The Truth about Heroes: Complete Trilogy (Heroes Trilogy)

by Krista Gossett

  There it was again, Lyria had thought. He had said “would have,” a thing that Soulless didn’t do. She didn’t think he even realized he was doing it and she had no doubt if she pointed it out, he would have been at a loss for words, maybe even angry or confused. She passed over it for now because he had said something else that ate at her curiosity even more.

  “Pierait, you never told me your mother was the one to give you your Purpose. I didn’t know any but the Shaman could do so,” Lyria pressed him gently.

  Pierait told her about the process in general because his mother had told him that it was not something that most should know, that anyone could overhear and abuse the process and the Soulless could be corrupted again. He told her simply that his mother had found out about what was needed but did not realize the consequences of anyone but a Soulless doing it. He explained all of it but he seemed hesitant to tell her more about his own Purpose.

  “Lyria… My mother had been… sick. I don’t understand what I’m about to tell you but my Uncle tried to explain it to me and you might get it. My mother had loved my father to the point of blind adoration. She never gave up hope that he would return to her. When she looked at me, she saw my father, especially in my eyes. My father gave me the Felis eyes. My Uncle had said that she would look in my eyes and they tormented her; she could see my father looking back at her, but since my eyes are empty, she had imagined that he had never loved her at all. He said her heart-sickness infected her mind over time and all she could think of is that if she couldn’t see my father, she wanted to warm my eyes and give me a soul so she wouldn’t feel so cold inside anymore.

  “My mother spent years searching for a way and around my 14th birthday, she had been near hysteria with her search, not eating well or sleeping. When she found the answer, she had disappeared for months and when she returned, she looked so much older. Her hair was frizzing and thinning and there was so much gray in it, the wrinkles on her face were deeper. I don’t know what it was but despite all of that, she had looked like a young girl, wearing a smile I had never seen before, one that had reached her eyes.

  “When she took me away to give me my Purpose, she was talking funny, fast and high-pitched, like girls gossiping at the Academy. She was walking and nearly bouncing with every step. Even up to the point where she realized what price she had to pay, she was still smiling at me like she had finally found something to warm her heart.

  “The Purpose was to find a soul, Lyria. And the price my mother paid was her own, but I couldn’t have that soul—that one was for the Void to claim. She died like a Soulless; her magic, her essence, is gone forever.”

  Lyria was too shocked to speak for a moment. Even after he said it, there was that secret part of him that didn’t believe it. That part always confused him too, but he still held onto the belief that his mother’s soul might have been stubborn enough to find its way to his father anyway. It defied logic, but he was never quite like the other Soulless. Pierait was finished with his story but there was something more she needed to know.

  “Who… who told you to look in the Barren Lands?” Lyria asked. She had to be sure this wasn’t just some cruel scheme to lead him to his death.

  “My father. Before I left my friends, he was among the ones we had to kill and he told me before he died that as far as he knew, the Barren Lands was the only place in the world that hasn’t been searched for a Wellspring of Souls and if one existed still, it would be there.”

  Lyria frowned at that. “You told me about how your parents met already, how he treated you when you first met him. I… know you don’t really understand possibilities, but… it is possible he was just sending you to die.”

  Pierait nodded.

  “So he said, but he knew how to get here and he is right. This is the only place it could be and it is where I will find it. Or die trying,” Pierait explained, remembering saying the same to his father before he finished him off.

  Lyria knew that he had heard the saying from humans, but when he said it, it didn’t look like a hollow statement. He wasn’t really prepared for ‘or’ and she supposed it was better that way. Without worrying about that ‘or’, he didn’t hesitate as others might. Her heart ached a little for the lost man, but then he had no idea he was lost either. As long as he thought he was achieving his Purpose, nothing else mattered. It was a cold thing to Lyria, but Pierait was not conflicted by good or evil. He did not act from malice or any other emotion. He reacted but did not overreact. He was protective of her and more so the closer they came to the Barren Lands and she wondered about that too. She tried to resort to cold reasoning; that it was because he would need her to fulfill his Purpose, at least in part, but then the thing with the gloves or the way he instinctively kept her from stumbling; her discomfort with touch and a few bumps and bruises weren’t going to stand in his way, so maybe there was more to him than even he knew.

  At some point, they had reached a place where they were covered in the mountain’s looming shadow past high noon. As Pierait and Lyria drew closer, Lyria had wondered why they could not hear the river. It was close to a week since they had left Maharyjab and it seemed like they were in another world entirely. At first it was just eerie how much time they spent in shadow, then it was the odd cast to the air in the great maw in the mountain range where the Wailing River stood watch. She knew why the sky appeared purple; the great mountains took up so much of the backdrop that they seemed to cast their hue everywhere, but the real oddity was what looked like greenish fog hovering in the air.

  “Ah, Pierait, is it safe to breathe there?” Lyria had wondered and Pierait just frowned. Lyria had learned this was his way of saying he didn’t know; sometimes he would say he didn’t know, but he didn’t have to. It was written all over his face.

  “There are humans in the city of Sorrow…” was all he said. It was pretty close to a possibility he was arriving at but it slipped away and his face was blank again.

  Closer still they went and Lyria started to hear why they called it the Wailing River; she could hear a low wail at times and sometimes what sounded like crying. Sometimes she could swear she heard words, but couldn’t quite make any of them out. It sent shivers up her spine. She thought it might get louder the closer she got but it didn’t and she was frustrated. Before giving up concentrating on the sounds, she heard it and snapped her fingers with excitement. Pierait must have been tenser than he looked because she caught him jumping a little at the sudden noise.

  “I got it! ‘The undead never lie…’ What is that supposed to mean?” Lyria blurted out, looked at Pierait, wondering if he knew anything.

  Pierait looked at her strangely.

  “The books say that humans don’t hear the voices.” Lyria frowned. It wasn’t like Pierait to forget anything either

  and she was worrying now. Some might be glad that their Soulless friend was changing, but in his case, human softness was not going to do him any good across the Wall.

  “I have the old gods’ blood…” she said, not trusting herself to say more.

  Pierait looked at her funny now.

  “You already told me that. The books never went into details,” he stated and it relieved her a little that that was what the snag was. She was human enough so it would make sense that he wouldn’t think her able. His collection of knowledge was aggravatingly literal sometimes. If Soulless had made their own literature, it would be overly thick with tedious details.

  “What about you? Are you inhuman enough to hear it?” Lyria cringed a little by how impulsively those words slipped out. She was wholly surprised when she heard him let out a short laugh, or more correctly a ‘ha!’

  “Yes, but I couldn’t make it out as you did. It was a clue,” Pierait said, and like everything he said, she was intrigued by how he knew.

  “A clue?” Lyria asked.

  Pierait turned the tables on her again. “What do you know about the city of Sorrow?”

  He usually answered questions directly rather t
han with a question, but Lyria was game here. It would still be a while before they reached the river and he was ready to talk again.

  “It… is a magic city, like Morgaze, but… it was once the center of corruption when the Purposes of the Soulless had gotten out of hand.”

  Lyria had stopped there so Pierait prodded her. “You know more. Go on.”

  “Okay,” she said, drawing out each syllable of the word unsurely. “It was… the center of necromancy, a magic that is still frowned upon. They don’t use it in Vieres, right?”

  “No, it’s illegal. Keep going,” he pushed.

  Lyria let her aggravation escape on a soft sigh. “Okay, I don’t know much more. Just that there is a fount other than the elemental ones that they were ordered to close and couldn’t. The fount of Death, but it’s not a final thing as it sounds. The body would cease life functions or bodies already ceased would animate as if they lived. A body that moved like life, that held a soul, but was cold and outside of aging and decay. Oh, Pierait, tell me you’re not thinking of going that route!”

  Pierait’s eyes were intense on hers and it unsettled her. Intensity is almost sinister on empty eyes.

  “No, undeath is not the same as life. My mother knew about the fount of Death; she made it clear that my path shouldn’t steer from Life. You must understand that the minute I commit to death without my Purpose fulfilled, I become a Fury; I don’t get to come back, even if I could have a soul right that instant. You forget that my Purpose leads beyond the Wall.”

  It didn’t escape her notice that he had enjoyed shooting forgetfulness back at her.

  “Okay, so not what you’re after, but why did you want me to tell you what I know? It has to do with your ‘clue’ or you never would have had me go into it,” Lyria asked now, impatient with his cat and mouse game.

  “Necromancy… the fount of Death… what do they have in common?” Pierait said, not quite willing to stop the game just yet.

  Lyria was already ahead here and was hoping she wasn’t going to keep feeling like a schoolgirl that was missing the point.

  “Undead,” she said, trying not to lash that word out with spite. “What are you saying? That there are undead walking around in the city of Sorrow?”

  Pierait smiled brightly, a smile that said she was catching on.

  “And the undead never lie. Humans lie in their own heads, lie to themselves until they believe it. But…” Pierait hung that word out.

  “But the undead never lie,” Lyria had said getting it but not liking it. “You want me to touch the undead.”

  “Not me, Lyria, the river was talking to you,” Pierait reminded her.

  Although his way was roundabout and frustrating, it had worked well enough. If he had just told her, she might have missed something. She felt a little bad that she had been so aggravated with him, but Pierait was focused on the river.

  Lyria was startled now as his hand grabbed her wrist and stopped her abruptly. She cleared her head and saw that she had almost stepped into the still river. It looked so still and frozen but odd shadows under the surface moved eerily at different speeds, some lingering and barely moving, some so rapid it was a flash of darkness come and gone in a blink. Lyria meant to stoop and touch the surface, but Pierait’s grip tightened punishingly and she saw his face angry now as he stepped back, pulling her with him.

  “It is not still, Lyria, it moves so fast that it can suck you under if you touch it. It is cold with death and those shapes you see are Undead as well, that are anxious to pull you under.”

  “Why can’t I hear it moving?” Lyria asked. “It is completely silent.”

  “I don’t have the answers, but we can’t linger here. It is silent now because their eyes are watching and they are anxious for us to make a mistake and join them,” Pierait explained.

  If they wanted her to be afraid, it was working; Lyria was mortified. Without thinking, she threaded her gloved fingers through Pierait’s and gripped his hand tightly. He watched their hands linked with some interest then tilted his head, which usually meant he was confused about something. Lyria wasn’t in the mood to explain she was holding his hand for comfort.

  The bridge ahead was fairly wide, wide enough for 5 people to cross side by side comfortably and with railings besides. It looked as clean and sturdy as if it had just been built. Lyria was feeling sick to her stomach as she used her other hand to grip the bicep of the arm she was already holding.

  “Can we just cross, Pierait? I don’t like this place at all,” Lyria said weakly.

  Pierait did not hesitate and did as she asked. Sometimes Lyria was grateful her companion wasn’t exactly human either.

  Once they had crossed the Wailing River, she was no more settled than she had been before, but just as Pierait had said, the city of Sorrow was a dot in the distance to their left and the Barren Lands was a lot bigger than she had imagined. Her stomach lurched as she looked to the West, just knowing what horrors lay beyond that Wall and as she emptied her stomach in the sticks of foliage that might have been a plant once, she decided to keep her eyes on the city for the rest of the way. Pierait had rubbed her back while she had gotten sick and again, she wondered where this was coming from.

  Lyria hadn’t noticed much of anything just yet, but she noticed Pierait’s eyes locked on something and dared to follow them to a little building off of the dusty path and a short man waddled towards them with an overly large spear in his hand. Short was a bit vague; this man was clearly a dwarf.

  “Not many pass this way any—” the gruff voice of the dwarf had started by cut off as he got a better look. “You’re Soulless.”

  “That’s a bit rude,” Lyria snapped, trying to use her voice around a sore throat.

  “Dwarves aren’t known for their manners, missy!” the dwarf snapped back.

  “Headed for the city then?” the dwarf asked, getting back on point.

  Pierait nodded. Lyria had resumed holding Pierait’s arm as she had when they had crossed and the dwarf narrowed his eyes to observe them.

  “Your girlfriend isn’t looking so well, kid. Better hurry along. I’ve got a horse by the out-building here. It’ll get you to the city in a day’s time, but you ought to stay in the building to rest and make the trip in the morning.”

  “How can you tell when it’s day around here?” Lyria wondered aloud, looking at all the gloom groggily.

  “Trust me; when it’s night, you’ll know it,” the dwarf said laughing.

  Pierait and Lyria had stayed in the little building as the dwarf suggested; the dwarf had slept outside, saying he preferred the ‘fresh air’ but Lyria thought the dwarf was mad if he considered what was out there to be ‘fresh’. Lyria took the cot and Pierait had slept on the floor; despite that, Pierait seemed to sleep much better than she did. Once morning had come, she still wasn’t feeling much better but at least her stomach wasn’t roiling with a feeling like seasickness.

  However, once the time came to mount the horse, Lyria was hesitant. Pierait, however, wasn’t and before she could prepare, he had grabbed her waist to hoist her up on the horse, jumping up behind her, and they were taking off before she could mount up a protest.

  Usually she didn’t like to be held by anyone; it wasn’t just the risk of skin-to-skin contact revealing some of a person’s darkest thoughts (and she discovered a man’s lusts could be downright violent) but it was awkward for her altogether. She was terrified of what most people thought of as simple. As a teenager, she had known a sweet, shy boy that she developed a crush on. When she had worked up the courage to give him a kiss, the sudden rush of filth that spilled from his mind had made her reel back in horror. As she grew and the interest of men increased, the thoughts only seemed to get dirtier and more intense. At some point, she wondered that if she were ever able to get past that, what if she were to become pregnant? Would the thing growing inside of her fill her mind too, with strange noises or even at any time the words it hears from outside the womb? There was no one w
ho could answer it for her and rather than wrack her nerves with anxiety, she had simply resolved to restrict those possibilities. Her ancestors must have gotten past it somehow but considering they were a rare and endangered few, maybe they hadn’t adapted to the oddity of their existence either.

  She didn’t feel panic with Pierait behind her, his legs encasing hers and his arms at her waist holding the reins. She had taken down her hood so he could see better, but she noticed that he had been careful to wrap the cloth of his hat about his face, since the jostling steps of the horse sometimes led to his jaw or cheek brushing against her neck and head. That was mostly why she was able to trust him; he was always so carefully conscious of her. It was times like these that made her yearn to be a regular girl, but then Pierait never would have brought her along or noticed her at all, so it was hard to say how that would be better. She had never trusted anyone with the secret of her gift other than Urys, and in truth, the gift had saved her bacon then too.

  Lyria had been a sickly child when she had been born in the snowy north of the Vieres continent. Her mother did not think she would survive but she could not stay there. The elders had known something was different about the baby and she was terrified they would discover her secret. Lyria’s mother hadn’t wanted to stay anyway, but she also knew that the hunters would bring her back if she tried to leave; she was the daughter of a tribesman and bound to the tribe. The stars had aligned for the scared young woman and a trader’s caravan had come through. The merchant in charge had been taken by the woman’s plea and he tucked her and her very ill baby daughter in a fast moving carriage and sent them ahead.

  She hadn’t known how to comfort her baby when she threw fits until she discovered the child only grew unhappy when she touched her daughter’s skin with her own. Once she realized what was going on and stopped, her daughter gradually started to perk up and grow healthier. It had taken them nearly a month to follow the trade route down to Xanias. Lyria’s mother had a secret too, but it wasn’t her daughter’s. The unpredictable blood had given her mother the power of persuasion. Her mother knew that the power didn’t manifest itself the same in every child, but she ached to know why this child’s blood made touch appear so painful. She was sad that she could not touch her sweet daughter’s soft skin, but she didn’t dare cause the poor child any pain. She had been so scared while they were fleeing, but finally they had reached Xanias and boarded a ship safely headed for Vereshod. The port city of Yasha was closest to the Walk of Respite but she had still worried that there might be pursuers looking for her on the main route. The Diviners guarded their secrets relentlessly, so she could never be too careful.