by Lizzy Ford
Once, he found a sentence in the records kept by his forefathers, not pertaining to the family itself but detailing what happened during the first few decades after the Old World collapsed, when many strange events were recorded during the Age of Darkness, when the world existed in permanent stage of night for a century. Along with the waking of the Ghouls – human predators from a bygone age – during this period, the book had referenced a second awakening.
The hands of men shattered the world, but it was also the hands of men that coaxed magic from the land and began to repair all that had been broken.
Arthur had been puzzling over the sentence every day since the bounty hunter began interfering in his dreams. Were his abilities and Tiana’s telekinesis considered magic? Or was this description figurative in nature? How would tracking game and seeing the future, or Tiana’s diverse mix of abilities, heal the world?
There was no one to ask, and even if there were, no one would dare answer the son of the Hanover leader known to burn men and women at the stake for merely uttering the word magic. At a loss to explain his and his sister’s deformities, Arthur was resigned to quietly finding alternate methods to protect his sister. If he did not find a way to stop the bounty hunter, or his father, or any others attempting to murder Tiana, by her birthday, all he cared about in the world was lost.
“Do you hear them?” Warner’s whisper was terse.
Except for my sweet Warner, Arthur added with a glance at Warner. Their forbidden romance, which could earn them both being burnt at the stake, was as troubling as how Arthur was going to keep Tiana alive.
He lifted the flap from one of his ears. In the distance, on the side of the forest opposite the direction he had traveled from the city, wailing screams had begun to fill the night. No human or any other kind of animal made a sound so horrible.
“Ghouls,” he murmured dismissively. “Our force is too large, and our fires too many, for them to attack.” His eyes were trained to the north. “In the Free Lands, we would all be safe.”
“If they exist,” Warner said.
“They must.”
“How will we ever know for certain?”
Arthur fell silent. Unless he went north, he would never know. Such a journey would never be approved by his father. Even if it were, he dared not leave his sister alone for the amount of time it would take to explore the far north. If the trials standing between the city and Free Lands existed, he was not likely to make it there alive. He estimated he had two months until his vision came true. His sister’s immediate chances of survival were far more pressing than leaving her to find the Free Lands.
Except … the Free Lands might hold the key to saving her.
There was no right answer.
“Let us sleep, assuming we can,” he said and turned towards their tent, frustrated again by the problems for which he had no solutions.
“Rest. I am on the night watch this evening,” Warner replied.
Arthur faced him. He started to reach for his friend and lover and then stopped, clearing his throat. Warner smiled, his blue eyes dancing with amusement and dark hair hidden beneath his hat. Cautious about being too open in their displays of affection, unless one of the ambitious Shield members dared to approach his father, Arthur also resented his inability to openly express how he felt and live the life he wanted.
I need to know if the Free Lands are real for me as well as for Tiana. This time, the thought was tinged with anger.
“Be well and safe,” he said awkwardly.
“You, too, Arthur.” Warner turned and walked away, towards the corral where the horses were kept on the prairie side of the encampment.
Arthur stepped into his tent, warmed by a fire at its center. The earth at its base had been cleared of snow and was covered in furs. The satchels and rolls containing his and Warner’s possessions were neatly stacked in one corner.
Arthur stripped out of his weaponry and placed it beside the pallet making up his bed. He tossed his boots and outer coverings, except the scarf he kept with him at all times, and stretched out on the pallet.
Every night for the past few weeks, he had fought sleep, and every night, he had fallen into slumber despite his best efforts to remain awake. He dwelled on his discussion with Leaping Deer. Before learning the man chasing him in his dream really existed, Arthur had often debated whether the dream was literal, or if he were being warned of general danger towards his sister.
His fear grew when he found Aveline, a woman from his dreams he had never met before. Yet he felt more confident, not less, after speaking to Leaping Deer. It was a relief to know the threat to Tiana had a face and identity. He would send a team of assassins after the bounty hunter before he reached Lost Vegas. If everyone knew about this native possessing dark spirits, then he would be easier to find.
“I’m coming for you, Black Leg,” Arthur said firmly to the dream waiting for him. “If I fail to catch you by spring, I will take Tiana to the Free Lands. Either way, you will never be near enough to harm her.”
Arthur’s eyes drifted closed and his body relaxed.
*
Moonlight reflected off his hair, rendering it silver, while the brush of grass against his legs tickled. Arthur, in the body of his sister, ran hard through the prairieland, against the strong wind. He knew without looking over his shoulder that the skinwalker pursued, and he ran faster. He had tried many times to lift his eyes from the grasses before him to the horizon in the hope of determining where exactly he was. The city of Lost Vegas was surrounded by the prairie, which ended at the forests and then picked up on the other side of the woods. Was he running close to Lost Vegas? On the other side of the forest?
Or … somewhere else completely? The plains stretched for at least a thousand miles, if not more. He could not imagine where his sister could have gone. She had no sense of direction, no knowledge about the geography of what lay beyond the city, aside from what he occasionally taught her of the world.
He was able to look behind him and at his feet and nowhere else, so he focused instead on his clothing. At first, he had assumed he wore the sleeping gown he always saw Tiana in. It was hard to focus in the dream, especially when he was trying to run away from a bounty hunter sent to kill him. He managed to tune in to his clothing and realized it was a pale blue dress, thicker than a sleeping gown but far simpler in design than any Tiana had worn for official events. Soft, leather moccasins were on her feet. Her hair was down, as it often was, and her soft blonde curls bounced with each step.
The dress was not the only difference he noticed this time; a bracelet wound around Tiana’s wrist, consisting of colorful beads accentuating a central, flat stone. He squinted to make out the marking on the stone. Not words, but a picture etched in stone …
From behind, someone grabbed his shoulder. He was yanked out of the dream.
Arthur lurched awake, his instincts blaring and his senses alert. The soothing crackle of the fire was the only sound in his tent. He trusted his otherworldly instincts, as unnatural as they were. At the moment, they warned him of danger. He lay still without being able to pinpoint what threat lurked in his tent.
“Do not move,” Warner whispered from somewhere behind him. “Do not even blink.”
Arthur stared at the ceiling, trusting his friend. Warner was silent in whatever he did. From his peripheral, Arthur spotted another of the trusted members of his inner circle, a man his age named Henri. Henri was creeping forward stealthily, his eyes pinned to something near Arthur’s leg he was unable to see.
“One. Two. Three.” Warner counted.
Three of Arthur’s friends pounced when Warner uttered the last number. Arthur held his breath. Simultaneously, the three of them stabbed downwards with knives into the ground around Arthur’s body: Warner near Arthur’s head, Henri beside his left leg and Sayed beside his right arm. Arthur glimpsed the writhing of snake bodies in response to the strikes and remained in place. His friends lifted their targets one by one.
> “Rattlers,” Henri said, holding the snake run through by the blade of his knife.
Arthur sat up. Each of his grim friends had killed one of the snakes. He looked around, but his unusual instincts whispered that the danger was gone.
“Sayed saw Marshall Cruise leaving your tent,” Warner said and flung the snake out the door of the tent.
Better Marshall than Black Leg. Arthur thought with wry amusement.
“Not completely unexpected,” he said and climbed to his feet. “Matilda’s family has long sought to usurp mine. I am only surprised he did not wait until we were farther from the city. He did not strike me as dumb before this night.” As he spoke, his thoughts went to his sister. Did Marshall act alone or with the permission of his family? Was this the first step in a coup or an isolated incident? “Warner, Henri, Sayed,” he said to his friends. “I owe you all a life debt.” He smiled warmly at them.
“You would have done the same for any of us,” Henri replied. “We can teach Marshall a lesson for you, if you wish it.”
I want him dead. Arthur was quiet. With the dream of the skinwalker chasing him fresh, and his adrenaline lit by the danger, he knew better than to speak the words forefront in his thoughts. For all he knew, Marshall was the one who would hire – or had hired – the skinwalker to kill Tiana.
Murdering the brother of his stepmother without a trial and his father’s permission would cause his father a political headache. Matilda and Marshall’s father was the wealthiest man in Lost Vegas from an ambitious family; it was foolish to believe they had no support or allies among the elite.
A hunting accident, however, was completely explainable. Arthur’s father would not object either way to the death of someone threatening his heir, but it was easier for others to accept a hunting accident than vengeance. It was expected only half Arthur’s men would return, and he could invent a tale that made it sound like Marshall had died with honor rather than being poisoned or killed in a duel, as Arthur planned.
“I will handle it,” he said quietly. “Henri, leave before dawn. Return to the city and warn my father to be wary.”
Henri nodded. “I will leave immediately.”
“Sayed, skin and cook the snakes. Make sure Marshall receives more than his fair share at breakfast,” Arthur said with a smile. “Do not look so grim, my friends! I am alive and our hunt is just beginning! It promises to be an eventful few weeks.”
Warner shook his head. “Have you no fear, Arthur?”
“None,” Arthur replied. At least, not when it comes to my own life. His sister’s was an entirely different matter.
He listened to his friends banter for a moment, his thoughts on the dream. With some satisfaction, he realized he had not seen Aveline in his dreams this night. When he sent bounty hunters after Black Leg, would the native, too, disappear when no longer a threat?
Chapter Seven
Tiana’s life, Aveline learned, was filled with empty hours of solitude interrupted by sleep, food and the occasional visit by an irritable Matilda, who came for drugs and left poisoned tea that Aveline promptly threw out.
The Hanover girl never objected to anything, including Matilda’s ongoing abuse. She wilted and stayed still, not moving until Matilda was gone. Despite knowing she should never empathize with someone she was supposed to murder one day, Aveline pitied the girl trapped in her room and treated like an animal by the one woman who should love her. She tried to tell herself it did not matter, that none of this was her concern, without success.
As each day passed, Aveline grew more restless without the ability to train or spar and angrier with Matilda’s visits and Tiana’s submissive reactions. She had nothing to do but sit, stew and miss her father.
Tiana read and sewed all day long, hobbies that left Aveline almost crying from boredom. In all Aveline’s fantasizing about becoming an assassin, she had never once considered there were lulls between action and danger or long periods of … nothing. She had grown up listening to her father’s tales, to those of Karl and other assassins, with wonder and envy and never bothered to ask what happened when they were not on an adventure.
I can’t bear this until spring! Aveline thought. Worse, the more she thought about Rocky being in the prisons of the Shield, the harder it was for her to justify lying around all day without actively seeking a way to free him.
A week after assuming her new duty, she lay on the floor, eyes on the ceiling. Tiana sewed so quietly, Aveline glanced frequently in her direction to ensure she was still present. The girl had not looked up once since meeting her. She embroidered silk with her back to Aveline, no matter where the lighting in the room was.
Without the daily dose of poison, Tiana’s features had returned to a healthier shade of peach, and she smiled more often.
“Are you hungry?” Aveline asked, desperate for something to do.
“You have been stuffing me full of food the past few days. I’ve eaten thrice today already, and we have yet to eat dinner,” Tiana pointed out.
“You’re too skinny. You need to eat more.”
“I am not hungry.”
Aveline sighed. “How do you live like this?” she complained.
“How would I know what I am missing?”
“You wouldn’t. But don’t you ever wonder?” Aveline twisted her head toward Tiana, who sat on the bed.
Tiana’s hands lowered, and her head lifted as she thought. “Will you laugh if I tell you the truth?” she asked hesitantly.
“Probably,” Aveline replied. Over the period of a week, Tiana had stopped wilting whenever Aveline was too straightforward. The girl was not ready to face the world outside her room, but she was progressing each day towards discerning the difference between harmless sarcasm and malignant words spoken in earnest.
“I think about leaving the city all day long,” Tiana replied.
“Why don’t you go?” Aveline asked.
“Where would I go? How would I travel? Who would show me how to survive?”
“You have money. You could pay someone.” Aveline grimaced. Tiana had a point. She would not survive two steps past the entrance of her room for long without help.
“My father has money. I have nothing.”
“Your books would sell well.”
“But I love them.”
“Fine. Stay here your whole life.”
“Aveline, do you not fear the unknown? The future?” Tiana asked.
“I don’t really think that way. On the streets, you learn to live in the moment. It’s acceptable to hope for there to be a future, but if you aren’t paying attention to what’s in front of you, you die,” Aveline explained.
“I have nothing to do but think. Have you heard of the Free Lands?” Tiana asked her.
“Rumors,” Aveline replied vaguely. “I heard traders mention them when I went to the markets.”
“Then they exist.”
“They might. It wouldn’t matter if they did. I never want to leave the city.”
“I do. I want to go to the Free Lands,” Tiana said with rare conviction. “How many books would I give someone to take me there?”
“Burn me, Tiana. You can’t just give someone a few books and tell them to take you somewhere.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t have any idea how the world outside your room works!” Aveline exclaimed. “What if the person steals your books and leaves you in the inner city to die? What if he leads you in the forest and does the same there? Or worse, sells you to the slavers or to a brothel?”
Tiana sighed. “I understand. I would not know who to trust. I could be sitting next to someone who wanted to kill me, and I would never know.”
Aveline blinked, uncertain how to respond. It was the second time in as many days an innocent statement by Tiana had hit too close to the truth. Aveline sensed there was more depth to the Hanover girl than she initially assumed.
Uncomfortable with Tiana’s too accurate guess, Aveline rose and paced. Her gaze settled
on the boarded up window in Tiana’s room. “I haven’t seen the sun since I got here a week ago! Have you ever even been outside? You’re whiter than a Ghoul.”
Tiana giggled. “I go outside once a year.”
Aveline shook her head. If she were Tiana, she would be consumed by madness. The isolated girl appeared too accustomed to being imprisoned by her own family to question it. That she had aspirations of going somewhere so far away from here surprised Aveline.
“This is ridiculous.” Aveline went to the window. “The least we can do is open this damn thing so we have fresh air!” She dug her fingers into the area between wood and sill and yanked.
Tiana gasped. “No, Aveline. You must not!”
“Why not?” Aveline asked with a grunt.
“Matilda will be angry.”
“Your stepmother is a bitch. It’s in her nature to hate everything you do, so why not be happy doing it?”
Tiana said nothing.
The wood boards gave an inch. Aveline dropped her hands and stretched towards the table to grab one of her steel weapons. “Time to see how strong metal is.” She shoved a pointed stake into the windowsill and pushed on the end, creating a lever. One of the nails popped out, and she went onto the next.
“She will know I did not do this,” Tiana said.
“I don’t care.”
“I do. I do not wish her to harm you.”
Aveline laughed. “If she sends me away, you will have no more strawberries. Is this what worries you?”
“You should not laugh at me.” Tiana’s voice held a note of sadness.
“Toughen up, Tiana,” Aveline ordered. “Has your father forbidden you from taking down the boards like he has everything else?”
