Descent

by Charlotte McConaghy

‘This afternoon. The boat is being readied now. You will be able to continue your work without me in the way.’

  Elixia was about to reply with a cutting retort when her daughter began to cry, and she rose to pick her up. Ruby gave her more joy than she could ever have wished for. And if her father didn’t love her, it just meant Elixia was going to love her enough for the both of them.

  She cradled the baby—not quite a year old—and sat down to feed her.

  ‘Well, Accolon, go safely,’ she said quietly, suddenly sick of arguing.

  When Ruby was asleep again, Elixia stood and walked him to the entrance hall.

  Anna ran to meet them, intercepting them before the front doors. She was breathless, looking exhausted and excited.

  ‘Accolon—I’ve just returned from Sitadel with an urgent message from Cornelius. There has been another incident. A tavern near the dock in Cynis Witron was raided. The men were slaughtered and the serving girls are missing. Cornelius needs your council.’

  ‘Gods,’ Elixia breathed.

  Accolon only nodded crisply, folding his arms. ‘I will continue with my plans.’

  ‘But surely you should be heading to Cynis Witron!’ Elixia exclaimed.

  ‘I will handle it,’ he said in a tone that forbade argument. ‘Satine will want to know about this. We will need to discuss how best to give our aid.’

  It was, undoubtedly, the slave trade again. It was by far the worst in Cynis Witron—Cornelius was so old and addled that he was unable to set up a proper defence force, and without Prince Fern, his guard had grown sloppy. The country was wracked with havoc and chaos.

  ‘If you aren’t going, then I’ll head back,’ Anna said, despite the fact that she looked like she might collapse.

  ‘That’s too much for you,’ Luca said from the doorway, dark circles under his eyes. He slunk into the room and looked at Anna. She glared at him.

  ‘I’m fine, Luca. Someone needs to look out for those poor people. Most of the smaller towns in the country areas don’t even have dream protection!’

  ‘You can do nothing if you work yourself into the ground.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she repeated firmly. Luca looked at her, then shrugged and turned away from them all.

  ‘I have good news too!’ Anna went on breathlessly. Her face brightened with joy and Elixia blinked, surprised by the sudden change. ‘Mia and Jack are here!’ Luca spun on his heel, shocked out of his usually expressionless state. His face creased with a brilliant smile.

  Her own reaction was far more muted. Six Strangers in Paragor. A cold feeling of dread washed over her, only to be quickly checked as she realised she was wrong—with Jane gone, there were still only five.

  ‘That’s wonderful news,’ she said warmly. Elixia was incredibly interested to meet the new Strangers; their oddities were a constant source of amusement for the people of Paragor. Anna and Luca started to talk animatedly, but Accolon cut in coldly.

  ‘You may discuss this another time. Right now I need to speak with you privately, Luca.’

  Luca broke off mid-sentence, his face closing over once more. He looked at Anna and gave her a helpless shrug before disappearing from the room.

  ‘He seems to be getting worse,’ Elixia said softly.

  Anna stared at the doorway with a pained expression.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Accolon said shortly. ‘Anna, I think it’s best you patrol here at the moment.’

  She shook her head. ‘There hasn’t been trouble here for some time. I’m needed more in Cynis Witron.’

  Accolon sighed. ‘Fine. Do as you will. The gods know I can’t control either of you. Anyone would think I’m not the king.’ With that he followed Luca from the room.

  The women watched as Kha~dim walked after him. The tall, dark warrior was constantly on guard, never leaving the king’s side. He never aged; his lean physique never lost muscle, his hair never greyed. All part of his curse. His eyes changed though. They were always a different colour, perhaps dependant on his mood.

  On most days Kha~dim carried no weapons, but he had a way of carrying himself which spoke of ease and confidence, assuring Elixia that he could crush anyone he thought posed a threat to his king.

  Elixia looked at Anna and sighed at the girl’s expression.

  ‘Accolon’s getting really strange, Elixia.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t he care about Mia and Jack finally being here? It seems like he doesn’t care about anyone but himself!’

  Elixia simply nodded again.

  The queen excused herself and retreated to her chamber. She had the book, and it had taken her a great deal of time to find what she was looking for.

  Fern—now dead, killed by a god, thwarting any hope for a necromancer to bring his soul back.

  It had taken her years to realise that the answer to his whereabouts lay in the Book of the Dead, so she’d set herself to learning it all. The secrets that lay within such a book were deep and seductive, and each time she dove into them they threatened to stop her from returning to the mortal world.

  But Fern was her brother. More than that; there was a balance to the world. It had not been Fern’s time to die. Such a battle should not have occurred. His was a careless act of courage that had not been pre-ordained. The lives he had saved were too many to count. So, if there needed to be a reason to obsess over this—other than, of course, love—then it was necessity. Balance.

  Finally, Elixia had started to find the clues as to why he was not with all the other billions of dead souls. He was killed by a god, so Fern’s soul had been entangled with the god’s own immortal thread of life, thrusting him into a space between life and death, enmeshing him in a kind of limbo. The line between life and death was so thin that Elixia could not figure out how to enter it without losing her own soul in the process—a problem that posed far more of a threat now that she had a daughter to look after.

  Two days ago, she had found the answer.

  It was simple: the necromancer must be killed in such a way that she, too, could enter the realm of chaos. She might be able to escape with Fern because she was a necromancer, and only because of that. Their return was not assured though.

  But who was she, in the end, not to try?

  Many leagues outside the city of Amalia, amid concealing mountains, was a spot that Anna had come to know well.

  She rode there every day. It was the place to which her heart led, the place in which her heart lay waiting. The beginning and end of everything she desired.

  It was here that he waited for her.

  Anna dismounted her horse and let out a low, piercing whistle that resounded through the mountains. She never had to wait long.

  Almost instantly a great swooping sound filled the air, and from behind one of the closest peaks flew a colossal black beast. Locktar shrieked his welcome and landed heavily, shuddering the ground with his weight.

  Anna walked forward and touched the beast between the eyes. Words were unnecessary.

  They each knew their purpose, the job that had enveloped them. A job that most others would abhor because of its isolation. Not Anna though—she was not lonely. She revelled in the closeness Locktar gave her, and the power she felt when doing the world’s bidding.

  They named her The Protector. She rode the skies with Locktar, keeping the peace, guarding the borders as best she could against the beasts.

  Anna cast a glance at the sky and saw that the sun was sinking. She climbed atop her dragon, pressing her body flat against him as she felt him rise smoothly into the air, his mighty wings carrying them upwards. Out in the open like this, she would not have to go far before they were attacked. She was counting on it. They flew back towards the city, worry always in the back of her mind that one night the creatures might get through the protectors, and there would be nothing to stop them.

  Paragor was a different world than it had once been. A new, frightening world of darkness.

  Legend had it that the Valkyries we
re once creatures controlled by Adar, sent onto battle planes in the aftermath of wars to retrieve the souls of warrior heroes and take them to the afterlife.

  But something very different was happening in Paragor. Nobody knew how or why, but the beasts had swarmed into the world with new, darker powers. Instead of retrieving the souls of the strong, they preyed on the weak, the frightened. The weaker the soul, the easier the prey.

  Many said that the fact such creatures—- meant to signify the most valiant of beings—had turned to destruction was an indication of how far Paragor had fallen.

  They attacked in two ways. The first was physical. Every night they emerged, looking for any souls caught out in the open. Anna and Locktar patrolled the skies, killing as many as they possibly could. But this was the only way she could offer protection. She could not stop the Valkyries when they went after men and women in their dreams. Attacking the heart of everyone’s fear while they lay warm in their beds.

  Luca followed Accolon into the room, which was lit only by a single torch on a wall. There was one entrance, and that was guarded by two El~araih who stood on the other side of an iron door. There were no windows, no points of vulnerability. No way in or out, unless you were with the king himself.

  ‘What now?’ Luca asked, his voice soft and rasping from disuse. Accolon sat down behind the desk.

  ‘I’m going to Lapis Matyr this afternoon,’ Accolon replied. ‘You did good work last night. There has been no evidence to lead back to me. I commend you.’

  Luca said nothing. His eyes were wreathed in shadow and he looked thinner than he ever had.

  Accolon sat forward in his chair. ‘Are you all right, Luca?’ he asked carefully. ‘I know I’ve asked you before if this is truly what you want to be doing, but I just—’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Luca answered flatly. ‘You saw something in me and Kha~dim has crafted it.’

  ‘Yes, but you know that none of us would make you do this if you did not—’

  ‘It was my choice to allow this to happen. My choice to let myself turn into this.’

  ‘You have not turned into anything...’ Accolon trailed off as he looked at Luca, at the way his long, elegant fingers interlaced in front of his face, dark eyes staring out from behind them. Accolon knew he was a different man to the boy who had arrived two years ago. He had to be different after the things he’d done.

  ‘If you have another job for me, I will do it.’

  ‘I do. The last one. The one for which I had you trained in the first place.’ Accolon didn’t say out loud that this was the only one that mattered. That all the others had merely been practice.

  ‘It is far away,’ he murmured. ‘In Cynis Witron.’

  ‘Who?’

  Accolon crossed his legs. ‘There is a rumour—the slavers I have captured have told me of a driving force, a man who runs the entire slave trade. He doesn’t come from Paragor, but some place outside it. I think maybe he is from the same place as Leostrial. They call this man the Red Lion. And they say that this fiend is more powerful than any other foe because he is faceless, a shadow, simply a name that carries fear with it. A name that, given leave, will run like wildfire through my cities, causing terror in the hearts of my people. And you know how dangerous fear is at the moment. I can cut him off by cutting off all those who work for him. There is a man in league with him who is within my reach.’ Accolon took a breath. ‘I’ve let this go on for far too long. I want to hire you to kill Vezzet.’

  Luca looked at the king for a long moment. Then he gave a single nod.

  Chapter 3

  Adon Bayard, Captain of the army of Lord Vezzet in Cynis Witron, General of his personal guard, best fighter to have come out of Cynis since the god-fighting prince himself, rode his horse quickly through the gates of the Karangul fortress and into the main building.

  He did not bother dismounting, but instead rode straight up the narrow staircase and leapt off his mount in front of Vezzet’s chamber. A servant took the reins of his black mare and led her away.

  Knocking quickly, Bayard entered without waiting and met Vezzet where he stood behind his desk.

  ‘My men and I returned from the raid on the tavern last night, sire,’ he reported. ‘We took hold of several female Followers, and have sent them to the correction centre to be detained.’

  Vezzet frowned. ‘Good. But why only female Followers?’

  Bayard glanced at the ground and cleared his throat. ‘There was a scuffle and ... some losses occurred.’

  The man behind the desk stilled, his blue eyes flashing. Bayard knew not to disobey him, but he also felt that this kind of thing was to be expected—one couldn’t go in search of Followers and not be overcome with fury at what they were trying to do! How could Vezzet expect Bayard not to lose his temper in the face of people who continued to support evil? Leostrial had been gone for two years now, but there were still those who wished to follow his destructive cause, rebels who sought violence and power. Bayard knew they were trying to band together, trying to raise a number powerful enough to revolt, but he was not going to let such a thing happen. Sometimes it wasn’t enough to just capture them.

  ‘I specifically forbade you from killing,’ Vezzet murmured softly.

  Bayard kept his eyes on the floor. ‘With all due respect, my lord, you know the anger that is in my heart for these people, and yet you still send me on these missions, knowing full well that I cannot control myself.’

  ‘How dare you?’ Vezzet hissed, standing up and banging his wooden hand onto the table. ‘If I give an order, you are to obey it without question—you are to feel exactly as I say you should feel! You don’t have the luxury of deciding what to do with those Followers!’

  ‘But they condone the deaths of all the people who died in the war! They still support Leostrial!’

  ‘Yes, I know that, Adon,’ Vezzet snapped. ‘Listen to me. You and I want the same things. We both want the king dethroned so that we can restore this country to its former state, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Good. Then do as you have vowed and let me decide how best to achieve that.’

  Bayard nodded curtly, resenting the way Vezzet spoke to him as if he were a child.

  ‘And Bayard?’ Vezzet murmured. ‘If you ever disobey me again, you will be punished harshly. Now take the afternoon to rest—you’ve been doing a great deal of work lately.’

  Outside, the soldier ran a hand through his short red hair. He started down the stairs, ignoring the order to rest. His life was wholly about his work. About finding the Followers of the vile, dead conqueror.

  He had fought in the Battle of Victory and had lost many friends. He had seen his father die, had watched his prince fall at the hands of a traitorous god, and had felt his own deadly anger take root. Bayard pushed himself to eradicate all memory of the conqueror from the world.

  Vezzet, he knew, had once been a Follower of Leostrial. But the man had seen the error of his ways, and it was for this reason that Bayard worked for him—he believed in righting one’s wrongs. The second reason was the senile old king sitting on the throne of Cynis Witron. Ever since Prince Fern died, Cornelius had let Cynis fall. The country was ravished by Valkyries, the slave trade had flourished, food was scarce, and the king was doing nothing. If Cornelius wasn’t going to put a stop to it, then Bayard had to find someone who would. Vezzet already had a small force set up to fight the Valkyries.

  In truth, there was also a third reason for Bayard’s loyalty, a much deeper reason, but this he told no one.

  Bayard left the building, calling for his horse again. She was beautiful. Mature, but strong and full of fire. He had claimed her after the battle, and was ecstatic with the big black mare. He had named her Bell.

  Mounting up, he rode out of the gates of Karangul and onto the flat planes that were so predominant in Cynis Witron. Bayard was returning to his scouting party. The ten men he had chosen from his own guard—his knights—were more than capable of
doing a simple sweep on their own. But Bayard felt restless, and wanted to be doing something.

  They were about two leagues away, making a quick circuit around the edges of Vezzet’s land, and Bayard pushed forward to meet them near the river.

  It was sunset by the time he saw them and called out to them. The ten men signalled danger, and it was then that Bayard saw what was following them.

  The grapes needed to be harvested again. Ice Wine was incredibly rare in these times, and Ria was the only vigneron left in the world who could make it. After six months in a coma, she had recuperated the crop, knowing that though it would be difficult, it was her only source of livelihood. This year, melancholy made things hard.

  Her parents had died this season two years ago, but that was no reason for her to be breaking down. A person had to be strong in this world, she knew. There was no time to mope after the long dead. She was still a strong worker, a hard fighter. She no longer sang though, and never would again. Nor would she shed a single tear.

  She had exacted her revenge, or as much as a woman like her ever could. But still she could not cry.

  She hadn’t spoken to Luca since she woke, and had no idea where he was or what he was doing. She wondered if he thought about her. Wondered if he still sang.

  ‘Danae, give me the power to forget him,’ she prayed, riding her horse hard. She flattened herself against the body of the small grey animal, and tried to think only about the feel of the ride.

  Perhaps because of her sadness on that evening, she rode for a long time—much further than she usually went. Inside her twisted a reckless desire to be outside when night fell. She wanted to see what would happen—wanted to see if she could survive.

  Until she saw the river and the distant figures, Ria did not realise that she had entered Vezzet’s land.

  She swore out loud and was about to turn when she saw that the riders had stopped at the river to turn and meet their adversaries. Behind them stood a pack of sabre-tooths. Which meant that Ria had to ride towards them, regardless of the fact that she had no weapon, and that there were eleven very capable looking men against only a score of beasts. A kind of valour had entered into the hearts of people now, a shared fear of all that they had to face. A person needed to do everything they could, because there were so many who could not defend themselves.