by E G Stone
She was not a slave.
Ravenna opened her eyes as she slid out of the last pose.
Tekko nodded, arms crossed and expression unnervingly thoughtful.
Radim just gave her a cunning grin.
“Again. Faster,” Tekko said.
“This isn’t a fighting exercise. And no matter how many times you put me through this, I won’t know how to hold a sword or fight a warrior,” Ravenna said again.
Tekko ignored her.
“Again. Faster.”
Sighing, Ravenna sank back into the starting position. She moved through the exercises at twice the speed, her body gladly doing as she asked. Not even a quarter of the way through, Tekko stepped closer, “Faster.”
Ravenna bit back the urge to move away from the giant human, though she did increase the speed of her movements. Her heart was beating faster, and she had to think about her breathing, something she rarely had to do. This was getting closer to her forest runs, though she was not jumping through the canopy.
Tekko took another step forwards, “Faster.”
Ravenna clenched her jaw and complied. The calm that Dalketh usually brought was quickly dissipated with the human’s proximity and her increasing heart rate. Tekko took a third step forwards, this time getting too close to do the exercises properly. Ravenna started to take a step back, but Radim had come up behind her, making it impossible for her to move that direction. Ravenna bent her arm in a sweep across her face and halted in shock when Tekko’s own arm was there, connecting with her arm in a hit that reverberated through her entire body.
He leaned his head in, still pushing down on her arm. She felt the strain of the movement, her muscles pushing back. But she was still in Dalketh and this was her element. This was where she had the power.
Tekko bared his teeth in a feral smile. “Now fight back.”
He started to attack with his hands. No blades.
Ravenna staggered sideways, out of the way of Radim and the larger warrior. She slid into her Dalketh stance that had kept her steady against Tekko’s initial attack. And then she countered his movements with the ones that were instinctive, natural. Where Tekko punched and kicked his way into Ravenna’s defences, she blocked and stepped out of the way, countering with the next movement in Dalketh.
It was not the natural exercise that she had come to know. This was more like the improvisation that her runs had forced her to learn—what seemed like a lifetime ago. Standing around and following Jazer around like a pet hadn’t kept Ravenna’s muscles quick and ready. Tekko got a few hits in past her defences and Ravenna was beginning to lose control of her breathing. But this was still Dalketh.
Finally, Tekko stepped around her back, trying to get past the barrier she had created in her defensive stance. Ravenna snapped her wings open, using the powerful muscles to beat across Tekko’s chest and knock the giant backward into the sand. She whirled and let out a snarl of frustration. Tekko stared at her, the dust settling on his scarred skin.
Ravenna struggled to catch her breath, chest heaving and fury running through her veins. She hated these humans. They were beating her, giving her bruises and wounds that would take ages to heal, making her betray her belief that violence was not an answer, that knowledge and facts and reason could solve every argument. But she had knocked Tekko down with a single snap of her wings and that feeling of strength was heady. Finally, Ravenna felt anything but weak. She might never be at the mercy of humans again.
Tekko climbed to his feet. Seeing the pleasure that had flashed across Ravenna’s features, he nodded. “Dalketh is meant for fighting,” he said with a gleam in his eyes. He brushed some of the sand off his clothes. “Again. Until you cannot lift your wings from the ground. And tomorrow, we add a sword.”
Ravenna spread her wings with a snap. She held her hands up in the second motion of Dalketh and dared Tekko to advance with her eyes. The thought flitted through her mind that maybe this was what Dalketh was truly meant for. Maybe Ravenna was meant for this, too.
“Ravenna!” Radim waved an arm at Ravenna as she carried her plate of food to the table farthest away from the other people. She froze, looking over at him suspiciously. Radim slid off the bench and jogged over to Ravenna. “Why don’t you come eat with us?”
“I’m tired,” Ravenna said flatly. It was the truth. She was almost three weeks into her training and not only was it becoming more intense, but she was having a hard time keeping her wings from dragging on the ground. Her body adapted to the new method of Dalketh well enough, and she had even learned how to use a sword reasonably well. But she was wing-weary. Tired of the world. Of life.
“Well, just come sit and eat. You don’t have to do any talking. And we promise not to say anything if you fall asleep in your food,” Radim said, eyes begging. Ravenna wanted nothing more than to slink away to her corner spot and eat as quickly as possible. Alone. She did not want to spend any more time with these humans than she had to. Training was survival. Eating? Socialising? That was another thing entirely.
“Very well.” Ravenna followed Radim back to the table where the other slaves quickly made room for Ravenna and her wings. Even Tekko graced her with a nod.
“I hear the witch is planning a whole week of celebrations and tournaments for the end the month,” Radim said.
“…Witch?” She couldn’t help her curiosity. She had never been able to quell that.
“The magnanimous Jazer,” Tekko grumbled, scowling into his potatoes.
“No, that I understood. What is a witch?” She already knew about the tournament. Jazer had come down to talk with Ravenna earlier that week, making it quite clear that the tournament was to showcase the “Angel” and that if Ravenna lost any of the matches, it would be bad for her.
As bad as things got, Ravenna knew that it could easily be worse. So she trained harder.
Radim stared at her. “You don’t know what a witch is? A person who uses magic. Known to mumble curses, conjure storm clouds, and consort with demons?”
Ravenna shook her head. “There were no such things where I came from. Sorcerers are the only human “magic” users I know of.”
“Well, I wouldn’t necessarily call them human. Not when they come straight from the depths of Hell,” Radim grinned.
Ravenna frowned.
“I heard a female talk about Hell before, but I don’t know what that is. She said this place was Hell.” Ravenna took a gaping bite of her meat, probably some sort of lizard. It did not matter; it tasted terrible and had all the protein she needed for building her muscles.
Now everyone in her vicinity was staring at her. Tekko rubbed a hand over his bald head, sucking in a breath. “You don’t know what Hell is? Don’t you know of the Creation? The divine beings and the Will of the Heavens?”
“The beliefs amongst sylphs are…different,” Ravenna replied. “We believe in facts, in history, in things that stand before the eye or that can be proven. We believe in what you feel in your heart and mind to be truth.”
“I’ve never heard of beings that don’t have a religion,” Tekko murmured, looking to Radim for confirmation. The other warrior shook his head.
“I once heard about a wanderer who claimed to have met an elf, back when I was a lad. Even elves have religion. It’s different than ours, but still religion.”
Tekko snorted, stabbing his lizard with his knife. “There’s no such things as elves. You were being fooled.”
Radim narrowed his eyes.
“Religion…” Ravenna tested the word out, rolling it around her mouth. She gave a wing-shrug, her feathers rustling. “Tell me about your religion.”
So passed the rest of the meal, with Radim and Tekko and the other slaves talking about the creation of the world by their One Who Watches and the various races, about the lesser divine beings who served a purpose greater than even they could completely comprehend, about the history of the religion, the holy people who served their gods, the sect who believed in a singular force be
hind all of the other beings and gods. Ravenna mostly listened, trying to understand what it would be like to believe in something greater than yourself. To believe that you mattered to a being that existed outside of time and pain. That you were never alone and were never given something greater than you could bear.
It was comforting and somewhat beautiful. And Ravenna realised something just then. These humans, these fellow slaves and warriors, they were as trapped in this life as she was. The other humans, the ones who cheered when they shed blood or paid more for the beautiful ones, the powerful ones, they were the enemy. The parasites.
For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, Ravenna allowed herself to smile. The wing-weariness lifted a little.
Then Radim pushed away his empty plate and looked seriously at Ravenna, a slight frown marring the corners of his mouth. “Ravenna, what are you doing here?”
She drew her brows together. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, I know we get treated better than other slaves, that we get full meals and decent lives except for the constant fighting, but you don’t have to be here,” Radim said. Ravenna’s confusion deepened. “At first, we thought that your wings were maybe weak, healing from being captured and in cages for so long. But then you started training and…well, they’re not weak at all. So why are you here? Were you exiled by your people? Do you think this is fun?”
Ravenna surged up from the table, fury pulsing through her veins. No amount of icy control could keep her from showing her anger and Radim flinched. “You think I want to be here?” Ravenna hissed. “That I want to be away from my home, my life? I was captured and enslaved!”
“So were we all,” Tekko said, rising as well. He loomed over Ravenna, but she refused to back down. She lifted her wings above her head, spreading the feathers. Tekko blinked, but was not intimidated.
“Why don’t you just fly away?” Radim asked pointedly.
Immediately, Ravenna’s wings fell, slamming into her side, pressing close to her body. Jazer had not told them. They had not figured it out. They thought she chose to be there, learning to fight and revel in the bloodshed that was to come.
Ravenna took a few steps back, wrapping her arms around herself. “Before I was captured, I had never caused bloodshed except when hunting. And even then, I tried to do that as cleanly as possible. Cause no pain. Now? I’m being turned into a trained killer. For what? Entertainment.”
Tekko stepped forwards, stretching out a hand. Ravenna hissed and shook her head, fixing the giant in her ice-blue stare brimming with every scrap of humiliation and anger she could muster. Tekko didn’t take another step.
“I cannot fly,” Ravenna spat out.
Radim sucked in a breath, eyes widening.
Ravenna spread her wings out to their full span, showing the worthless pieces of flesh and feathers to the fellow slaves. “These wings? They’re nothing! They’re not big enough to carry someone in flight—not when sylphs don’t have hollow bones like birds. So what are they good for? Hmm?”
She turned and showed off the wings, hating them more than she ever had. So what if they helped her jump through trees? There were no trees to be found. “Are they nothing more than tools for fighting? Or something for you humans to gawk at, thinking I’m some fallen divine being here to save you all?”
“Ravenna, we—” Radim started, pushing up off the bench. Ravenna surged forwards, pushing past Tekko with a twist of her body. She jammed her finger into Radim’s chest, eyes blazing, and teeth bared.
“I would never have stayed here if I could get away, if I could fly to freedom. But it looks like I’m just as stuck as the rest of you. Or do you want to be here? Slaves with access to weapons and the ability to use them. Why don’t you fight your way free, then?”
“The bronze would never stand up to their steel,” Tekko murmured.
Ravenna did not require an explanation. She knew the answer. She knew that they—as well as she—would be slaughtered with ease if they ever tried to fight back against their masters. And yet they had the audacity to accuse her of wanting to be amongst these hateful creatures.
She let Radim stand, let him move closer to her with concern in his eyes and an apology on his face. Ravenna even let him extend his arms as though they were going to wrap around her, offering a modicum of comfort. But when he actually tried to brush his hand against her arm, she said in a voice with an icy tone, “Don’t. Touch. Me.”
“I didn’t mean—”
Ravenna turned on her heel and stalked from the dining cavern, the stone above her head nothing more than an illusion of being caged in. Her whole life, the sky had been a cage. Why should stone matter more than that? Ravenna went to the bathing springs, where one of the few other female warriors was emerging; her dark brown skin glistened with water and yet was so unlike the charcoal-ash or golden skin of the sylphs that Ravenna had known. That longing for familiarity was just one more pain to brush off and never acknowledge again.
Ravenna stepped into the water, letting the warm spring take away the soreness from the day. She splashed about for a bit, washing the dust and dirt and a few smears of blood from her skin. Her wings fanned her dry, their natural oils shedding water easily. Ravenna looked at her reflection in the water. She still saw that pale-as-the-moon sylph who had been sneered at her entire life. Tacitus had never sneered, but his pity had stung just as much. Yet she longed for him, for his wings wrapped around her. She longed for the peace of the Tower. Instead, she stood here, beaten, broken, and wing-weary.
There were a few bruises shadowing her shoulders and chest where Tekko had gotten in an impressive kick. The brand on her hip shimmered an angry pink under the water. She was more muscular than she had been before, trading thinness for power. Her black hair was now pulled back from her face and hung down her back in a thick braid with spikes woven through it, for safety during a fight. Her face had always been expressionless or calm, the aristocratic features Queen Mariala had assured Ravenna came from her mother lending an air of aloofness. Now, she just looked hard. Dangerous.
A drop of water fell from Ravenna’s chin, rippling her reflection. She frowned and waited for the water to clear so she could have something to direct her loathing towards, but the water just rippled again as another droplet fell. Tears. Ravenna brought her hand up and wiped the moisture away from her face. More just replaced them.
Letting out a strangled cry, Ravenna sank completely into the water, not caring that her wings would get fully wet and take hours to dry, not caring that the spring water stung a little as it touched the open cuts on her back where Radim had struck with the edge of his blunted sword. She just sank into the water and let the salt of her tears mix with the water.
Before then, Ravenna would have said that she understood what it was to be wing-weary. Constant disapproval from Desarra, the pitying silence from the other Intellecti, the inability to participate in many aspects of sylph life, it was enough to make her feel that bone-deep sadness. Now, she would have given anything to feel that way again. Now, she was certain that this abject misery bordering on apathy was going to kill her.
At least with the tournament in two-days, someone else might get there first.
Chapter Seven
The feeling of wrongness that ran up Davorin’s spine had been growing for days. He had never been beyond the borders of the Salusian Empire before and now he had been nearly two weeks beyond the reach of his father. It was a freeing feeling, not being bound by the Emperor. It was also wrong.
Davorin belonged to the Empire and it belonged to him. He had not killed Dagan out of jealousy, after all, but the knowledge that Dagan would have ruined the Empire. Yet his father had not seen it. Had not granted Davorin the control of the Empire’s armies that Dagan had been almost carelessly given. Go back to your money and your estate, Davorin, you’re not wanted here.
Well, it was time to put that carefully hoarded money to use.
Davorin looked behind him and saw the few
hundred soldiers-for-hire that he had scrounged up in the borderlands. They were mercenaries, plain and simple, but they had agreed to the monthly salary Davorin had offered and were as close to an army as he was going to get anytime soon. Their leader, a gruff man called Warrith with more snow in his hair than the Emperor, was not one to be trifled with. He had lost three fingers and was still just as dangerous with a blade as any able-bodied youth—as Davorin had discovered when they sparred.
“You don’t seem sure about this course of action,” Warrith commented as he drew his horse up next to Davorin’s. The desert stretched around them almost as far as the eye could see, the first time Davorin had experienced such emptiness. But the mounds rising up on the horizons—the slight tinge of moisture in the air that spoke of an oasis in this wretched place…That was where he was going to find his prize.
“If you have a better idea as to how to raise an army quickly, you are welcome to suggest it,” Davorin grumbled. Warrith raised a bushy eyebrow and scratched his short beard.
“You know as well as I do that this is the fastest way,” Warrith answered. “But you don’t seem convinced.”
Davorin growled and spurred his horse forwards. The irascible mercenary kept pace with ease, as did the troops behind them. “The Slave Markets are our destination for today. I hear they’re putting on a tournament in their famous Pits,” Davorin said, silently snarling at Warrith. He didn’t want to talk about his plan, or acknowledge his doubts.
“Do you think you can find something to please her?” Warrith pressed on, ignoring the way Davorin’s hand went to the hilt of one of his swords and gripped it, knuckles turning white. “Hers is the largest army outside of the Empire and Southron. Don’t know why, though. All that the desert holds is sand and lions. Not much to fight.”
“Her lands abut the Iron Mountains. And the coast,” Davorin said, not for the first time. Though there were other threats out there to defend against than mountain mysteries and raiders. Dagan had been one of them.
