Blades of Sorcery

by Terah Edun

  “Don’t get uppity over there, eggs—you have no idea what we need you for. Maybe we were sent to kill you.” Sara’s head was still in her hands as she tried to fight the nausea. Or maybe it was exhaustion. She couldn’t tell. She knew that he was the cause of her new ill feelings, though.

  “What Sara meant to say,” Ezekiel said hastily, “was that it sounds like a great idea to…exchange services.”

  Sara muttered something unintelligible and sat up. Seeing that, Matteas smiled.

  He puffed up with importance. “Yes, well then–Matteas Hillan, at your service.”

  Sara’s lips twitched. It was funny that he thought they wanted to hire his services, but it was as good a guess as any.

  Trying to knock some sense into her current reality, she said, “It’s odd that we’ve been looking for you so long and yet…here you are.”

  “Well,” Matteas said, “if you want the truth, I came to you out of desperation…with the hope that you’d be the same as your father.”

  Sara felt bitterness drip in her voice as she replied, “What? A traitor?”

  “No,” Matteas said. “A loyal woman. A good woman. Your father was no traitor. Not to me, not to this empire, and what they did to him was a tragedy.”

  “What who did?” Sara said quietly as she stilled, like a snake waiting before it struck.

  “Serving your father was one of the greatest honors of my life,” Matteas continued as if she hadn’t even spoken.

  Maybe he hadn’t heard her, too bad he would hear her now.

  Sara was off the stool and across the room like lightning.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” she said as she bent him over backward as far as she could.

  She didn’t even realize her hands were fiercely grabbing Matteas’s shirt at his neckline before she felt Ezekiel’s grip on her fists as he tried and failed to push her back.

  “Sara, let go,” Ezekiel said through gritted teeth. “You’re scaring him.”

  For a moment, Sara dipped back into the darkness and her grip tightened.

  But hearing Ezekiel’s voice made her step back from the edge, so she let go. She even gave Matteas some space, although she kept her gaze firmly pinned on his face.

  The man Sara had been seeking for weeks stared at them both with a faltering smile. Sara stared at him hard, desperate for answers, unwilling and unable to take another step back from the darkness. Not until he told her what he knew.

  28

  Desperate to keep herself from grabbing him, Sara walked away.

  She couldn’t walk very far, though. Not if she wanted to stay within the confines of this small tent with a bed, desk, and three full-sized human bodies all together inside it. So she paced.

  She walked from one end of the tent to the other—always making an abrupt turn before she plowed into Ezekiel and Matteas.

  “Give her some space,” she heard the scholar say quietly.

  Crossing her arms while she was deep in thought and fuming just helped Sara concentrate on her anger more. But that was a good thing. At least she was focusing on that instead of her hands around Matteas’s thick neck.

  He has done nothing wrong, she told herself over and over again.

  Nothing. Wrong.

  As she focused on the emotions inside her, she realized that they were rioting like a flame. Unbidden but also unleashed, which was something she knew she’d have to take care of sooner rather than later. But for now, if she didn’t want it to erupt, if she didn’t want to do something she was certain she’d regret, she had to get it under control.

  So as she pulled her body physically inward by gripping her elbows under her crossed arms tight, holding her head down and becoming as small as possible as she paced, she also did the same thing to the darkness inside of her. Part battle magic and part emotional response, whatever she called the darkness—it came out in her times of greatest need. Whether that was on the battlefield or in the face of an overwhelming emotional response.

  That had been good when she was willing to do what a desperate and trapped Kade invasion leader had begged her to do—give him freedom.

  But it didn’t work so well when she was trapped between the fabric of four walls and two individuals she didn’t want to hurt. Who didn’t deserve her physical response.

  So she pulled in the threads of darkness that were spreading throughout her psyche like flowering tendrils. She tamped them down and she killed them. And when she emerged from re-spooling herself together, her visage was calm. Her body felt tight and ready but not unduly reactive.

  Taking a deep breath, she looked at the opposite side of the tent, where the men still waited.

  It wasn’t much of a distance between them, but the fear in one person’s eyes and the concern in another’s said that at least Matteas preferred some space over none.

  Which was fine.

  So did she.

  “I’ve been looking for you for one simple reason, Mercenary Hillan. You hold the key to finally figuring out why my father was condemned for treason. You are the only person he left behind that I can trust to tell me what it was he knew.”

  Matteas’s face trembled, but he licked his lips and replied, “Yes, that I can. You’re his daughter, after all. You deserve to know.”

  Relief washed over her like a wave.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He nodded nervously. “I was his aide-de-camp when he first arrived, until, well…we realized I was better suited to architectural renders in a far-off corner of the camp, or better yet, left behind at one of the waystations, where I could be guaranteed four walls and privacy, instead of following him all about camp as his secretary and squire when needed.”

  Sara listened intently. She’d never known this.

  “Your father…was a great man. A good man. Who stood by his troops and never belittled those under him as less capable. Including myself. I’ll never forget that.”

  Ezekiel shot Sara a proud look. He knew how much hearing someone praise her father’s character would mean to her. Especially after it seemed the entire empire had turned its back on him.

  All except the man who stood before her—Matteas Hillan.

  Tugging on his ear, Matteas continued, “It was only in the last year of his life that things began to go wrong. Horribly so.”

  “And?” Sara said.

  “And he found out some things about the leadership that unsettled him,” Matteas said. The light in his eyes dimmed a bit. “I told him that it was nothing, but he insisted, even writing down dates and missives in his journals to back up his suspicions.”

  “Suspicions of what?” Ezekiel demanded.

  Sara, for her part, was frozen where she stood, unable to breathe until she heard Matteas speak those words.

  Matteas’s eyes darted back and forth between them. “I told him to leave it alone, that bringing this up would do no one any good, and look what happened!”

  Voice strangled, Sara said, “You think whatever he was suspicious about got him killed?”

  “I know it did! And I think they’re after me, too. Following me. Lurking in the darkness. I can feel it.”

  Ezekiel said, “You still haven’t told us what his suspicions were.”

  Matteas said, “That the greatest betrayers were on the inside. That the war wasn’t being lost but rather given away, and the greatest threat was coming from within our own leadership.”

  Exasperated, Ezekiel said, “What does that mean in common tongue?”

  Sara said quietly, “That our leaderships are treasonous. All of them. And it’s they who turned against my father and the cause, not he against them.”

  Matteas nodded.

  Sara let out a breath that was more like a sob as she let herself fall boneless to the floor, overcome with emotion.

  “I knew it,” she said through angry tears. “I knew he wasn’t a traitor. I knew he had the crown’s best interests at heart. It’s the damned Mercenary’s Guild, it always has been.�
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  Matteas got down on the floor next to her. As he pulled away her hands from covering her face, she let him.

  Instead of compassion, though, she saw fear. Raw fear.

  “What is it?” Sara said while wiping away her tears.

  “I don’t think you understand,” Matteas said, skin so pale that she wondered if it were possible that he was becoming translucent.

  Sara looked at him in confusion. “Understand what?”

  “Your father didn’t believe it was the guild leadership subverting authority,” he said, “but the very representatives that the crown sent here to guide them.”

  “You mean the empress’ own counsel?” Ezekiel said.

  “Them and the vice admirals,” Matteas said grimly. “And I have the proof your father gathered to give to the empress…before they ordered his execution.”

  “How did they kill him if he knew they were traitors?” Ezekiel asked. “Why didn’t he run?”

  “You don’t know my father,” Sara said. “He’s never run from anything in his life.”

  “If everyone around you is against you, you run,” Ezekiel said. “That’s common logic.”

  Matteas said, “He couldn’t leave. He had only the proof he needed to convince the empress of the treachery, but in order to really confirm it…well, she needed to see it herself.”

  Sara stilled and then asked hesitantly, “Did she come?”

  Matteas shook his head. “He never had the chance to deliver his first suspicions to her. They were already on his trail.”

  There was silence for a moment.

  Then Sara said, “And now? You have it with you, don’t you?”

  Matteas drew up to his full height. Which was about to the tip of her chin when she was standing. But his eyes gleamed with pride as he said, “I’ve kept what he gave me safe. But I don’t have it here.”

  Sara nodded. “That’s fine. That’s good. We’ll go get it. We’ll prove to the world what a lying set of scumbags these schemers are.”

  “About that,” Ezekiel said. “Do you have any idea who’s chasing you, Matteas?”

  Before Matteas could reply, Sara’s eyes widened at the ominous sound of something else. Something definitely not good.

  “Move!”

  She lunged forward and toppled Matteas over, saving his life in the process.

  A wave of arrows came though her tent, and Sara had to roll with the strength of a battle mage to get herself and Matteas out of the way.

  When Ezekiel scrambled over to their corner underneath the desk, she jerked him down and waited for silence.

  “What was that?” Matteas asked, voice quivering.

  With a glance at the arrows sticking out of her rug, Sara knew they were the same black-tipped ones the Kades had sent on her first official journey to becoming a true mercenary.

  “Death came calling,” she answered flatly.

  “Oh no, they found me!” her father’s little secret keeper squealed.

  Unfortunately for Matteas, he was right, and how fitting it was that they would show up on the day of her promotion, as well. Story of her life—something went mildly right and something else went horribly wrong.

  Ignoring Matteas’s sniveling form, Sara grabbed her sword from the bed and crept toward the tent entrance, trying to spy the enemy before they decided a dozen or so poison-tipped arrows weren’t enough to ensure they were all dead.

  Noting no movement at the entrance, she practically dove toward the parted curtains and parted them as efficiently as she could. When she poked her head out to warily look outside, Sara was concerned to see several soldiers dead on the ground. But in just an isolated area. The command area.

  And it wasn’t just her tent with small holes piercing it through.

  It was all of them.

  The soldiers were just collateral damage. As struck leaders stumbled from their tents and others ran up to assess the damage she knew that it had been a targeted hit…just not at her. It had to be the Kades come to finish what they started, the complete and utter destruction of the imperial armed forces, whatever it took.

  Sara heard the ominous whistling sound again and looked up to the sky with wide eyes, ready to throw herself to the ground again with a moment’s notice. But it turned out that wasn’t necessary. It was clear from their trajectory that none of them were headed her way.

  And as she watched, true to form these black arrows landed in another part of their camp.

  Still deadly. Still targeted. Just broadly so.

  As more arrows landed, this time taking out even the healers who had run up to aid the wounded, Sara quickly cursed and looked back at Matteas. “You said they followed you—are you sure it’s them?”

  “Why?” he said from where he quivered half-under the tent table and half-exposed.

  “Because that last wave wasn’t even close to our tent,” she said flatly as she jerked her own entrance flap closed. She couldn’t help those that were already dead and dying out on the ground, especially if more arrows were incoming.

  What she could do is assess this threat properly.

  Spinning around Sara prompted him, “Are you sure it’s the people after you? Do you know if it’s a single assassin or a group of thugs?”

  Matteas’s eyes widened. “Well, fairly sure. I mean, I don’t have anyone else trying to kill me—do you?”

  Sara didn’t bother answering that.

  Ezekiel said, “Well, it depends on the day. I still think Cormar is on the lookout for me, but—”

  He shut up upon seeing Sara’s fierce glare.

  “No,” said Ezekiel when he regained his voice. “No one else is trying to kill us. Not at all.”

  “Right,” said Matteas with a faint frown. He didn’t believe them. Sara didn’t care.

  With a sigh Sara changed the subject and said, “Alright, we’ll need to be wary but I don’t think your threat is here yet. However I am worried about those arrows and what they mean, we could be in for an imminent attack.”

  “On the tent?” Matteas squeaked.

  “No, if the threat was close we wouldn’t still be here would we?” Ezekiel said slowly while eyeing Sara cautiously and standing up himself.

  “Oh, then what about them?” Matteas asked in a relieved voice.

  He was referring to the arrows.

  Ezekiel leaned over one, carefully not to touch it. “Well, they’re all tipped with deadly poison.”

  Sara nodded, glad he had finally caught up to what she had noticed ages ago.

  “And they look a lot like those…” Ezekiel muttered in low voice before he abruptly said, “No, it can’t be!”

  “It can,” Sara said.

  “What is it?” Matteas asked.

  Sara shot him an annoyed look, but she supposed he deserved to know. She nodded at Ezekiel to tell him while she went back to looking out.

  “Those arrows are Kade made and come infused with magic,” he explained. “There’s no way we were just shot at by our own side with enemy weapons within our own camp.”

  “Not to mention the fact that our tent wasn’t the only one targeted,” Sara said.

  “It wasn’t?” both men said.

  She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. There are at least seven dead outside, and as many tents with arrow piercings as this. This was a wide Kade attack.”

  “Oh, oh, that’s great!” said Matteas.

  Sara and Ezekiel looked at him in disgust.

  Shrinking under their glares, he said meekly, “It’s just nice not to have an assassin’s target on your back, you know?”

  Sara snorted as she left the front of the tent and faced them both with arms crossed.

  “You have no idea what they want with you,” she said. “They may not even kill you…at first.”

  Matteas’s pale face went paler.

  “Which is why,” Ezekiel said to Matteas, shooting Sara a reprimanding look, “you should tell us where those journals are. We need to confirm details.”<
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  “We need to know who these characters are,” Sara said. “And if you can’t tell us because you don’t know, then the only thing left to be done is to let my father tell us himself.”

  Matteas nodded eagerly and then raised a fat finger in the air. “One small problem.”

  “What is it?” Ezekiel said. “Whatever it is, we can get it done.”

  “Well,” Matteas said in a low grumble, “it’s about where I hid the journals.”

  Sara crouched low on the ground and peered into his face. “And where would that be?”

  He squirmed and then let it out in one burst: “You have to realize, I was under a lot of pressure. I was even questioned about my involvement in Commander Fairchild’s actions, which I strenuously denied.”

  “Uh-huh,” Sara said calmly, though her face said she was getting pissed off.

  “I had to go somewhere that no one could easily obtain them and most wouldn’t think to look.”

  Settling in on his other side Ezekiel said in a friendly voice, “And where would that be?”

  Matteas’s nervous gaze darted back and forth between the two friends. “On the grounds of the most famous school for mages in this empire.”

  Ezekiel leaned back, surprised, “Where?”

  Sara, however, groaned. She knew exactly what the man was referring to.

  “You took them to the Madrassa, didn’t you?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Matteas said miserably. “It was my only choice. What better place to keep the journals from the empress’ evil minions than there? They’d never get in.”

  Bursting off the floor like there was a fire under her butt, Sara loomed over the man who was supposed to be her father’s greatest ally and screamed, “That’s because it’s the home of the Kades!”

  “Sara, Sara,” Ezekiel said, raising a hand. “Calm down.”

  She slapped his hand away. “Don’t tell me to calm down. Do you know what he’s done? He’s doomed my father to infamy forever as a traitor to the crown. We will never be able to get into the Madrassa, and we will never see those journals again.”

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