They picked the safer route through the trees with Pen in the lead. They still had to pass a few cottages that were tucked away, but they didn’t see any people.
Passing the last cottage, Pen was struck by how similar it looked to her own with Arch. He and Alard were buried there, probably a short walk away. They were so close.
A sudden sob wanted to escape, but she buried it deeper into her heart. Now wasn’t the time. There was another body they had to visit.
The final clearing held the graveyard. There were only a few dozen graves, with Malliae being so small, but only a few had stone markers. There was one family wealthy enough by Malliae’s standards to afford those, but Pen hardly noticed them.
In one corner, a stump of an old plank stuck up from the ground like a rotten tooth. The grass around it was the same as all the others, but those markers were tended to and replaced. The old wood was loved and cared for, except her father’s. Families took care of their lost loved ones, but there hadn’t been any other family here for Tyndareus when Pen left.
She knelt by his grave marker. It was so weathered she couldn’t even see his name that she herself had carved.
The last thing she could do for him after the damn nail took him.
She and Arch had brought Alard here to see his past relatives, but he was too young at the time to understand or care yet.
A painful, false image of an older Alard, maybe with his own children, replacing her and Arch’s wooden grave markers flashed in her mind.
“Pen?”
She jumped. Raisa had knelt beside her unnoticed.
“They should be buried here too,” Pen whispered through a locked chest.
Raisa put an arm around her shoulders.
“If you don’t want to do this, we’ll take the shovels back,” she said softly.
“I have to know if it’s him,” Pen said a little stronger, though the conviction felt false.
“There are other ways. We’ll catch this guy instead.”
“I intend to do that anyway.” Pen stood, trying to brush off the grief. “But I need to be sure that he’s gone.”
“All right,” Raisa said on her feet now too. “Palamedes and I will start, then you can rotate in when one of us—”
Pen painfully ripped the scab on her hand again and drew from it. A staff solidified into her hand, and the spade bloomed on the end. She buried the crimson shovel into the dirt by the grave marker, heedless of Raisa’s suggestion.
“All right,” Raisa sighed again, stepping out of Pen’s way. “Palamedes?”
“I’ll watch the town.”
Pen didn’t hear a reply from Raisa, but her shovel dug into the ground too. She added the dirt to Pen’s already growing pile.
Pen tried to not think about what she was doing; she just dug. Cramps started gripping her shoulders and back, but she didn’t care.
At one point she noticed Palamedes was digging next to her. The walls of the hole they stood in were now to her knees.
“Pen, take a break,” Raisa said, squatting by the hole.
“Sorry,” Pen muttered coming back to herself. Her shoulder blades were killing her. “Help me out.”
Raisa took her outstretched hand and pulled her up. Once situated, Raisa jumped in next to Palamedes and started digging again.
Pen turned to Malliae, watchful of any movement. She kept the blood shovel out, not wanting to clean it off only to redraw it.
The town was hardly more than a couple of lantern lights, mainly by the tavern, and vaguely shaped in the darkness. Pen watched the few figures moving through the town. She was confident in the distance and darkness that they hadn’t been spotted.
She turned back to Raisa and Palamedes, kneeling by the pit after a good while. It was up to Raisa’s stomach now.
“Anything yet?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Raisa panted. “You?”
“There were two people, but they didn’t see us.”
Raisa nodded and went back to digging.
Pen tapped Palamedes on his shoulder. “Let’s switch.”
He looked up, dirt streaked over his face.
“How far do you want to dig?” he asked as she took his place in the hole.
“Until we find bones,” she said, not looking at him.
“If he’s not there, then there won’t be any bones,” he protested.
“He’s right, Pen,” Raisa said rolling her shoulders and grimacing. “This is a fool’s errand. What are you going to do if we actually find his body?”
“Bury it back again and replace the grave marker,” Pen snapped.
She dug into the earth again, dreading that moment of the upturned bones, or worse, breaking one.
Her mind couldn’t rest. She didn’t know what she was going to do, despite her reply to Raisa. Nausea played with her guts, but she couldn’t stop plunging the shovel into the dirt over and over and over again.
Six feet deep now, Pen’s entire world was condensed to the earth around her father’s grave. Still no bones were turning up. Not even a piece of the fabric shroud he’d been buried in.
“Pen,” Raisa touched her arm.
She shrugged her off.
“Pen, he isn’t here.” She had already stopped digging. Her shovel was up with Palamedes.
“He has to be,” Pen said, throwing another pile of dirt over the edge above her.
“Pen, stop!”
Raisa took hold of her shoulders, forcing Pen to stop and stare at her.
“He’s not here,” Raisa said. “But we can track him down.”
“I was there,” Pen sighed. “I helped bury him. He was here.”
“We’ll find out what’s going on, but it’s almost dawn. We need to—”
Palamedes screamed.
Pen snapped towards the distraction. It was a weird angle, being in the hole with Palamedes above them, but she clearly saw the arrow shaft sticking out of his leg. Somehow, he was still on his feet.
Raisa vaulted out of the pit, quickly pulling Pen up behind her.
“The trees!” Palamedes barked. “Someone’s there.”
Pen melted the shovel, casting off most of the dirt. Hardly thinking, she threw it all towards the tree line in five thin, sharp tendrils.
There was a cry of fear, and she spotted a silhouette dart out of the way. It was hard to tell in the dark, but she could tell it was a thin lad with a bow.
Not the same one who’d been following her before.
“Fucking Skiachora,” Raisa shouted.
Pen was so focused on the skinny boy, she was hardly paying any attention to the foot falls behind her. She pulled all of the exposed blood into one form again, elongating it into a spear.
“Hey!”
The shout broke her concentration. She kept hold of the spear and stole a glance towards the voice. It wasn’t Raisa or Palamedes.
Her heart dropped as Milanos rushed at her with his hammer.
The hammer swung and bashed her over the temple.
Everything melted after that.
Chapter Nine
Pen
The nausea alone was enough to wake Pen, but water to the face helped. Granted, she was left sputtering and practically retching.
Disoriented, she tried to stand but groaned. The tight ropes around her wrists and ankles held her at bay. Shaking the hair out of her eyes, she finally managed to take in her surroundings and move to her knees.
Raisa and Palamedes were similarly bound by the wall. They were surrounded by several townspeople, some of them were familiar.
Pen remembered the place at least. It was the only tavern, and didn’t even have a name, but it was the most communal place in Malliae.
A tankard struck her face. She bit back a curse as pain erupted through her head again, but it wasn’t enough to knock her out. Warm blood trickled down past her hairline. She stared up at the man who’d thrown the cup.
Milanos stood over her, fuming. His long, brown hair was tied back, and hi
s beard was unkempt. His eyes were shockingly similar to Arch’s. He was older than she remembered too, and Pen’s heart dropped for a moment. He had aged, of course he’d aged. Just like Raisa had. For a brief second, Pen thought of Arch again, wondering what he’d look like at Milanos’s age, but it didn’t bloody matter now.
Pen didn’t know what to say. Instead, she concentrated on the blood trying to slide back down past her eye. She drew it back into the cut on her forehead from the tankard. She had lost a large amount from the shovel and the spear melting when she was knocked out. She couldn’t afford to lose more now. Not that a trickle would kill her, but she hated the feel of it on her face.
Milanos’s eyes followed the blood. His hands balled into fists, and he shook with rage.
“I don’t fucking believe it,” he growled.
“What is she?” the boy beside him asked.
He was skinny and had a bow slung over his back. She couldn’t be sure, but he could have been the one in the trees before.
“She’s the bloody Warrior,” Milanos answered.
“Just Blood Warrior actually,” Pen corrected. She couldn’t help herself. The lightheadedness had loosened her tongue, and Milanos was always too serious for his own good.
He punched her. She managed to move in time to not have her nose broken, but her jaw rattled.
He grabbed her collar and straightened her on her knees. Kneeling down in front of her, he said, “You haven’t changed.”
It didn’t exactly sound like an insult, he just sounded confused.
“You got old,” she answered.
His lips pressed together. Pen saw the memory of them jesting behind his eyes. Things had been good before, when Arch was alive.
“That how you killed them?” he asked. “That blood magic. Is that how you murdered my brother? Even your own son?”
“Yes.”
Milanos took a breath and held it, like he was holding in a scream.
He had probably expected her to lie about it, but there was no point.
“You know, when I found those graves, I wondered if it was bandits. That they took you. They wouldn’t have lovingly buried anyone, though. So then I thought you got away from them and came back, but you wouldn’t have run off if that was the case. You wouldn’t have hid like a criminal. What did you do?”
“It was this magic,” Pen confessed. “When it … awoke … my blood sprouted from my wrists and impaled them both.”
Alard’s tiny slumped over form broke into her thoughts. He was covered in her blood and had dozens of punctures. Arch had been the same. She remembered his dead eyes staring at her in glassy confusion and terror.
Pen forced back tears, not wanting to break down in front of so many people. Her concentration on the tankard wound slipped, and a trickle of blood escaped and fell down her face instead. She let it this time.
“You murdered them!” he roared.
“I killed them,” Pen agreed, “but it wasn’t murder. I didn’t know what was happening until it was over.”
“Don’t you give me fucking technicalities.”
With a hand on each shoulder, he shook her at the last word. She bit her tongue, tasting more blood.
“Milanos,” another voice sounded.
Glancing towards it, Pen saw one of the other townsmen. He stood apart from the group keeping Raisa and Palamedes at bay. A short man with a rounded gut but strong arms, his bluish green hair was enough to spark recognition.
“Laomedon?” Pen asked. The old mayor had somehow looked younger.
“I’m his son,” the new man said. “Proteus. My father passed a few years back. Milanos would you let her go?”
“This is family business,” Milanos growled.
“She was also digging up graves. That’s town’s business. Yours will be settled soon enough,” Proteus said.
Milanos let go of Pen’s collar with another healthy shove. He backed away, glowering at her and stood by the younger lad. Pen noticed the resemblance between them then.
“This your son?” she asked.
“Aye, and you nearly skewered him too,” Milanos spat.
Pen turned to the boy. “I am sorry about that. You shot my companion, and I panicked.”
The lad glanced between her and his father, clearly unsure of what to do or say.
“It was a decent shot, though,” Pen said as a compliment.
“What?” Palamedes shouted.
Pen shrugged at him. “It was.”
“Shut up!” Milanos went to strike her again, but Proteus caught his arm.
“What were you doing in the graveyard?” Proteus demanded. “Who were you digging up?”
“My father,” Pen said.
Silence stretched for a time. When Proteus realized Pen wouldn’t say more, he pressed, “Why?”
“Family business.”
She had no intention of telling them about her mystery follower.
Proteus folded his arms. “Care to elaborate?”
“Nope.”
Milanos looked ready to kill her.
“Were you looking for something?” Proteus asked.
Pen stayed quiet. They hadn’t noticed her father wasn’t actually there, apparently.
“Look, we knew it was wrong,” Raisa tried. “But we only needed the one grave, and we were going to be gone by dawn.”
“That doesn’t make it better,” Proteus argued.
“We were going to rebury him, and return the shovels too.”
“Great,” he shrugged. “What were you looking for?”
Raisa fell silent then. Pen was grateful Raisa had taken her lead.
Proteus sighed. “Are there any more of you?”
“No,” Raisa said. “We’re alone, on our way to Stymphalia.”
“So why visit here?”
Again, silence.
“Proteus, this doesn’t matter,” Milanos said. “You know what I’m owed.”
“What?” Raisa asked.
No one answered her.
“Pen, what does he mean?” Raisa demanded.
Pen sighed. “Murder is met in kind.”
“What? No!” Raisa shouted. “She has to save Stymphalia from civil war!”
“A city on the other side of the world can take care of itself. As we always have,” Proteus said. “Go on, Milanos. We’ll keep the other two for questions later.”
“Lambros, go outside,” Milanos told his son.
Lambros looked uneasy but followed his father’s order. He cast one more glance to Pen. She wondered briefly what her nephew was like, or if she could even call him nephew.
“Break your bonds,” Palamedes shouted. “Run!”
Pen stayed put, but readied her bloody hand.
Milanos took a hunting knife from his belt and advanced.
“Pen, go!” Raisa called.
Milanos knelt and pulled Pen’s hair back. He plunged the knife into her heart knowing the exact place. It slipped easily between her ribs.
Pain erupted, shooting through her chest. She couldn’t breathe, she choked, but she never broke eye contact with Milanos.
The sneer he had wasn’t an accomplished one. He was just disgusted.
He ripped the knife out and stood over her.
She still looked up at him, focusing on his eyes. She had to focus on something as the blood blossomed on her tunic. She let some of it go, but she had to stay conscious. As long as she did, she could keep what little blood she had mainly inside. Not that it really mattered.
The room swam around her violently, and she heard Raisa shriek her name, though it sounded like she was underwater.
She wanted to cough, but she clamped her teeth shut. She did cut her bonds quickly then, only to catch herself from falling over.
“Why … why won’t she die?” she heard one of the other men ask. “It shouldn’t take this long.”
Milanos was watching her. He knew he hadn’t missed.
“Nyx has … forsaken … me,” Pen croaked to him.
Chapter Ten
Raisa
“Pen!” Raisa shrieked, pulling against her bonds. “Just pass out, you’ll be fine.”
Her voice cracked at the end. Pen knelt before her brother-in-law, somehow still conscious. Raisa couldn’t help but be impressed and terrified at the same time. Pen kept herself up, by her own will, staring at Milanos.
“Hey!” Raisa shouted at him, trying to get his attention. If he looked away, then Pen might let herself fall unconscious.
Milanos was transfixed on Pen, but he slowly fixed his gaze on Raisa.
“Would your brother really want you to kill his wife?” Raisa demanded, straining against her bonds. “She wasn’t in control of her powers when it happened. She’s been slowly killing herself ever since because of that guilt, but the Undying Curse won’t let her.”
“But the Era ended years ago,” Milanos said. “Unless … wait—”
“Everyone else is fine,” Raisa said, “but she’s not.”
“Why?” Proteus asked equally concerned, but held his fear better.
“I don’t know, it’s some kind of judgement I think.”
Pen coughed then. Blood vomited from her mouth and splashed onto Milanos’s boot. She still stayed upright.
“Gods dammit Pen, just faint!” she shouted again.
Pen shook her head.
Milanos moved then. He knelt and took Pen by her shoulders.
“Get away from her!”
Raisa tried to rise, but the other townsmen held her in place. Anger boiled and she grunted as they held her.
Milanos helped Pen lie down rather gently. He pulled out a rag from his pocket. It wasn’t the cleanest, but it would be fine. He pressed it to the wound he caused.
Pen rattled out a breath, but Raisa couldn’t tell if she was still conscious. She hoped she wasn’t.
Raisa glanced at Palamedes. He watched the entire encounter silently, but she didn’t like how pale he was.
“Proteus,” Raisa said. “You’re the mayor here, right?”
“Aye,” he answered.
“There must be some kind of deal we can make, so we can leave.”
“You desecrated our graveyard.”
Grief of the Undying (The Ichorian Epics Book 3) Page 6
