Eloryn choked out a few confused words before finding a sentence. “But they would kill you.”
Memory pushed his shoulder again, forcing him to roll over and face them. “Stop sulking. Can you walk?”
He squinted away from her, but nodded.
“Lory, can you magic up so they think we paid them?”
Buck-tooth kicked a rock across the clearing, skimming it close by them. “Come on! When he said all day, you weren’t supposed to take it!”
Eloryn scooped some pebbles into her hand, and bent forward as though speaking to Roen again but spoke to the rocks instead. She opened her hand again and gold coins shimmered. One faded back into a pebble, leaving only four.
“Quick as possible,” she whispered and stood up.
Memory dug her small fingers into the knotted rope.
“This is all we have.” Eloryn held out her hand. The men gathered forward to look and smirked at her. Giant grunted out a laugh from the back.
“It’s just enough. A little less than value, but I guess we feel kindly today. Lucky lad,” said Top-hat.
Memory had Roen out of his ropes and helped him up. She couldn’t stand the smell of the blood, and staggered from it almost as much as Roen did from his injuries. Once on his feet, he let go of her and stood on his own. He looked at the ground, breathing roughly. Memory turned back and nodded to Eloryn, who handed over the money and the three of them hobbled as fast as they could toward the road.
They were just steps away when the thugs yelled in outrage.
“What is this? Think you can give us fairy gold?” Buck-tooth cried.
“Run?” Memory whispered.
“Can’t,” said Roen.
“Frotz,” Memory said. She glanced back.
Top-hat squinted at her, his chin raised. “Get them. This is unauthorized magic. We’ll have a bounty after all. Get them!”
Memory turned to Roen. He turned to Eloryn. Wavering on his feet, he begged her to run as he twisted the upper hem of his pants.
Eloryn stumbled back a few steps, slow and unsure. Top-hat caught up to her, grabbing her from behind. She shrieked and wriggled as he dragged her back. Roen went after them.
Giant came bearing down on Memory like a wall of flesh.
The sound of pounding feet came from behind her, and she turned, lifting her arms to protect herself from whatever approached. Her savage guardian angel ran toward her. His body blurred past and hit the mammoth man, knocking him down. They rolled out of sight behind bushes.
Greasy and Buck-tooth paused on their way to Roen, blinking, turning from Memory to their leader. He called back to them, “Get the skinny witch before she summons another beast. I’ve got the blonde, and the boy won’t be any trouble.”
Turning to approach Memory, Greasy smiled crookedly and her skin jumped.
A flash of light reflected into her eyes. Beside her, Roen drew a thin blade of flexible pale gold from the seam of his trousers. It snapped straight and sharp in his hands. He struck it against Top-hat’s face. It was a clumsy movement, his arm visibly stiff and sore, but the shock made the man release his grip on Eloryn, and his top hat fall from his head.
Blood dripped around his mouth. He laughed and spat.
Eloryn ran to Roen’s side. He stepped between her and the man, who drew a large bronze sword from his belt, spinning it in his hands. Roen rolled his shoulder, grimacing. He whispered to Eloryn behind his back.
Memory could read the words on his lips. “Just go.”
A hand swiped the air in front of Memory and she dodged back, just out of Buck-tooth’s reach. Greasy’s fist flew in from her side, hitting her in the face. Her cheek split between his knuckles and her teeth. Her vision darkened and she fell onto her side.
Memory lifted herself on one wobbly hand, trying to will her pain away. She fumbled with her other hand down the front of her corset, grasping for the body-warmed knife.
A calloused hand grabbed her arm, bruising skin and making the handle slip from her fingers. Her eyes bulged. The crush of the man’s hand made her faint with terror. She screamed with all her chest.
A flurry of feathers and claws descended from the branches above them. Ravens swooped through the clearing. The thugs swatted back at them. The birds tore at their hands and faces. Memory ducked back down to the ground, covering her head, but the birds left her alone. She could hear Eloryn’s voice through the beat of wings, calling the birds to them. Memory reached again for her folded knife.
Top-hat sliced a raven out of the air with his sword. It fell bloody to the ground.
Eloryn cried out in matched pain. She called out more magical words, but a moment later the flock had cleared. Memory heard the sword swing again, and this time Roen grunted sharply.
Still on her stomach, Memory could see boots in front of her. She rolled up onto her feet, flicked her knife open and slashed it at Buck-tooth. He stepped back just out of the blade’s arc. Grinning, he pulled a yellow hunting knife from his own belt, waggling it at her. It was two times larger than her flick blade.
He swung. She blocked with a cry, her eyes closed. The metals clashed. Her hand stung from the contact, but she held on.
His blade snapped an inch above the hilt. He cried out in honest shock and dropped the broken weapon.
Greasy laughed, right behind Memory. She tried to swing back at the man, but he slammed her in the shoulder, spinning her the other way. He locked his hands around her wrists, lifting her off the ground. She kicked at him with bare feet.
He squeezed his hand around her wrist holding the knife. She squeezed harder, refusing to let go. She squealed and growled, twisted and wrenched but Greasy held tight. He pulled her toward him, running his nose up her neck. She pumped her legs uselessly in the air.
“Let me go! Don’t touch me! Let me go or I’ll hurt you!” she cried with a shredded voice.
Greasy threw her onto the ground, knocking the air from her lungs. He gripped both her wrists under one hand and knelt over her, crushing her hips.
He grinned hideously. “Got you.”
A deep, primal terror took over, like a nightmare she couldn’t remember but that still left her sick and scared. She screamed, and the fire in her lit, pulsing outwards.
The man’s weight flew off her, blasted away.
Memory opened wincing eyes, and saw the greasy, horrible man lying bloody against a tree across the clearing. He was all the way over there, not moving, but she could still feel his hands on her. Still feel the force of his weight like a sickness inside her. She screamed again in fury, twitching on the ground where she lay, back arching. All sound left the world and her ears hummed.
She rolled onto her side, heaving air into a mouth that tasted of blood. Her head lolled up and she looked out through drunken eyes.
Buck-tooth stood next to her, fear and anger twisting his lips away from disfigured teeth. He ran the other way.
Roen knelt on the other side of the clearing, slouched forward. Fresh blood made the front of his shirt shine. Top-hat had Eloryn on the ground, a foot on her stomach, but he stared at Memory, angry and shocked.
Leaving Eloryn, the man ran at Memory, his sword held firm and angled straight at her, his eyes fixed and dangerous.
Clinging to her knife in one hand, Memory reached out with the other. Drawing power from the magical fire within her, she threw it at the man with a feral cry.
He skidded across the ground and fell to one knee. He coughed blood.
Through the ringing in her ears Memory heard sobbing, and distantly realized it was her own. The world spun like a mad-man’s nightmare. Her skin still crawled. She wanted to tear it off. She put her feet under her and stood, bent and slumped, stumbling toward Top-hat. She swiped at him again, her magic flinging out from her fingertips like an invisible whip, striking him. He fell onto his stomach. Still, still she could feel hands on her. She cried out, and beat the man over and over, bloodying him with the unseen, powerful force.
His gru
nts of pain were muffled. A movie with the sound too low. Screaming all around her grew louder as her hearing cleared.
“Mem, Memory, please stop.”
She barely heard through her own fury. There are! There are hands on me! She spun around and swung her knife blindly behind her, meeting flesh.
The voice that gasped was a girl’s. Her sight waved back into focus.
Eloryn stood in front of her. A thin scarlet line ran across the width of her chest below her collar bones. She drew short, hard breaths that shook her body.
“What are you doing?” Memory screamed.
“You were going to kill him,” Eloryn whispered. Her lips and nose wrinkled as though she were about to cry.
“And he was going to kill me!” Memory yelled into Eloryn’s face. Nervous energy filled her, running berserk through her body. Her grip around her knife left her knuckles white and aching.
Eloryn shook her head. Her mouth opened and closed without letting the words out.
“No? No what? What am I not supposed to do Eloryn?” Memory hissed. “How am I supposed to know? I’m not some perfect little princess that gets told what to do her whole life, with all these people around to look after me!” Memory jabbed her knife toward Roen who stumbled their way. “I don’t know why I feel like this. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Probably because I’m some sort of monster from Hell right? I know that’s what you think! You don’t even think I’m human!”
“Mem...” Eloryn breathed in anguish.
“Memory, that’s enough!” Roen roared, setting himself between Eloryn and Memory’s knife. He lifted his thin blade. Its tip was pointed down and defensive, but it sent a clear message.
Memory bellowed wordlessly at them. Her vision darkened, blocked by something. Confusion slapped the anger from her. She coughed out a breath she’d gasped in too quickly and gave her eyes a moment to work. Her vision was blocked by a body. The savage stood between her and Roen, his back to her. His knuckles were covered in blood. He growled.
Roen cried out in shock and Memory heard him stumble backwards.
Adrenaline still tingled in her fingertips. Reality rattled around in her skull, pounding into focus as her pulse steadied. She stepped to the side of the savage’s back, unable to see past his wide shoulders. Roen lifted his blade at the animal man, who growled and coiled to pounce.
“Stop! Stop. I’m sorry.” Memory’s voice went from cry to whisper. She let her knife roll out of her numb fingers onto the ground. “Roen, stop, please.”
Roen shook his head, his gaze fixed on the looming savage. Eloryn wrapped her fingers around his arm, making him lower his sword.
The savage stepped toward them again, growling.
“No! Please.” Memory grabbed his bloodied hand in both of hers and pulled him back. She could feel his arm tense at her touch. Her chest contracted again into unwilling sobs. “I know you’re trying to protect me, but I don’t know why. Please don’t hurt them.”
Twisted strands of dark hair fell over his face but she could still see an expression of pain on it. He opened his mouth and his eyes shifted from her to the others. His lip twitched and he dropped his head away, struggling with something.
“You’re not a monster,” he whispered.
Memory felt his hand shaking in hers, and for a second, he squeezed her hands back then let go.
He glanced around the clearing at the fallen men. “One more.” With one final growl at Roen, soft but no less threatening, he turned away and disappeared into the trees.
Memory fell on the ground and wept.
Chapter Eighteen
Roen shifted on his feet in an attempt to steady himself. He breathed out and silently counted to ten.
The pain didn’t ease.
Fair enough, it was the least he deserved, but he wished the wooziness would pass. His skull felt as if it swam slowly under his scalp. He struggled for clear thought. This mess was his fault, and the knowledge of that hurt more than the beating. He needed to sort it out and make sure the Princess was safe again. Above all else, they had to get away from here as fast as possible. Two thugs still lay unconscious nearby, but Roen had lost track of the other two and the commotion was surely heard from the inn. There could be more trouble at any moment.
And that savage man, what is his connection to Memory? Is he still nearby? Roen’s hands shook. Roen just reached average in height and that savage dwarfed him and had the look of a predator. Even if he was hale he wouldn’t have a chance against that beast. Somehow Memory trusted the animal, but after this he didn’t know what that meant. Memory had barely blinked at his own confession, which he didn’t take as a sign of best judgment of character. She had also hurt Eloryn.
Roen’s squeezed his eyes shut. There was too much mess to deal with now, too many questions he didn’t want to face. Later, just start moving.
“We have to go, now.” Roen’s voice cracked.
Eloryn jolted but didn’t turn to him. She stared at Memory, still crumpled on the ground. Memory’s body shuddered, but if she cried it was silent. Eloryn knelt beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder. Memory twitched and pushed away.
“I’m so sorry. I never truly believed it, never believed you could be a monster. I was scared, and admit you scared me too, but I know you are a good person. A good friend,” Eloryn said.
Memory mumbled into the dirt. “How could I not be a monster? Look at what I did to them, to you!”
“You didn’t mean it. You were just scared and confused. That man, that came to protect you, is he the one who’s been following you?”
Memory rolled her head in a vague nod.
“He seemed to know what... who you are. He said you’re not a monster, and I believe him,” Eloryn said.
Memory’s chest convulsed in a final loud sob, then stilled. She rose to her knees, red eyes averted to the ground. A scowl twisted her mouth. “Whatever I am, something made me this way, even if I can’t remember what. I’m… I can’t help… I didn’t…” Memory’s jaw tensed. “Roen’s right. We need to go.”
Memory stood up, stepped to where she’d been staring and snatched her knife from the ground. She folded it closed and tucked it into her corset.
Eloryn’s face changed when Memory picked up the knife. Roen couldn’t imagine how scared she must have been, being cut like that. The thought of it made his breath shallow. But what he saw now wasn’t fear, it was something else; the sort of intelligent confusion he often saw in her face that made him want to smile.
He had no smile in him now.
“Into the thick of the forest, and hope none follow. Go.” Roen stood, pointing, and waited for them to walk past. He hesitated to move, his body ached so much. Eloryn stopped and turned back after taking a few steps that he didn’t follow.
“Keep going, that way,” he said. He made an effort to move casually after them. It hurt. He waited until Eloryn had turned away again before he let his teeth grit and eyes water. Blood still oozed from where the man had jabbed the short sword into his shoulder. It had only just broken skin before he managed to turn away from it, but it still pounded and burned.
They know who I am. They know what I am. The words repeated through his head to the beat of his pain. He’d only told them so they would hate him, so they would leave, be out of danger. They were supposed to leave him to what he deserved. My secret to the grave. But they know what I am, and I’m still here.
He’d lived alone with this shame for so long, finding comfort for himself and his crimes in other ways that made him more ashamed. He’d only ever begun stealing out of necessity. No one would hire a seventh son of a seventh son. “Cursed and blessed,” the saying told, but Roen so far only knew the curse. He did it for his parents, at the same time knowing it would kill them to discover the criminal their only remaining son had become in the common world they were forced into. What he did, how he did it had even helped the Princess. He would continue to do anything he could to protect her. But now he could
never be anything more.
Roen ground his teeth. What more did he ever hope for? He was a thief and a fool, and from this point on his life was only here to protect the Princess.
A root clung to Roen’s foot, sending him stumbling forward. Hands grabbed his arm and steadied him. He was further gone than he’d realized, not even noticing that Memory walked by his side.
Her mouth pulled tight, more a wince than a smile. “You’re a mess,” she said.
“Thanks. You too.”
“Hmm,” she nodded.
“You can let me go now.”
“Nope. You need the help.”
Against all odds, Roen found his mouth twitch into a smile. The strange girl never failed to surprise him. They were supposed to hate me. “Why?”
Memory stuck her chin toward Eloryn, walking ahead of them. “She’s better than both of us combined. Us losers got to stick together if we’re going to have any chance of helping her out.”
“Hmm,” he nodded.
They walked quietly for a moment.
“Don’t ever tell her I said that.”
Roen watched Eloryn’s back, layered with her flowing blonde hair which had begun to show signs of the wear and danger it had seen these last days. She walked more slowly than a casual stroll, even in this time of flight. They were all moving too slowly. If anyone followed they’d be caught up in no time, but he pushed himself as fast as his abused body could go. Eloryn should be running, but instead, she kept a carefully slow pace. Could she really be waiting for him, even now she knew his secret?
Memory cursed and hopped a few steps on one bare foot. Eloryn waited for the both of them.
The trees around them thinned, and Roen pushed harder to pick up his pace, breaking away from Memory’s support. There were signs of a road ahead of them. This isn’t right, he argued in his head, there should be no road here. He charged through a screen of wild hedge and saw it was true.
He collapsed onto one knee, a sheen of sweat dewing him. He could almost cry.
Memory's Wake Omnibus: The Complete Illustrated YA Fantasy Series Page 15
