by Terah Edun
“You know no such thing,” Sara said as she stepped forward.
This time, however, Matteas’s attention was focused on her. Not her face, though. He was looking at her hands swinging free by her waist. She couldn’t blame him. In fact, she would have actually applauded the first bit of survival instinct she’d seen him display, if it hadn’t been directed at her.
She tightened her fingers into a fist as she let her emotions rise within her and, most importantly, she let him see. It was just a flicker. Barely there.
But even the tiniest hint of darkness in her eyes was enough to have Matteas flinching so sharply that the ruddy red in his cheeks blanched, again.
Sara let him hear the coldness in her voice as she said, “Let me be very clear. I don’t care if they kill you. I don’t care if they tear you apart with a pack of wild dogs. The only use you have for me is to get my father’s journals into my hands safely.”
“Your father wouldn’t want to hear you say that!”
Sara stepped forward. “Oh?” she said softly.
“Yes!” Matteas said. “Your father was a good man. A great leader. And he wouldn’t have threatened a person who came to him for aid—it was beneath his honor.”
Sara listened to him as he prattled on. He probably thought he was getting to her. That by calling up her father’s memory, he’d invoke her more feminine side. What he couldn’t know was that was the worst thing he could have done. But she played along.
Voice even, Sara asked, “So then my father would think I should help you? No matter what?”
“Yes,” Matteas said, not taking his gaze off her face for a moment. Like a mouse about to be devoured, he couldn’t look away from her. Sara didn’t disappoint him. She fed into his instincts. The instincts that said he should fear her on one hand…run to her for safety on the other.
Even Sara hadn’t been quite sure how she would play this moment up until now, but then she heard his response, heard him doubling down on what her father would do, as if he wasn’t at least partly responsible for the tarnished nature of her father’s legacy…if not his death itself. She wasn’t going to hide behind a cloud of serenity. Not this time.
“Sara?” Ezekiel said.
She flicked her gaze over to the scholar, but the worry on his face was about what she would do instead of what was coming for them from the outside, so she dismissed him. For the moment.
“You know,” Sara said as she moved her hands slowly to the front of her waist, “that’s really good to hear. I’m so used to hearing about what my father did to wrong this empire that knowing others thought of him as a role model is almost…a breath of fresh air.”
She turned to Ezekiel with a smile. “Wouldn’t you agree, Ezekiel? You know what kind of person most people think he was. A traitor to the crown. A coward in some eyes.”
Ezekiel’s dark eyebrows dipped down as he heard the hint of darkness in her tone. Still, his voice was steady as he replied, “Yes, we know now that he wasn’t, and with those journals, we’ll prove it to the empire, Sara.”
“Yes, we will,” Sara said confidently as she turned back to the person in question with a broad grin. “Won’t we?”
Matteas nodded enthusiastically from where he had managed to protectively wedge himself behind his chair. He wasn’t quite crouched down, but he was close to doing so as he leaned over the chair, gripping the high back tightly. She wasn’t sure if he meant to try to use it as a weapon against her, but it would certainly be amusing to see him try. As his chin fat wobbled, he gave her an uncertain look. Sara knew then that he would have said whatever it was she wanted to hear at that point. Because she could tell from his beady little eyes that he had finally realized that he was in hot water, but how much—oh, even he couldn’t guess.
“Good,” Sara said. “So, first things first…you tell us exactly where you left those journals and under what conditions. From there, we can move on to how we’ll get there, as well.”
4
If Matteas wanted to object to any of her edicts, well—he wasn’t foolish enough to say anything.
Instead, he began talking, and Sara realized just how much effort he had put into being as invisible and unseen as possible. To get from the grasslands territory to the edge of the Ameles forest, where the fabled institution resided, would take nothing less. She was finally getting the answers she needed, but as he spoke, Sara grew more frustrated than ever.
Her discontent this time had nothing to do with the darkness of the Berserker lurking inside her thoughts and everything to do with the fact that she had to come to realize that her father’s confidant was more than just a slovenly idiot…in fact, it seemed he was a bit of a maverick. At least in regard to his actions immediately after the execution was ordered. There was no other way to categorize what he’d done to hide her father’s journals. And it was that deceptive brilliance that lent an unquietness to her psyche.
As she stared down at him on the floor, Sara was trying to separate what she knew about the man before her and what she suspected. It was turning out to be as hard as peeling the layers from an onion without disturbing the next layer or…distressing her. Because she didn’t want to admire him. She also didn’t want to protect him. And what he had done didn’t change who he was now. Still, she did recognize that below the layers of cowardice and fear was intelligence, maybe even a backbone.
And those particular traits of Matteas’s nature were just the tip of the iceberg. An iceberg that she’d never imagined her father relying on, let alone with such an important task. Still, that didn’t answer the question in her heart—why he was so trusted.
Why, Father? Why him? Sara thought as she bit her lip.
It was as good a question as any, but unless the man who’d sired her came back from the dead, he had no intention of answering her. Which was fine; Sara could get her answers herself. Even if it meant breaking into the strongest fortress of mages on this side of the Sahalia Sea.
Deciding for the moment that she at least had enough information to start her journey, Sara turned away with determination as she walked back to the front of the tent and prepared to go outside. She wanted to scout a way out and through this hail of fire, because unfortunately she had the feeling they couldn’t stay here much longer. Making a split-second decision, she told Ezekiel “Hold this.”
Then she gave him her sword.
She didn’t like being unarmed, but in this case, a longsword would do little good against a hail of arrows, and she just needed to go out and come back in quickly.
Simple. Effective. So with her mind on being seen as little as possible, she stepped out of the non-existent safety posed by the thin fabric walls of the tent as she eased alongside the front, trying to keep a keen eye on their surroundings and the area directly ahead.
Yes, they were being attacked from above, but there was no telling who or what was using the aerial assault as a distraction. A distraction she couldn’t afford to be caught off guard by, not now that she had finally found the keeper of her father’s journals.
Craven though he was.
So when she saw someone darting furtively on her perimeter, her eyes went wide. She watched as he kept to the shadows of the tents that stood surrounding her and made good use of the blasts in the distance—darting forward as hale soldiers shouted and began running in the opposite direction—towards the presumably dazed and wounded. If Sara didn’t have another mission, she would have been among the rescuers who were trying to go and help.
But just as she had another purpose, it seemed so did the hooded stranger.
He was trying to not be seen.
But he hadn’t counted on her, as he came close enough that she knew he wouldn’t be able to dart out of her way, Sara jumped out of the shadows and yelled, “You, stop right there!”
To her surprise, he did.
Then he turned to her, winked, and took off like a rabbit.
Sara, however, was in no mood for games. She rushed after him and away
from the tent, and as he ran around this tent and that burned out wagon, several baffled mercenaries called out after her but she didn’t have time to explain and wasn’t even sure if she could if they asked anyway!
She just knew she had to catch that man before he did his vanishing act again and left her more questions than answers a second time.
She tackled him in a desperate rush.
Sitting atop him, Sara pinned his arms back and shouted in his face, “Who are you?”
He stopped struggled and looked up at her calmly. His hair was in disarray and his eyes sparked with mischief, but more discerning was the grin on his face.
“So you found me, Fairchild?” he said easily.
Sara stiffened and leaned back but didn’t get off his chest; she had him just where she wanted him. Now that they were this close she could see his amethyst eyes more clearly, and they were taunting her with the amusement he held in his gaze.
Jerking away from his visual hold, she tried to keep her focus.
“Yes, I found you…you sneaky bastard,” Sara said in a furious whisper. “Now tell me who you are. What do you want with me? Why are you following me?”
He tilted his head, “Well, I wouldn’t call happening to be in the same area, at relatively the same time, following you.”
“Bullshit,” Sara said without thinking. “This isn’t some city market where you and I both happened to be buying lentils one day. We’re at war man, and I’ve seen you before. Now answer me or answer the guard.”
He shrugged as much as he could while pressed into the ground and more loud blasts sounded overhead. This time closer than she liked to admit.
She had to get him off to the guard and she had to get back to Ezekiel and Matteas before they did something stupid, like make a run for it directly into the next wave of attack.
Meanwhile, the stranger answered her question with a quip as he said, “Well, if I was looking for you, I don’t think this is quite the scenario I was going for.”
He shifted underneath her but not enough to displace her. In fact, Sara had the oddest feeling that he was trying to get comfortable.
Teeth bared in a vicious look she snapped at him, “Stop that!”
“What? Moving?” he asked, doing it again.
She narrowed her eyes in frustration, “That and that.”
“What?” he said innocently.
She let out a frustrated breath. “Acting like you know me.”
“I do know you,” he said with a confident look.
Lowering his voice to a whisper, he said, “But if you must know…”
Interrupting him, Sara said, “Stop whispering, I can barely hear you!”
Not even bothering to raise his voice level, he said, “Well, I would, but there are soldiers coming.”
She flicked her eyes over at the sound of footsteps, surprised he’d been telling the truth. He used that moment to get the upper hand and flipped her over so fast that she didn’t have time to make sure he couldn’t.
As she leapt for him in a desperate gamble that was half knees and half outstretched arms, he laughed and danced back a bit. Taunting her almost.
Feeling furious but victorious at the same time, she quickly called out to the approaching soldiers for help. But they walked right past her…as if she wasn’t even there. The camp wasn’t in that much disarray. They had to see her.
But her raised, beckoning hand and shouts were ignored, and when she looked over to the stranger’s face, his mouth was pulled up in a mocking grin, and his eyes were once more dancing in mirth. He was actually standing so close to them that the passing soldiers could touch him, but none of the soldiers looked an inch in his direction. Or hers.
Her hands fisted into balls. She didn’t know how he was doing this. She didn’t even know who he was, but she did know this was his doing.
Then the scum winked at her and took off like the rabbit she was beginning to think he was sired from.
Cursing, Sara didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t let a stranger waltz around the camp unseen and unheard, so she took off after him.
And when she finally managed to catch him again, it took her a minute to realize that she had tackled him right where she had first spotted him.
In front of her tent.
Sara began tussling the strange man who was beginning to drive her insane.
She had the brief thought that she was struggling with a ghost as they rolled around on the ground trying to get the advantage over the other, but she quickly realized she’d met her match…at least in hand-to-hand combat.
Before she could pull out her knives and gain the upper hand, someone shouted, “Sara!”
She punched down heavy, and after she was sure she had at least stunned her opponent, she looked up to see Ezekiel stepping out of the tent looking at her as if she had done the same to him, and Matteas behind him had his head poking out between the fabric flaps with eyes wide.
“Don’t just stand there!” Sara shouted. “Get me some rope.”
Ezekiel blinked and then blinked some more.
“For the man you’re beating to a pulp on our doorstep?” he asked in a bemused voice.
Sara looked down at the stranger’s bloodied face and up again at Ezekiel.
“You can see him?” she asked astonished.
Ezekiel Crane’s eyebrows went up into his forehead as he asked warily, “Of course, can’t you?”
Sara groaned and said, “Just get the rope. It’s been a long ten minutes.”
He did as she bid while she tried to drag the struck down stranger into the privacy of her tent.
Before long, she’d managed to drag the compliant and dazed stranger into the tent confines between Matteas and Ezekiel, but neither had been able to find much in the way of rope. Just enough to bind his hands as she watched him with two weapons in hand, one carefully placed at his throat.
As she did so, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that Hillan was acting rather strange still. As soon as he’d gotten a good look at her catch of the day, he’d moved over to put the desk between him and the stranger and practically started quivering in his boots.
Sara dismissed him for what she already knew he was—half a man. Though she did have the reminder that once, when she’d thought that Hillan couldn’t get any more cowardly, she’d been wrong.
As she kicked the stranger experimentally, she heard Matteas squeak from the corner, “It’s you!”
The only reason she didn’t acknowledge him was because, oddly enough, those words were a perfect reflection of her own discovery just minutes before.
As he sat up with clear intelligence in his eyes, the purple-eyed mage slid his gaze over to Matteas Hillan with a smirk on his face. One that rapidly turned to a cold, thin-lipped gaze.
As if she wasn’t even there, the stranger assured Matteas, “Yes, it’s me, and I will be dealing with you shortly, my friend.”
Matteas turned ghostly pale as he yelped back, “I’m no friend of yours.”
Sara didn’t need Matteas words to tell he spoke the truth. The anger in the stranger’s voice alone was enough to tell her Matteas Hillan wouldn’t live to see another sunrise if she didn’t deal with this individual now.
So Sara turned the attention back onto herself with a hard slap to the stranger’s face.
Then the stranger laughed.
“You’re pretty cocky for a man who will soon be surrounded on all sides by Imperial Armed Forces, and they won’t take kindly to your presence,” she said glaring as she wiped a smear of dark mud from her cheek.
He chuckled. “You think those bumbling idiots scare me?”
“If they don’t, I should,” Sara challenged.
He choked back more laughter.
“That may be so,” he said softly. “But you’ve used a lot of your gift recently battle mage. You’re as weak as a kitten.”
“I’ll show you weak!” Sara snapped.
But she didn’t have time to so much as wound h
im before he was saying more words that stayed her hand.
“Too bad though,” the stranger said in speculation. “I’ve enjoyed getting to know you just a little bit so much. And between the effects of my magic and this next blast…I don’t think you’ll remember much.”
She didn’t have time to ponder what he by next. Instead, she said, “I don’t think you realize in just how much danger you are in. The minute the threat above is taken care of, you’re next.”
He smiled that satisfied grin and replied to her, “What makes you think that threat above wasn’t engineered by me?”
Before she even realized he was free, he stood up and the rope fell from his hands loosely. Then he was backing towards the tent flap with her following cautiously all the way.
“Stop,” she said in an authoritative voice.
“Or what? You’ll stab me?” the stranger asked playfully as Ezekiel carefully ducked behind her.
Then the stranger actually did stop, but it was only to raise his hand—palm up—from his lower thighs to his chest and she watched helplessly as a thick shield rose up from his feet following his movements.
Furious, Sara threw her sword with such strength that she was sure it would pierce his heart.
But it didn’t. There wasn’t enough speed. Instead, the weapon hit uselessly against an enormously strong personal shield, and she realized too late that he hadn’t pulled up that protection against her.
Then another Kade blast struck. But this one wasn’t outside the tent.
5
Horror rising in her throat like a spitball threatening to choke her, Sara tried to turn around even as she felt the blast throwing her off her feet.
She realized as she was airborne that they, she, had waited too long.
The enemy had come to them and the irony was…it was an impersonal Kade projectile volley that would take them all out.
Still, she yelled as loud as she could, even as the hot fire of the heat scorched her throat—she was telling Ezekiel and Matteas to run, run as fast and as far as they could. She didn’t know where the stranger was at this point, and she didn’t care.
