The Truth about Heroes: Complete Trilogy (Heroes Trilogy)

by Krista Gossett

  “Wait, wait, you’re not making sense here,” Rienna barked out angrily. “We are only born under one element— you don’t just get to pick and choose! And none of us could use our elementals; Erised was blocking them!”

  Melchior smirked at Rienna and shook his head. Apparently Ashe didn’t fill her in there. He saw something flicker in her eyes though and knew she wasn’t saying something. Did she already suspect it?

  “One thing you need to know about these elementals, dear, is that they’re not the helpful little sprites you read about in stories and they don’t even know all the rules. Or rather, they are always trying to bend them. Erised’s not the only one with some tricks in his arsenal— Nuriel has been worming his way into dualendowments for centuries. They all have. Nuriel might have come to Ashe’s aid if I hadn’t needed him when I rejected Erised. I would’ve been destroyed if Nuriel hadn’t shown up, without a doubt. However, Nuriel wasn’t Ashe’s only innate elemental either and Zephyra was still able to aid him. Nuriel and Erised have always had a rivalry, a pretended friendship shadowed by the need to one-up the other. Erised can’t do a damn thing to limit Nuriel, much to my relief or I would’ve been feeling my way through those fucking caves with little but a prayer and my cock in my hand, pardon the crudity, my lady.”

  Rienna was already annoyed by his distant tone with her, but she knew he was quite familiar with who he was speaking to once he decided to pull the lady card. Melchior had always been rough around the edges and distant from others, but time had built up more walls around him than she had seen before. Or maybe he was just playing at it to keep her guard dogs from pouncing. He didn’t really have any room to display weakness at the moment. I’m sure he was even hoping they had all been taken down in Night’s attack so he could’ve hightailed it out of there unhindered. He really only slightly resembled his brother; a tilt of the eye, the strong jaw and full lips— small things connected them physically. He was a lot crasser and cockier than Ashe still. Both of them seemed to pull up the urge in her to smack that smile off their faces. Hard. With a sword.

  Rienna walked past Ashe now and drew Belias’s dagger. She heard Ashe’s sharp intake of breath as she pressed the point to Melchior’s throat and leaned in, inches from his face so she could speak for his ears only.

  “You always did that on purpose. It’s a game that men threatened by women like to play. I’m well aware of the cock swinging between your legs, Melchior— if you have any love for it, you’ll keep it to yourself,” Rienna warned. “Get on the damned ship, all of you! We can all have a nice friendly chat. I’d step lightly, Melchior; I’m not sure how well Nuriel will take to fishing you off of the bottom of the ocean.”

  Melchior smiled broadly and as she sheathed the sword, Melchior swept her into a bear hug then raced for the ship before she could rethink sheathing the dagger.

  He was lucky Dinsch was strong enough to hold her back when he put her down because she was beyond livid.

  The better part of the day, their little ragged crew attempted to learn the ropes of sailing and the choppy waters and winds did not help much with the process. Krose had called it a crash course from hell and poor Dinsch was useless and clinging to the railing, sick and as green as a tan and white Bryfolk can get. Melchior seemed to be the one who knew a bit about it and they conceded to his commands, at least in part; they left Rienna to the wheel and no one dared order her to do anything. Rienna spent a great deal of the time watching the small exchanges between the brothers and she could see a kind of happiness under the surface that neither seemed aware of. Maybe they were enjoying the illusion of family that they never quite had while it lasted. The waters seemed to level out by evening and Melchior had explained they could use the stars to guide them better at night.

  Dinsch was looking a little less awful and took the wheel from Rienna. Pierait had been scrambling at the ropes all day— he had ended up removing the hindering robes of a wizard and scrambling about on deck with his silk leggings cuffed up to just below his heels. He was sturdier than all of them had imagined, with a bit of muscle on that thin frame. Pierait had taken to the crow’s nest at night. Melchior was below deck, getting the quarters in order— they would have to sleep in shifts. Krose was talking to Dinsch and they laughed like the old friends they were. Ashe approached Rienna, who now stood by the railing, enjoying the night air before she would get her sleep.

  “He’ll probably have my head for saying this, but Melchior had a thing for you before he left,” Ashe said teasingly, keeping his voice from reaching the others.

  Rienna threw him a disbelieving look and looked back out on the still ocean, the horizon still glowing a faint pink as the sun tucked in. Melchior didn’t pay her much attention when he was busy with his rivalry with Belias. It seemed preposterous that he would ever have had feelings for her. He teased her and then avoided her and that was it. Although the little kiss before he left had confused her, she hadn’t mistaken it for a crush. She wondered what Melchior’s game was now to even bring it up.

  “I didn’t make the connection at first. He had mentioned leaving behind his best friend and a woman he should’ve fought for. How many other women did he know?” Ashe persisted.

  “He KNEW plenty,” Rienna said with exasperation, emphasizing the double meaning. “He wasn’t really that interested in wooing anyone.” Rienna shook her head, thinking Ashe was reading too much into it. “When I was 13, he stole a kiss once, nothing passionate, mostly just as a challenge, like most men who had anything to do with the commander’s daughter. He just wanted to show he wasn’t afraid of anyone. It was Belias, my… husband, that he was obsessed with. He followed him like a puppy. I never noticed any woman he had more than a passing interest in.”

  “You never were that observant, but then you were always one with something to prove,” Melchior chimed in from behind them. Ashe smiled apologetically then stepped back, going back to pulling at sails. No doubt to keep an eye on them but still afford some privacy. If Ashe thought she was either going to kill or kiss Melchior, he was crazy.

  “You only ever had eyes for Belias. I had to wonder what was so great about him. I knew he had saved your ass from the Lesthene, but there were always soldiers bailing you out of the trouble you liked running into so much.”

  “Since when was anyone bailing me out? Sure, the white knights were always lined up, but I never once gave them a reason to champion me,” Rienna said, offended but doing her best to suppress her anger. He liked to tease it out of her and she wasn’t game. She wasn’t busy hating him yet. He stood there with so much confidence and her sword hand itched terribly.

  Melchior shook his head; this was going too far off topic and he wouldn’t have much time before he had to do more explaining to the rest of them. “It doesn’t matter, really. Ashe had guessed right though; I had no idea what it was I saw in you, but I saw something. I got why Belias was so great after hanging out with him but because I respected him, I kept my distance from you as much as I could. Still, I always had this nagging thought in my head that wondered about you. I made the mistake of telling him how I felt about you. You ought to remember part of that because you saw him removing my hand that day.”

  Rienna turned her face away so Melchior couldn’t see the realization dawn on her. It hadn’t occurred to her that she was the toy that Belias wouldn’t let him break, hated that because she knew Belias would have known she would resent that choice of words. Their rivalry had always been juvenile and it had never gotten so serious as it did that day. Belias hadn’t meant to cut off Melchior’s hand but he had always been more serious when it came to Rienna. She remembered Belias telling her that he knew she was competent and could defend herself, but it didn’t mean he wouldn’t defend her honor or protect her. What exactly had Melchior said to him? She didn’t dare ask because she didn’t know if Melchior still felt something and didn’t want to encourage him. At one point, she might have grown close to Melchior if Belias hadn’t drawn her in— now, she cou
ldn’t even consider it. It might not have been his intention to kill her beloved and her father, but she had seen that face in that machine, mowing down all that she loved and her heart could not warm to him. She had already decided he had a good chance of not ending up on the bottom of the ocean if he was looking to redeem himself, but she might just change her mind if he still had any hope they might pick up where they left off as teenagers.

  She shook her head to clear this line of thought. First and foremost, there was the thing that had picked at her mind since Melchior had mentioned it and she intended to ask about it.

  “You… mentioned dual-endowments before. Is this something the Suleika were known for?” Rienna said, her voice lowered in solemnity.

  A slow smile spread on his face. He figured she would have more to say on this and he was anticipating this. And said as much.

  “I thought this would come up again. I saw something in your face when I mentioned it. I have something to ask, but I’ll answer first. In a sense, yes. The Suleika are, as you say, “known for it.” More than that but I think you have a suspicion that I’m dying to hear.”

  Rienna nodded grimly.

  “The caves in Peneschal Falls. You might recall the carvings. The markings, I thought they might have detailed the affinities, pairs of the old elemental symbols together and never the opposites. Fire and water, dark and light, earth and wind, never together. Then there was the altar, making me believe that the place wasn’t just any old meeting place but a place where pacts were made. Like the so-called ‘dualendowments’ you brought up,” Rienna offered.

  Melchior’s face was enthralled with that information. She was assuming that he remembered the falls though and he didn’t, but he wished he had because he desperately wanted to see this for himself.

  “As much as I wish I had more to add to that, I don’t. I was still very young when our Tribe was scattered and that sort of thing was reserved for gossiping old men and late night drinking. Still, I think you’re onto something. It’s quite possible that this knowledge was what they were saving for my final rite of passage that never came to pass. All I can say for certain is that the elementals sure as shit aren’t going to fill us in and we’re better off not dwelling on it. As interesting as it is, it changes nothing. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Rienna hadn’t realized she was glowering at him, but her thoughts had darkened again and she didn’t plan on withholding anything else. Now was as good a time as any.

  “You know what you did,” was all Rienna could manage to say accusingly. Melchior watched her face, trying to gauge where her thoughts had gone. He nodded and sighed heavily, leaning over to put his forearms on the railing.

  “I pieced it together, what I had done, but I remember nothing. I heard about Merschenez and Cirque du Harmonea. I can’t figure out why but apparently we had started in the north at the cape town, Calaris. Logic would have had us working backwards from Xanias up. I’ve learned there were five attacks in all and that the armies left clues.”

  “Unless the intent was to draw us out and hightail it back to Myceum once they got us riled up. If we had been chasing you—” Rienna shook her head. “THEM. If we were chasing them north, they would have been trapped and weakened, we might have had more time to get stronger. At some point we would have realized it was Myceum and beat them back to their own city or wiped them out altogether. No, they must have always wanted the army between us and them.”

  Melchior was not shocked but impressed. He had already guessed that but he wanted to see if Rienna still had her head in the swordplay or actually picked up a bit of her father’s genius for tactics. Belias was always clever with tactics too, the thing that ultimately made him a shoo-in for promotion. Melchior leaned against the railing with his forearms and looked out on the ocean.

  “Definitely your father’s daughter. I don’t expect you to believe me or ever trust me after what you and your friends have been through. Hell, they’re way better friends than I ever was to you. But when I learned that I was there when Belias and Canis died, I had wanted to drown in drink and drive my own sword into my belly.”

  Rienna’s eyes snapped to him cold and hard. “You were THERE, Melchior? There? You weren’t just ‘there’, I watched you take them with my own eyes!”

  Melchior reeled back as if he had been hit by a building. He narrowed his eyes as if it were a cruel joke. Ashe had neglected to mention that very important detail.

  “No, I… I never…” Melchior sputtered uselessly. He didn’t know. He knew he was there, but that his hand spilled their blood, took their lives…

  “I was only steps away from Belias when you did it. The grin on your face, I will never forget it! Do you think I left Merschenez to chase a bunch of machines?! I saw YOU, someone I had trusted once, taking everything!” Rienna said, her voice near to screaming by the end and Dinsch was quick to restrain her as Ashe stepped between them.

  Ashe saw the look of horror on Melchior’s face and watched him fall to his knees; he was looking at his shaking hands. Melchior’s horror was transformed to rage. Chevalle… She must have planned this all along, knowing how badly it would crush him.

  “Enough!” Ashe quietly commanded, not knowing whom to comfort so he stood impotently between the two of them. “Melchior, we have things to discuss before we assign shifts. Rienna, below deck now. Someone will fill you in later. I’m not going to let you two get irrational before we have time to sort this out.”

  Dinsch handed Rienna over to Krose; he had started to take her himself but he looked at the door into the lower decks like it was the mouth of hell and Krose had known without being told. Rienna could swear she heard Ashe mutter, “Water and Fire, you two just HAD to have opposing elements…”

  Halfway through the night, it was Ashe himself that came to wake her. Her cheeks were sticky and stiff with dried tears. Ashe casually explained that Dinsch decided to sleep on the top deck; below the decks was no safe haven for Bryfolk, tons of salt water on the other side of sealed wood just didn’t fly. Krose was cooking some fish they had caught. He had wanted to be the one to wake her, but the rest of them weren’t so hot at fishing or cooking for that matter.

  Rienna sat up in the bunk and hugged her knees, not looking at Ashe.

  “I know you think I’ve changed sides and sided with Melchior, but I’m still on your side first, Rienna. In truth, no matter what either of us feels, Melchior wants to help. We can either fight him and risk losing more of us or all of us, or we can gather our forces, add fire and have a better chance of ending this nightmare. It was stupid of me to overlook telling him about your husband and father. If you want to be mad at anyone for that, be mad at me.”

  “We lost Night. I think we’re going to have to wing it without Dark, so why not?” Rienna said stubbornly. It was a silly argument—the shades were no asset to them anyway, not with Erised being any indication. Melchior had proven useful whether she liked it or not.

  “Maybe so, but how many are you willing to lose right now? Once this is over, I would give his head to you myself or hold him down while you take it if that’s what you asked of me,” Ashe promised, grabbing her hands boldly.

  She didn’t want to kill Melchior right now, as angry as she had been. She had seen that while he knew he had attacked Merschenez while under control, he hadn’t imagined he had been the one to kill everyone she loved himself. She hoped that he would be miserable, hoped he couldn’t sleep, but seeing him dead had lost its flavor. There were worse things than death. Like surviving without the ones you love. It struck her that she had cruelly forgotten the thing she and Melchior had shared. Melchior had lost his tribe and, like it or not, his best friend and mentor as well. Maybe she also resented that he at least got to have his brother back. Was she punishing them when she should be more accepting?

  “There are more out there who would side with us. We’re not just going to be a handful of Chosen against an army. Melchior told us he had messengers send out the w
ord. We can’t cross the ocean together so we’ll have to sneak them into the continent and meet up with them at the chosen spot.”

  “Chosen spot?” she was reeling from this turn of events now. He had messengers? More thoughts raced, more questions…

  “Melchior wouldn’t say just yet. The less who know, the better. I think he’s not wholly willing to trust us yet either. We could just kill him and meet the armies without him.”

  For the sake of the gods, armies too? Rienna wanted to protest but that was true enough. Like Belias, Melchior’s reservations were in good part an observation of his circumstances. He would be foolish to toss in all his bargaining chips. What she didn’t know about Melchior could fill an ocean…

  “Up you go!” Ashe pulled Rienna up to her feet and smiled down at her. He chucked under her chin and laid a light kiss on her forehead. “I’m taking the bunk while you take the deck. You’re on the wheel, so steer us right, captain!” He mocked saluted her then slipped into the bed. Rienna shook her head, part annoyed, part amused, part shell-shocked with the new information and rubbed sleep from her eyes as she ascended to the deck.