The sight of the Temple’s domes over the tree line brought both relief and dread. Relief for his bones that the ride was almost over. Dread for what awaited him. Bale’s grasp slackened as he rode through the Temple square, leaning on Smoke. Heads turned at the sight of Bale the Blood Knight but did not look away as they once had.
Under the shelter of the stables, Bale fell off his horse. Smoke screeched, kicking his legs up into the air. Bale grunted and fought against his muscles, forbidding them to quit. Climbing to his feet, he grabbed the shocked stablehand by the collar and lifted him off the ground.
“Not…not a word,” the stablehand stammered. Bale set him down, and the man took Smoke’s reins, hurrying out of sight.
Bale passed under the statue of General Drusas that stood just outside the Temple. The legendary warrior’s broad-sword pointed up to the heavens as if challenging Hemo himself. Bail spat blood into the dirt.
It was a long walk through the outer sanctuary and through the Temple halls. Guards and Fathers whispered as he passed, but Bale dared not stop for fear his legs wouldn’t start again. One thing drove him forward. Something he had decided on the road and that pushed him on through pain and fatigue. The Blood Knight’s final act. One that would be remembered long after his heart burst.
When he finally reached the Highfather’s chambers, a guard told him he was not in.
“Well, where is he?” Bale snapped.
The guard was about to turn him away until the look in Bale’s eyes changed his mind. “I’ll take you to him.”
They crossed through the old part of the Temple that still showed scars from the Blood Wars. The guard led Bale through a hallway filled with stone rubble to a hidden doorway. Bale stepped inside to find a laboratory. Red-robed Curors stood around a center table, huddling over something Bale could not see. Beside them sat Aeilus Haemon, the Highfather. Bale couldn’t believe the old bastard was going to outlive him.
The heads in the room turned at the sight of Bale. Haemon’s face showed no surprise.
“Bale the Blood Knight has returned, which must mean you’ve found the boy.” Haemon looked around the room, mocking him. “Well, where is he?”
Bale leaned in the lab’s doorway, saving his strength.
The Curors stepped back, distancing themselves from Bale and Haemon. A small part of Bale still held onto the hope that Haemon could save him; that the Highfather of the Faith would fulfill his promise. But if there was one thing Bale had learned in this life, it was how little faith was worth.
“You don’t look so good, my son,” Haemon said. “Come closer.”
Bale shuffled into the room. He felt his heart beating lower in his chest, the string that held it weighed down and tearing.
“I did not find the boy,” Bale said. “I…ran out of time.”
Bale collapsed against the lab table. Bottles wobbled. Vorrel gasped, stepping back beside the other Curors. Haemon didn’t blink.
“Time,” the Highfather sighed. “A war none of us will win, filled with battles worth fighting just the same. The boy was your weapon against time as much as he was mine.”
“I failed us both,” Bale said. Grabbing the table’s edge, he pulled himself closer. Blood dripped from his mouth, running down his chin. He moved closer.
“Yes, you did. I can see it in your eyes, Bale. The blood poison leaks through your body. Can you feel death coming?”
“It’s been riding after me for a long time.”
Haemon nodded, looking at the bottle the Curors left on the table. It wasn’t blood inside. The liquid was dark, black as oil.
Haemon nodded to the bottle of black liquid. “All the resources in the world at our disposal and we still couldn’t replicate the Descendants’ blood. After centuries, Hemo has taken away that great gift. There is no fighting his will.”
Bale pushed off the table, standing up straight. One hadn’t rested on the table, the other free. “You justify every action as Hemo’s will. It can’t be that you simply failed?”
He was close enough now. One move to his sword it would be over. He wasn’t fast—he could hardly stand. But he didn’t need to be. He had the strength left for this.
“Hemo guides my steps, as he always has.” The fool stepped closer, sympathy in his eyes. Bale swallowed back the blood forming in his mouth. “Let him help you, now.”
Bale scoffed. “How?”
Bale stopped short. The fire that consumed his body, clenching every muscle, held for a moment. Bale looked at the bottle of dark blood before him.
“That’s right,” Haemon nodded.
“You said it doesn’t work.”
“I said we haven’t been able to replicate Descendant blood.”
“This is better,” Vorrel said. He stepped towards his handiwork, his eyes bulging like a reptile’s. “I have amplified the trace elements found in good blood. The strands that have dissipated with generations of impure breeding and contamination. Biologically, this is the most potent blood we were able to create. It is simply untested.”
Bale turned from the slithering Curor to Haemon. “And you want me to test it?”
“I want to save your life.”
Do it now, Bale told himself. Don’t listen. Draw your sword and cut out his crooked tongue.
But Bale was listening. After all his bravado, his fearlessness in battle, here he was at the end, grabbing onto any shred of chance.
“You’re dying,” Haemon said. “Vorrel designed this not just to heal, but to make one stronger than before. Imagine an unlimited blood supply. All the sickness and death in this world and we could hold the cure. The ability to heal anyone without the need of Descendants.” He waved a hand towards the bottle of dark blood. “This may be Hemo’s answer. We need only the courage to find out.”
Bale winced, gripped the table’s edge with both hands. The fire coursing through his body was unbearable. Bale gritted his teeth. You coward.
He tore the cap off the bottle, staring into the dark liquid. He threw his head back and took one great gulp. It ran down his throat, thick as oil. He gasped and caught his breath, waiting for the usual cooling relief to come. But nothing happened.
The Faith’s Curors had failed.
“It is worthless,” Bale snarled. “You bastards and your empty promises…” He tightened his grip and the bottle shattered in his hand. Dark blood spilling everywhere.
“No!” Vorrel cried. “Save the blood!”
A nearby Curor rushed forward. He dropped to his knees, scooping up the blood in his hands.
Bale reached to draw his sword when it came. Not relief, but pain. Fire erupted in Bale’s chest. The string holding his heart snapped. Every muscle in Bale’s body seized up at once. He staggered, bent over in pain. He heard the tearing as his shirt split up the back.
“Aaaahhhh,” Bale howled in pain.
“Great Hemo,” Haemon gasped and stepped back, a chair clanging on the ground. Something was wrong. Bale felt it all over his body as it shifted uncontrollably.
“Stars above!” someone cried.
Bale looked at his arm. His veins turned black and bulged out as if filling with oil. Cracking bones sent him convulsing back and forth; the bones were rearranging themselves inside his body, expanding. He screamed louder as his vision turned red, the world submerged in blood.
He heard another howl of pain behind him. The Curor.
“Mitus, too! What is happening to them?”
“Stay back!”
Bale’s hands exploded with pain; his fingers curved into talons. He writhed on the floor, digging into the stone.
“What did you do to me?” he growled, his voice like thunder in his ear.
The voices of the others came to him from a distance, a place Bale had left behind.
“Vorrell, what is happening?”
“Don’t touch it. Don’t touch the blood.”
Someone ran by him. Bale caught the man’s leg. He felt bones crumble in his hand like dried bark.
“Ahhh!”
“Great Hemo!”
“Should we kill them, Father? Give the order!”
“Hemo help us, what have we done?”
The last thing Bale heard was the Highfather’s voice shouting to the heavens. “Glorious Hemo, thy will be done!”
27
Ara woke with his face half buried in wet sand. He gagged and coughed water from his lungs. No part of his body didn’t hurt; it felt like a heavy log as he rolled over in the shallow water. He looked up at the sky and breathed in the air. He was alive. Somehow, he was alive.
The water was calm, not the roaring rapids of before. Nor were these the same mountains. He must have lost consciousness on impact and been carried far down the river. How had he not drowned?
Ara tried to stand, but his left arm gave out, and he collapsed onto the wet sand. His arm was still in tatters. The flesh was torn to the bone where the bloodhound had seized him. He had lost a lot of blood. He could feel the emptiness, his body like a hollow well. At least the self-inflicted wound on his other wrist had already gone. He used that right hand to tear some of the streaming cloth from his shirt and did his best to wrap his left arm.
It was quiet except for the trickle of the river beside him and the call of passing birds. There was no sign of the Descendant rebels, but he still had to move. They’d find him eventually.
But where would he go? With some help, he could possibly return to Farmount, but he knew it was unlikely he would find his friends there. Maybe that was best. Ara didn’t have the courage to leave the group when he should have. By staying, he had put their lives in danger. Now at least they would be safe.
Ara would go the rest of the way on his own. But the rest of the way to where? The source of his blood power?
There is no source.
Ara saw the source for what it was—an idea Briton created to keep him going. The illusion of hope.
Briton was wrong. Not everything had an answer.
Ara climbed to his feet. His clothes heavy with mud and water; his boots were lost to the river. This would make travel slow. But that wasn’t a problem since he had nowhere to go.
Ara limped across the sandy shore, cradling his injured arm.
There was movement in the trees ahead. Voices speaking.
Ara looked around the open beach. There was nowhere to hide, and he didn’t have the strength to run. He stood watching as a shape pushed through the trees. It was a man in ragged brown clothes. He carried a sack on his shoulder; a flower’s long white petal shown out the top. The man stopped in surprise at the sight of Ara. His head shot up, revealing the “G” tattoo on the right side of his face.
A Descendant.
The two stared at each other for a long moment. There was no expression on the Descendant’s tanned face.
“Kayto?” a second voice called. “Where’d you go? I said to stay within sight—”
A man in silver armor with purple trim stepped out of the trees. His hand went to his sword, but he did not draw it out.
“Who are you?” the armored man asked. “And what are you doing in the lord’s wood? Poaching for wolf-orchids?”
These weren’t Temple guards nor Descendant rebels. Maybe they wouldn’t recognize Ara.
“I got taken by the river,” Ara said. “I didn’t know where I was.”
“And what happened to your arm?”
Ara looked down at the bloody cloth. The wound hadn’t had time to heal, not in Ara’s exhausted state.
“Smashed it on a rock,” Ara said.
The guard frowned as if he doubted Ara’s story.
“I don’t mean any trouble,” Ara said with a slight bow. “I’ll be on my way.”
Ara turned to go, but the armored man stepped forward. “You’ll stay right where you are.” Without taking his eyes off Ara, the man turned his head and yelled behind him. “Semus! Semus, get over here.”
A moment later, a third man stepped out of the woods, carrying a sack of his own.
It took Ara a moment to recognize the man from what seemed another lifetime. It was the gardener from Carmine Castle.
“Is this one of the Kendall kids who keep sneaking off with the lord’s property?” the armored man asked.
Ara kept his head down, hiding his face from the man. Hoping he didn’t recognize him.
“Definitely not,” Semus said.
He remembers.
Ara met Semus’s gaze. The gardener held a stunned expression. Ara didn’t know if that was good or bad. Should he risk running? He couldn’t fend off the guard, not in his condition. Ara sighed in tired surrender. Just like the river, he’d let this latest problem take hold of him and run its course.
“Lord Gorgen is going to want to hear about this right away,” Semus said. “We’ve found something much more valuable than wolf-orchids.”
Castle Gorgen was built into the side of a cliff. Stone pillars jutted from the cliff’s own rocky side. At once the castle looked both a natural piece of the mountainside and an absurd construction that disregarded the laws of physics. A waterfall spilled down the length of the unscalable cliff, just outside the castle’s rear wall. Where Carmine Castle had been simple in its design, this castle flaunted its every framework. They passed through gates made of bronze and shaped with a flowery design. Stone birds perched atop the wall’s pillars, looking down at guests.
The Descendant, Tayko, watched Ara the whole way back to the castle. The fact that the man rode his own horse led Ara to believe this Gorgen treated his Descendants better than many lords. Perhaps Ara could survive here yet. Cold hungry nights in the forest had actually made Ara miss the comforts of his tower bed.
The castle grounds were even more majestic than the view from outside. A maze of gardens stretched out before the castle, open for all to see and wander through. The people Ara passed were dressed in fine attire and rich floor-length dresses as if everyone was a noble. In the background, adding a soothing ambiance, was the constant splash of the waterfall that fell down the cliff face just outside the castle’s inner wall.
Ara was taken into the castle and led into a large room on the first floor. The walls were lined with portraits of stout subjects. Ara guessed these were the lords and ladies of the castle over the years. He felt for the artists who had to interpret their likeness.
“Stay here while I summon Lord Gorgen,” the armored guard ordered. Then he hurried off, excited to personally report their find to Lord Gorgen. With him gone, and the Descendant off to tend the horses, Ara was left alone with Semus.
“How is it you are here now?” Ara asked the gardener in a low voice.
“Castle Carmine is no more,” Semus said. “The Highfather’s men seized the place and took what they wanted. Everyone left. When Lord Gorgen offered to take me on as his house gardener, we transported what we could from Carmine’s garden and began again here.”
Castle Carmine, the assassin attack. It seemed so long ago.
“What of you?” Semus asked in a low whisper. “How did you escape? There were rumors, but no one knew for sure what had become of you.”
Ara didn’t know how much to tell or how much to trust the man. Semus seemed to understand this for he shook his head as if dismissing the question. “Probably best not to say,” he said. “But tell me this much at least. Is Master Briton still alive?”
The thought of Briton made Ara stop. He clutched his wounded hand to his chest, picturing those piercing blue eyes that seemed to wink even while staring directly at you. There was genuine concern on Semus’s face. Briton had meant something to this man, as well.
“Yes,” Ara said.
Semus smiled with relief. “That old bat. I knew he had it in him.”
They were interrupted when the doors swung open. An overly obese man in a purple shirt with gold lacing tottered into the room. He had sagging eyes and a wide nose that rested above his two, sometimes three chins. Ara had never seen so fat; he felt sorry for the lord’s flattened shoes. Lord
Gorgen raised a wrinkly brow at the sight of Ara as if he hadn’t believed his guard’s report was true.
The guard at his heels pointed to Ara. “Lord Gorgen, I give you the magic Descendant boy.”
“Magic Descendant boy?” Gorgen said with skepticism.
“Well, that is what they call him,” the guard backtracked, no longer as confident. “Semus identified him. He’s the one who claims to—”
“That will be all,” Gorgen said, cutting the man off with a thick hand. “Leave us.”
The guard hesitated but one look from Gorgen and both he and Semus exited the room. Semus gave Ara one final look before he left, but Ara couldn’t interpret its meaning. The doors shut, leaving Ara alone with Lord Gorgen.
“Welcome to House Gorgen,” the round man said. “I cannot imagine what you have been through these past months.”
Gorgen waited for the boy to react, but Ara said nothing.
“Do you have a name, boy?” he asked.
“My name is Ara.”
“Ara, very good. Well, Ara, I’m glad you made it safely to my castle. I must admit, when I heard you had gone missing, I sent some men of my own to look for you. I’d hoped they would find you before the Temple guards, though I didn’t think it possible.” Gorgen nodded to the closed door and rolled his eyes. “Especially not someone like Duncan.”
“He didn’t find me. The river brought me here.”
Gorgen looked Ara over. “What happened to your arm?”
Ara raised the injured arm. It still stung though it had stopped bleeding and begun to scab over. “A bloodhound.”
A worried spread across the folds of Gorgen’s face. “The Temple guards? Are they nearby?”
“I lost them somewhere up the river.”
“The wound still looks bad,” his brow drooped into a frown. “I thought with your good blood you could heal from anything?”
“When my strength is gone, it takes longer to heal. I’ve had no food or rest.” Ara didn’t know why he was explaining this. Perhaps the pain made him delirious. He wanted so bad to be off his feet that he considered lying down right there on the marble floor.
“Then I will see that you get both. And I’ll send over my Curor to look after your arm.”
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