“Should we help them?” asked Kerys.
Ari shook his head, as much to tell her no as to shake off his lingering guilt over making the practical decision to look after the people he cared about.
“We need to get out of here,” said Ari. “Let’s head for the gate leading to the rest of the city. We can slip through once they’re distracted.”
Ari grabbed Kerys by the hand and pulled her along with him. Eva followed, but Rin hesitated, looking back toward the Baron’s mansion.
“I need to find Leyehl,” said Rin. “I’ll catch up with you, chala.”
There was no time to argue, though Ari suspected he wouldn’t have been able to talk her out of it even if there had been. He nodded to her and fell into step alongside Eva, pulling Kerys to make sure she kept in step.
“Hey!” shouted one of the guards, as they passed. “Those are the prisoners! The ones that murdered the Baron!”
Ari squeezed Kerys’ hand and pulled along, breaking into a sprint and trying to pull her past the guard and toward the gate. They were within paces of it when Kerys let out a shrill, intense scream.
Ari slid to a stop, feeling confused as the pressure of her hand suddenly felt slack against his. He turned around, and felt his heart sink in a mixture of horror and disbelief.
Kerys was on the ground, blinking and staring in utter shock at the bleeding stump where her hand had once been. The guardsman’s sword had cut clean through her arm, separating the appendage just above the wrist. Blood spurted out from the gory wound, dripping onto both her dress and the cobblestone.
Ari didn’t think. He rushed toward the guard, who’d pulled his sword up in preparation for another strike. Seizing his hands as the blade came down, Ari twisted, stripping the weapon from the man’s grip.
He saw red as he attacked, hacking into the man and thinking of nothing other than how he’d hurt, how he’d maimed Kerys. The only thing he wanted, at that moment, was raw, bloody vengeance, and that was what he got.
And yet still, it wasn’t enough. He heard Eva saying something. She’d helped Kerys to her feet and torn loose a scrap of her skirt to cover her gushing wound. Ari couldn’t make out the words. He stared at her, feeling for their bond, feeling for all of his frustration, anger, and bloodlust, and doing the only thing that seemed to make sense. He pushed it toward her.
Eva gasped, her entire body quivering as she received a glimpse of what Kerys’ pain had done to Ari. She blinked, and when her eyes reopened, they were shining with a cold, blue light. She let go of Kerys and began walking toward what remained of the guardsmen, half of whom had moved to surround Ari and his companions, while the rest continued battle against the fishers.
It was only then that he realized the foolishness of what he’d just done. Ari moved to Kerys’ side, supporting her and covering her wound. Eva blurred as she rushed toward the guards, like an arrow loosed from a bow on a death trajectory.
She had no weapon, but of course, that wasn’t a problem for her. She was a weapon, one that Ari had inadvertently set loose on a group of men who were only doing their job. She killed the first one bare-handed, spinning behind him and sweeping an arm around his neck before twisting and snapping his spine.
The second was smart enough to come at her with his sword in an offensive stance. Eva dodged under his first sweep, caught hold of his wrists, and turned the blade back on him, forcing the edge down into his shoulder.
“Eva!” shouted Ari.
He reached a hand out and summoned her to him. He felt her resisting, focusing instead on the next guard she’d set her eye on. Ari watched her sweep the man off his feet with a low kick before moving to stomp his face into the cobblestone twice in quick succession.
“Enough!” shouted Ari. “Eva, stop!”
He poured that same force of will he used before into summoning her, issuing the command with all the intensity he could muster. Eva hesitated midstep before flashing with light, disappearing and reappearing in his hand.
“Aristial…” muttered Kerys. “I’m… scared.”
“It’s okay!” he said, in a loud, shaky voice. “It’s going to be okay!”
Ari sheathed Azurelight and pulled Kerys close to him. The remaining guards were giving them a wary berth, though he was still fully aware of the danger of the fishers as he ushered her forward outside the gate.
The city outside of the Noble Quarter was a skeleton of the one that Ari had first been introduced to. There were no people in the streets, only fishers, though not as many as Ari had feared. The wall and thick cobblestone streets went a long way to keeping the monsters from getting in, be it from the outside, or emerging from the ground.
In the same vein, the people who lived in the majority of the city were used to storms. They weren’t out on the street, and they were familiar enough with the danger to barricade themselves in their houses. In some ways, it almost seemed to Ari as though the poorer quarters of the city were better off overall than the nobles, like weapons proven through use and battle that outperformed untested, freshly forged swords.
He moved as quickly as Kerys was capable of, keeping to alleys and side streets that he hoped were narrow enough to deter the monsters. Kerys was shivering from the cold and moaning in pain, and there was so much blood. It oozed out over the fingers of the hand Ari held over her wound. Only the adrenaline let him stay focused, along with the knowledge that if he didn’t keep her moving, the blood loss would kill her as certainly as any monster or enemy.
“It’s going to be okay,” whispered Ari. “Kerys! I promise it’s going to be okay.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t even seem like she could hear him, and there was a good chance that she was deep enough in shock for that to be exactly the case. Ari kept her moving, trying to keep from worrying while simultaneously thinking too fast to keep up with himself.
How far was it back to the Traveler’s Guild Inn? Would Durrien open the door for him? Who was the man that he killed? Did he have a family that he’d been thinking of as Ari had cleaved him down with his own sword? What about the men Eva had killed? What about Kerys? Where would they go? What would they do once Marshal Luka began searching for them?
A man ran by the mouth of the alleyway Ari was moving through, screaming at the top of his lungs. A fisher followed, speeding by with a hiss and a blur of flailing tentacles. Ari counted to five before continuing forward, shivering from the cold, constant deluge of soaking rain.
It went on like that for what felt like an eternity, with Ari only stopping to hug Kerys close to him and make sure that he was still holding the makeshift bandage in the right spot. He only let go of her when they were outside the door to the Traveler’s Guild Inn, and only for long enough to hammer his fist on the door to knock.
Durrien opened it for them after half a minute, immediately stepping back to allow them entry when he saw the state they were in. The inn’s tavern room was warm and safe, and it was then, by the light of the lamps and the fire, that Ari got his first properly illuminated look at Kerys and her injury.
She was missing her hand. He’d known that. He’d seen her right after it had happened, but staring into the bloodied, horrific stump that her arm now ended in was a shocking, nauseating experience. Her skin was pale white from the blood loss, and the expression on her face was blank despite her soft, melodious whimpering.
“She needs a healer!” shouted Durrien. “Stay here! I’ll run down the street and get Amber!”
“I… I’ll go too,” said Ari.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped Durrien.
“I should… guard outside then,” he said. “Or at least watch for Marshal Luka and his—”
Durrien slapped him hard enough across the face to make the cut on his lip reopen. Ari fell back a step, bumping into one of the chairs next to the bar counter.
“Pull yourself together, lad!” shouted Durrien. “She needs you close right now, and you need to keep your wits about you! Carry her upstair
s and keep pressure on the wound. It’s all you can do now…”
The old innkeeper didn’t wait to see if Ari was heeding his instructions before hurling himself out the door and into the dangers of the storm and night. Ari took a shaky breath, blinking away a few drops of warm rain rolling down his cheeks.
Warm rain, he thought to himself. Yeah, that’s what it was.
CHAPTER 55
Ari did as Durrien had instructed, carrying Kerys upstairs as gently as he could and setting her down in an empty room. He kept the makeshift bandage held to her stump, doing his best to ignore how he could feel the bone shard through the cloth, and the way the remaining skin flaps were so thin and so sticky with blood.
He cradled her head with his free arm and gently ran a hand through her hair. He’d seen Kerys’ mother do the same thing once before in the Hollow, when she’d taken a hard fall and injured herself while playing with the other children. The thought brought the rest of her family to mind, and he couldn’t help but picture the desperate faces of her father and brothers when they’d begged him to look after her.
He was ashamed, and it wasn’t something he could dismiss as an overreaction this time. He was a fool for bringing Kerys into such a dangerous situation without thinking the full range of potential consequences through. He’d trusted people without thinking, he’d overestimated his own abilities, and most importantly, he’d ignored the truth that had been staring him in the face the entire time.
He’d been taking her for granted. Assuming that he’d be able to protect her or teach her to fight with the same dependable ferocity as Eva. Or that he’d make her enchanted equipment to insulate her from the violence intrinsic to the world they lived in.
“Mud and blood,” he whispered. “Kerys. I am so sorry. This… is my fault.”
She didn’t say anything. Her eyes were still open, but she didn’t see him, only shivered and whimpered from what must have been just too much pain for her to rightly bear.
Durrien returned with Amber after about ten minutes, though every second of that time had felt like an hour to Ari. He only stepped back from Kerys when Durrien took him by the shoulders and gently, but insistently pulled him away from her side.
“Damn,” muttered Amber. “Yeah, it’s a good thing that you came to get me.”
“Please…” said Ari. “Help her. However you can.”
“That’s the plan.” Amber crouched down next to where Kerys was lying on the bed, investigating the injury and the amount of spilled blood on the sheets with clinical detachment. After a few seconds, she frowned and shook her head.
“This is a clean cut,” she said. “She didn’t lose her hand to a fisher attack, did she?”
Ari hesitated, stopping himself an instant before admitting that it had been one of the Marshal’s guardsmen. Amber was too perceptive, however, judging from the way her brow immediately furrowed.
“No,” said Amber. “This is far too dangerous for me. I’d be executed as a collaborator by the Baron for helping one of his enemies.”
“The Baron is dead,” said Ari, deciding that the truth might at least knock her enough off balance for him to lie to her. “Poisoned. The Marshal thinks it was someone at the mansion tonight, and his men began attacking some of the guests when they tried to flee. Kerys and I included.”
It was a version of the truth, though one that Amber didn’t seem to believe in the slightest. She shook her head and stood up.
“Forget it,” she said. “Even if that’s true, I’d still be putting myself at risk by associating with you.”
“Please!” shouted Ari. “Please…”
He fell to his knees in front of her, groveling at her feet, completely defeated.
“Whatever you want!” he shouted. “I’ll give you anything. My money! The jewels in my pack! Anything!”
He threw both at her, pulling open his pack to get at the jewels and his coin purse. Amber glared at him and started to move around him, only stopping when she drew near his pack. She wrinkled her nose and sniffed several times.
“Is that…” She crouched and pulled out Ari’s stash of sarkin flower. “Is this… what I think it is?”
Ari snatched it out of her hand. “Help Kerys first.”
Amber hesitated and then nodded. She muttered something under her breath and shook her head, but dutifully began pulling the tools of her trade out of her satchel. Durrien came to his side and set a hand on his shoulder.
“Let’s head downstairs,” said Durrien. “We can talk in the tavern room.”
“No,” said Ari. “I should—”
“Lad,” said Durrien. “If someone or something comes in through the door, would you rather fight them down there or up here in this tiny room?”
Ari couldn’t argue against that. He followed Durrien out of the room and tried to unclench his cramped fingers. Durrien sat him down at the bar and went around to the other side to pour them each a mug of beer from one of the kegs.
“Drink it.”
Ari shook his head. Durrien pushed the mug close to him.
“Drink the beer and tell me what happened,” he said, in a voice equal parts commanding and comforting.
Ari explained what had happened as best as he could, which was a lot more jumbled and scrambled than it would have normally been. His emotions kept getting in the way. The fear of losing Kerys, most of all, made the entirety of the past few hours feel like trying to describe a nightmare while he was still in the process of sleeping through it.
“Do you know where Rin is?” asked Durrien.
“What?” Ari shook his head. He hadn’t thought about her since she’d split off from them in the Noble Quarter. “No, I don’t.”
Amber came back downstairs right as Ari was forcing down the last of the beer. Her expression had a somber quality to it, though it only poked out around the edges of her stiff, professional demeanor.
“I cleaned the wound and stitched it, along with putting on some healing resin and tight bandages,” said Amber. “The bleeding has stopped, but she’ll be in a lot of pain, and I’ll still have to cut away some of the flesh if it starts to decay over the next few hours.”
“Is she awake?” asked Ari. “We can’t stay here. Marshal Luka is going to be looking for us.”
“No, she’s not, and no, she shouldn’t be traveling right now,” said Amber. “She needs rest. Not minutes or hours, but days or weeks. Traveling with her right now, during a storm, no less, will get her killed.”
“We don’t have a choice,” said Ari. “The Marshal—”
“Will be looking for you, Rin, and Leyehl,” said Durrien. “I’m sure he’ll keep an eye out for Kerys, but I doubt she poses the same threat in his mind that you do, given how small her role was.”
“What are you saying?” asked Ari.
Durrien sighed. “I’m saying that you can, and probably should, take flight. Kerys should stay here.”
Ari was already shaking her head. “Even if that’s true, I can’t leave her! We’ve been together since the start. I have to protect her! Dormiar’s tears… I have to protect her.”
“Lad,” said Durrien. “She’ll be safer here. I was going to propose it to you if you decided to travel, even before this happened.”
“What if the Marshal figures out we stayed here and searches the place?” asked Ari.
“There’s a room downstairs that she can hide in,” said Durrien. “It’s where I plan on storing my kegs if the weather monsters ever attack the city in enough numbers to make me abandon my inn.”
“Also, I can dye her hair.” Amber gave a small, slightly guilty shrug. “It’s a service I’ve provided to people interested in disappearing before.”
“That won’t be enough,” said Ari. “Her hand! The Marshal will know it’s her if he sees the injury!”
Durrien’s face took on a somber tone.
“Will he, lad?” he asked. “It sounds like you and the sword woman killed most of those who witnessed what happened u
p close.”
Eva. Ari had been so worried about Kerys that he’d all but forgotten about her for the past hour. He set a hand on the hilt of Azurelight and leaned his head forward.
“What do you think?” he whispered. “Does this make sense? Leaving Kerys here at the inn?”
Ari waited. No response came. He gripped the hilt of the sword a little tighter.
“Eva,” he said, jiggling it from side to side. “Eva!”
It was more than her choosing to stay silent. The sword felt lifeless and dormant, lacking the warmth and magical presence that he’d grown so familiar with in his time as its wielder. This time, it wasn’t just Eva choosing to stay quiet. His intuition, his gut, his entire being screamed that it was something more.
“Mud and blood!” hissed Ari, through gritted teeth. He drew the sword and hurled it across the room. The blade let out a shrill whine as it bounced off the wall and clattered to the floor in front of the fireplace.
“Ari…” said Durrien.
“Promise me!” shouted Ari, “Promise me that you’ll protect her.”
“I promise,” said Durrien. “I have a daughter who was around her age when she… left.” The old man winced and shook his head, hesitating before speaking again. “They looked pretty similar to each other. I doubt anyone will even bat an eye if I passed Kerys off as her for the time being.”
Ari brought his hand to his lips as he nodded, not wanting to risk giving voice to the sound that wanted to come out of his mouth.
“I’ll also do what I can,” said Amber with a shrug. “I don’t have much choice now, it seems. If she gets caught, the Marshal will make assumptions about who helped her during her recovery.”
Ari nodded, but he stayed where he was. It felt almost like if he just didn’t move, he could stop time, or perhaps even turn it back and get a second chance at keeping his word and keeping Kerys safe properly. He stayed where he was, only coming to the present moment when thunder intermingled with shouted voices outside the inn’s walls.
Vision Voyage (The Weatherblight Saga Book 2) Page 33
