Ashes to Embers

by Michelle Schad

  Lara ran up to him with her tunic loaded down with everything sparkly she could find. That was what he tasked her with - find all of the jewels and gems. She did not disappoint. There was everything from tiny rubies to giant blue gems the size of his fist. He grabbed those first, discarding the ones that did not ‘pulse’ as if they were trash. What he was left with were three palm sized gems so blue they rivaled Serai’s eyes in color. He heard rumors of what the Kormandi pulled from the Sapphire Mountains. He was glad to learn the rumors were true.

  “Gods bless your miners,” he said, looking to the shadow-born and duende. They looked at each other with questioning faces but said nothing. “The centaur counts as two and my idiot apprentice is going to make us take that… that… boy with us. That makes eight. I can only take six at a time on a good day with the sun shining and a stone twice this size so, everyone hold on and pray.”

  “Are you mad?” the centaur cut in, putting his large hand on Reven’s shoulder. Reven looked up at him, seeing the clear concern and gut-wrenching fear but grinned.

  “Yes,” the bard replied. “Urchin!”

  Kaleo grabbed hold of Reven’s free hand while holding on to the olven boy with the clawed hands. Lara took hold of Kaleo’s arm and looked to the centaur. The poor demi-human sighed and shook his head, staring at Azure as the phoenix alighted on Reven’s head. Reven felt the centaur squeeze his shoulder and waited until he felt the other two hold on to something, taking mental note of where everyone was as he shut his eyes and focused on his home. He felt the three gems burning in his hand, the Power pumping through his veins. He heard every plea for aid that resonating within the town, felt their pain and fear, and shoved it aside. He even went so far as to glare at the door to the church as if daring it to stop him from going home, from returning to his sanctuary.

  The door did nothing. The demon-olve, however, charged right at him just as he felt the familiar tug behind his navel and the world was ripped out from beneath his feet.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Reven felt himself flinch as blinding light took hold of him. Such a thing had never happened during Travel before. He felt the tug though, and the dizzying whirl of being tossed through time and space.

  …ven!!

  The echo caught his attention, pulling him toward it. And, just like that his mind went completely blank with agonizing pain that quite literally shoved him through whatever nonsense that made Travel possible.

  He landed hard in a bed of wet, moldy leaves. He felt as if he’d been rolled by a behemoth - why did that seem like a familiar sensation? Consciousness did not seem to want to cooperate with him. His eyes rolled, and when he was able to see clearly again, he stared up at a gloomy gray sky with trees hanging overhead. Every now and then his eyes closed, reopening to the same thing. Until it didn’t. He felt a sharp weight on his middle, making him cry out and groan as something pounced, landing hard on his stomach the weight of the thing crushing him. Instinct told him to fight, energy told him otherwise. The crushing weight turned to stinging pain that vanished just as quickly. Reven coughed, groaned and looked up to an individual that stood over him with what remained of a broke wooden crate in his hands. He was familiar to Reven, yet not.

  “Oi,” the man said, red hair in tight dreads tied back high on his head. “Oi? Rev?”

  Liam. The name came to him like a bullet from a pistol. He shot up, groaning from the pain he felt in every muscle and fiber of his being. Breathing was more difficult than he cared to admit. He wheezed and winced, then repeated the process instead of breathing normally. When he looked around, everyone looked at him with stunned expressions. What had he done?

  Another bright rush of light brought Azure back to his side. The phoenix flew to Reven’s lap, nuzzling just beneath his chin.

  Are you alright, Beloved? The phoenix asked. Reven responded by petting the bird’s soft feathers absently. Reven?

  He felt raw. His whole arm ached, the flesh of his palm feeling as if it was burned. A slow glance down confirmed his theory, the flesh red and blistered. Beside him was a tywyll olve - or, rather, what had been a tywyll at one point - unconscious, bleeding at the temple while another duende man that was not at all familiar to Reven tied him up in ropes. Where had they found ropes? There were no ropes in a church.

  “Reven?”

  A softer voice, one that called to him and made him look up to a copper-skinned woman. She smiled at him, offering her hand to him. He looked at it then back at her, frowning. He had done this before, but when? He took her hand anyway, feeling the scars on her skin as she helped him to his feet.

  “Ajana?” he asked, his voice as raw as his skin felt. Her smile brightened as he looked around again, still cradling his arm against his middle as if to defend against more pain. Faces continued to stare at him but, slowly, those faces became familiar to him. Some of them anyway. Too many of them were as strange as his sudden surroundings. No, his surroundings were not strange. He wanted to be here.

  Everything roared through his mind all at once, as if his thoughts had finally caught up to his body. It was so sudden that he cried out, doubling over again with his hands gripping his head. He felt hands on his shoulders and flinched, pulling away until stumbling into something solid.

  “I’ve got you,” said a rumbling voice from above forcing Reven to look up into the face of an aging centaur. The one Kaleo had gone to save. Seeing him made the bard groan and shake his head.

  “I am entirely too sober for all of this,” Reven croaked. “Everyone intact?”

  “I think I left my stomach in Kormaine,” Lara grimaced but it was an answer in the positive.

  “S’what ya get fer bein’ an arse,” Liam chastised. “Tol’ ya t’ditch the brat.”

  “Do not for one second think that we are at all on speaking terms you sack of shit,” Reven grumbled as he took a few steps toward Serai who sat quietly on the front porch of the manse in the foothills. He did not get very far, crying out when a lancing pain tore through his side. It was then that he noticed the sticky wet sensation of his own blood and looked down. The entirety of his right side was a dark red mess. “Godsdammit, that shit actually got me…”

  Nothing else was said as consciousness left the bard.

  ***

  Navid looked at the young amatti in disbelief. Nothing; Gannon remembered nothing of his former life, not even his own son. Navid knew the things Kaleo wrote, but it was like knowing people of other nations did things differently; you knew it, but it did not come into practice until you went to the country in question. According to Kaleo, he was an entirely different person. Reven, they all called him. This band of thieves and mercenaries that trained a prince, and not only that, a Speaker, to find their baubles and play for coin like some common pond scum. It was confounding and somewhat infuriating given the slip Kaleo gave that Master Roe knew from the beginning who the prince really was. Yet, at the same time, Navid knew it was the only reason that the prince still drew breath. Anyone else would have killed Gannon on sight.

  “Your aunt is not going to like this at all,” Navid sighed. He sat with hands before his lips as if in prayer. The manse was large if ugly in appearance - a work in progress per Kaleo’s description. No one knew what to say or do, too many wounded to count and not enough energy to spread among them. The woman called Serai did what she could; so did Kaleo and Nadya but they were stretched thin. Kaleo looked terrible. He was dirty, his wings tousled to the point that Navid was sure one was probably broken, and had scratches all over the exposed parts of skin. Not that anyone else looked any better. Demons did not fight fair, and now they had one tied in iron and silver chains with a permanent spell locked on him to keep him unconscious. The damage he’d done was more than enough.

  “What does your mother say about all this?” Navid continued, stretching his front leg before tucking it beneath him once more. Kaleo made a face.

  “Step-mother,” Kaleo corrected with a disgusted frown. “She’s ignoring it.
Kalelako told her what he saw when he went digging through Reven’s mind; she won’t believe it. Can’t, maybe. She’s an idiot and a dangerous one. Let’s hope she doesn’t insist on having me brought back to Esbeth again.”

  “And the boy with the claws?” Navid asked after some silence passed between them. Kaleo seemed to deflate. The boy received a serious wound from the tywyll-demon. Navid refused to believe it was once Xandrix like Kaleo said. The boy with claws looked similar to the tywyll-demon if a great deal younger. He’d defended Kaleo yet clearly knew Xandrix and the other creature that hunted them in Kormaine with the black phoenix. The clawed boy rested with the other wounded, healed enough to bring him back to Mahala. Kaleo went in to check on the clawed boy from time to time but would not speak of the poor child further. Navid did not press the issue.

  “I should go check on how Serai is doing,” Kaleo muttered, rising to his feet. “She could probably use a break.”

  Navid maintained his peace, waiting until Kaleo left before looking to the side door where the woman named Serai stood, watching in silence. She’d been there the whole time. She smiled benignly at Navid, playing with a weed between her slender fingers. Her eyes were mesmerizing, making Navid clear his throat and look away.

  “Everyone keeps too many secrets,” she said, moving into the large open dining area where Navid sat. The twins sat nearby, their heads together as they made their own observations of things. Everyone else found other rooms or corners to hide in, to recover, to simply rest.

  “It is the nature of things, I suppose, milady,” Navid answered. She smiled at him.

  “Serai,” she corrected in a soft-spoken voice. “My teacher, when I was very small, was like you. Masozi. You make me think of him.”

  She glided to a squat beside him, her pale legs bare beneath the thin linen gown she wore.

  “You are important to Kaleo,” she said. It was not a question. “He speaks of you to Reven. You are a good teacher too.”

  “There is nothing to be done for Gannon?” Navid asked instead of replying to her comment. She grinned, looking at a point far off before making the weed in her hand dance across the floor.

  “Everyone asks this,” she said. “He is not broken. He is reborn. He must walk his own path even if it is not the same path that you walk.”

  Navid had nothing to say to that. It was, honestly, not something he’d truly thought of. He thought of the memory lapse as some sort of malaise, something to be fixed or cured. Yet he looked at the large room in which he sat, the manse and the life that the man he’d sworn to protect now lived. He was loved, admired, Powerful, talented - free.

  “Perhaps now that we are together, our paths will merge once more,” Navid said again. Serai smiled at him, rose to her feet and moved away with nothing more said.

  ***

  Serai stared at the creature that was gagged and bound in the larder of the manse. He stared back with a challenge in his red eyes. He was tywyll, or had been once. Kaleo knew him; a guard of Gannon Oenel. What was done to him was a crime against nature. It should not be. He was not the only one, either. The boy with the clawed hands suffered the same fate. What was worse for him, was the damage done to his Node.

  Serai pursed her lips, set her jaw firmly, and then reached across to touch the center of demon-olve’s brow. He jerked away from her touch, but she persisted until he went limp where he sat. She searched his mind, studied him from the inside to See what had been done.

  She saw more than one person hanging in what looked to be a dungeon. Rough walls with chains buried deep into the rock held each person from a high enough purchase that their feet did not touch the ground. She counted nine with five other empty shackles. The screams she heard on his behalf hurt her heart, made her stomach churn and tears sting her eyes. When Xandrix was taken, he fought them. She saw the face of the one that tormented him, placid, handsome all things considered though clearly not human or olven, and studious. What he did was not done out of malice; but if not malice, then what? She did not know, her study derailed by the pain that Xandrix remembered. It was agonizing, making her gasp and sit back away from him, rubbing her hand.

  “You smell like him,” the creature said to her. Serai looked up at him, unaware that his gag had come free. She frowned, but remained where she was, letting him speak.

  “Like who?” she inquired curiously. Their voices echoed inside the larder. The ceiling was high and the space still empty. It would be filled eventually, she knew, but things of that nature took time.

  “Him,” Xandric repeated. “The prince. Does his wife know about you?”

  The way Xandrix smiled made Serai uncomfortable, made her feel ashamed of herself and what she had with Reven. He could see it in her because the smile broadened, forcing her to straighten her back and frown at him for how he made her feel.

  “They call you Xandrix,” she continued, ignoring his question. “Is that your given name or one they placed on you?”

  “Does it matter?” he answered. He stirred within his bounds, moving his shoulders back and forth slowly so that the chains moved down centimeter by centimeter. Serai ignored him. The chains were magically bound and currently pegged to the wall. He could not harm her.

  He continued to wriggle, growing more frustrated with each movement. He stared straight at her with defiance and barely controlled rage but something else as well. She watched him, focusing on his eyes until she understood what he needed - help. There was a plea in his eyes to end his misery.

  “We will make this right, Xandrix,” she said to him. “You will be free again. Sleep now.”

  She rose to her feet and touched his brow again as she spoke. He meant to argue but only managed to open his mouth before sleep took him. He slumped over allowing her to replace the gag at her leisure. She walked back up to the main level and up to where Reven slept. His wounds were terrible and difficult to Heal. The tirsai boy was worse; she feared he would not make it. He simply did not have the strength to keep fighting.

  She stroked Reven’s hair, watching him closely. Xandrix’s words stuck in her mind.

  “Does his wife know about you?”

  Serai frowned at herself for allowing the tywyll man to get to her. Reven was not the same man everyone believed. He was new, reborn; hers. She looked down at him again, making sure he was comfortable. His breathing was steady now instead of being drawn in ragged gasps like it was earlier. She leaned down to kiss his forehead, then moved to look in on the tirsai boy.

  “He’s not doing too good,” Kaleo said as she walked in. He was on his way out, his wings folded in on his back as if in defeat. “Is there anything…?”

  She only shook her head. He sighed but nodded, understanding her meaning. Power did not fix everything, it was not a miracle, it was supernatural science. Only the gods worked miracles and, despite the popular rumor that anyone with Power stole their grace from the gods, it simply was not so. Aeron had to fight on his own, had to want to remain within the mortal coils and ignore Azrus’s enticing song.

  “Kaleo,” Serai said, pulling his attention back to her as he walked out. “I am sorry.”

  “It’s alright,” he said through a heavy sigh. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  A heavy sigh escaped the Corrupted Speaker’s lips. He sat with legs crossed drawing aimless circles and swirls in the ash beneath him. The fun was over, the town mostly quiet without Moppet or Cranky Pants. They’d vanished, playing the best game of Hide-and- Find ever. Roth lost, even conceded his defeat but his companions would not come out of their hiding spots. He pouted, flopping back into the ash so that it created a cloud around him, resettling in his hair or on his clothes.

  “Phier!” he cried, calling to his audeas. The black phoenix appeared immediately, looking down at Roth from above. “I’m bored. Entertain me.”

  I am not a strumpet, the phoenix replied. Roth made a face at it, rolling onto his stomach. Phier remained, pulling the fl
esh off someone’s finger. Roth wanted a finger. Or a baby. A baby would be nice. Babies made him feel better when he was sad.

  “Everyone is gone! Do I smell? Is that why they’ve gone? I did bathe before we left,” the demon said, even going so far as to sniff under his arms. He made a face. “Oof! That’s why they’ve gone…”

  “Get up, fool.”

  “Moppet?” Roth said with hope welling in his chest. He growled when he saw that it was not, in

  fact, his wonderful Moppet that spoke but the heinous dragon-born bitch that crawled through Daemodan’s manse like a serpent on the hunt for prey. Beside her was the New One. Roth did not like him either; the pale freak smelled like frozen death. “Oh. It’s just you. What do you want?”

  “Daemodan sent me to collect you. What’s taking so long?” Madhavi asked. She tented her wings above her to protect herself from the falling ash. If she were not so vile, she might actually be a stunning creature. As it was, however, she was not very nice and always upset his Moppet. He did not like people that upset his Moppet. Or Evie. Or Phier. He did not like people.

  The New One did not say anything, just eyed him oddly with a giant thing standing beside him. Roth frowned. The thing was not there a moment ago. Perhaps the thing would be good at Hide-and-Find.

  “I’ve lost my Moppet,” Roth pouted, remembering why he was so upset. He put his head on his arms and kicked his legs like a child. “We were playing Hide-and-Find with the Soft One. I lost. They won’t come out now and I can’t find them anywhere. I think it’s because I smell.”