The Wretched

by Brad Carsten

  Tears formed in her eyes.

  “Kaylyn, you are everything that I’ve ever desired. I can feel what you're feeling, and so I know that you can feel how much you mean to me. Can you feel it?” He ran a hand down her arm, wanting her so much, it felt like his heart would shatter. “Can you feel it?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was small in his mind, but the power exploded through him.

  Liam drew her back into his arms.

  White light surrounded her. Her breathing quickened, coming in rapid bursts. Her fingers slipped through his. His hand tingled, and it spread up into the gash on his arm. The blood dried and flaked off, and his skin pulled back into place.

  More and more power swept through him, until he wondered if she'd be ripped out of his arms. Kaylyn suddenly held up her hand, that glowed so brightly he couldn't see her fingers. “Oh, my life.” Her eyes widened. “It's working. It's really working.” She was breathing like she'd just run up a mountain. “I can no longer feel gaharah.” She covered her mouth, letting out an excited shriek. “It's true then—all of it. There really is a source of life.” She couldn't stop looking at her glowing hand as she moved between laughing and crying, and Liam drank it in like a man five days out of water. He didn't realise how thirsty he'd been to share in someone else's life, but when he saw how much this meant to her, he felt his own eyes tearing up.

  Through the light, they could barely make out the rest of the room, and Fayre lying still on the bed.

  “You ready?”

  Kaylyn nodded. Hand in hand, they walked over to her and Kaylyn placed a hand on her bandages. The flow increased until Liam could hardly breathe. Every part of him tingled.

  Light flooded into Fayre, starting at her stomach and spreading out into the rest of her body. Liam felt the infection, and the light as it obliterated it.

  Fayre drew a wheezing breath, and her eyes blew open.

  Quinn shouted something, but it sounded far away.

  The power was too strong to bare, and Liam's legs gave way. He hit the floor, landing on his broken leg, but it didn't hurt anymore. His leg was healed.

  The flow stopped immediately. Kaylyn's thoughts cut off, like sound when slipping underwater. The joy and love and tingles up his spine fled, and loneliness settled over him, and this time it was stronger than it had ever been.

  The floor felt hard, the air stale, and the colours seemed too dark and dirty. Kaylyn dropped onto her knees alongside him. “Oh Liam, I drew too much. Are you okay? This is all so new to me still.”

  Liam could barely keep his eyes open. He'd once helped his father repair the cattle shed before the snow reached the village. They'd worked on it for two days and a night without stopping, but once he was done, his body began shutting down, and he barely made it up the stairs to his bed. This was the same, if ten times stronger, but still, he felt more alive than ever.

  His eyes shifted past Kaylyn to Fayre, who was getting up out of bed in confusion, and Quinn who was rushing to help her, with glistening cheeks and the biggest smile.

  “We did it,” Liam said, and Kaylyn giggled. “We did. We really did.”

  “how do you feel?”

  “Amazing.” She dropped her head onto his chest and began to laugh.

  Livius burst through the door. “Come quickly. I don't know what happened, but your knight suddenly woke up as though Fate itself was shaking him by the scruff of his neck, and he's not happy about being chained up like that.”

  Kaylyn scrambled to her feet. “Did he say anything?”

  “Yes. Most of which I wouldn't repeat in such respectable company. Now hurry, and bring something with you in case we need to put him out again.”

  Kaylyn darted out of the room, leaving Liam shouting after her. They still didn't know what a knight could possibly have done to be locked up in the tower. He could be dangerous, and Kaylyn was too eager for answers to worry about her own safety.

  Liam tried to get up, but his legs felt like water skins. “Quinn, come help me, will you?”

  Quinn was helping Fayre up, and Liam had to call him again to get his attention.

  Once on his feet, Liam tested his leg, until he was standing on it without support. It seemed to be healed. Perhaps that was one of the benefits of having the power surging through him, but plight was he exhausted. He couldn't worry about that now though.

  He stumbled down the passage after Kaylyn, with one hand resting on the wall to balance himself.

  The knight lay on his side with his wrists tied to his ankles, and another rope fastening him to the bed. His face was red from screaming, and he was thrashing around like a worm on a hook. “What is happening? Who are you? Where have you brought me? What do you want from me?”

  “It's okay,” Kaylyn said, in a soothing voice. “We're not here to hurt you. We helped you get out of the tower. Do you remember?”

  “The tower? The tower?” He started shaking his head vigorously. “No, I'm still there. None of this is real.”

  “It's real. You're free. You really are.” She reached out a hand as though to stroke his cheek, but stopped short of touching him.

  That was enough to get him to stop struggling, but he watched her hand as though it may strike him.

  “You're free, but we had to tie you up, because we didn't know what you'd do when you woke up again. Do you remember me? I gave you something to drink in the tower. I told you I could get you out, and I kept my word.”

  He studied her intently, as though trying to place her. “Yes. Yes. The angel? I do. I do remember you. I remember. Death's gates, is this a dream?”

  “No, it's not a dream. I kept my promise, and I got you out of there.”

  His eyes closed, and he began to sob. “Oh, oh could it be true. Please. I have to see soil again. I have to see the world outside to know that it's true. I could see the sky and the rain—the rain that never ends, but not the land. The window was too high and my chain too short.”

  Kaylyn nodded and Liam helped prop the knight up against the windowsill. He was nothing more than bone wrapped in skin, and weighed next to nothing.”

  When he caught sight of the land beyond the window, he began to weep. “It's true then. It's real. You took me out. You took me out.”

  “I told you I would. What's your name Sir Knight?”

  “Crotus. It's Crotus Garin.”

  “Sir Garin. The other prisoners—there was something wrong with them. It's almost like their minds had turned off. How did you manage to avoid the same fate?”

  The Knight's eyes never left the window. “I wouldn't drink—not from those cursed things. Oh, everyone starts out that way, believing the same thing. You can see what the drinking does, but the hunger's real. It claws at your soul and they all give in eventually. One by one, they fell. Not me. I never drank. I never will!” He began fighting against his restraints again.

  “It's okay,” Kaylyn whispered. “Is that why they took you to the top of the tower?”

  He nodded.

  “But how did you survive?”

  “The tower doesn't let you die, it will keep you alive for a thousand years if it must, even while your body wastes away. I ate rat meat when I could, and drank rainwater, cursed rain that never ends that I collected with my boot.” He glanced down at his feet, and kicked out when he realised he didn't have his boots anymore. “My boots. I need my boots. I can't reach the water without them. I need the water or my body will wither and my throat swell until I cannot breathe. Help. Help.”

  “It's okay. It's okay.” Liam said. “Look, we've got water. As much as you want. He hurried to pour a mug for the man who drank it feverishly.

  “We've also got some food for you as well. Would you like that?”

  The knight swallowed, but he didn't answer. “We'll give you something to eat, but we need some answers first.”

  “We need to know why you were sent to the tower,” Kaylyn said. “We need to know what happened in Almswick.”

  The knight's eyes widened in
fear and he shook his head, violently. “No. No. I won't do it. I cannot.”

  “What can't you do? You can't tell me what happened?”

  “I can't kill myself. Not even for my king.”

  “Kill yourself?” Kaylyn leaned closer. “Why would you need to kill yourself? Is it because of what you did?”

  “No. To protect him. It's the only way.”

  “To protect him? Were you going to hurt him then? Is that why you needed to kill yourself, before you did something that you'd regret?”

  The man began to laugh, but it quickly turned into sobs.

  “No. He was already injured. They killed themselves to protect him. All of them. They thrust daggers into their hearts. They slit their throats and bled out into the soil. I couldn't do it. I tried. Light knows I tried, but I was a coward. I let my king down. I failed him.”

  “Light failing,” Kaylyn whispered, looking rattled. “That doesn't make sense. Knights wouldn't kill themselves. How would that protect him?”

  “The amulet. That cursed amulet.”

  “Do you mean this?” Kaylyn drew her father's amulet out of her dress with shaking hands, and the man screamed.

  “It's come back. Oh, it's come back to haunt me. Will I ever be rid of it?”

  “Where does this come from? Do you know?”

  The man got a distant look in his eyes. “They had a fire. There were shapes drawn into the dirt and that's how they brought the hunter through into our world. They summoned him. It was the only way to get the amulet. They bound him and they cut the stone out of his heart.”

  Kaylyn turned the amulet over reluctantly to look at the black stone set into the face. “No. They wouldn't do that. Summoning the nightspawn is the work of darkness. Only death would open the gate. They'd have to sacrifice someone. They wouldn't do that; the knights wouldn't do that. It doesn't make sense.”

  “The king was injured, his wound too deep. They couldn't save him. The arrow had pierced his heart. It was too late. He was bleeding out. It was too late.”

  “How was he injured?” Kaylyn's voice cracked as she struggled to hold back her emotions.

  “A boy. He was waiting in a tree with a bow. It was just a boy. He shouldn't have been there. The knights cut the tree down with him still in it. It fell on top of him, crushing his legs.” The knight shook his head, as though trying to shake free the memories. “He was screaming, but he couldn't move. They lit the fires around him. The fires consumed him. Oh, the screams. I can't get them out of my head, but from his scorched flesh, a hunter arose.”

  “No,” Kaylyn said. “The knights wouldn't do that. They have honor.”

  “They have duty,” the man shouted. “Don't you understand yet? They did it to save the king, the kingdom, you and everyone else. The king didn't have an heir strong enough to take over. His children were weak.”

  Kaylyn flinched as though struck, and Liam laid a hand on her shoulder as the man continued to rage.

  “The hunter was strong. The ropes couldn't hold him. He was quick. The arrows hit. They pierced him, but he was so strong. He killed three knights, and injured a dozen more.”

  “Why would”—Kaylyn drew a deep breath—“why would they summon a hunter? Why would they take the stone out of its heart?”

  “Have you ever faced a hunter? The beasts can pluck out threads of time like string. It unravels around them. Arrows hit and—and dissolved like they never were. Wounds faded before our eyes.”

  Liam thought back to Gallowhill, when his own arrows had disappeared and appeared in his quiver again, and when the bridge reformed across the canyon.

  “So they were trying to undo what happened to my—to the king?”

  “No, not even the knights were powerful enough to do that. All the stone could do was hold it. He only had minutes to live and they couldn't stop his bleeding, so they stopped time instead—time for him that is. It would keep him for twenty years, and he wouldn't age a day, but his wound would never heal either. He'd be caught halfway between this world and the other, with no one to protect him on the other side until he could find an heir. Without protection, the darkness would taunt him, and he'd be driven insane. He needed the knights there with him. That was the only way.”

  “So, the knights killed themselves?” Kaylyn said, in disbelief. “They killed themselves to protect him in Gaharah?” The words settled over the room, sending a chill down Liam's spine.

  The knight shut his eyes, and nodded. “I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. They drank the blood of the hunter, binding themselves to the stone, and they pressed it into the king's wound. They set it in the amulet, and when it was done, they drew their weapons... I tried, but I just couldn't.

  I escorted the king back to the palace, and I left that night. I rode to the tower, and I handed myself in, but not even that could make up for it. I let my brothers down. I let my king down.” Tears spilled down his cheeks.

  “The king wouldn't have asked that of you,” Kaylyn said, softly.

  “And that's what makes my pain greater than I can bear.”

  “Liam, can you cut his restraints.”

  “Are you sure, we don't know if—”

  “Just do it. Please cut him loose. A knight of the fallen shouldn't be bound.”

  “Alright,” Liam said.

  The binds fell loose and the knight massaged his wrists. “Thank you, but you're wrong. I am no knight. Not anymore.”

  Chapter 30

  Kaylyn ran out of the room, and Liam found her crouching in the passage, like she wanted to empty her stomach.

  “My brother was there,” she said. “He was in charge of the knights of the fallen. He was my best friend. He was the only one who understood me. I needed him, and he left, and now I hear that he killed himself, Liam. How do I deal with that?

  Liam sat next to her and put his arm around her. “I'm sorry,” he said, but the words sounded hollow. What could he say that would make even the smallest seed of a difference?

  “I can't do this anymore,” she said. “I need you to take this away from me. I need to feel life again.” The evil bubbled up inside of her.

  “No, Kaylyn. Don't.” It hit into his chest, like someone had punched him, but he wouldn't let it through.

  “Take it away from me,” she shouted. She beat her fists against his chest, but he held her tighter. Gaharah dug into him, trying to break through.

  “Kaylyn. Stop it! This isn't the way. You can't numb what you're feeling inside, or you'll be chasing that for the rest of your life. I know what it's like to lose someone, and I know what it's like to numb those feelings, but it doesn't work. I spent ten years working my field, so that I didn't have to deal with love again, but that doesn't work. You have to let your feelings out or they'll fester inside of you. But first you have to let go of Gaharha.” Her power hit into his chest again, but not as forcefully this time. “Kaylyn. This isn't the way.” Gaharah pulled away, and Kaylyn collapsed into his arms.

  Liam held her as her whole body shook. “I'm so tired of crying all the time. I can't take this anymore. It feels like I'm losing my mind.”

  Liam kissed her head.

  She lay there in silence for a long time. Liam left her to sort through what she was feeling, and when she finally spoke, her story poured out as though it'd been building up for years, waiting to get out.

  Sitting in the passage on the hard-wooden floor, they spoke for a long, long time about her life and her childhood. Kaylyn told him how her brother would sneak treats into her room at night, whenever she was feeling down. He'd read to her, and she'd cuddle into him. That's where her love for books came from. Prince Kael was her brother and her best friend, but he was also the only friend she had growing up. The throne couldn't risk her secret getting out, and so they kept her locked in the palace. Prince Kael showed her the secret passages into the gardens and servant quarters, and a tunnel that led out of the palace in case it was ever attacked, but he warned her not to go that way as it led into the city
.

  Kaylyn told Liam how her brother had fought with her parents day after day to take her out of the palace to see the outside world. Worn out, they finally relented and agreed to take her to the island of Petu with an escort of a thousand soldiers. That's when she finally got to see the ocean for the first time, and dig her feet in the sand. It was the best two weeks of her life.

  That was just before her brother left, traveling through Almswick and the last time she'd ever see him in this world.

  “In this world?” Liam said. It was the second time she'd hinted at seeing him since then.

  Kaylyn drew out her father's amulet and stared at it.

  “I have seen him,” she said. “He's still in Gaharah.” She drew a shuddering breath. “I saw him the night my father died...”

  ***

  That day was fresh in Kaylyn's mind. The two guards outside the royal apartments studied her as she passed, as though they knew she was up to something. She tried not to look at them. They didn't stop her; they had no reason to, but she couldn't help walking faster once she was past them. She clutched Abercrombie, her doll, for courage. He was a mischievous thing that Kael had brought back from one of his campaigns. He said that Abercrombie was a good friend of his, with a great sense of humor, and he'd look after her until he returned. Now Kael had been gone for almost a year, and Kaylyn knew he wasn't coming back, but still, she kept the doll, and still she waited.

  Kaylyn slipped off her shoes and eased open the giant doors leading into her father's chambers. Her hands were shaking so hard, but she had to do this for father's sake. Madam Auralis said that there were people who hated him, and they'd given him that pendant to stop his wound from healing. She said it was cursed.

  Kaylyn crept across the floor, her hands trembling. His snoring rumbled through her chest. Each step brought her closer to him, and closer to doing what she had to.

  The moonlight shone through his window, and curtains billowed in like dancing spirits. His sheet had come loose, and she could see the shape of the bandage beneath his bedshirt. Blood had soaked into it, and Kaylyn wanted to burst into tears. Madam Auralis said that with the amulet, he'd bleed to death. It was killing him.