Origins

by A D Starrling

  ‘I—Father—’ he stammered, his face that of a boy once more.

  Romerus turned his head and looked straight at the archway where Mila stood hidden. His smile widened.

  ‘You came,’ he breathed.

  A warm breeze suddenly washed across Mila, jolting her out of her stupor and raising goosebumps on her exposed skin. There was a faint smell of spices. An intense pressure, the like of which she had never known before, gripped her head and robbed her of her breath. Deep in the bowels of her consciousness, in the place where her most basic instincts lived, she sensed a forbidding presence and knew her grandfather was addressing it.

  Before she could grasp the unearthly phenomenon she was witnessing, the curtains fluttered wildly, exposing her to Crovir’s view.

  He blanched. ‘Mila?’

  She ignored her father’s hoarse whisper, her gaze fixed unblinkingly on Romerus as he took his last breath. His body went slack, his unseeing eyes focused on a spot to her right, the smile still on his face as air parted his lips in a rasp.

  The scream finally left Mila and with it came a flood of outrage that burned her to the core. ‘No!’

  The sound jolted Crovir. His expression changed in the next moment, cold determination replacing the fear in his eyes and hardening his face.

  Had her entire world not just turned upside down, Mila would have sensed the stealthy approach of another behind her. She turned at the last moment, her hand on the hilt of her sword. Something sharp entered her right flank. She stared blindly into the face of Delaiah, Crovir’s lover.

  The woman let go of the knife she had used to stab her, her pretty features twisted with a mixture of shock, elation, and hate.

  Mila glanced at the blade buried below her ribs and realized Delaiah had seen Crovir kill Romerus and was trying to protect the king. She ignored the sickening, wet sound the knife made as she pulled it out of her body, and slashed the woman opposite her across the throat before the latter could move.

  Crovir’s lover made a gargling noise and raised her hands to the red flow gushing from the slash in her neck, eyes widening. Guards appeared from every direction as she slowly crumpled to the ground. They slowed when they drew near, confusion washing across their faces as they took in the woman choking in the final throes of death at their lieutenant commander’s feet, and the blood-stained blade still clasped in her fingers. One of them gasped when he spotted Romerus in Crovir’s arms.

  ‘Stop her!’ shouted Crovir.

  He pointed at Mila.

  Mila studied her father for a heartbeat. In that fleeting instant, she felt the blood ties that had held her captive to him for over four hundred years shatter as she grasped his gruesome intention. As the only living witness to the unforgivable sin he had just committed, he wanted her blood. And he would not stop until she was dead. Even if it meant spreading the outrageous lie his command insinuated. That she was responsible for Romerus’s death.

  Icy resolve flowed through her body, erasing any feelings of kinship for the man who had sired her. ‘Even if it is the last thing I do in this world, I will stop you.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Crovir’s eyes widened. Mila turned her attention to the ring of guards facing her. From their expressions, they believed the unspoken accusation in her father’s voice. There would be no bargaining with them. Not at this moment.

  She unsheathed her broadsword and tightened her grip on the dagger in her hand, her mind and body focused single-mindedly on the irrevocable path she was about to take.

  ‘What are you waiting for, you fools?!’ Crovir screamed, rising to his feet.

  The soldiers attacked. Mila danced through them, blades moving in a deadly blur. She was past them in several heartbeats and raced across the garden. More guards appeared in her path.

  ‘Do not let her leave!’ Crovir roared behind her.

  Mila gritted her teeth. By the time she reached the citadel’s main yard, she had disposed of thirty men. She twisted beneath the wild swings of a dozen blades and let out a sharp whistle as she slashed and stabbed at the guards blocking her.

  Buros neighed wildly where he stood at the barracks. He stamped his hooves, reared up on his hind legs, and broke into a full gallop. The soldiers charging across the grounds toward her staggered and fell as he plowed through them. Mila dropped the dagger, grabbed the stallion’s saddle as he came past, and vaulted onto his back. She gripped his flanks with her thighs, snatched a stunned soldier’s sword out of his hands, and wielded the long blades with unerring accuracy, cutting down the men crowding around them.

  Blood swelled from her wound and drenched the lower half of her tunic.

  She ignored it and cleared a path before whirling Buros around. ‘Go!’

  The stallion obeyed her command and bolted for the citadel’s entrance.

  Mila steered him toward the left guard tower as the gates loomed up ahead. She leaned over and slashed through the thick rope holding the sandbags that controlled the portal’s opening mechanism as they flew past. The counterweights thudded to the ground behind them. The thick beam barring the entrance started to rise.

  Mila slowed Buros and circled the stallion around some twenty feet from the gates. Together, they faced the horde of soldiers storming toward them. Although the horse trembled beneath her, the Immortal knew it was with excitement rather than fear.

  She snarled, the power that had earned her the name Red Queen rising from the very depths of her being. Buros snorted and stamped his hooves, his body resonating with the same forceful energy.

  They charged through the guards, the stallion’s powerful kicks and her swinging blades halving the men’s number in a dozen heartbeats while the gates slowly rumbled open behind them.

  Arrows suddenly streaked through the night from the direction of the ramparts and thudded into the ground around Mila. A shaft found Buros’s hindquarters. He jerked and carried on stomping the men around them. She roared and moved the swords in an arc that slashed through half a dozen soldiers before turning the stallion around. She yanked the arrow out of his side and urged him toward the narrow gap that had appeared in the portal.

  They slipped through the opening with a foot to spare on either side.

  The whistle of a second hail of arrows came from behind as they raced down the hill. A shaft struck Mila in the back. Another found the flesh of her right shoulder. She barely flinched, her gaze centered on the landscape to the north; she needed an escape route from the soldiers who would shortly come after her on horseback and the archers whose reach she was still within.

  Movement on the plains ahead made her stiffen. An arrow drifted out of the darkness and glided toward the citadel walls. A scream rose in the night. She glanced over her shoulder and saw an archer fall from the ramparts. Two more followed.

  Mila stared into the gloom and made out a figure on horseback. Surprise darted through her.

  ‘To me!’ shouted Aäron.

  Mila gritted her teeth and dug her heels into Buros’s flanks. The sound of arrows followed from the direction of the citadel.

  Aäron retaliated, shafts leaving his bow in a blur. Mila knew without looking that his projectiles would find their targets. She passed him a moment later. He turned his horse around and reached her side just as she removed the arrows from her shoulder and back.

  ‘What happened?’ he yelled.

  Mila hesitated, unsure if she could trust him. The shock of all she had witnessed brought the words stumbling forth from her lips before she could stop them. ‘Crovir killed Romerus. And he aims to put the blame on me.’

  Aäron stared at her. Although she had expected the surprise on his face, what she had not envisaged was the sudden glint of resolution in his eyes.

  The beat of horses’ hooves rose behind them. They looked over their shoulders at the troop of soldiers heading in their direction.

  ‘He will send the entire army after you,’ said Aäron.

  ‘I know.’

  Aäron scow
led. ‘Follow me.’

  Mila blinked at his commanding voice. Still, she steered Buros after him as he turned east.

  The moon sailed across the star-studded sky as they raced over the land, the gap between them and the soldiers on their heels slowly growing. They had traveled six leagues when lights appeared in the distance to their right. Mila clenched her jaw. It was the outpost of Girisu.

  Flares went up behind them, three flame-lit arrows that arced into the night in rapid succession. The soldiers chasing them had sent a distress signal to the garrison.

  Mila knew it would be moments before half the troops at Girisu joined the men from the citadel.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she shouted to Aäron.

  ‘The Tigra!’ he replied.

  Mila studied the dark plains ahead. ‘There is no safe passage across the waters where we are heading! We should turn north, to Lagaesh. Baruch and Hosanna will—’

  ‘Lagaesh is eight leagues away!’ said Aäron. ‘The river is closer!’ His teeth flashed in a grim smile. ‘And we will not be crossing it!’

  Mila stared at him. Wetness on her thigh drew her gaze to the wound on her flank. She had bled a considerable amount in the time since she crossed Aäron on the plains outside Uryl.

  ‘This is nothing,’ she said at his expression.

  ‘It sure looks like something to me, Princess,’ he responded darkly.

  Mila narrowed her eyes. Were it not for the fact that he had come to her rescue and they were in the midst of a chase, she would have rebuked him for his tone.

  Although the river was still some distance away, they reached it in what seemed like the blink of an eye. As she had predicted, some five hundred men now followed behind them.

  They pulled up on the edge of a ravine, the horses stamping their hooves and neighing at the precipitous drop before them.

  Mila gazed two hundred feet down into the raging rapids of the Tigra. ‘You could have picked a better spot.’

  Aäron grinned. ‘This is exactly where I wanted us to be, Princess. And may I say, I resent the sarcasm.’ He studied the troops bearing down on them before indicating the river. ‘Jump.’

  Mila stared. ‘What?’

  ‘Jump,’ he ordered again, his voice hardening.

  The soldiers were fifty feet away and closing fast.

  ‘Have you lost your senses?’ snapped Mila. ‘I can survive such a fall, but you—’

  Aäron made an impatient sound and slapped Buros hard on the rump. The stallion snorted and leapt off the precipice without a moment’s hesitation. Mila’s heart rose in her mouth as they dropped toward the river. A wild neigh reached her above the rush of the rapids. She sensed Aäron plummeting in the air behind her.

  If he does not die from this, I will kill him myself.

  They hit the water hard.

  Mila tore into the smoked flesh with her teeth.

  She paused when she felt a stare on her face. ‘What?’

  Aäron grinned at her from the other side of the fire and turned the barbed fish roasting in the flames. ‘Nothing.’

  She hesitated before chewing and swallowing.

  ‘It is the wound,’ she muttered. ‘Our bodies are greedier when we are healing.’

  Aäron’s gaze shifted to her exposed midriff and the bandage wrapped around her waist. He looked away, his expression troubled.

  A quarter day had passed since their escape from the citadel. After their jump into the Tigra, which miraculously produced nothing but bruises, Mila and Aäron let the rapids carry them and their horses south. Occasional shouts and volleys of arrows followed from the soldiers who shadowed them on the western ridge. The shafts felt harmlessly around them in the darkness, aim skewed by the currents of air above the fast-flowing waters.

  It was four leagues before they exited the river, in a section of land dominated by forests and sheer bluffs, long after the sound of pursuit had died behind them. Aäron took the lead and soon headed down a narrow gully that branched off the main ravine. They headed east for another six leagues and finally stopped in the cover of a rocky overhang on the bank of the tributary, when the reddening sky heralded the arrival of dawn.

  Aäron wandered off to collect tinder and wood while Mila removed the horses’ saddles and bands and led them to the water.

  She rested her head against her stallion’s flank as he drank from the river and closed her eyes for a moment. ‘You did well, Buros.’

  The horse snickered and blew out a wet snort over her head. Mila smiled, grateful for his companionship. The smile faded from her lips as she recalled the events of the past night.

  There had been no time to think coherently, so focused had she been on escaping the citadel and her father’s clutches. That she would not have lived to see today was a strong probability, had he managed to capture her. Now that her immediate survival was no longer of paramount importance, she needed to absorb all that had happened before she could decide her next course of action.

  She was distracted from her grim thoughts by the sight of Aäron appearing around a bend with an armful of dead branches and dry scrub. Although Mila insisted on helping him fish, he warded her off and handed her a clean linen bandage and a small pouch containing a strange-smelling paste instead.

  ‘What is this?’ she said suspiciously.

  ‘It is an ointment that will help your wound.’ He sighed at her scornful expression. ‘Yes, I know that you are an Immortal and that that nasty cut will soon disappear, but you could still get an infection.’

  She cocked an eyebrow.

  ‘If you succumb to fever and disease, I will leave you to rot in this gully,’ Aäron stated in a leaden voice.

  Mila opened her mouth, hesitated, and swore under her breath. She sat by the water’s edge and cleaned the cut on her flank while he went fishing farther upriver. By the time he returned, she had applied the paste and wrapped the bandage around her waist. She would only need it for another day. The laceration was already half healed.

  ‘What about the wounds on your shoulder and back?’ said Aäron.

  Mila shrugged. ‘They were nothing.’

  He frowned. ‘Still, I should take a look.’

  Mila stared at him for a moment. She twisted around and slipped her tunic off her shoulders. He came up behind her. Fingers fluttered over her exposed skin and lingered on the places where the arrows had penetrated her flesh the previous night. She stiffened at his touch.

  Taut silence fell between them.

  ‘You are right. They are almost healed,’ said Aäron quietly.

  He moved away and set the fish to cook over the flames.

  It was not until she had sated the unusual hunger that came with an Immortal’s ability to self-heal that Mila sat back and gave the man on the other side of the fire her undivided attention.

  ‘Who are you?’

  He gazed at her silently, his expression growing shuttered. ‘Why, I am but a humble soldier of the Empire, Prin—’

  ‘Enough with the lies!’ Mila rose and drew her sword. ‘If you do not tell me the truth right now, I will kill you.’

  Aäron raised an eyebrow.

  He leaned back, his posture relaxed. ‘Really? After everything I did for you in the past night, you wish to take my life?’

  Mila straightened. ‘I could have escaped without your help.’

  Aäron watched her steadily. ‘I do not doubt that, Princess. But you would have been in a worse state for it.’

  Mila moved. Metal clashed against metal a heartbeat later.

  She stared at Aäron where he stood a foot away, his blade kissing hers with equal strength. He had jumped to his feet and drawn his sword with a speed that no longer surprised her.

  ‘You are no ordinary soldier,’ she said quietly. ‘This has been clear to me for some time.’ She paused, her voice hardening. ‘Are you a spy?’

  Aäron stepped back and lowered his sword. ‘I will tell you everything if you come with me.’

  Mila went s
till. His admission did nothing to dispel the unsettling feeling he aroused in her.

  ‘Come with you where exactly?’

  ‘East.’ He hesitated. ‘The answers you will find there may very well surprise you.’

  Mila frowned. ‘Why should I trust you? You could be leading me into a trap.’

  Aäron sighed. ‘If I wanted to kill you, I could have done so last night.’

  ‘I would never have given you the chance,’ she snapped.

  Aäron put away his blade and came up to her abruptly. She startled when he grabbed her broadsword and brought the pointed end to his chest.

  ‘You have two choices,’ he said in a voice she did not recognize. ‘You can either kill me now or you can follow me and have a fighting chance of defeating King Crovir.’

  Surprise jolted Mila at his words.

  Aäron’s eyes bore into her, as blue and as clear as the sky above them. ‘What will it be, Princess?’

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Zagros Mountains loomed above them, snowcapped peaks painted crimson by the fading daylight. Shadows filled the valleys carved in its steep inclines.

  Mila gazed at the man climbing the foothill ahead of her. His words on the riverbank that morning still echoed in her mind. Though her instincts as a warrior warned her Aäron was an unknown threat, a voice deep inside her had urged her to put her faith in him.

  They left the desert east of the Tigra when the sun was still high above their heads and travelled over a vast plain dotted with marshes to the base of the Zagros, passing far from the outposts of Duruin and Omran. As the distance between them and the immediate domain of the Empire grew, so did Mila’s agitated thoughts.

  Following the dreadful events of the previous night, her subconscious beseeched her to turn back and seek a meeting with her mother, siblings and cousins to relate the true events that had transpired. But when their faces rose in her mind’s eye, all she could see was the contempt and accusation she had witnessed in the soldiers who had attacked her at the citadel.

  There was no guarantee her kin would believe her, not in the condition she would likely find them in. The rational part of her advised she would be wise to put some space between her and them for now. Once time passed and their anguish over Romerus’s death abated, there might be a chance for coherent discussion.