by Joe Jackson
The introduction between innkeeper and assassin was interesting, but not many words were exchanged. Kari simply assured him that Seanada was there to watch over her family, and the word of a demonhunter was enough to satisfy the otherwise suspicious human. Still, he spent some time taking in Seanada’s finely-scaled skin, her pointed ears, and most of all, those wide, golden, slit-pupiled eyes. It was likely Clinton Darby had never seen such a creature in his life, nor would he again. Kari did, however, leave out the fact that Seanada was half-succubus. It may have been dishonest to a degree, but it was simpler that way.
Seanada was satisfied boarding with Aeligos, which Kari found interesting. Was it because she knew Aeligos had a mate? There was something almost asexual about the half-syrinthian, and Kari wondered if she overcompensated for the fact that she was half-succubus. Of course, she had only known Seanada for a couple of weeks, and realized she was making judgments based on very little evidence. And, more pointedly, about things that were really none of her concern. Perhaps she preferred to board with Aeligos because he was a fellow infiltrator. Or maybe it was because she was stingy. It could have been any number of reasons.
Once their things were stowed and Grakin got the children settled in the common room for some supper, Kari and Aeligos bid them farewell and took to the streets. The sun was still at a decent height in the sky despite the late hour, Kari’s senses fooled by the fact that she was expecting deep winter soon. Aeligos led her south, and Kari fell into step beside him, looking around the city warily, as if the ghosts of her past might take physical form and assault them. In her mind’s eye, she remembered the little swinging sign on the school, and was thankful that Aeligos hadn’t taken her northward in its direction.
“You may not appreciate this at first, but I’m doing this to help,” Aeligos said, and Kari cocked her head, waiting for further explanation. “The last time we passed through, after you had your…incident, Eryn showed me something. It wasn’t something I could really talk to you about, it’s something you have to see for yourself. Just try to keep an open mind.”
Kari took a deep breath and sighed. As she expected, Aeligos led her to the south edge of town and into the hills of the cemetery. This was a pointless exercise to her: she already knew her parents were dead; she had come to terms with that at the end of her incident, as he called it, and also when she’d done her mental exercises with Triela on Kirelia. Seeing the graves of her parents wasn’t going to bring her any more closure, but she followed Aeligos anyway.
He led her to the great tree beneath which her parents’ graves lay. She turned and looked toward the harbor to the east, then over the city center to the north. She could scarcely remember her flight to the graveyard in her shattered state. But she remembered waking here, and that it had been Eryn and Typhonix that came and brought her home to the others. She turned back to her parents’ graves, wanting to spit on them, piss on them, tread back and forth across them until they were as stained and soiled as she felt.
“Kari,” Aeligos said, breaking her free of her growing anger momentarily. “Look.”
She started to reply, but bit back the vehemence. Whatever she felt, Aeligos had brought her here with good intentions. “At what?” she managed with some civility.
“Look at the dates,” he elaborated.
Kari looked at the tombstones, worn over the centuries but still easily legible. Her father’s was carved with that insulting Beloved husband and father lie that stood as an engraved insult to Kari and all she had gone through. Her mother had long outlived their father, but not long enough by Kari’s reckoning. She wished, in the deepest recesses of her soul, that he had died when she was born, or at least before he started abusing her. She wondered, and not for the first time, if the bastard abused Kari’s sisters the same way. Had it all been because of Kari’s illness? Or had he been damaged to begin with, and having children simply gave him an outlet?
“Look at your dog tags,” Aeligos prodded gently. He was clearly making an effort not to make Kari feel like an idiot, but she knew she was having trouble focusing.
Lady Karian Vanador, Hand of Zalkar, T03172849, the inscription read. What was Aeligos trying to tell her? Look at the dates, he had said. Kari looked down to her parents’ markers once again. It took another minute of clearing her mind before she saw what Aeligos was pointing out. Her father’s marker read:
Dak Vanador
Beloved Husband and Father
Born 2827
Died 2863
2863, Kari thought. He died the same year I ran away?
Kari turned to Aeligos, confused. “You think my mother killed him after I ran away?”
Aeligos shook his head. “No, Kari. We don’t think your mother killed him.”
She blinked. “So what, you’re saying I killed him?”
The rogue came forward and took Kari’s face in his hands. “Kari, I think you defended yourself the only way you could,” he answered. “And I think that’s why they put this epithet here that I’ve no doubt you find insulting. I think your mother had to cover up what you’d done so the authorities wouldn’t look for you, and making it seem like your family’s home life wasn’t full of conflict was the best way she could do that.”
“You think I murdered him?” she sniffled. This was a truth she didn’t want to think about. It was bad enough to remember his abuse, but the thought that she was a murderer, and that her father’s death might still be on the books as an unsolved murder to this day made her feel far worse.
“I think you killed him to defend yourself – not murdered him,” Aeligos repeated, not releasing his gentle cradling of her face. “Don’t you see? Kari, you’ve been defending people your whole life. Even when you were a young, abused woman, you killed your father to defend yourself and the rest of your family. Don’t feel guilty about this; it was a good thing you did. A loving thing, something that had to be done. More importantly, though, you need to remember that in the end, you won. Not him. You.”
Kari blew out a sigh and squeezed out the tears that were fogging her vision. She pulled gently from Aeligos’ grip, and turned to squat before the graves. “Why didn’t you stop him, Mama? Why did you let him hurt me for so long?”
Aeligos knelt down beside her, and Kari didn’t miss the tears in his eyes. “I imagine he was abusing her in some way, too,” he said. “A different method, probably, and one that you would have never seen. She would have likely felt just as helpless in his grip as you did. Not all of us have the strength or the courage to stand up the way you did, Kari. Your father may have threatened to kill you and your sisters if your mother told anyone or resisted in any way. I can’t know for sure, but I’ve…seen abuse before. I know the patterns.”
Her mind whirled, and she remembered that fateful day when she’d passed through Flora for the last time in her prior life. She had run into her mother and one of her sisters in the market square, and they had been so excited to see her. Kari had rebuffed them, told them they had her confused with someone else, and walked away from them without a second thought. Now she understood, or at least she thought she did: she had freed them from her father’s tyranny, and they had hoped she would rejoin the family.
Sorrow threatened to overtake her, but she wondered if it had been better that way, even in error. Her family had never been forced to worry about her hunting demons, and they didn’t have to watch her die slowly of Dracon’s Bane. They had seen her, they had known she became a demonhunter, and whatever else they thought and remembered, that was the last of her they’d seen. Hopefully, the image had kept a warmer place in their hearts than it had in Kari’s.
Only then did Kari look at the other nearby markers, and she realized that the family had all been buried in the same area, despite the cemetery being arranged largely by dates. Beth-Ann and Marian were both interred in plots beside their parents, with adjoined markers naming and memorializing their mates. Kari cried, but it was a pleasant cry, pain mixed with tears of joy that her sis
ters had found some normalcy in their lives. The dates said her sisters and their mates had lived long lives, and the mentions of being mothers left a glow in Kari’s core. Kari’s was the only marker missing; it stood beside a stone cottage in the forest of Laeranore, the home of the elven people, where her old friend Saint Carly Bakhor had laid her to rest.
She thought of the mental exercise she had gone through with Triela, and the vehement statement of hatred she had offered to the memories of both her parents. “I’m sorry, Mama,” Kari sniffled, laying her hand on her mother’s marker. “I forgive you. By the gods above, I forgive you. I will see you again someday, but not any time soon. I’ve got a whole world to protect now, and far too much work to stop now.”
Aeligos was clearly thinking about something personal, but when Kari got to her feet, he offered her a hug. They embraced, and he held tight to her, stroking her hair comfortingly. “I suppose maybe it’s time I did the same,” he said quietly.
“What do you mean?” Kari asked.
“My father and I have had a strained relationship for a long time,” he answered with a sigh. “I think I’ve been angry long enough. Maybe he doesn’t deserve my forgiveness, but then, forgiveness isn’t really about deserving, is it?”
“Love justice, but do mercy,” Kari intoned quietly.
“Yea, something like that. I hope this helped more than it hurt you, Kari,” he said, taking her face in his hands again. “You know I would never do anything to hurt you willfully.”
“I do, and this did help a lot,” she said. “Thank you. Let’s get back to the inn.”
He took her hand in his own and began to lead her back. When they arrived, Kari took her children in her arms and sank down to the floor. Grakin crouched down beside her and wrapped her in a hug as tears flowed from her eyes, but Kari didn’t weep. The release of her long-held pain felt good, and the tears were those of joy. She had broken the cycle.
“What have you done?” Seanada hissed. She was on her feet with a long, slender straight blade to Aeligos’ throat in the blink of an eye.
“No, Seanada, it’s okay,” Kari said quickly. The half-syrinthian’s eyes were wide, her brow low as she held Aeligos at swordpoint. She wasn’t kidding when she said she’d protect me, Kari thought. “I’m not upset.”
“You’re fast,” Aeligos said with hardly a hint of nerves in his voice as the assassin put her blade away.
Seanada bowed her head to the compliment but sat back down as though nothing had happened. Kari wondered if that was going to put a strain on the two of them sharing a room, but at the least, she figured it might lead to them speaking of what was common between them. Aeligos wasn’t an assassin, but he was an infiltrator and a rogue, and he employed much the same skill set that Seanada did. Kari wondered what Aeligos might be able to tell her about her mysterious bodyguard on the way to Solaris.
Dinner was served once Kari and Aeligos were ready. Kari was pleased that Grakin seemed to be taking her impending mission without him well. They had spent as much of their time on the journey here together as they possibly could, and it was a nice change from the rigors of Kari’s trip to Mas’tolinor and her return to work. She held tight to his hand when they said their dinner blessing, and Grakin amended their prayers with an extra one for the safety of his mate and his brother. Seanada was silent through it all, but she made no move to eat until they had finished their routine.
“We’ll be heading to Solaris first thing in the morning,” Kari said. “I figure we’ll follow Pike’s Route toward the Tenari Kingdom. That will take us close enough to Fort Sabbath, which is where we’re heading. I don’t even know if that’s where Annabelle is anymore, though, so Aeligos – I’ll be depending on you to dig up information that I can’t.”
“Pike’s Route?” he echoed.
“An old caravan route that runs from here up to Castle Tenari,” she elaborated. “I think it was named after an old caravan master that established the original trade routes after the humans came here to Terrassia. Though, of course, my knowledge of history is mostly word-of-mouth.”
“How dangerous is this creature you hunt?” Seanada asked.
“Well, she was my partner once upon a time,” Kari answered, not bothering to fill in the part about having died already and being resurrected. “She’s a well-trained demonhunter, and a vampire on top of that, and she has some sort of vampire-dragon that she’s partnered with.”
“And you plan to engage her with just this one with you?” the assassin asked, indicating Aeligos casually. He chuckled but didn’t seem to take too much offense to her implication.
“No. I plan to see if she’s still there, what she’s got for support – last time I saw, she had a fortress full of people that we thought might all be vampires. She could have an actual army by now, it’s hard to say. That’s why we’ll be collecting information as we go along, and then we’re just going to scout out the fort. Once I know what we’re dealing with, I’ll put together a strike force, and we’ll take her down the smart way.”
The assassin nodded with Kari’s assessment, as did Aeligos, which eased some of Kari’s tension. Then the half-syrinthian asked, “Why did you not bring more of your family or some of your Order with you?”
“Because of something I remember from…my past life,” she said, though those words didn’t evoke any sort of reaction from Seanada. She either knew everything about Kari, she wasn’t fazed by much, or she was just very good at covering her thoughts and emotions. “My Order isn’t exactly trained to hunt and kill vampires, but there’s an adventuring company here on Terrassia that is – or there used to be, at least. They’re called the Red Mask, and if they’re still around and in business, they’re going to most likely be the backbone of our assault.”
Aeligos looked at Grakin and chuckled. “What’s funny?” Kari asked.
Grakin turned to her. “Aeligos just won a lot of money from Typhonix,” he said, though that hardly dispelled Kari’s confusion. “Many of the family thought you might be coming here with no real strategy, and that you were going to dive in and try to fight your way out. Aeligos turned their skepticism into a quick and easy profit.”
“Well, I’m glad at least one member of the family doesn’t think I’m a lunatic,” she grumbled. Grakin patted her hand but sniggered.
“Are you planning to ride with a caravan? Or are we going on foot?” the rogue asked.
“We can ride with a caravan if any are on the way. Might be we catch up with one on the road. From Solaris, though, I plan to go on foot. Unless there’s a reason to, I don’t want to just move from city to city and leave anyone a trail to follow.”
“I agree, good thinking.”
“Seanada,” Kari said to gain the woman’s attention.
The assassin looked up. “I will protect your mate and your children to my dying breath. If anything should befall them, Lady Vanador, it shall befall me first. That is my oath to you, and to my master.”
The demonhunter nodded. “Good. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to be tempted to follow me instead of doing as I asked.”
“I am quite tempted, but I will follow your orders.”
They enjoyed their dinner, and Kari took the children upstairs and put them to bed. She planned to spend a little more time talking with Seanada to get to know her, but Grakin came up and joined her in getting the children settled. She decided she would have plenty of time to get to know Seanada, and that she should spend every moment she could with her mate.
And so she did just that.
*****
Kari and Aeligos departed just before midmorning, giving Kari a little more time with her children, and to make sure Little Gray knew she’d be back soon. The road to Solaris was well-traveled, cutting northwest across the Roaring Plains to the edges of the more forested lands of the north. Solaris was the biggest inland trading hub on the continent, serving as the crossroads between the many kingdoms of the shakna-rir, humans, elves, and even the luran
ar, kwarrasti, and gnolls in the south. It wasn’t centrally located, but gave a wide berth to the mountains that might still house red dragons to this day.
She asked Aeligos about spending a night rooming with Seanada, but disappointingly, he didn’t have much to say. Apparently, Seanada wasn’t any more talkative with him than she was with Kari or anyone else. Kari had hoped their similar skill sets would pique Seanada’s interest at least, or failing that, perhaps Aeligos would use his other skills to get some information from her. Kari didn’t expect that the two would participate in anything sexual, and Aeligos simply laughed at the suggestion when Kari posed it as innocently as possible. Seanada was going to be an enigma for some time, it seemed.
They eventually encountered a merchant caravan just as Kari expected. While the caravan wouldn’t be fast-moving, it would make their travel easier. With her credentials as a demonhunter, Kari got them passage easily, and offered her blades should any trouble arise. The main trade routes were well-patrolled, however, and with the sizable caravan, they encountered no issues. The caravan delivered Kari and Aeligos safely to Solaris after several days, and they entered the city as pedestrians.
Solaris was a sprawling city, home to a considerable population that swelled with the trade seasons. Its center boasted some multi-leveled buildings and establishments, but the outer edges were mostly single-story domiciles and businesses. It was walled, but the community had expanded beyond the walls since Kari’s time, and she was surprised to find the wall hadn’t been moved out to keep the entire populace defended. When she had lived on its streets, it had been one of the safest cities in which to live, despite the activities of urchins and lowlifes like herself.
Kari’s first order of business was to speak with some of the city watch and ask what they knew about current events. She laid her dog tags over her breastplate and approached a pair of human guards watching traffic through the south gate into the city proper. They appeared to be officers keeping tabs on their underlings. Despite their rank and the stripes on their shoulders denoting they were a sergeant and a lieutenant, they both straightened out when they saw Kari’s tags. The lieutenant graced Kari with a military salute, and the sergeant followed his example.
