Tessili Revenge

by Robin Stephen

  They hurried, the sounds of the battle falling beyond. Jey was aware that a few shambling shapes followed – hardened men who had noticed the group push through. But they hung back, affected by Treyam’s glow, unwilling or unable to come too close. Phril kept an eye on them as Jey continued, hissing.

  They reached the town square at last, walking out the mouth of a street that opened onto a broad plaza with a fountain at the center. Not so long ago, this would have been a lovely place. The green was extensive and well-groomed, the paved common area wide and dotted with trees and benches.

  Now it was a place of horror. Jey nearly choked on her shock when she saw the heaps of bodies. They lay in massive stacks, humans tossed into mounds like felled trees. The dead were pale, bleached of color, and utterly lifeless. Men, women and children were tangled together, whole families wiped out.

  Jey felt the familiar rage begin to burn in her chest. She looked towards the center of the square. And she saw the diod.

  Or at least, she almost saw it. She was aware of a shape – a tall, narrow form, shrouded in shadow, cloaked in a purple darkness that seemed yet to glow. She felt it, too. It tugged on the threads of magic in the air, coiling them into itself, turning them to poison. It held the prostrate body of a child in one clawed hand.

  As Jey watched, frozen with disbelief, the diod tossed the child aside. There was movement near the fountain, and a figure stirred. It walked to the child, picked it up, and carried it to the stack of bodies.

  Something about the way the figure walked made Jey look again. A strange shock of recognition shot through her. The man who so casually flung the child onto the stack of bodies was Nylan – the handler who had killed Kae – the man Jey hated most in the world.

  She almost broke formation, almost dashed across the paving stones to ram her knives into his chest. It was only Elle’s hand on her shoulder that kept her still, the little burst of soothing emotion her friend transferred to her with a light touch.

  There would be time for Nylan later, Jey told herself. For now, they faced the diod.

  And the diod, it appeared, was aware of them. It was turning, its body rotating within its supernatural cowl. It had no face that Jey could see, but there was a darkness within the purple shadows that oriented on them, seeming to focus.

  Treyam began to walk, leading the group forward. The white light he gave off grew stronger, more intense, more brilliant. First Mage Otha’s staff had also begun to glow. Jey felt the weaving of a great spell forming in the air around her. Behind them, the hardened men skulked, unable to come any closer.

  It was going to work, Jey thought. They were going to do it. The diod didn’t know to fear them. It only stood, silent and terrible, at the center of the destruction it had wrought.

  A movement caught Jey’s eye. She turned her head. Nylan had turned from the pile of bodies to regard their small group. His face, which had never been friendly, was now a twisted snarl of inhuman hatred. He stooped, reached into his boot, and withdrew a knife. He moved so quickly, Jey barely had time to react.

  It dawned on her what he was about to do. He should have been too far away. He was beyond the glow of Treyam’s peace warding, all the way across the plaza. But something about the way his shoulders rippled as he moved told her he was no longer merely a man. Nylan had changed. She somehow knew he would have both the range and the accuracy to take Treyam down.

  Jey didn’t think. She didn’t hesitate. She charged forward, leaving formation, dashing across the cobbled stones. She reached the edge of Treyam’s light. As she dashed across the hard stones, Phril erupted, expanding to a size so vast she couldn’t quite take it in.

  The hardened men at the mouth of the street charged Phril, dashing in with their knives and cudgels and axes, hacking at his brilliant scales. But Jey had eyes only for Nylan, and the knife he threw. It sailed through the air, turning in a lazy spin, flying straight for Treyam’s exposed back.

  ◈

  It was falling apart. First Mage Otha felt the chaos coming. The girl, Jey, left first. She leapt out of her position and hurled herself into the path of a thrown knife. For a moment, it looked like the weapon would hit her in the chest. If it had, it surely would have killed her.

  But Jey swiped one of her own knives through the air, knocking the thrown knife aside. Then she advanced on the hardened man before her while those behind fell on her tessila.

  Around her, several other tessilari left the protection of the peace warding, moving to engage enemy forces. Otha had to remind herself to let them go. They had come for this precise purpose. They were not hers to protect any longer.

  The diod loomed before her – a pulsing, malevolent presence. It was full of the dead, replete on the stolen energies of the people who had perished here. Otha felt her own hatred snake through her, combined with Grip’s. This thing was an abomination, a corruption of all that was good and right about magic. Her purple tessila was nearly young again with his enthusiasm for their final duty. He was strong in her mind, full of power and joy. For a moment, Otha regretted the end she was about to deliver unto them both.

  She continued her weaving, calling magic up out of the air, out of the earth. She felt the power build within her, thrumming between her and Grip, more than she had ever held before.

  Next to her, there was a sudden clap of magic. One of the other tessilari had cast the detonation spell. It went off, blasting the man out of existence, ripping a yawning gap into the magical fabric of the world.

  A brilliant light formed around the diod, then shattered. The monster did not so much as flinch.

  The diod, unaffected, stood taller as the man and his tessila collapsed into an inert heap, dead.

  Otha cursed under her breath. The others had been told to wait, to try to take the diod only if she failed. This man, perhaps in a heroic gesture, had cast his spell first. But he hadn’t been strong enough.

  The diod lifted its head, an enraged bellow rising from its strange, hollow face. Before it had been only curious about them. Now it was angry.

  Otha was out of time.

  Her spell was ready. She could feel it on the air. She made the final weave and sent Grip one last thought, full of the boundless love she felt for him.

  Then she let go.

  The spell was so powerful it seemed to rock the world. It was the most magic she’d ever released, the most powerful casting she would ever work. Otha saw the light gather around the diod, and she could feel, this time, it would be enough.

  Before Otha died, the sight came on her one last time. She saw the girl, Jey, and the young man, Treyam. They stood together in a courtyard full of flowers and tessili. They were holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes. They would join, Otha saw, and their joining would bring a child into this world. This child would bond with a tessila. The tessila would be a strong cross between the bloodlines of the valley and the bloodlines of the academy. The child would only be one of many such crosses, but she would be the strongest. She would be a Tessilari so powerful her name would echo down through the ages. She would lead her people back to their former glory.

  With this death, this sacrifice of her own life as well as Grip’s, Otha was allowing that future.

  Otha closed her eyes. She felt her old heart split, both with the power she had just released and with the joy that came with knowing she had carried out her purpose, at last.

  ◈

  Jey lay in a soft bed. For a moment, her mind was suspended just before waking. She was aware she was warm and comfortable, and Phril was nearby. Her tessila was pleased with himself about something. He perched on her headboard, preening.

  But Jey was confused. She hadn’t slept in a bed like this one – large, soft and downy, since her years in the academy.

  The thought made her sit up. Her drowsiness vanished as fear shot through her like a malevolent spell. She glanced around the large room where she now lay. Sunlight spilled through high windows. Beyond the glass, the academy
grounds lay in all their well-groomed splendor.

  For one horrible moment, Jey thought it had all been a dream. She had never left here after all, never broken out, never lived in a cheesery, never met Lokim and Treyam and gone to the Valley of Mist. She was a prisoner, just like she always had been and always would be.

  There was a movement on the other side of the room. “Ah, you’re awake.” It was Elle’s voice. Her friend rose from a small couch and picked up a tray. The tray bore an arrangement of breakfast foods. Just like when I’m back after an opportunity.

  Jey’s panic was a living thing now, a caged tessila in her chest, clawing to escape. Elle continued across the room, carrying the tray. She stopped when she saw Jey’s expression. “Heaven’s Jey, what’s wrong? Don’t you feel all right? Treyam said he healed you but you might be disoriented when you first woke up, because of the blow you took to your temple.”

  Treyam. Jey’s panic began to fade, but she shook her head. She couldn’t remember any head blow.

  Elle crossed the room and set the tray on the bedside table. “Treyam insisted you needed some privacy and a proper place to sleep. You’re in the faculty compound. He was here all night, by your side. He only stepped out a moment ago. He’ll be back soon.”

  It came back in a rush, then – the diod, the battle, the massive spell Otha had cast. The old woman’s magic had seemed to rip a hole in the very fabric of existence. And also, there had been Phril. He’d been fully the size of a house, smashing and raking at the hardened men that had begun to pour out of the street into the courtyard.

  And Nylan. She’d stabbed him with her knife, right in the neck. He’d only smiled and driven a fist into her side. She’d been stunned for a moment and had taken another blow in her shin. But she’d rallied, infusing her knives with magic and going back on the offensive.

  “The diod,” Jey said. “Did we win?”

  Elle handed Jey a warm mug of tea. “We won,” Elle said, “if you can call it that.” Her friend’s eyes were sad as they rested on Jey’s face. “We lost a lot of Tessilari, Jey. Treyam had to be forcibly removed from the field. He’d have killed himself trying to heal them all.”

  Jey felt a strange lurch in her chest. “But he’s ok?” she said. “Unharmed?”

  “Yes, he’s only tired. Lokim too. Otha is dead, of course. Many knights fell as well. Fortunately the hardened men stopped fighting when the diod went down. Now they sit or stand where they were when it died, like strange, half-living statues. It’s uncanny.”

  “What about Nylan?” Jey said. She could remember the fight now. She remembered infusing her knives with magic until they glowed as if fresh from the forge. She remembered landing blow after blow after blow to no avail. He’d only continued to smile.

  And then …. she froze with the teacup halfway to her lips, turning to look at Phril. Her tessila regarded her with his black, dewdrop eye.

  Elle spoke. Her friend’s voice was cautious. “Nylan. Well. You see ….” Her friend broke off, laughing a little. “Phril ate him.”

  Jey knew it was true. She could feel it in Phril’s self-satisfaction, and the memory came back. Nylan had delivered a crushing blow to her head, smashing her down to the ground. Just before her consciousness had faded, a massive red head had struck from above, jaws closing around Nylan’s body.

  She turned to her tessila again, this time in concern. “Is he okay?” Jey said. “Aren’t tessili vegetarians?”

  Elle giggled. “He seems fine. We kept a close eye on him after he shifted. But he’s been in a fabulous mood, not even hissing at Nim when Treyam healed you.”

  Jey reached out and ran her finger along the sharp line of Phril’s jaw. “I can’t believe you,” she said in a wondering tone.

  The door opened, and Treyam walked in. He saw Elle by the bedside, saw Jey sitting up. For a moment he closed his eyes in pure relief. Then he was crossing the room, Elle was stepping aside, and he was sitting on the bedside, holding one of Jey’s hands in both of his. He looked at her with his amber eyes, Nim peeping out from within his collar. “You’re awake,” he said.

  Jey, out of reflex, almost drew her hand away. But then she went still. It was over, she realized. The diod was fallen. The academy was free. The High Priest would stand trial for his crimes. The knights of Masidon and the Tessilari had stood shoulder to shoulder and faced a common foe. Even Nylan was dead.

  Which meant Jey no longer had to prepare, no longer had to plot, no longer had to seek revenge.

  Still, it was strangely hard to let go. Jey sat for a moment, blinking in the bright light. Revenge, she realized, wasn’t about violence. Revenge wasn’t about killing. Her revenge was just starting. She would have it by turning her back on her past. She would have it by rising above what had been done to her. She would have it by starting over and building a new life.

  Jey set her teacup down. A strange feeling of peace pooled inside her. It wouldn’t always be easy, she knew. The galaxy of scars on the inside of her elbow would never fully fade. She would have bad days when she remembered what she had done. She would always hate those memories.

  But for now, it was morning. The sun was up. Phril was near her and happy. They were free.

  Jey turned to Treyam and set her hand on top of his.

  Your Turn!

  Dear Reader,

  First, I want to thank you for joining me on Jey’s journey. I hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know her and the other characters in this series as much as I have.

  Second, I am hoping you might take a moment to let me know what you thought of this series. I love hearing from my readers. You can email me at author@robinstephen.com. Or, if you’re feeling very generous, you can post a review on Amazon to let others know you liked it.

  If you’d like to know about my upcoming releases, you can join my mailing list and robinstephen.com.

  Most of all, thank you for reading!

  Best,

  Robin

  About the Author

  Robin has always been enamored with magic.

  When she was a child, that meant reading books. When she was a slightly older child, it meant trying to write her own. She produced her first attempt at a fantasy story at the age of 10. It was an unintentionally blatant (and considerably less well executed) rip-off of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

  Fortunately for everyone, Robin's stories have gotten a little more original over the years. She currently lives in Iowa City, where she hangs out with her husband, trains horses, and writes.

  learn more at robinstephen.com

  Robin also writes contemporary western romance

  If you like horses, love stories, and the desert, explore Robin’s work under the pen name Stefani Wilder. Her book, A Man Who Rides is available now.

  see stefaniwilder.com for details