Everyone was dead.
Ria was dead.
CHAPTER 37
Damon was twelve years old and walking through the trees. He’d spent most of the summer indoors, sheltered from a recent spate of wildfires that had rendered much of the surrounding Malagantyan unpredictable and unsafe.
Malon had finally allowed him time to explore outside under the promise that he would stay near the tower, preferably within sight of her and little Vel, who’d taken to acting as her apprentice in weeding the garden.
He’d done his best to hold true to that commitment… for the first few minutes. The temptation posed by the forest was simply too much for him to resist. Every arm-length stick was a sword. Every hand-sized rock demanded to be juggled and thrown.
And then, as always, there was Ria. She’d taken to wandering more often now that the wildfires had died down, often raising Malon’s ire by staying out until late at night or disappearing for entire stretches of days at a time.
She’d been back at the tower for the summer, arguing with their aesta constantly, but also using Damon as an outlet for her energy. She’d started teaching him how to use a staff, and though he didn’t enjoy it as much as playing swords, it was still pretty fun.
The game he enjoyed more was simply trying to keep up with her. She had a way of moving through the forest that was elegant and purposeful, almost as though she belonged there as much as the animals did.
She was beautiful, though Damon would have never told her that to her face. He felt his neck flush as he remembered the time when he’d accidentally walked in on her while she’d been changing out of her girlshorts, or the time he’d spied on her in the lake until he’d nearly been caught by aesta.
Ria was eighteen, and the gap between them felt daunting and impassable. She existed in a different world, and so, Damon followed her sometimes, led by his curiosity as though pulled by a string.
He saw her ahead of him now, bending forward to examine one of the ash flowers in bloom from the recent fires. Her tunic was slightly small on her, and he felt strange as he caught sight of the way the bottom hem pulled up to expose her tight leggings and taut lower half.
Ria stiffened, coming alert. Damon caught his breath and pressed his back to the nearest tree he could find. He waited, feeling so very pleased with himself. There was no way she could see him. He was too quick and too stealthy. He could move through the forest just as well as she could, and she—
“Young Damon.” A set of arms curled around his chest, just under his shoulders, and yanked him into the air against the tree. “Are you stalking me?”
“I… was just.” Damon kicked his legs ineffectually, feeling much younger than he was. “I wanted to see where you were going. Doesn’t aesta get mad when you wander off?”
“She does,” said Ria. “But that is no reason for me to treat her word as Jad’s gospel.”
She let him drop and came around to the other side of the tree, prodding him in the chest to force his back flat against the trunk. Her smile was more playful than bullying, though she could most definitely be a bully when she wanted to.
“Well,” she said. “If you are coming, then come.”
“Where?” he asked.
She flicked her head toward the trees in the distance. “Deeper into the forest. There is a cliff that I suspect will give us a nice view of the ashbloom.”
She ruffled his hair, and without warning, took off at a loping sprint. Damon chased after her, resisting the urge to call for her to slow down even as he began to pant and sweat.
He knew the cliff she was talking about. There was a way around to walk up, if they were willing to spend another ten minutes taking the long way around. Ria was already testing handholds in the dirty rock when Damon reached her.
She flashed a smile at him. “We go up. Watch where I put my feet.”
He nodded, feeling strangely privileged to be coming along on one of her adventures. He took her advice, watching her careful positioning as she began the climb, though it was hard to focus on her feet over the rest of her.
Doubly hard as he began to follow and his perspective was limited to her long, powerful legs, and the way her butt pushed outward, shifting and angling for balance. A pebble came loose as Ria shifted one of her feet and bounced off Damon’s nose, as though the cliff itself was chastising him for leering at her so inappropriately.
He struggled to match her pace up the cliff. It wasn’t simply a result of her legs and arms being longer than his. She was fearless in the way she climbed, never hesitating, always testing each grip, always planning the route ahead. He wondered if he could develop that same confidence, the ease with which she moved not just up the cliff, but through the world in general.
It wasn’t so much that he wanted to be like her. He wanted to be her equal. He thought of his aesta’s overprotectiveness, how stifled he often felt at the remote farmstead. He remembered the last argument Ria had had with Malon, the way they’d clashed over Ria’s insistence that she was old enough to travel and do what she wanted.
“Damon!” snapped Ria.
He realized, belatedly, that he’d grabbed a patch of vine that wasn’t up to the task of supporting even part of his weight. He felt his hand slip, followed shortly after by his body leaning at a precarious angle, unbalanced by the surprise.
Ria’s hand shot down to grab his. She steadied him, and then carefully guided his fingers to a new handhold from where she sat along the cliff top.
“You… saved me,” he mumbled.
“Yes,” she said. “Why does that surprise you? I will always watch over you.”
***
I will always watch over you.
Damon wasn’t sure how much time had passed, or what was going on around him. He knew he’d left the crumbling Water Palace at some point, perhaps of his own volition, or perhaps at Myr’s urging. The structure had collapsed into the pile of smoldering stone and rubble upon which he now stood.
He couldn’t stop pacing, kicking through the ash and charred remnants of the palace and the people who’d died within it. At some point, he’d imagined what it would be like to return to the Rosewood Inn and face Malon and Vel. The pain caused by even picturing it in his head was enough to double him over with guilt and denial.
Not denial, no. He couldn’t let himself call it that because Ria simply couldn’t be dead. He’d never said a proper goodbye to her, after all. That wasn’t how death worked. The fates weren’t that cruel, so brazenly unfair. He told himself that she was still alive…
The world told him that she wasn’t.
There were people moving through Yvvestrosai, though none dared approach the man in burnt and tattered clothing standing upon the ruins of what once had been the grandest structure in town.
He took a breath, forcing himself to calm down. His foot brushed something in the debris, and a single glance was all it took for him to recognize the slender, hand-sized weapon. Ria’s throwing knife, the one he’d given her as a gift what now seemed like so long ago, was among the ashes of the destroyed palace.
The tumult of emotion the sight of the knife sent through him was nearly enough to bring him to his knees, but still, he resisted. Still, he forced himself to stay calm and think.
Just because Ria’s throwing knife hadn’t escaped the destruction didn’t mean that she hadn’t. After all, it was a throwing knife. She could have used it for its intended purpose and then simply never gotten the chance to recover it… though, she’d always managed to in the past.
He decided to take it with him, since it was Ria’s. Either he’d return it to her or…
Or he’d keep it in memory of her.
Damon dropped on all fours amidst the ash. He started digging with the knife, his arms moving for no other purpose than to give his energy and emotion a place to go, however pointless. He heard a horrible noise escape his throat as the knife’s tip caught against a piece of charred wood, and then the tears began to flow.
; CHAPTER 38
Damon was unsure of how much time he’d spent within the ruins of the Water Palace. The sun was up, but the ground underneath, ash and smoldering wood and broken stone, was still hot to the touch. Too hot for anyone but him, really.
“Damon,” said a familiar voice.
He flinched at the sound, hurrying to wipe the wetness from his face with gritty hands. He knew who was behind him, and it wasn’t who he wanted to see.
“Do you need something from me, Clara?” he said, voice past bitter, noxious.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” said Wrath, in a quiet voice.
“From you… it’s worth less than nothing.” Damon slowly stood up. He slipped Ria’s throwing knife into his belt and rested a hand on the hilt of his myrblade. “This is your fault.”
She didn’t react to the accusation. She just stood there, wearing her obsidian armor as most women would wear a dress. She was at home amidst the destruction of the once beautiful city, the death and destruction only a passing concern.
“I can see why you might have the impulse to blame me, Damon, but we both know who killed her,” said Wrath.
“She isn’t…” Damon shook his head, but the words caught like tiny pebbles in his throat. “She made it out.”
“I saw what Avarice did,” said Wrath, slowly. “If she was in the palace, she didn’t make it out.”
Damon stilled his hand, not grabbing for the throwing knife, as a part of him desperately wanted to. It had given him hope, of a sort, to find it. Hope which Wrath’s words had turned to poison in his mouth.
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Listen to me, Damon,” said Wrath. “We still have a chance to—”
Damon drew his myrblade. He felt a cold, echoing fury, like a dark chant of loss and hatred. His jaw held so much tension that he heard a tiny pop escape as he finally spoke the words in his heart.
“You killed her,” he said to Wrath. “You, and Avarice. You and your brothers and sisters.”
“No, Damon,” she said quickly. “We both know that isn’t true.”
“We wouldn’t have come here if it weren’t for you!” he shouted.
“Ria would have come without you.” Wrath flashed a sardonic smile and turned one of her hands up. “The deal we made had nothing to do with Avarice’s ruthless choices.”
He didn’t want to hear this, not right now, and especially not from her.
“Draw your sword, Clara,” he said.
She made no move to touch the hilt of her wrathblade. Damon forced her hand.
He attacked with a slash that would have been foolhardy even against a normal opponent. No grace, no subtlety. Just raw anger pulling the strings of his muscles. He never saw Wrath move, simply blurring, and her sword was suddenly where it needed to be, blocking his.
He roared as he attacked again, and again… and again. He hacked away at her without seeing her, like a child attacking an imaginary opponent. Wrath humored him, at least to start. A sharp slap took him across the face, one in which she’d deliberately moved slowly enough for him to see both the lead up and execution.
“Get yourself together,” she growled. “You have so much more to do with yourself right now than trying to force me to kill you.”
“From the very beginning, you and your brethren have done nothing more than manipulate and abuse me and my family!” snarled Damon. “I hate your games! I’ll be the end of all of you!”
He exhaled frozen condensation through his teeth. There was still snow on the ground around the palace, but Damon had no intention of summoning the ice elementals. He wanted destruction. He wanted instant, frozen death.
Razor-sharp spikes of ice burst upward from death, coming toward Wrath on diagonals like an animal trap. She dodged, blurring and appearing just out of the way. Damon attacked with his sword, feeling metal bounce off metal, again and again.
He tried more of the ice spikes, sending one hurtling out of the snow and toward Wrath like a thrown spear. She blocked it with an open palm, the projectile leaving not so much as a scratch against her skin. Damon roared and pulled his myrblade back to attack again.
This time when Wrath vanished, she reappeared behind him. Directly behind, wrathblade sheathed, arms pulling him into a soft, but firm embrace. Damon tried to fling his sword around at her and fumbled it out of his hand in the process. He screamed, but the anger behind the noise gave way to true despair, true defeat.
“I’m sorry,” whispered Wrath.
He gritted his teeth and let out a feeble noise, like a growl from a puppy with a broken paw. He shook in Wrath’s arms, wishing that she’d just go away and leave him to mourn and self-destruct in peace.
“Why are you even here, Clara?” he muttered.
“To help you,” she said. “You know that.”
“Why didn’t you help us last night?” he asked, trying for anger, but not quite reaching it. “You could have fought Avarice with us.”
“As bad as what happened to Yvvestrosai was, the outcome would have been even more bloody had I entered the fight,” she said. “But you aren’t wrong. What I think I should have done is what I’ve wanted to do from the start.”
One of her hands slid into his tunic and gently caressed the bare flesh of his chest, just over his heart.
“I want Avarice dead just as badly as you do, Damon, if not more,” she said, soft words against his sensitive ear. “It’s time. Take my crest. Be my champion.”
CHAPTER 39
Pain stabbed into Ria’s face as she came awake. She flailed, pushing out with her arms, knocking her apparent attacker off her. She was in the dark, and judging from the echo that emanated through her surroundings, within a chamber of some kind.
“Breathe,” whispered Ayisa. “You’re safe here, Ria Zakur.”
Ria took her advice, as much to try to remember what had led to her current situation as to calm down. The chaos of Avarice’s attack on Yvvestrosai. Bringing as many people in need as she could back to the Water Palace.
“What happened?” she muttered. “Where are we?”
“We are in the tunnel underneath the city,” said Ayisa. “You suffered a blow to the head and fell unconscious. When Avarice began using his copper spiders to burn the Athla Agualai, we fled along with everyone we were protecting.”
Ria’s eyes had partially adjusted to the darkness. She could see for herself now. There were doors on either side of the stone hallway they were in, one of which bulged outward awkwardly from an apparent cave-in.
“The others…” she whispered. “Damon. What happened to Damon?”
She couldn’t keep the urgency, the creeping fear from her voice. For good reason, it seemed, judging from the character of the pause Ayisa took before her next words.
“Ria,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“No.”
“I went with Lassus into the city,” said Ayisa, speaking quickly. “He refused to stand back and do nothing, even at my command. He ran ahead and… I saw them both… with Avarice.”
“No,” repeated Ria. “You cannot know what you saw!”
“He killed my son!” hissed Ayisa. “Damon… his fate was the same. I saw the Venmalani strike him down, Ria. My sorrow is your sorrow.”
“You… that’s….” Ria shook her head, couldn’t do anything but shake her head. “That’s not possible! Why did you stand back and let that… that monster do what he did?”
It wasn’t a question she expected an answer to, but one did eventually come.
“Because I am a coward,” whispered Ayisa. “My feet refused to carry me alongside Lassus, to follow him to his death. My courageous son stood against an impossible enemy… and it was all I could do to watch.”
Ria realized that the other woman was sobbing, but it was hard to summon her sympathy through her own pain, her own confusion. She pulled her knees to her chest, hugging herself as she considered the possible ways in which Damon could still be alive. He had to still be
alive. She wasn’t ready to admit otherwise, not yet, not so soon.
Her cheek hurt, and she remembered what had woken her up to begin with. She touched the spot of pain and winced as her fingers made contact with a fresh wound.
“Why are we still down here?” she whispered. “You said we were saved by this tunnel, along with the others?”
Another long, suggestive pause.
“I told them to go on ahead,” said Ayisa. “It would not do for them to see you just yet. Ria… you must know what Lassus’s death means. He was the Athlatak of our people.”
“I understand that,” said Ria. She felt the hair along the back of her neck begin to rise as she sensed a dark insinuation in the other woman’s voice.
“The reason Lassus summoned you to Yvvestrosai was to vet you for marriage,” said Ayisa slowly. “This is known to other powerful Rem, either through direct knowledge or by basic deduction. You were to be his partner, to support him through his mythosai. You have already become that.”
“What are you saying?”
“You married my son,” whispered Ayisa. “Tonight. Before any of this madness arose. He placed his matridai upon you, and the two of you consummated your love.”
Ria touched her cheek again. It felt hot this time instead of painful, and it was only then that she understood.
“No…” She surged forward, seizing Ayisa by the front of her gown and wrenching her against the wall of the tunnel. “You! What did you do? You manipulative, evil bitch!”
“This is what our people need!” snarled Ayisa. “You can lead them in Lassus’s stead if they believe you to be his woman, by law. The clans will follow you.”
“They will know it to be the lie that it is!” Ria pushed hard with her arms, banging Ayisa off the rock. “How could you? I love someone else! You cannot expect me to simply take your son’s legacy simply because I am positioned to.”
“You’re the only one who can!” shouted Ayisa. “You’re the Vaista Aestairius. Your reputation, the fact that you stand amongst us neutral to all clans, unaffiliated, unbiased. You must do this, Ria. Let me finish putting the matridai on you… for Lassus’s sake.”
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