The Girl with the Scar (Dark Connection Saga Book 1)

by Stadler, William

  Jahn looked at the others suspiciously out of the corner of his eye and sighed. “I was uncertain until a short time ago, a few days after you turned yourself over to the Raiders at Winter Hills. That is when I heard the whisper in the wind, calling out for the Girl with the Scar.”

  Mindlessly, Eva touched the back of her neck, rubbing her finger over the tender wound.

  “He intends to use you as a weapon,” Wolf said, twisting one of his axes in his hand, staring at the blade. “Did you notice the golden light that shined underfoot as you and I fought off the Raiders?”

  “Before the Beast came?” she asked cautiously.

  Wolf nodded slowly. “When Jahn told me what he heard in the wind, I cannot say that I believed him.” He dragged his eyes up to Jahn and casually looked away. “I would have known. I should have known,” he corrected himself. “That night, it became clear.”

  Eva braced herself, sitting as still as a blade. Her breathing came in spurts through her partly opened lips, waiting.

  Jahn puffed his pipe. “The king is losing the war to the kingdoms of Manaval to the east and Yalosha to the south. His army is thinning. Why do you think that he has cut back on his resources?”

  “The Raiders seem as fierce as before,” Eva replied.

  Stasis stretched both of her legs out in front of her and leaned back on her palms. “The Raiders cannot extend beyond the boundary of Kalarn, and our king,” she rolled her eyes, “is looking to change that.”

  “Cannot extend beyond the boundary of Kalarn?” Eva mocked. “Have you not seen what the Raiders are capable of?”

  Jahn held the bowl of his pipe between his two fingers, letting it simmer. “Fifteen years ago, King Oden unleashed the Raiders into Kalarn, looking for the Girl with the Scar. I knew who you were, but I did not know why he wanted you.”

  “If the king’s army is thinning, then how is it that the Raiders are still such a strong force?” Eva asked.

  “Do not mistake the two forces, Madam Genie. The king’s army fights the foreign wars, and the Raiders fight the wars at home.” Jahn shook an aged finger at her. “The king’s army is thinning…not the Raiders.”

  “Besides,” Wolf replied, cutting his eyes from his blade to connect them with Eva’s, “the more they kill, the stronger they become.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” Eva said, remaining still, though her legs had fallen numb.

  “The Raiders are dead, or they used to be,” Stasis replied. “Each of them, citizens of Kalarn, killed without hope, empowered by the king to live once again.”

  The numbness seemed to traverse through all of Eva’s limbs. It made no sense. How could the dead be alive again? The questions pried open the deepest crevices of her mind, forcing themselves upon her to convince her of their truth.

  Perhaps this was why Dreyshore’s face had been as cold and blue as death when he slept. Perhaps this was why the Raiders did not eat or drink, nor did they need but a small amount of rest. Perhaps this was why when she had slain the man, black blood had dripped from him as thick as tar and as dark as midnight. Perhaps this was why she felt no shame when she struck him dead. “How can a man become alive again? And why are there no Raiders who are women or children, except for the Dark Queen?”

  Jahn fixed his beret, pressing it on his head to make it more stable. “There are women,” he said, matter-of-factly. “You have perhaps only seen the men, but the women are there, hidden underneath those devilish helms. As far as the children, that is an entirely different matter. Whenever the Raiders slay a child, or an elderly man for that matter, he returns not as he was, but he manifests himself at the age of the hope that was once within him.”

  Eva squinted, shaking her head, confused. “The age of his hope?” Did this have something to do with her decision to be bold? She had intended nothing by turning herself over to the Raiders except to save the lives of the innocent. No one needed to die on her account, not if there was something that she could do about it. She was unaware that her actions had rung out across Kalarn. Yet it did not matter. She wasn’t a fighter.

  “King Oden made a pact with a Wielder many years ago,” Wolf replied.

  Eva’s blank expression was replaced by still lips and a brow that did not move, hiding the emotion within her. Her mind settled back onto the question that had begun the conversation with the others, the question that stalked her for fifteen years. “Why is the king looking for me?”

  Jahn released a few more puffs before emptying his tobacco onto the dirt floor, stamping out the still simmering leaves with the toe of his sandal. “Madam Genie, you did not always have the seizures. I would presume that they began when you had five years, somewhere thereabouts,” he said, squinting and looking up to his right.

  “What started them?” she asked.

  “The Beast,” Jahn replied. “That Beast within you rages, listening, waiting to released.” Jahn’s eyes enlarged as he leaned his neck out. “It wants to get out.”

  Eva shivered, not sure if it was the Beast that had made her tremble or if it was her own fear.

  “The Wielder cursed you and Madam Jesekah when you were both babes. The Haunt,” Jahn said, nodding softly, “that is what the curse did to your…sister.” He puffed the word out with a sigh as deep as the seas.

  At first she thought that he had misspoke, or that she had misheard him. Sister? “What do you mean…sister?”

  Jahn shut his eyes, exposing his wrinkled and worn eyelids, as he gave a nod so heavy that he might have had stones tied about his neck.

  “What do you mean…sister?” she demanded. Her voice was harder this time, not willing to let a simple nod gloss over these wretched claims.

  “Lord Jesekah is your twin…your blood,” Jahn said, wringing his hands together, “through and through.”

  Through and through? What lies has this moon gazer convinced himself of? “That black snake is no sister of mine.” It came out as a chuckle, a head-shaking chuckle. Eva was from Green Planes, and the queen was from the king’s palace. They were separated by hills and rivers and mountains and hatred.

  But Jahn was not laughing. His fleshy, pink lips had folded into a frown, and his vein-lined eyes looked solemn and deep. He really believes this, she thought.

  “I wish to the gods it were not true, Madam Genie, and had I not been there to witness your birth, I might be inclined to believe otherwise.”

  She wasn’t laughing now. Her breaths came in spurts, and she could feel her body trembling, her anger flowing through her like a hot fire. “Kibitzers and games,” she scoffed. “This is my life. How can you find it within you to make a mockery of it?”

  Jahn coughed into his fist, deep and throaty. She expected his smug smile to follow, the one he had often shared over dinner or tea with her mother, the one that had poured coals on her head as she’d witnessed his antics. But it did not show. With his brow raised, his eyes were saturated with compassion, looking deep within her to touch her pain.

  But Maria is my mother, she wanted to say. Yet no words came out of her parted lips. Instead her mind wandered back to the years before, searching for gaps in her mind, evidence that she was Genevieve Solace, daughter of Elijah and Maria, sister to Edward. It felt right. As far back as she could recall she had been with them. Every story of them moving from one place to another to escape the raids had her in it.

  The raids. It came to her like thunder in the distance. All these years the king had sought for her, but why? How did he even know she existed…unless at some point she had gone missing? It can’t be true, she convinced herself. I am the daughter of Elijah and Maria, sister to Edward. Yet she looked nothing like Edward. He was handsome and strong and brave, and she was quite the opposite. But she looked nothing like the queen either. How could they be twins if they looked nothing alike?

  Her surety was beginning to wane, weakening like a tired grip on the hilt of a sword. She cleared her throat, fighting to be strong. Bold as a lion, she thought. “Then what o
f the Wielder’s curse?”

  “The king intended to unite the Beast within you with the apparition in her,” Jahn replied. “The two together would create a force so strong that the king would be able to tear through the neighboring kingdoms as easily as a blade shreds through flesh. That is why he mustn’t be allowed to have you.”

  “But how?” Eva asked. “How can the king control the Beast or the Haunt for that matter, if the curse has been put on us and not him?”

  “Because of how the curse works, Madam Genie. The Wielder cursed your blood. Whenever that blood mixes with the blood of another, only you or that person has the power to control the Beast. The Beast bends to the person with the stronger will. I would not be surprised if King Oden mixes his own blood with Madam Jesekah’s, controlling the Haunt whenever he pleases.”

  “How does he control the Haunt?” Eva asked. Her head was cloudy, nothing making sense. She is not my sister. She’s not.

  “With a thought,” Jahn replied. “Whatever he thinks, the Haunt does. What frightens me is that whatever the Haunt sees, he sees also, which is quite unlike the Beast.”

  Eva shook her head slowly. Perhaps that was why the Raiders came to Green Planes. The king must have spotted her with the Haunt, knowing that she was there, and he had been stalking her this entire time. Where would he strike next? “Then why the scar,” she asked. Where had the scar come from? Had her mother, Maria, given it to her?

  “From the blood-letting, of course. The king used to cut tiny slits in your skin while you were an infant. He would then put a hot glass over that slit and draw out your blood, to keep it for himself. Coincidentally, when Delilah rescued you from his courts, you were forever marked with that scar.” Jahn sighed and his head drooped a little. “The seizures are brought on because the blood-letting has ceased.”

  Eva nodded. That was probably what Ian was doing with Jesekah in the tent when she yelled at him. “How can the king use the queen’s blood if she is so far away?”

  “The Essence,” Stasis replied. “He probably preserves the blood that he already has with the Essence of Empyrean.”

  “Can the curse ever be broken?” Eva asked hopelessly. She knew the answer. This curse had been with her for fifteen years.

  Jahn shook his head solemnly. “I’m afraid not, Madam Genie.”

  The inside of the tent fell silent except for the claps and cheers of the people at the camp. Their lives had gotten better only because Eva’s had gotten worse. All these years she had wondered if there was an end in sight for her, if the gods would in fact have mercy on her, if they would look kindly upon her for just a moment. She was right about one thing. They had looked upon her, but with disdain.

  Stasis interrupted the silence. “It seems that the mystery of the curse has been hidden from the Kibitzer.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Jahn replied, recalling the sharpness of his tone that Eva had always known.

  “I apologize, Kibitzer. I did not mean to offend you. All that I am claiming is that in this instance there may have been something that might have been overlooked.”

  “Perhaps,” Jahn said, dulling the blade of his words.

  Eva had never seen Jahn relent so easily. Maria had told her that the Kibitzer was always right, but she had seen the contrary in this instant, and yet, he was still the Kibitzer. Nothing had changed. Why was this man with his position so utterly revered, and what else might he have been wrong about?

  “The curse can be stopped, at least according to the rumors that we Water Walkers run into.” Stasis sighed and fixed the blonde braid that extended down her back.

  “And what are those rumors?” Wolf asked.

  “The site of the teardrop,” Stasis replied. “The travelers have mentioned that the curse can be reversed if the Girl with the Scar reverses the spell at the place where the curse was made.” Stasis stopped herself. “The king’s courtyard.”

  Eva felt a sickness seep into her. The seizure threatened to come upon her and release the Beast within, but it faded. Not only had the gods looked upon her with disdain, but they had spat in her face, too repulsed by her existence to even laugh at her shame.

  “If what you are saying is true,” Wolf replied, “then, Genevieve, you must help us if you ever hope to be free.”

  Jahn rubbed his knee shaking his head. He tucked his empty pipe into his pocket, frowning. “Sometimes the Kibitzer knows things to be true that even he himself refuses to accept. Madam Genie, there is something that I have neglected to tell you. Something that I should have warned youyou’re your family about many years ago. The stars nudged me to speak, but I refused their prodding.”

  Gods, what now?

  He clenched his beret in his hand, exposing for the first time his balding scalp. The skin on the top of his head was spotted brown. White hairs leaned over the baldness, covering it, though the attempt was vain. “The curse is one that is active for only twenty years outside of the king’s courts,” he said.

  Eva nearly had sixteen years as it was. She could manage for a little while longer. How difficult could four more years be? But there was some unevenness in Jahn’s voice that told her that he had abandoned a few of his words, some missing tone in the inflection that was left incomplete. She chose to ask him rather than wait to be assaulted unexpectedly, as she had already endured so much mental agony from what she had heard. “What happens after twenty years?”

  “You will be released,” Jahn said grimly. “Forever forced to live out your days as a Raider. Not alive. Dying but never dead.” Jahn swallowed. “The king is wise. He prepared himself for the chance that he might lose you or Madam Jesekah to someone else.”

  Stasis covered her mouth. Her watery eyes snapped back from Wolf to Eva. “We have to reverse the curse,” she said. “We cannot let Eva suffer that fate.”

  “What if the rumors were all lies?” Wolf asked. “We cannot endanger Genevieve any more than we already have, especially if we put her at risk of being captured by the king’s men.”

  Stasis dropped her hand to her side, her face whitening. “There may be another way.”

  “Another way?” Wolf asked, leaning slightly backwards looking to catch eyes with Stasis.

  Stasis nodded. “The Black Lands.”

  Jahn jerked his head up, his body tensing. Wolf bit the side of his lip, letting out a curt breath — the tone of which vibrated at the rear of his tongue similar to a horse’s grunt. “Even if we find a way inside, we would be fortunate if we lived long enough to down our first meal.”

  “It’s the only way,” Stasis replied. “As long as Eva has that Beast within her, the Raiders will not stop hunting her. If we are ever going to defeat them, we have to end the curse. The curse is what keeps the Raiders alive. It’s what captures the dead men and women of Kalarn and transforms them to the undead. We have a greater chance of surviving the Black Lands than confronting the king.”

  Wolf looked as if he would protest, but then his shoulders settled, his demeanor becoming more depleted. “Aye.”

  Jahn’s face became as stale as the bread that Stasis had given to Eva. “Then to the Black Lands we must go.”

  CHAPTER 20

  THE NEW TREK

  Eva sat in the corner of the tent listening to the music that continued on through the night. She felt like she was being dragged into something she had not accepted, or at least she did not think she had accepted it.

  But her resolve was clear. She could not turn back, not if it meant that more people would die because of her cowardice. Knowing that the king intended to conquer the neighboring kingdoms now gave Eva more of a reason to commit to going with the others.

  The Black Lands sounded deadly, but as long as she was with the others, she knew she would be safe, especially with Wolf.

  The drape to the tent swung open. Edward stuck his head inside. Sweat poured off his smiling face and off the tip of his nose. “Don’t tarry too long sister,” he said, words sticking together, his wine getting the best of h
im. “The night is getting older. You’re a woman now. Come have a drink.”

  He had called her “sister.” It felt the same in her chest. How could they not be related? She loved him now as much as she had ever loved him. How could it have been possible that Sekah was her true kin? “I’m not much for dancing, Edward,” she replied solemnly.

  Edward slung himself into the tent, yanking Eva by the wrist, ignoring the others. “You would certainly be remiss if you did not show your smiling face to the people who now adore you.”

  Eva followed behind him, fighting to keep her balance while her brother dragged her along. In his other hand, he held a cup that spilled wine down his fingers as he staggered through the camp, tipsy, but somehow still in control.

  “If the king has withheld his resources, how is it that the people eat pig and potatoes and drink wine?” Eva asked.

  Edward stopped tugging on her arm and turned to her, wiggling his head with the same arrogant grin that she loved. “We are Strikers, Eve. We find what we want and we take it.” He swallowed a mouthful of wine. “Here, here!” he called, holding his mug in the air with one hand and pointing at her, palm open, with the other.

  “Here, here!” the people called back.

  “You have brought these people hope,” Rufio said, covering her shoulders with his thick and heavy arm. “You can’t buy that from a Water Walker,” he said. “Not with ten thousand king’s gold.”

  The fiddler broke out into a familiar song, tapping his foot in the dust, holding his fiddle to the side. The people clapped and waved and chanted and sang.

  Her brother joined them. He skipped in a circle, mug high in the sky, staring at the ground with his black hair out of place and bouncing to the rhythm. He belted out, the lyrics erupting from the pit of his belly. “Once the soul of a man is gone, he packs up bags and leaves at dawn. To whatever place we cannot tell, but indeed he smiles if he lived well.”