by Vi Voxley
Brocke saw Cora sit down, facing the large window, placing her back to the rooms. He allowed himself a small grin, proud of the risk she was willing to take.
The guardian saw Ashby long before the priestess saw him. Noiselessly, Brocke came closer, masking his footsteps in hers, although Cora didn’t hear either of them. There was a sharp blade in the priestess’ hand and Brocke’s eyes narrowed seeing it.
The fact that Cora’s friend would betray her like that was repulsive to him. If it hadn’t been against his code to kill unarmed enemies, Brocke would have cut her throat right there after she’d spilled the truth. By his standards, the weapon in Ashby’s hands counted for nothing.
The priestess was skilled and cunning, but nothing compared to a warrior.
She raised the blade victoriously, and finally, Cora saw the danger from the reflection in the window. With a scream, she jumped up from her seat and backed away.
Ashby had stopped. She, too, saw the reflection, and Brocke was making no attempt to hide himself from it.
The entire scene in the room was mirrored in the window, so for a moment, Brocke saw himself the way others perceived him. A dark figure half-hidden in shadows with shining blue eyes staring at his prey. Like the avatar of death, he loomed over the priestess’ small form.
The blade dropped from her hand as Ashby realized resistance was futile.
Cora watched wordlessly as the scene unfolded. In front of him, the priestess turned. Her eyes were filled with hatred and fear, plain as day.
“Guardian,” Ashby spat.
Brocke allowed himself a small, menacing grin baring his teeth. All color washed away from Ashby’s face.
“I will tell you nothing,” she hissed. “Watcher in the dark.”
“That is what everyone says,” Brocke replied with deadly calm, his voice dropping so low the words were barely audible above the growl, “before I make liars of them all.”
Chapter Sixteen
Brocke
Brocke knew nothing and everything about Ashby.
He had never met the woman; that was true. But one look at her and the guardian knew she was exactly like all the rest. No matter how many layers people heaped upon their core, they were all afraid.
Whilst Brocke was fear itself.
He didn’t say anything for a long second. Ashby and Cora might have thought he did it to intimidate the priestess, but Brocke knew he didn’t need anything so banal.
The only concern he had was Cora and how she would perceive him after he was done with the young priestess.
Ashby was glaring at him, mistaking defiance for bravery, but that was a common enough lapse. She was shaking ever so slightly, but if she thought Brocke was going to torture the answers out of her, the priestess was wrong. That wasn’t his way. There were so much more effective ways to make people talk.
“You know me,” Brocke said.
He made it a question, but it really wasn’t one.
“Naturally,” Ashby answered proudly as though recognizing him was some sort of a feat. “You’re the chieftain’s half-breed son. The first. They say you’re quite the warrior now.”
Brocke didn’t answer the taunts. Instead, he cocked his head just slightly, looking the priestess right in the eyes.
“Good,” he said simply. “This spares us a lot of needless explaining. You are also not surprised.”
“By what?” Ashby shot, and Brocke could see her eyes scanning the room.
Looking for a weapon, possibly. Her discarded dagger lay on the ground, but it was clear it wasn’t the one the priestess would have wanted. Ashby looked like she was barely able to lift it, thin and lean like all of her profession. She longed for a long needle or a blade more suited to her skill set.
“By us being here,” he replied. “Move and I will tear your arm out of the socket so hard even you can’t restore it.”
Ashby’s eyes went wide. She bristled, unable to say anything back. Brocke waited, knowing their hands were the tools of priestesses, their most valued possession. She wouldn’t risk it.
“Sit down,” he ordered before turning to Cora. “Are you sure you want to stay?”
Cora answered with a simple nod.
Brocke knew she stayed to guard him, which wasn’t the thing that worried him. He was prepared to break a few of Ashby’s bones if it made her a little more talkative, but he wasn’t going to do anything close to what Cora seemed to imagine.
The truth was a bit more complicated and, it seemed to him, more sinister.
Ashby sat, her hands in her lap, pressing her mouth into a thin line like it would help her keep the secrets inside.
Discarding all the irrelevant questions that would interest the Union and the Militant later, Brocke cut to the heart of things.
“Where is Condor?” he asked.
Ashby burst out laughing, the sounds echoing in the room. He saw Cora look at the priestess with disgust, opening her mouth to say something, but Brocke shook his head. Cora shut her mouth, but her revulsion was obvious to see.
“Pathetic,” Ashby said. “I expected more subtlety from you, Guardian.”
“Did you?” Brocke asked, seeing the way his voice made the young woman edge away from him despite herself. “You have been misinformed then. I don’t speak in riddles. You will tell me where Condor is, what he is planning, and why you are helping him. If you do that, I will send you to the Citadel to wait upon the chieftain’s mercy. Perhaps he will let you live out your days in Gomor, perhaps he will be kinder. The more you delay, the less likely you’ll be to receive it.”
“And if I don’t help you?” Ashby asked.
First mistake. It already means you don’t want to suffer the sweeter deal I offered.
“Then I will take you to Gomor with me, no matter how this ends.”
Ashby hesitated a bit too long before replying as stubbornly as she could, “Gomor doesn’t scare me. Condor was there.”
“He was,” Brocke agreed, turning his back on her, looking out of the window upon Eborat.
The city acted like nothing was going on, and for the most of them, that was true. Brocke could never understand the disinterest people showed in bastards like Condor until the priest was at their own doorstep.
From the reflection, he saw Ashby. As one of the most powerful warriors in the realm, Brocke didn’t have anything to fear from her, but ultimately, it was a test. He had warned her about moving, and now he waited to see if she’d heard him.
Ashby didn’t move, even if he saw her practically itching to jump up and try for an escape.
That was good. It meant what Brocke had to say would strike very close to home.
“Condor was in your prison,” Ashby repeated. “And he escaped. He told us the chieftain only wants us to believe it’s impossible to get away. Said it was so easy once he figured out you relied on fear more than actual presence.”
“Very clever of him,” Brocke said, turning back to her.
His eyes found hers, and the warlord made sure Ashby saw the truth in his gaze when he spoke again.
“He lied, I believe. The other option is that Condor really is stupid enough to think the escape was his doing.”
Ashby’s confusion was plain to see.
“You let him out,” she said, the smile on her face almost maniacal. “This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Wait until I let the realm know the chieftain’s son let Condor out to kill half-breeds.”
“My father knows. He approved.”
That shut Ashby up for a long moment, her face ashen. Her arguments kept crumbling, one after another. It was clear to all of them that she could do nothing if Nadar Brenger openly admitted to condoning Brocke’s actions. It would lose all impact.
“Still,” the priestess tried. “It doesn’t matter. You let him out, and now he’s doing it. Condor is going to show the world exactly what half-breeds are.”
Interesting.
That was one of the keys to interrogating someone. Usually, the
y thought they were so smart that they kept telling Brocke things he never asked. Whether it was an attempt to appear more intelligent or more innocent, the end result was the same.
He didn’t jump on the obvious chance to ask more. Instead, Brocke went back to the previous topic.
“Condor hated Gomor, did he tell you that too?” he asked.
Ashby’s expression told him Condor hadn’t been too keen to share his experiences.
“I see that he didn’t,” Brocke said. “I assume it was because he doesn’t want you to know how bad it was for him. I’m afraid I didn’t treat him very well.”
“I’m a priestess!” Ashby snapped at him. “Pain is nothing to me! I have made my body immune to it.”
“Liar,” Cora cut in, her eyes flashing.
She came closer, looking ready to shake the truth out of Ashby, but she didn’t touch the priestess. Brocke watched instead as Cora stopped in front of her, staring her traitorous friend down.
“You have told me many times that’s not possible. Close, but still out of your reach,” she said.
“I lied,” Ashby tried, but Cora stopped her before she could continue.
“I don’t think so,” the little Terran said seriously. “I could tell. Whatever crap you told me, that was the one time I know you were being truthful. When you were talking about your job, I could see the way your eyes lit up. Just like when I told you about my theories. You can’t hide true passion, even if you plan to use your knowledge for atrocities, you fucking bitch.”
Ashby had no counter-argument to that, so Cora stomped back to her seat, enraged. Brocke could see how badly she wanted to go on, but the small outburst seemed to have helped a little. He couldn’t imagine how it felt for Cora. She might have denied it, but Brocke knew Cora had hoped it was all a misunderstanding until the moment she saw the blade in Ashby’s hand.
“Pain tolerance might help you,” Brocke said, and Ashby’s attention snapped back to him. “But it is not pain that waits for your there. It’s not pain that Condor hated. He would rather die than go back to the fear.”
“Condor is not afraid of you,” Ashby argued, but her voice sounded weaker.
“Yes, he is,” Brocke said dismissively. “All of them are, and you will be too. I don’t say this to scare you, I state that as a fact. Fear is the most important punishment Gomor has. You will succumb to it, as Condor did, and you will never be free. Tell me, have you met Condor after he escaped?”
The priestess’ silence spoke volumes.
“Did he look like a free man to you?”
For the first time since they’d entered her home, it appeared to Brocke that Ashby looked at him for real. Not through a haze of hate or fear. Her eyes were so wide in her head they seemed to almost pop out of her skull.
“You didn’t think of this before,” Brocke went on. “You’re only realizing it now. It wasn’t fervor you saw, it wasn’t some inner light. He looked like a feverish man seeing spirits behind every corner.”
He walked closer to her, watching Ashby crawl back until she had to pull her legs up on the couch to avoid contact with him.
“I didn’t give Condor his freedom,” Brocke said, his voice dropping low and dangerous.
It was the one he used in Gomor when talking to the prisoners. Out of the corner of his eye, Brocke kept wary watch on Cora, dreading the way she reacted. So far, Cora didn’t emote at all. Her eyes never seemed to leave him.
Brocke looked at Ashby again.
“I gave him a bigger cage,” he growled. “And he knows the truth you don’t yet but will learn once I take you with me. No one, not one, ever leaves Gomor. At least not alive.
“It is always with Condor, even now. He is no longer on the narrow platform that was his home for long, agonizing months; that is true. But I guarantee you, every night he sleeps on an area just as large as the ledge he lived on in Gomor. And he wakes, startled, thinking he’ll fall.”
Ashby stared at him, her big eyes filled with pure horror now. She no longer tried to deny what he was saying, even if her mouth opened to utter a few more lies.
“Let me tell you the final truth about this,” Brocke said, leaning lower, letting his voice envelop whatever was left of Ashby’s resolve. “You are not special. Not to me and definitely not to Condor. I let him go because I had to. There will be no escape for you.”
“Like all the rest, you will spend your days in a tiny room, held prisoner by a white line on the floor. Every morning, it will tempt you to run, but you will not. My footsteps will fade away, and there will a temptation to try your luck, more powerful than any emotion you’ve ever felt before. Like thousands before you, like a worm you will crawl to the edge of your cave. Nothing will be there to stop you, and yet you will shrink back from the line with a scream.”
“I will appear from the shadows, and you will know I’m always there. One of the guardians is always watching. But night after night, the temptation comes again. You will think, ‘This time I’m sure.’ But the moment never comes.”
“And all that time, you will have nothing to do. You waste away, dreading the white line and hating the fact something so simple is an object of such terror to you. Day after day, you become less you until you’ve surrendered all of yourself to Gomor.”
There were tears rolling down Ashby’s face as she sat, shivering under his gaze. Behind him, Brocke saw Cora. He’d expected hatred, a horrified expression he could never get out of his mind, but that was not the case.
There were tears in her eyes too, looking at the friend she’d lost, who was now heading for such a terrible fate.
Brocke knew he couldn’t stop now. It was up to Ashby to save herself. No accomplice of Condor would get the mercy of swift death, except if she pleaded for it.
Nadar Brenger wasn’t without mercy, Brocke knew that better than anyone, being his father’s executioner. His forgiveness was simply very hard to earn.
“You have a choice now,” he went on, keeping Ashby’s eyes locked with his shining blue ones. “I don’t care what you believe or think. You can explain all your motives to the chieftain’s men if you want to, or bury them in Gomor for all I care. The choice is yours. Where is Condor?”
“In Olyra,” Ashby whispered.
“I know,” Brocke said. “He is somewhere under the forests, but I need you to be more specific.”
“Komol,” the priestess said quietly, continuing when Brocke said nothing, his hearts beating a thundering rhythm in his chest. “He’s at Komol. He said he will show everyone the difference between a Corgan and a half-breed. That he’d prove the half-breeds are making us weaker.”
That definitely sounded like Condor, but Brocke’s hand itched for Ashby’s neck. To know such a thing was taking place and not to do anything…
But there was Cora, showing compassion like nothing he could ever conjure for someone like the priestess. For her, Brocke drew back, watching as Ashby practically collapsed off the couch.
“Don’t take me to Gomor,” the priestess pleaded. “I didn’t want it to go like this. I just saw proof of his words in my work, and I –”
“I think you’ve said enough,” Cora said, coming closer.
Ashby never looked away from him.
“I believe you’ve made the right choice,” Brocke told the priestess, seeing the way relief washed over her like a wave.
When a satisfied smile started to appear on her face, he continued, “I will tell the chieftain’s men where to find you. I suggest that you be here and never deal with the likes on Condor again. Gomor is always waiting for you.”
Ashby’s face dropped at once. The priestess nodded frantically, mumbling promises Brocke didn’t care about. He knew where they had to go, and the truth was more horrible than anything he could have imagined.
As they left Ashby’s quarters, Cora stopped once to look back at her friend. The priestess seemed to have forgotten she was still in the room. Brocke waited as Cora gave her one last glance and walked away, sa
ying nothing.
Chapter Seventeen
Cora
Cora left Ashby behind, feeling strangely empty inside.
Their visit had shaken her, but not in the way she’d expected. Cora had thought seeing the person she’d considered her closest friend for a while would hurt. The fact that Ashby would willingly and knowingly support what Condor was preaching certainly did, but it wasn’t that. Not exactly, at least.
It made her doubt, and Cora hated that. If she’d trusted Ashby, she had to be the worst judge of character ever.
Second-guessing didn’t come naturally to her. All her life, up to the moment Cora had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant, she had trusted her instincts. They were what had gotten her so far, gotten her started in the first place. Now, she was feeling uprooted.
Fuck that, Cora told herself firmly. People like Ashby and Condor won’t do this to me.
In her wildly spinning world, one thing remained as a constant. Brocke was walking beside her, as powerful and unshakeable as ever. There was a peculiar look on the warlord’s face, but Cora waited until he was ready to tell her. Until then, she waited. If she knew anything in that moment at all, it was that she loved Brocke – truly and deeply.
Cora wanted to be with him, not just for the sake of one investigation that had spun completely out of control. She wanted to be with him forever like Brocke had promised.
That was the center of her world now, the focal point that all the other things started from.
And Cora knew she was as determined as Brocke to remove Condor from that equation entirely.
“Are you going to hand her over to the chieftain like you promised?” she asked.
The warlord looked at her oddly, like it was a needless question. Cora hoped she hadn’t offended him, but she needed to know.
“Yes,” he said. “I abide by my word.”
“And Nadar Brenger? Will he show mercy?” Cora pressed on.
Brocke gave her another long look when they reached his bike. In the back of her mind, it bothered Cora a lot that there wasn’t anyone on their trail. Not that she wished for the danger and the imminent possibility of death, but it felt off. Like a calm before the storm, like they were in the eye of a hurricane and didn’t even know it yet.
