by Claire Luana
“Lost caves… Have you ever seen these tunnels?”
Vikal shook his head. “The island will show us the way.” He hoped. If it still found him worthy.
A branch cracked down the hillside, and they both froze. “What was that?”
Vikal held up a hand to silence her and peered into the twisted, fire-eaten forest.
“I see movement,” he whispered. A flash of black. And glowing green. Vikal’s blood turned to ice in his veins.
“A soul-eater,” she hissed. She had seen it too. “Should we hide?”
Vikal shook his head. “They already have our scent. We fight.” He drew his twin blades from the scabbards on his back with a ring of steel. “You ready to kill that thing?”
Rika let out a shaky breath, drawing her father’s sword. It was far too long for her, but her grip appeared steady, and her stance was practiced. “Ready.”
The soul-eater appeared through the blackened limbs of the burnt trees, its ebony plate glinting in the low afternoon sun. It wasn’t alone. Five. Five thralls in addition to the soul-eater. Could they fight so many? Would he be able to hold them off while Rika summoned her power? And then…he saw the face of one of the thralls.
“Gods above,” he said, his swords drooping.
“What?” she asked.
“The man with the shaved head. He is my…” Vikal corrected himself. “He was my second-in-command.” Cayono was alive.
Rika groaned. “So we can’t kill him?”
“No. Please. Do everything you can to save him.”
“Short of dying, right?” Rika asked.
“Right.”
And then Cayono let out a bloodcurdling battle cry and surged up the mountain.
CHAPTER 14
IT WAS NOT an easy thing—to fight a battle without killing your opponent. Vikal’s friend crashed against him with a sound like a clap of thunder. The man bulged with muscle; his arms looked like tree trunks underneath his black leather armor. He wielded an odd axe as his weapon, and Vikal countered it with his blades crossed. “Cayono,” he grunted at his friend as they grappled against one another. “Bak. My brother. I know you’re in there. We’ll get you out. Fight it.”
Vikal’s words faded away as one of the other thralls came at Rika, his short sword held aloft like a banner. She brought her father’s sword up and the man slammed into her, his sour breath bathing her as they grappled. With a panicked move that held none of the grace of her training, she shoved him back. He stumbled a few steps down the mountain slope before skidding to a stop and renewing his attack. The man was thin and wiry, but tall, with a long reach. Her sword was too large for her, too heavy, too unwieldy compared to the more compact weapons she was used to. She realized all this in the span of a second between the rush of blood that thrummed in her ears. But there was nothing for it. Her father’s sword, impractical as it may have been for a fighter of her size, was the only thing keeping her alive.
She struggled to keep her footing as she traded blows with the man, her feet slipping in the rich earth, her clothing snagging on branches and grasping burnt limbs. No, they weren’t fighting on the smooth gravel of an even training ground. She ducked a swipe of the man’s sword, diving out of the way, and found herself rolling down the hill, sword torn from her grip, empty hands scrambling to grasp something that would stop her progress.
Rika’s outstretched palms scraped and sliced against rough bark and rocks as she fell, but as she slipped past the trunk of a sturdy palm, she was able to hook her elbow around it and stop herself. She groaned as pain lanced through her shoulder—it felt like her arm had been torn from its socket. But that wasn’t as concerning as her sword, which lay uselessly in the dirt halfway up the hill. She wanted to lay her face in the ashy soil, but she knew she couldn’t. She had to get it. She had to get up. She rolled over—just in time to see another soldier swinging his sword down in a blow aimed for her head. She shied away from the thrall’s swing and the blade buried itself in the earth, quivering where her neck had been. She acted without thought, exploding up into the man, hammering her shoulder against his torso. He grunted in surprise and toppled over backwards, rolling down the hill just as she had moments before. She picked up his sword and wiped her hair from her eyes. This was madness.
The other two thralls were standing slightly down the hill, guarding the soul-eater, who stood like a black hole, soaking up the remaining light and brightness of the day. It seemed content to let its minions tire its prey, sure there was nowhere they could go, no way to escape its clutches. Rika narrowed her eyes. To end this fight, she needed to end that leech. But could she grasp her power without a moment to center herself and focus?
She risked a glance up the hill, to where Vikal was still locked in furious combat with the bald-headed man. It was good she did, because she was able to get her sword up in time to parry a wicked thrust by her first attacker. Rika’s skull rang with the vibration of the swords clanging together, and her feet slid in the earth as the man pushed with his sword, blackened teeth bared. Thoughts of summoning her power fled from her mind as she focused on the immediate threat. She kicked out, knocking one of his knees out from under him. He fell to one knee but caught himself before careening down the hill. It was all the opportunity she needed. Rika plunged her sword into his throat, gagging as the coppery scent of blood perfumed the air. She pulled her sword out, eyes wide as the man clutched desperately at his neck. Rika’s stomach heaved as crimson blood pulsed between his fingers, his life draining away. He slumped forward into the dirt, an accusing stare frozen on his face by death’s embrace. She drew in a shuddering breath. She had killed a man. That man was dead because of her.
The man whom she had sent tumbling down the hill was nearly back to her position now, and so she shoved her dismay aside, adding it to the growing pile of sorrows too horrible to deal with. She dodged past him, scrambling down the hillside towards the soul-eater. Its two guards came to life, one pulling a sword from its scabbard, the other pulling two knives from sheaths at his belt. He threw them at her in quick succession, and she dodged, twisting her torso to avoid the deadly projectiles.
Pain bloomed in Rika’s stomach, and her steps faltered. She looked down, stumbling, almost losing her footing. A knife blade protruded from her stomach. Red blood flowed freely, staining her obi. Numb disbelief washed over her. The thrall had hit her. The man was pulling two more long-bladed fighting knives from sheaths on his thighs, but the other thrall came at her first, his sword singing a deadly song. Blocking his blow sent a wave of pain and nausea through her. She countered two more blows, but the ending to this encounter stood before her, clear as day. She couldn’t fight both of them, not wounded and losing blood. She needed to destroy the leech, freeing these men from its compulsion.
“Soul-eater,” she cried, “are you such a coward that you let these men do your fighting for you?” The soldier came at her with a fast attack, and she barely parried the blows. She was slowing. The man with the knives threw another at her, and she dove to the side, landing with a thud. The pain took her breath away, and fire bloomed on her arm. He had hit her again—a glancing blow. She clawed through the pain in her mind, grasping at the threads of power she had felt when she had summoned Cygna. When she had killed the first soul-eater. They eluded her dazed efforts, slippery as eels.
The creature seemed to respond to her taunt, advancing up the hillside. The two soldiers were upon her in a moment, the one with the sword leveling its tip at her throat. She lay back, panting, her blood mingling with the ash of the fires that had ravaged the forest. The soul-eater came to a stop just feet from her, surveying her with its glowing green eyes. “You think me so easily baited?” it hissed, its voice grating in her ears. “I have heard of you. We have all heard of you. My brother was foolish enough to die at your hand. I will not make the same mistake. I will claim your head for a trophy, and my queen will rejoice.”
Her vision swam, the creature becoming two, three black shapes
before merging back into one. She was losing too much blood.
“So easily killed,” the leech said. “You are little more than bleating sheep.”
Rika’s eyes narrowed, and she threw open the gates of her mind, grabbing desperately at what she found. Help me! she screamed desperately. Cygna! Anything. I summon you! Kill it!
The energy responded, pulsing with celestial power. Though she couldn’t see, she grabbed for it, yanking it towards herself like a lifeline. The power yielded, streaming towards her in a raging river of pure light. She was tired, and her mind was sluggish. Her effort drained the last ounce of strength from her. The soldier’s sword was raised above her, ready to give the killing blow—and she knew she didn’t have it in her to evade it.
But before the blow could fall, a jet of crystalline light streaked down from above and barreled into the soul-eater with the force of a shooting star. The intensity of the flash burned her retinas, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the force and backlash of the landing. When she opened them again, blinking away the dust, she saw that the power had eviscerated the soul-eater and tossed the other men off their feet.
The thrall who had been poised to kill her rolled on the ground beside her, groaning, holding his head. When he opened groggy eyes to look at her, they were dark brown—free of the soul-eater’s compulsion. Thank the gods. The muscles in Rika’s body loosened, exhaustion and pain washing over her. The handle of the knife still protruded from her stomach. Her shirt was black with blood.
The former thrall pulled himself onto his knees beside her, speaking words of concern. The language was strange to her—the words meaningless.
Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as Rika realized her predicament. Without a miracle, she was going to die. She had sat by her mother and grandmother in the healing ward often enough to know what could be fixed and what couldn’t. Her wound was grave. Perhaps she could have been saved before she’d lost so much blood…but now…she would leave this world without helping her family. Kitina would fall—her home burned and ravaged like this land. She felt hollow inside. This is what Kita and Miina would look like. If it didn’t already. This is what those leeches did. They consumed and destroyed. She felt so foolish. All she had wanted, all she had prayed for fervently every day of the last four years, was for her power to manifest. And now that it had, it had ruined everything. How could she have been so selfish, so self-absorbed? Had she known that the cost of her power would be her father…her people…her home…she would have stayed away as long as she lived.
“Vikal,” she managed. Her voice was distant. Perhaps the gods of this land had some other power. Something that would save her.
“Vikal?” The soldier perked up. “Vikal?” As if he wasn’t sure he had heard her right. The man stood, and waved his arms up the hill. “Vikal!” Then more foreign words.
A sob escaped from her mouth. She would die in this strange place, in this strange land. Her body wouldn’t lay to rest in Yoshai, with her parents and her people. She would be lost forever. They would never know what became of her.
Blackness swam before her vision, but she blinked, clearing it. She wanted to see Vikal, the most familiar thing she had in this place. The face appeared above her, concern and worry written like the chapters of a book. “Rika! Stay with us. Stay with me.” She felt his hands on her face, cradling her head, the dichotomy of his rough palms and gentle touch soothing her.
“I’m sorry,” she managed.
Vikal was saying things to someone else now, words she didn’t understand, directing and pointing. “Don’t be sorry.” He turned back to her, crouching over her. His thumb stroked along her cheek. “You will not die. You have a destiny, goddess of bright light. We need you.”
CHAPTER 15
RIKA WAS AS PALE as a lotus flower and as still as a shadow. Her shallow, rasping breath was the only sign that she still lived. Vikal sat back on his haunches, running a bloodied hand through his hair while the other held the hem of her tunic pressed against the wound. His mind rebelled against him, unwilling to form a cohesive thought—beyond one. She was dying. Rika was dying.
Cayono had shaken off the fog of compulsion and fell to one knee beside him. “How…?” he rubbed his forehead. “Vikal. How are you here? Free? Last I saw you were boarding a rowboat bound for a leech ship. It was so strange. Yesterday, the soul-eater’s control of me just…fell away. But another, this one, it saw it and took me again. What is going on?”
Cayono’s questions darted about Vikal like gnats. There was only one that was important. “Her,” Vikal managed. “She is why you are free. Why I am free. Why I am here. All of it. It is her.”
“She killed it,” another man said, the one who had called Vikal down the slope. “I saw it. She summoned something—and it blew the leech sky high.”
“She can kill them?” Cayono’s dark eyes blazed with excitement. “Vikal! Bak! Do you know what this means?”
Vikal shook his head miserably. “She is dying.”
“Save her!” Cayono cried.
“How?” Vikal’s voice was weak, twisted. “Maybe Sarnak could heal this, but not me. I do not know healing magic.” Not again. He was failing again. First Sarya, now Rika… Was he doomed in this incarnation to be nothing but a wretched failure?
Cayono paused. “The forest. Surely, there is some leaf or flower that could sustain her. Stop the bleeding. Until we find help.”
Cayono’s suggestion lanced through the haze that clouded his thoughts. The forest. Of course. He wasn’t thinking. “Cayono, you are a genius. Hold this. Keep the pressure on,” Vikal said, and Cayono leaned forward, placing his hand over the slick wad of fabric.
Vikal dashed up the burnt slope towards the green of the ridgeline above, throwing his third eye open. Healing, he thought as he ran his mind along the thousands of green threads that tethered him to the forest. The spiderweb of green filaments revealed by his third eye had once overwhelmed him to the point of vertigo, but over time it had grown familiar, welcome. He searched them desperately now for a miracle that could save Rika. Something to stop the bleeding. Something for strength. Something to ward off infection… He ran his mind along the threads of power like strings of a lute, commanding them to sing for him. Two trilled in response, and Vikal redoubled his sprint, charging like the soul-eater queen herself was on his heels. At the top of the ridge he skidded to a stop, falling onto his knees to gather fistfuls of moss that had grown up at his insistence. To stop the bleeding—it called to him, revealing its essence. A vine snaked down from a nearby tree and presented a curling end laden with tangerine flowers. He pulled them off, saying a silent thank you. To give her strength. He closed his hand gently over his treasures and began his wild descent back down the mountain.
Vikal skidded to a stop beside Cayono and the other two men, who were standing over Rika, watching her with trepidation.
“Her breathing slows,” Cayono said. “Tell me you found something.”
Vikal opened his hands and took the moss, leaning down over Rika’s wound. Blood soaked the ground beneath her—pulsing out weakly as Cayono lifted his hand. Vikal took the moss and packed it into the wound as delicately as he could before holding out a hand without looking up. “Give me something to wrap it with.” Was the blood already slowing? Or was it just his desperate imagination?
One of the men quickly unwrapped a black sash from about his hips and handed it to Vikal.
Carefully, Vikal tied the sash tightly around Rika’s narrow waist and fastened it securely. Then he took the flowers and crushed them between the heels of his hands, staining his palms orange. He took Rika’s head and opened her mouth gently, packing the flowers into the corner of her cheek. How he knew what to do, he couldn’t say.
Rika lay limp and quiet. The blood had slowed, but she was so pale. Like the veil of death had already fallen over her. Vikal let out a hiss of frustration. What more could he do? He looked at Cayono and the despair on his friend’s face mirrored his
own. “You held back…” Cayono said. “Fighting me. You should have killed me. Stayed by her side. If I had died, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“I threw the knife,” one of the former thralls said, his hand hovering over his mouth in horror. My Gusti, forgive me.” Vikal grew cold at that word. He was not this man’s king anymore. He was no one’s king. Cayono was right, though he didn’t blame Vikal. Vikal should have given any life to protect Rika’s. But his attachment to Cayono, his determination to spare his friend, had cost her dearly. And had cost his people their one chance of salvation.
“It is my fault,” Vikal said woodenly. “Mine and no one else’s.”
Then Rika let out a ragged gasp and sat straight up. Her eyes fluttered open before rolling back in her head as she fell towards the earth. With a cry, Vikal caught her, cradling her in his arms, laying her down gently. He looked at her in amazement. Her color had returned, and he felt the strong beat of her heart hammering through her ribcage.
“A miracle,” Cayono said.
“If we get her to Sarnak, she could live,” Vikal realized, hope unfurling in his chest like a spring bloom.
“Do you know where he hides?” Cayono asked.
“Goa Awan.” Vikal slid his hands under Rika’s limp body, pushing to his feet. “We’ll find him at Goa Awan.”
The legend of Goa Awan was an old one, a bedtime tale told to children. Vikal and Bahti had searched for it as boys, as the threads of their power started manifesting. Mostly an excuse to sneak out under the light of the full moon, their search had yielded much adventure, but no concrete results. The island had withheld its secrets from the two boys until they’d started growing up, more concerned with girls than full moon quests. As far as Vikal knew, Sarnak, the God of Endings, was the only one whom the island had deemed worthy of its inner sanctum.
Now, he understood why. The horror of the soul-eaters’ compulsion was magnified by the fact that their power opened up your mind to them—laid it bare. The soul-eaters had had full access to Vikal’s furtive prayers, his deepening despair, his self-loathing. Emotions, thoughts, identity—the monsters claimed sovereignty over it all. Thank the gods he hadn’t known the location of Goa Awan. He would have betrayed his people yet again.
