Angst Box Set 2

by David Pedersen

  “I don’t believe in fate,” Aerella said, her voice firmer. “Although I’ve seen one future, I think it can change. I don’t believe that you’re destined to walk a specific path. You have yet to make choices that you may regret. I fear that telling you what will happen will make it happen. Even now, I worry that if you become mad, it is because somewhere inside you feel you have no choice. It’s why I left Jaden asleep. He knows too much. If I tell you the future, if he does, it will be inevitable. Maybe it already is.”

  “What?” Angst asked, spinning around as her hand left his shoulder. “Jaden knows my future too?”

  His mouth opened wide as he stared in disbelief at the twelve-year-old Aerella standing before him. She was thin and wiry, but it was still her. He recognized her olive skin and mane of brown hair. Kala rushed up to hug her like a long-lost friend.

  “I’m sorry, Angst,” she said, returning Kala’s hug. “I don’t remember anymore. I only remember what I’ve experienced at that age, mostly.”

  “You did that on purpose,” he admonished.

  She winked before running off with Kala to play. Angst wanted to be upset, he wanted to know more about this dark path he should avoid, but seeing the girls run off hand-in-hand made him smile. Kala deserved a break from the seriousness of world-saving, and didn’t Aerella as well? There was still time for moments. There had to be, or what was the point?

  Faeoris landed with a thud, eyeing the girls at a distance. “Great, more children,” she said with a grunt. “I couldn’t see anything from above.”

  “Everything must be buried from years of rain and mud,” Jintorich said.

  Angst gently smacked himself in the head. “I should start using this thing.”

  “What’s that?” Jintorich asked.

  “My brain,” he said, holding out his hands.

  “Maybe try hitting yourself harder next time,” Faeoris snapped.

  “I’ll leave the hitting to you,” Angst replied. “Maybe that way you’ll stop being a bitch all the time.”

  A blue glow surrounded Angst’s hands as he reached out with his mind, surfing through the dirt for clues. The earth felt cool, like letting sand sift through his fingers. There were large stones and indigenous rock of all sizes. He wasn’t really sure what the memndus should feel like—he’d never searched for glass. Maybe he should just look for something little, and smooth. He heard a high-pitched roar and dismissed it; it had to be the girls playing.

  Air left his lungs, knocked out from a blow that lifted him into the sky. His mind whirled as it was yanked from his search. Was it another dragon? Was this a cavastil bird? Were the others in trouble? Soft hands gripped his armpits as he desperately gasped and coughed. His focus into the ground faded, and his captor smelled nice. Angst opened his eyes and could almost make out her pretty face through his wind-blasted tears.

  “Faeoris?” he asked.

  Without answering, she flung him high into the air, flew over him, and punched him hard in the chest.

  30

  Unsel

  Wilfred paced and fumed and paced before the empty thrones. How could Ranson have tried to institute a draft without coming to him first? If he could wield, he would’ve turned the man into a squirrel.

  “We don’t need a draft,” he said to himself, the guards, and his assistant Jenna. “Once they learned Princess Victoria was in danger, the people of Unsel have been lining up to join the military. We even had to turn away wielders. They love our queen, just like we do.”

  He faced Jenna and nodded, expecting the young woman to nod in surprise. What he saw made him stand upright and tug down on the chainmail of his armor.

  “You...you’re not Jenna,” he said, not sounding regal at all.

  The gorgeous redhead kicked something under the desk before shaking her head and smiling with blood-red lips. She was pale, as though she only went out at night. Her full lips and large eyes almost distracted him from the fact that the side of her head was shaved. She wore a dark vest with thin stripes that buttoned below her voluptuous chest in the most amazing way. The white silk blouse with puffy sleeves that tucked neatly into that vest covered everything and yet left nothing to the imagination. She wore dark makeup around her large eyes, with thick lashes that couldn't possibly be real. If it was somehow magic, it was the good kind.

  “I’d enlist,” she said, in an accent so sultry he couldn’t have cared less that he didn’t recognize it.

  “I...uh...I,” he said before impressively closing his jaw. “Where is Jenna, young lady?”

  “She had to step away,” the young woman said with an endearing smile. “She asked us...me to cover for her.”

  “Good choice,” Wilfred said, his mouth dry. “I mean, thank you for helping. I’m Wilfred, and you are...”

  “I’m Bella. Ouch,” she said, kicking again. “Is Mr. Angst expected to arrive soon?”

  “Angst…of course,” he said with a sigh, his shoulders drooping. What was it with that man? “I’m hoping he arrives within a week or two.”

  “Oh,” she said, her eyes downcast.

  Wilfred really wanted to cheer her up when his pending heroics were interrupted by footsteps.

  “Fulk’han are raiding the borders,” General Mirot said as he stormed down the hallway. “Their army is only days away. Our army is on the march, but we need your zyn’ight, all of them.”

  Wilfred struggled to drag his eyes and focus away from Bella, only to find Mirot now staring at the young woman. He coughed to get the general’s attention.

  “The zyn’ight aren’t trained in the ways of the military, but they are ready to help,” he said.

  “How many?” Mirot asked hungrily.

  “There are roughly a dozen wielders. Mostly those who fought alongside Rook,” he said with a sigh. “Everyone else is too young, or their magic just won’t help.”

  “Fine,” Mirot said. “When can they leave?”

  “I need three to stay behind and guard Princess Victoria,” Wilfred said.

  “What?” Mirot said, spitting out the word. “You said there are only a dozen!”

  “I promised a wielder would be on guard,” Wilfred said, running fingers through his wispy hair.

  “As much as I want Victoria to be queen, as much as I want her to be safe,” Mirot said in a somber tone. “We need to protect all of Unsel, not just one person.”

  “You’re right,” Wilfred said, feeling defeated.

  “Is there anyone else who can help guard her?” Mirot asked.

  “I’ll see if I can find someone,” Wilfred said, already thinking through the lists of wielders and their abilities.

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” Mirot said, his face stern, “who did you make this promise to?”

  “I promised Angst and Aerella that a wielder could help stand guard,” Wilfred said.

  “Angst?” Bella asked, quickly covering her mouth.

  “Pardon?” Mirot snapped.

  “This is the second time you’ve mentioned his name,” Wilfred said. “Do you know something about Angst?”

  “Bye,” she said. Bella reached under the table and, in a flash of bright light, disappeared.

  Guards drew weapons as Wilfred and Mirot stepped back. They looked at each other with wide eyes and slack jaw.

  “They’re everywhere,” Mirot said in dismay.

  “Don’t start with me,” Wilfred said, staring at the empty desk, hoping she’d come back.

  Nordruaut

  “There is no way I’m healing her!” Rose whispered, practically spitting out the words. “Not with that thing attached! Not until she’s awake, and we can find out how she got here!”

  “That’s a lot to ask of someone who seems half dead,” Hector said gruffly.

  Goosebumps spread across her arms as if tickled by cold fingers, and Rose hugged herself tightly. This wasn’t right. Nothing about Princess Alloria being here made sense. Hector had carried her to his temporary home in the mage city and placed he
r on a cot. She hadn’t moved for hours; the only indication that Alloria lived was her quick, shallow breathing. One of Jormbrinder’s blades remained firmly attached to her hand. Neither Hector nor Dallow could remove it, and Rose refused to try, even after the songs quieted in her head.

  At one time, Alloria had been so beautiful that a part of Rose had sort of hated her. Actually, she’d really hated her. Rose had only seen her a couple of times in the castle, but had heard stories of Alloria’s flirtings with Angst. It was beyond inappropriate since he was married, and she was only sixteen. The young woman radiated naïve innocence while wearing clothes best left in the bedroom. Someone else’s bedroom.

  Alloria wasn’t looking so pretty now. She looked more like a harlot someone had roughly tossed out of a brothel. Her face was sunken in from malnourishment, making her typically full lips protrude unhealthily. Her red and black leather leggings and corset appeared battle worn, cut randomly around her legs. The midriff of her top was completely torn away. Chunks of honey-brown hair were gone, as if torn from her scalp. Rose may not have been a fan, but nobody deserved to be treated like this.

  Hector knelt, looking closely at her legs, torso, and ample breasts. He pulled at the rips in the leggings, peeking beneath each one before gently placing his hands on her bare torso. Hector scratched at dark splatters that covered her corset, finally leaning in to smell Alloria’s cleavage.

  “Really?” Rose asked, placing fists on her hips and leaning in. “They’re not that impressive.”

  “You’re just saying that because you don’t have any,” Hector said with a twinkle in his gray eyes.

  She slugged him in the shoulder, wishing it was harder.

  “Oh, be careful, I may need healing,” he said with a pained expression, rubbing the spot on his arm.

  “Are you done gawking at the half-naked teenager’s boobies?” Rose asked.

  “I’m studying,” he said, unable to hold back a smirk.

  “I see that,” Rose said dryly.

  “Help a blind man, brother?” Dallow said, his voice half teasing, half pleading.

  “Well,” Hector began. “Her breasts are still enormous, and they’re barely tucked into a leather number Angst must’ve picked out.”

  “Good,” Dallow drawled, scratching at his stubbly chin.

  “You two are terrible,” Rose said. “How can you joke? She’s obviously been attacked or something.”

  “Or something,” Hector said seriously. “Her corset and leggings have been shredded, but I don’t see any fresh cuts or scars beneath. She’s also covered in blood.”

  “What?” Rose asked, standing back.

  “I don’t think it’s hers,” Hector said. “It’s all over her, and caked on dry, like it happened weeks ago. Maybe longer. It just doesn’t smell right. I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “Because you generally go around smelling young princesses?” Rose asked.

  “They usually smell nice,” Dallow said.

  “They do,” Hector agreed. “She doesn’t. Alloria’s pretty ripe. She hasn’t bathed in a very long time. I’m also not sure if she’s really been attacked, if her clothing was cut for show, or if she was just partially healed but forgot to change.”

  “And why did she suddenly arrive here, where we happen to be trapped?” Dallow added. “Holding half a foci that Rose can...sense.”

  The song was muted, but she could still hear it, hungry for her, practically begging to connect. Wishing it would stop was as effective as forcing herself to nap.

  “Maybe someone on Ehrde wanted to give us a change of scenery?” Dallow said with a broad grin.

  Hector’s chuckle was cut off by Rose’s frustrated roar.

  “Answer me!” Rose shouted. “How can you joke about this?”

  “We have to,” Dallow said. “This is the worst kind of joke, because we have to be the punchline.”

  “What do you mean?” Rose asked, her frustration quickly replaced with quieter worry.

  “This is some sort of trap,” Hector said. “She’s either here to kill us, or somehow use the foci to help us escape and lead us to our deaths.”

  “Not mine,” Dallow said. “I’m too pretty to die.”

  Rose sighed. They kept bantering, egging each other on even as the danger of Alloria’s appearance seemed to increase with every theory. The young woman appeared haggard. But had she been attacked and tortured like her clothing suggested? It was really nothing to joke about, and Rose tried changing the subject.

  “Why do you think the foci can help us get out?” Rose asked, nudging Dallow in the ribs with two fingers.

  “I hate that,” he said with a frown, jumping away defensively. “Jormbrinder could be the key to unlocking Ughcratic so I can learn a spell that opens the door,” Dallow said, his face tightening at the mention of the lost language. “I’ve absorbed so many volumes, but I can’t understand any of them.”

  “That’s a pretty big if,” Hector said. “Maybe she can just poke a hole through the shield. Look at everything Angst can do with Chryslaenor and Dulgirgraut, and he barely knows what he’s doing.”

  “Is she even a wielder?” Dallow asked. “That’s what I don’t understand. Angst would’ve told us. He’s terrible at keeping secrets, especially when Victoria blurted them out.”

  “Like the kiss?” Hector asked.

  Both men’s smiles were quickly wiped away by Rose’s frown.

  “Victoria read Angst’s mind and found out that Alloria had kissed him,” Dallow said.

  “Or he kissed her,” Rose corrected.

  “There’s a difference,” Hector said, running fingers through his mane of long gray and white hair.

  “Not really,” Rose said, her frown winning the argument. “Not to mention, how did Victoria not know? The entire castle knew.”

  “I think they run with different crowds,” Hector explained. “Less gossipy, more ruling Unsel-y.”

  “When she did find out, Tori was furious,” Dallow said with a satisfied grin.

  “I don’t care about Angst and his cheating ways,” Rose said sharply. “I care about getting out of here. What do we do?”

  “Maybe we cut the hand off,” Hector said, rubbing his thumb thoughtfully along the scar on his chin. “And use the hand to poke a hole through the shield.”

  Rose and Dallow faced him, and she tried her best to pierce his jokes with her glare.

  “Fine,” he said, not laughing. “We’ll wait until she wakes and question her.”

  “That could take forever,” Dallow said.

  Rose approached the cot and leaned over until her mouth was mere inches away from Alloria’s ear. “Wake up!” she shouted.

  Alloria’s eyes sprang open, and, like a frightened animal, she scrambled to the far edge of her bed. She held her knees up to her chin and pulled the dagger in close to her face. The princess wasn’t screaming or barking orders like royalty. She looked petrified, and a bit ridiculous with that giant, golden triangular dagger. Had she actually been through that much trauma? Rose didn’t know what to believe anymore. Should she console Alloria or throw peanuts at her?

  “It’s all right, Your Highness,” Hector said, his gravelly voice far from soothing. “We aren’t going to harm you.”

  “She already knows that,” Rose snapped before focusing on Alloria. “If we wanted to hurt you, or kill you, you wouldn’t be in Hector’s room, lying safely on his bed.”

  “Rose, be gentle,” Dallow said, inching to the bed and feeling for the corner before sitting at the opposite end.

  “Maybe she has been through a lot,” Hector agreed, his voice filled with worry.

  A pretty young female fell out of the sky, and despite the potential danger, they suddenly wanted to be heroes again. Rose hadn’t seen this much energy from them since she’d told them she’d located a frozen stash of steak. That prank had kept them from talking to her for days, which sounded nice right about now. She rolled her eyes, but they were too engrossed in bos
omtastic to notice.

  “Where am I?” Alloria asked, her voice grating painfully as if she had swallowed a desert.

  Hector rushed out of the room, returning just as fast with a flask of water. He offered it, but she just stared as if it were a trap. He took a drink before setting it on the bed and stepped away. Alloria picked it up and gulped down the contents, trickles of water streaming through dirt along her chin and neck. She sucked the flask dry before throwing it to the floor. Wiping off her chin brought a sudden realization, and her face wrenched in disgust at the filth on her fingers.

  “We believe we’re in a mage city, somewhere in Nordruaut,” Dallow said.

  “A mage city. That’s good,” she said, lowering the dagger. “Is there...is there anything to eat?”

  “If you like fruit,” he replied wryly, pulling an apple out of his pocket and gently setting it on the bed. She plucked it up and began devouring it.

  “Why?” she asked around a mouthful of the fruit.

  “Why what?” Rose asked impatiently.

  Alloria swallowed hard, twice, as if fighting her dry throat to get the food into her stomach. “Why are you here?”

  Rose and Hector looked at Dallow, who was blushing furiously.

  “That’s sort of my fault,” he said. “We were with Angst, in Angoria. He’d just finished destroying Air, bonding with another foci, saving Rose, and exploding.”

  “He... Angst exploded?” She sounded near tears. Her lip quivered, and she clutched the blanket on the bed.

  “He’s okay,” Rose said, surprised at the young woman’s reaction. “I saved him, again.”

  “I don’t understand,” Alloria said, her breath catching.

  “Rose is a healer, and Angst doesn’t seem to die,” Dallow continued. “He’s fine. He flew off with Victoria and a Berfemmian. There was a portal left behind by a tall, odd-looking wielder.”

  Alloria’s eyes went wide, and she gripped the dagger so tightly her knuckles whitened. She nodded for him to continue.

  “We went through, hoping to end up in Unsel. We ended up here instead.”