed towards Ring Six. It felt far off for her leaden legs, but what else was there to do?
She climbed from the underlevel, hardly caring about the Run anymore. Emerging at a junction near the great doors, she found a junior soldier manning the route. The girl was too surprised to react and too inexperienced to pose a problem, so Landra strode past her without saying a word.
Following her predetermined route, she came to the Warrior Hall entrance and stood there in a daze. Two junior Warriors guarded the open access door, and their casual attention to routine duty meant they didn’t spot her at first.
Stupid Hurgen. Didn’t think anyone could reach this far.
Automatic actions controlled Landra now. She charged the entrance in the hope of taking them by surprise. The ruckus startled them from their reverie before she reached their position.
They looked young and eager, Jethran’s finest, but they were taken by surprise. Short sprouting hair paraded their newness to Warrior Hall, but she knew they could take her down. They weren’t weary from using magic or half-starved. Food in their bellies, a good night’s rest, and successful basic training made them formidable. Their auras billowed with familiar passion, but she couldn’t take notice of that now. They sprang into her path and raised their swords.
“Landra?”
The shock of hearing her name undid Landra. It took her back to a time when killing was an evil not worthy of her Soul. The junior Warrior who’d spoken stepped toward her. She knew the aura, wanted to sink into it.
What the shelk? Bexter.
Chapter 58
The object of Landra’s desire stood in her way. He hadn’t been a Warrior when she’d seen him last, but that was a long time ago. Warrior blue suited him, just as she’d imagined it would in her fantasies. The memory flushed her face, and her heart skipped from a hormonal rush. Embarrassment and lust seemed disgraceful emotions in light of her recent actions, but she couldn’t control the surge of awkwardness cramping her logic. His image took her to a time when she was innocent and infatuated. The memory seared her Soul. This was hardly the way to see him again, adorned in magical flowers, stinking of shelk, and on the…
Bexter raised his sword, and she realized her danger. It didn’t seem possible. In her darkest moments, she’d retreated to a place where the cadet’s warm presence had protected her from evil.
“Come on, Bex, take her. She’s a runner.”
Landra looked into Bexter’s green eyes and sensed the old connection. He had to feel it, too, but his sword started to fall. She ducked inside his guard and shoved him away, but his blade whistled down as he turned. The metal ripped through Landra’s shoulder and broke her Soul.
“Nagh!”
Her cry resonated with torment, not just from the burning pain that rocked her body but also from an irrational sense of betrayal. He smelled so good, like the youth she’d adored, but he was different—the enemy. She stared wide-eyed, jabbed him with her dagger, and fled into Warrior Hall.
Chief Hux’s portrait greeted her inside. Gold-flecked eyes peered from her father’s image, pinning her with a disappointed gaze. She sped past him and disappeared into the warren of curved passages. Vague memories came to mind from when she’d lived here before. She’d not explored the corridors thoroughly, but everyone knew to find the ceremonial chamber in the innermost ring. Turning ever inwards, she tracked through the hall.
At an intersection, a startled Warrior glanced up to stare at her blood-stained rags and shelk-covered hair. She ran from his revulsion and darted down a narrower corridor to where the chamber might be found. It was close, she knew, and her heart thumped out a rapid beat. Amnesty. Is it possible? Surely not for my crimes.
Seeing Bexter had teased a notion to the surface. Her youthful desire had been to train in Warrior Hall. What if…? That other life had felt like a lost dream since her abduction. Now, old desires flared in her aura, sitting awkwardly against the person she’d become. No amnesty could absolve her conscience or strip her magic away, but to claim her life back…
Feet pounded from behind. Landra didn’t look back. Certain as she was of her destination, shock froze her when she emerged into the Warrior chamber and gazed on the prize. Banners, portraits, and an elaborate sword showed she was in the right place. The ceremonial weapon rested on a plinth at the far wall, surrounded by blades of varying designs and size. It was jewelled, glittering, and pink with Soul.
Her head throbbed with longing. I want to live. I want my stolen life back. All she had to do was lift the sword high.
If Landra had been able to complete the Run, she would have done so at once, but dozens of armed Warriors barred her way. The sight of them ri
pped her dreams asunder. It wasn’t fair. She’d endured so much to come to this point.
“No,” she cried. This had to be why soldiers never completed the Run. Anyone making it this far was doomed. Her knees buckled, but she was determined to fight. If she had to go out, she would do it in glorious style as a soldier. As if on command, her staff’s tendrils coiled back, the leaves shrivelled, and its blossoms closed.
If she’d thought to run, noise from the chasing Warriors let her know it was impossible. She never looked back. Bexter might be there, and the fight was ahead. She stepped further into the room, raising her dagger in a futile gesture of defiance. Heat raised sweat on her forehead, and her eyes blurred. Pushing thoughts of her messy life away, she tried to focus.
As she relaxed to accept the first blow, Landra slid effortlessly into the hethra. Of course, she could reach it here, standing in Warrior Hall and surrounded by old-world weapons. She resisted the distraction of viewing family and found peace in her final moments. There are worse ways to die than this.
Warriors pressed in, their gleaming blades sharpened to kill and their deep-shaded auras alive with fighting passion. “For Jethran honor,” they called as one.
Landra stood proud. One breath, two—the blows never fell. The nearest Warriors cheered and punched the air with their blades. Nothing could have confused Landra more. A tribute? No! It was too much to bear. If only Father were here to see my end. Sobs shook her shoulders as she moved forward, but the next rank of Warriors honored her in similar style. She swayed in confusion, still ready for the attack.
A steadying hand gripped her elbow. “This chamber provides sanctuary,” an old Warrior said. “You’re safe now. No violence can happen here.”
Have you seen me at work? It took a long moment for the truth to break through Landra’s hethra trance. The Warriors weren’t going to battle, and she didn’t have to fight. Shelk.
