Damon forced a chuckle that he really didn’t feel. “You still haven’t given up on that?”
“The timing was wrong before,” said Wrath. “That was all. Won’t it be so nice? You’ll be old, maybe even fat, and you’ll get this pretty, ruthless girl, and… you’ll…”
She coughed, spitting up blood. “Do it, Damon. I’m… begging you. Kill me, you bastard.”
She closed her eyes, and she wasn’t going to open them again, and it was only a question of whether she died and gave her power to Seffi, as she’d warned him about, or died at someone’s hand. His hand.
He killed her, gently, sadly, savagely, by squeezing her neck. Holding his hands closed while letting his tears fall openly. He stayed with her as she died, trying to focus on the logic of her request while also hating her for asking him to do it. Despising himself for being capable, ready, on some level willing, to do it.
It didn’t matter how many times he told himself that she would come back and reincarnate eventually, as good as new. True Divine, she was a demigod. She might already have been reborn within some unsuspecting mother’s womb.
He didn’t care. It didn’t matter. She was dead on the table in front of him, and he loved her.
“Clara…” he muttered. “I wish I’d never met you. But more than that… I think I already miss you.”
His hands were shaking as he finally stood up and let himself be in the moment. He was a fool, the king of fools. They’d gambled everything and lost everything. Wrath, Gabriel… Malon.
Vel sat in the corner of the room, not in a chair, but on the floor. She had her knees pulled in to her chest and wept softly, her nose running with an ugly smear of snot that went all the way down to her chin.
She looked up as Damon walked over, and it took everything he had not to break down and join her in the depths of that despair.
“Damon…” she said, in a trembling voice. “You’re… bleeding.”
He looked down at himself, blinking in surprise at the amount of blood. “Ah. No, it’s from…”
He bobbed his head toward Clara’s body, not having the composure to articulate the words. Vel looked as though she hadn’t heard him, or perhaps was just too overwhelmed by the rest of their situation to be relieved at such a small thing.
“Aesta,” she said. “She was… She… Damon, what are we going to do?”
He honestly didn’t know. True Divine, he didn’t have anything even slightly resembling a reasonable plan, nothing that Vel could pack her hopes into and ship them forward to better times.
“We’ll save her,” he muttered, with no energy. “We’ll find a way.”
He slumped down next to Vel. He wanted to pull her into a hug, but he was still covered in so much blood that he didn’t dare touch her. He felt impotent twice over as she began to sob harder, unable to comfort her, unable to solve anything. She did her best to hold the sound of it in, but there was no hiding that much pain.
He could still see Veridas Keep outside the inn’s window, floating in the air and cocooned in evil crimson energy like a second moon. The power it must have taken to pull the feat off was so unreal, so immeasurable, that he began to outright shake his head as he considered how much of a barrier it would be to saving his aesta.
Seffi, Lascivious, had killed and taken the power of at least two Forsaken, Conceit and Avarice. There was also the possibility that Avarice and Conceit had already eliminated Famine, in which case Damon couldn’t rule out the possibility that Lascivious had also inherited Famine’s power secondhand.
Just to handle Avarice and Conceit had required an alliance between two other Forsaken, along with opportune timing, Damon’s myrblade, and a preemptive deal with Avarice’s crest sorcerer to stand down. What would it take in order to defeat Lascivious now that she’d become so powerful?
He became nauseous as he thought about what it would mean if he couldn’t. She had his aesta as a slave. At best, he’d never see Malon again. At worst, she’d become a plague upon Veridan’s Curve, enforcing Lascivious’s whims and will with ruthless efficiency. He saw her again in his mind, her eyes burning with crimson, hair fluttering free as she channeled Lascivious’s corrupted power.
“Damon.” Kastet’s voice broke his pitying reverie like a rock through the ice on a lake. “We need to talk about what comes next.”
She was pale and slightly frazzled, but otherwise unaffected by the events of the evening. Damon could see a faint rim of red around her eyes, so at the very least, she’d spared a few moments in one of the inn’s back rooms to mourn for her brother.
“I have to get to my aesta,” he said. “I have to… figure something out.”
“It isn’t that simple.” Kastet crouched in front of where he sat, holding his bloody hands. “Damon. Look at me. We may have suffered great losses today… but we didn’t fail in our mission entirely. Avarice is dead, and I am now the rightful Queen of Merinia.”
“What… are you even saying?” He shook his head slowly. “Kastet, how can you think like that right now?”
“My brother is dead, Damon,” she said solemnly. “I don’t have a choice. This responsibility, this burden, is mine to carry now. I will do my duty. I’m asking, no, offering you a chance to do yours.”
There was something that Damon didn’t like in Kastet’s expression. A hardness of a sort, every movement controlled, every word considered. She cared about him. He knew that and wouldn’t deny it, but in that tense instant, he caught a familiar glimpse of her dark cunning. She did care about him, but she also appreciated him as a weapon.
“Come with me,” said Kastet. “We’ll return to Hearthold, all four of us. I’ll push through your clemency as soon as I’m on the throne. Your name will be cleared. You’ll have money, whatever titles you want. Perhaps there’s even a way we could reach out to your aesta through political means, if Lascivious is willing to listen.”
“Damon…” Vel drew closer to him from where she’d been listening to their conversation. “She might be right. What else can we do here on our own?”
“You have so much power, Damon,” said Kastet. “Not just with your sword, but with your will. Your confidence. What happened today is a tragedy, but one which I’m sure we all can find a way to move past eventually.”
Damon closed his eyes. He had a headache on top of numerous other small, accumulated injuries. He wished Ria were there, with them. He would have given anything for her opinion, if only to judge his own impulsive and willful ideas against.
“There’s something outside,” said Lilian.
“Something?” asked Kastet.
“This… this is bad.” Lilian’s face was as pale as it got as she glanced back at the rest of them.
Damon stood up and joined her at the window, peering out at the moonlit road. True enough, there was… something out there. It was impossible to tell exactly what in the dark, but he could make out at least one chilling detail.
A pair of glowing red eyes.
CHAPTER 38
Damon’s initial thought was that Malon or Seffi had followed them, intent on forcing an end to the encounter, whatever it might entail. He let go of that notion as he stepped out into the night and drew close enough to the figure in the dark to get a sense of its posture.
It was hunched forward, a shambling, man-shaped hulk. No, not just man shaped. It was a man… but it also wasn’t. It was moving toward Damon with too much intensity, stumbling forward while making hissing noises and contorting its muscles.
As it stepped out from the shadow of the trees, Damon saw it in more detail under the ghost moon’s eerie green light. It, he, was a traveler, dressed in a loose tunic, riding britches, and leather boots. Damon drew his myrblade, but resolved to make an attempt at communication.
“Are you alright?” he called. “What’s happened to you?”
The man let out a snarl, and it was only then that Damon noticed the gash in the side of his neck. There was no possible way a living person could survive
such a wound. It reminded him of the horror stories Malon would occasionally read him, where evil men would die and arise again as undead revenants.
“Damon, there’s more of them!” screamed Vel.
He turned, catching sight of two more sets of crimson eyes nearby in the dark. He brought his sword up, walking backwards in hopes of making it into the inn. How could this be possible? He could believe that Seffi had the power to make such monsters, but had she sent these ones after them specifically, or…
Or were they already seeded across Avaricia and the region surrounding it? Had she sent down a nightmare of a spell to dispense her dark justice in a fit of misdirected anger?
“Get back inside the inn,” he said. “Lilian, don’t open the door for anyone other than me. And watch the windows.”
“Damon!” cried Vel. “I don’t like this.”
“Neither do I,” he said. “True Divine… Neither do I.”
The first revenant was already close to being upon him. Damon dodged its initial lunge, noting the way it bared its fingers like claws in lieu of being unarmed. It was faster than it should have been, as though whatever magic or curse it had been imbued with brought out the best of each muscle.
But Damon was a swordsman, and a good one. He easily cut one of the revenant’s legs out from under it, rendering the limb useless for essentials like standing and walking. The monster fell with a wet grunt, landing with the thump of an unthinking pile of meat. It immediately continued dragging itself toward Damon, eyes burning with crimson evil.
He stepped away from it, searching the night for the two others he’d spotted. There were three of them, now, another monster joining the others from somewhere unseen. Damon wasted no time in cutting them down, though seeing the faces of the people they’d once been gave him pause.
An older man, gray in the hair, fat in the belly, probably with grandkids somewhere in the world. A young woman with dark hair adorned with multicolored ribbons. A knight in chainmail, missing most of one of his hands, but still tall and imposing in height and weight.
He wiped his myrblade off when it was done and hurried back into the inn. Kastet, Lilian, and Vel waited nervously by the door.
“I can’t leave it like this,” he said, shaking his head. “I have to go back. I have to face her.”
“Are you a fool?” snapped Kastet. “After what you just saw?”
“Damon…” Vel grabbed Damon’s arm, looking as though she was about to cry.
“If Lascivious has taken this approach to Veridan’s Curve, how can you expect that you can attempt to reason with her?” asked Kastet. “You won’t accomplish anything beyond getting yourself killed.”
Damon didn’t have an answer, but it didn’t change what he needed to do. He couldn’t run, not from this.
“Someone’s coming down the road,” said Lilian.
“More of the monsters?” Vel grabbed Damon’s arm.
“No.” Lilian pointed to the window. “A carriage.”
Damon watched, expecting the carriage and its occupants to ride on by. He watched in a mixture of surprise and general wariness as it drew to a stop just outside the inn. A man with blond hair and a familiar golden sword climbed down from the driver’s seat and ran toward the door.
“Damon!” shouted Austine. “You still here?”
Lilian scowled but set her own feelings toward Austine aside as she let him in. Austine’s attention was immediately drawn to Wrath’s body on the table, and he set a hand on the hilt of his sword reflexively.
“It’s good to see you safe, Aust,” he said. “How did you find us?”
“Hard to miss you,” said Austine. “I don’t know many other people who can do what you can do with ice. I saw your little trick with the platform and marked where you landed, but I figured you’d be long gone given what’s happened to Avaricia.”
Damon exchanged glances with the others. “What, exactly, has happened to Avaricia?”
Despite having introduced the line of questioning, Austine seemed to struggle to find the words he needed. “Bad… It’s bad. If I’d known this was how things would end up, I don’t think I would have let you by me in Veridas Keep.”
His hand rose to rub the spot on his neck where his crest had once been. There was a patch of faded pink, but nothing compared to the brilliant gold symbol which had once adorned the skin.
“We didn’t know,” said Damon. “I didn’t know. It was as though Seffi… lost control as soon as Avarice and Conceit were dead.”
Seffi… and his aesta. It still hurt too much for him to think about the situation like that, with him on one side and Malon on the other.
“Red-eyed undead monsters started attacking people indiscriminately,” said Austine. “I could only think to get my wives out of the city, just as you’d said.”
“You did the right thing,” said Damon. “I need you to do a little more, though. Austine. Get them to safety.”
He nodded to Vel, Kastet, and Lilian. All three of them tried to object at once, but Damon kept his attention focused on Austine.
“Are you sure about this?” asked Austine. “There’s plenty of room in the carriage, even with my girls. You could escape with us, or follow along with your ice disk thing.”
Damon smiled sadly and shook his head. “Not this time.”
He withstood Kastet and Lilian’s protests by ignoring them, mostly. Kastet was the practical sort, and once it became clear to her that he wasn’t going to change his mind, she headed for the carriage.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said. “I’ll be in Hearthold if… when… you change your mind.”
“Good luck,” said Damon. “Here’s to hoping you’re a proper queen the next time I see you.”
Kastet gave him a grim smile and stood by the door.
“Be careful,” said Lilian. She kissed him on the lips and squeezed his shoulder, her claws digging just deep enough to be affectionate, rather than aggressive.
“I will,” he said. “Keep everyone safe.”
Vel lingered behind as the others began loading into the carriage. Damon caught sight of Austine’s wives, none of whom he’d met properly before, making room for Kastet and Lilian. He was about to make a dumb joke to Vel about Avarician marriage laws when he saw her expression, tears welling in her eyes. She started to shake her head.
“Please, Damon,” she whispered. “Don’t do this.”
“You need to remember to reach out to Ria,” he said. “As hard as it might be to sleep during this, you have to try. You’re the only one who can. She needs to know what’s going on.”
“Come with us, Damon,” said Vel. “Please…”
“I can’t,” he said. “Vel. Look at me.”
He took her in his arms and cupped her face, wiping away one of the trails of her tears with his thumb. He tried to project confidence he wasn’t feeling, tried to put on the face of a man who felt certain he was doing the right thing.
“You’ll die if you go,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Please, just trust me,” she said. “I somehow just… know it. You can’t do this, Damon. I feel so horrible not having confidence in you, but this is just too much! For anyone other than one of the Forsaken. Please… please…”
She kept repeating that word over and over. Damon wrapped her in his arms, giving her a tight, reassuring squeeze. He kissed the top of her head.
“We’ll see each other again,” he said. “I promise.”
He had to lead her to the carriage and all but lift her up into it. Kastet and Lilian made room for her, and it was reassuring to know she’d be in the safest hands available outside of his own.
He waved to the carriage as it disappeared down the road, silently wishing it a safe journey. They headed away from Avaricia, farther south along the coast. As long as they made it through the first hour or two of their journey without a serious encounter, they’d be alright. Vel would return to Hearthold with Kastet and Lilian and
have a chance at a peaceful life.
Damon repeated it like a mantra as he walked back toward the inn. He stared at Wrath’s body for a long, painful moment, and then got to work.
CHAPTER 39
Damon made sure the inn was as secure as it could be, and then drew his myrblade. He set the weapon out across one of the tables in the common room and sat down across from it.
Communing with Myr within her realm was easy for him now, taking only the passing brush of his will. This time, however, he approached it carefully, knowing he was about to confront a fact that he’d known and ignored for far too long.
Myr was waiting for him, as she always was. She looked like a more human version of an ice elemental, a beautiful woman embodied with both frozen, crystalline beauty and soft, living flesh.
The two remaining chains which held her twisted in an x shape across her chest, each one pulling taut diagonally over one of her breasts. Her dark blue hair didn’t hang completely straight, instead floating buoyantly as though she was underwater.
She had a sad, almost guilty look in her eyes. Damon waited to see if she’d speak first, but she’d always been politely meek in her role as his sword. Describing her like that seemed so diminishing, especially given what he now suspected to be true.
“Myr,” he said. “How are you?”
She shrugged her shoulders. Her hands were clasped together in front of her crotch. It seemed so girlish and silly that, naked as she currently was and had always been within her realm, she was concerned about covering up.
“We need to talk,” he said. “Myr. Where do I even start?”
“Do you… want to break another chain?” she asked.
“Yes, but…” He shook his head slowly. “Myr, you told me that you were an ice elemental, or something like one. I need you to be honest with me.”
“I was,” she whispered. “When I told you that, I thought it was true. My memory was still jumbled.”
“Is it still jumbled now?”
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