Jaded

by Anya Bast

  “I need to hurry to get anything of value done today.” She glanced up at the sinking sun. “The royals didn’t give me enough time to truly do justice to this place.”

  No, not even close. Just a week. He glanced around him. “Five years and a team of a hundred probably wouldn’t be enough for this place.”

  Her breath hissed between her teeth in frustration. “You’re right, but how do I get that boneheaded, inbred Edaeii family to see that? They give no importance to history, research, or science. They’re even suppressing new inventions that could change our way of life for the better.” Aggravation made her movements sharp. “All they care about is the glory of their line and their precious J’Edaeii.”

  “I have no doubt that one day you will convince them of their ignorance.”

  She stood and looked at him with that bright, determined light in her eyes that he loved so much. “I will. I will, Alek. That’s why this trip is so important. I need to find something here that will impress them enough to let me come back with more resources, more men, and more time.”

  He grinned. “Then go. Don’t let the bookworm stop you.”

  Her mouth broke into a smile. “Like I said, try to keep up with me!” Then she turned and rushed off, digging tools in hand.

  Watching her leave, he gripped the box in his pocket. It was for later, then. Maybe at sunset. “Just be careful!” he yelled after her.

  “I will,” she called back, sounding distant.

  She was already far away. Frowning, he dropped his pack next to hers, took out his own digging tools, and followed her. He knew she was a capable woman, but he still felt an urge to protect her. Plus, it would be getting dark soon.

  He ghosted after her, helping her determine what parts of the city were the most likely to contain something of curiosity. Finally Evianna decided on a location and they settled in to dig while they still had light. In what Alek believed had been an ancient kind of cook shop, they uncovered a half-broken clay pot and a stone tool that had been used to spoon up food. Still, Evianna was not satisfied.

  Standing, she shielded her eyes against the brilliant sunset on the horizon, searching for what she hoped was more fertile ground for exploration. The lowering sun had painted the sky in shades of rose, lavender, gold, and blue.

  Alek clutched the box in his hand, thinking this was the moment he’d been waiting for. “Evianna . . .” He pulled the box from his pocket. “I have something very important I want to ask you—”

  “There!” She pointed at the skyline. “Do you see that? Is that what I think it is?”

  He slid the box back into his pocket and squinted at the horizon. She’d pointed out a flat place on high ground, away from the city. A cliff sheared away on one side of the plateau. A long stone tablelike structure sat silhouetted in the middle. He squinted. “It looks like a ground of human sacrifice.”

  She looked at him, beaming. “Yes.” She gathered her tools and made for it.

  “Wait!” He ran after her. “Evianna, wait. It’s getting late and that area is far away. By the time we get up there, it will be too dark to see anything. Plus, we’ll have to pick our way back down in the dark. It’s not safe. We should explore it in the morning.”

  “Haven’t you seen this place, Alek?” she yelled without slowing her pace or turning around. “It’s huge! We’ll have other places to explore tomorrow and if we don’t at least make it up there to take a preliminary peek, I won’t be able to sleep all night.”

  Giving in, as he always did with her, he followed. They found a crumbling set of stairs. After centuries of erosion they were no more than slight, broken jutting stones leading toward the sky. Only the toe of his boot fit on each one, forcing them to search the rock face for handholds as they progressed.

  By the time they reached the ground of sacrifice, almost no light illuminated the world and they had no torches with them. Dirt marked them both from head to toe and Alek was certain they’d never get back down before morning—not in the dark. Sighing, he glanced around. A ground of sacrifice, no matter how ancient, wasn’t his idea of a cozy place to sleep. At least it was going to be a warm night.

  Then Evianna turned and smiled at him. “I love you, Alek.” All the world lit up clear as day. The hardship was worth it if she was happy. “Do you forgive me?”

  “I’d forgive you anything.”

  Once it became too dark to explore, she would calm down. They could build a fire and maybe then he could finally ask her to marry him.

  Evianna looked up into the sky, where a full moon shone at the edge of the world, struggling to make its way to its apex. “At least we’ll have her to light our way when she rises.”

  Uncertain, he glanced into the sky.

  They explored the stone sacrificing table, though time had long since scoured away all the brown stains of the dead. The wind whipped wildly at this elevation and the bones of the destroyed city stabbed into the air below them. Now that the light of the sun was gone, the ghosts were out. Alek imagined the souls of all who had died here—it was thought to be nearly seven hundred thousand who’d lost their lives when the Kaulish had come knocking. Their hollow voices seemed to press in on him, making the hair rise on the back of his neck.

  Especially here, on the ground of sacrifice, where the Ay had slit the throats of their own people to appease their gods and bring luck in manufacturing, harvesting, and fertility.

  But those sacrificed had had no luck. Not in the end. They’d only had slit throats.

  “Oh, sweet and blessed Joshui,” Evianna breathed. She’d gone to stand at the edge of the cliff shearing away from the sacrifice stone. “Alek, come see this.”

  He walked over to see the cliff was not a cliff at all. It was the edge of an enormous pit. The lip they stood on was high, probably around ten stories. It was too far down and the light was too bad to see anything of consequence, but a shiver ran up his spine. He knew in his gut that if they went down there and dug . . . they would find the decaying bones of the sacrificed.

  “A death pit,” she whispered.

  Alek’s breath whooped out of him as though he’d been hit in the stomach. The implications of this were enormous. “What we thought was wrong. They never burned the bodies as we presumed. After they killed them, they threw them in here.”

  “Or maybe they put their victims in this pit wounded and made them die in there. I read a treatise once by an historian who thought so.”

  “No.” He shook his head, examining the pit. “The sides aren’t that steep. The victims could’ve climbed out.”

  “It’s been a long time. The walls of the pit might have been steeper back then, or there could have been guards to keep them in, or perhaps the victims were too wounded to climb out.”

  He stared down, rubbing his chin. “Maybe. I guess we’ll have to dig to find out. We could tell more if we found some skeletons buried in the dirt.” Dead men, if viewed with an educated eye, told many tales.

  “Yes.” She blew out a breath of amazement. “We need more time. More men. More coin.” She looked at him, amazement on her face. “We’ve found it! Surely this pit will be enough to convince the Edaeii family to give me what I need to do a proper dig!”

  He hated the idea of disturbing the dead. Absently, he rubbed his chin. That’s where he and Evianna differed, his sentiment coming into play. He knew if he gave voice to his misgivings, he would be met with levelheaded logic he could not argue against.

  And it was true that perhaps they’d found evidence here to debunk all the current research about the way the Ay had sacrificed. Amazingly, they’d found it by merely stumbling around in the twilight.

  He turned back to the city, suddenly feeling as invigorated as Evianna for digging in this place. What else would they uncover here?

  It happened so fast that even to this day, telling Lilya the story, he still couldn’t be sure what had happened. It was almost as though some unseen hand had pushed Evianna, though his rational mind rejected that id
ea. Perhaps she’d taken a step forward, toward the pit. Either way, her boot had slipped in the mud at the lip of the sacrificial pit and she’d fallen, screaming, over the side.

  He’d turned and reached for her at the last moment, his fingertips only barely brushing the fabric of her overcoat but unable to grab her.

  She hit the ground and rolled down the steep incline, coming to a rest at the bottom, on top of the decayed bones of the fallen. There she lay, perfectly still and silent. He could only just make out the lump of her body in the murky light.

  Just like that.

  Alek stood for a single heartbeat in complete shock, trying and failing to process what had just happened. Then he jumped over the side and made his way down into the pit as quickly as he could without missing a step and tumbling down. If he was wounded he couldn’t help Evianna, and he would help her.

  She was fine.

  His heart thudded dully in his chest as he chanted an overlain mantra in his head. She’s fine. She’s fine. Just a little scrape or two, that’s all.

  But she hadn’t been fine.

  Back in the dining room with his arms tight around Lilya, he squeezed his eyes shut, caught in the memory.

  He reached Evianna to find her leg bent at angle that no leg should ever be forced into, the white of her bone bright white in the rising full moon’s light. He knelt beside her and tipped her chin toward him. Half her head, her hair, and most of her face was sticky with quickly cooling blood. A huge gash marked her forehead.

  He felt for a pulse and got nothing. Her skull had been split by the rock she’d hit.

  Shock and fury ripped through him as he sat there in the mud with the body of the woman he loved cradled in his lap. The desire to make her well, to heal her, had been so great and so powerful, it had ripped his magick from him like the hand of Joshui reaching into his chest and squeezing his heart.

  Light erupted from him, focused on Evianna. It enveloped her, illuminated her from the inside out, showing him the bones of her body, the break in her leg and the vicious, heartbreaking crack in her skull.

  He tipped his head back and bellowed from the exertion of power. It bowed his spine and split his head. The roar of primal rage and the will it took to heal her ripped through his throat and filled every crevice of that forgotten city.

  The magick was fading, the light going dim and then dark, leaving him weakened to the point of near unconsciousness. He slumped over her dead body. Evianna hadn’t moved, hadn’t been affected by that rush of magick in any way.

  She was dead and she was never coming back.

  Too exhausted for tears or even grief, fatigue and blackness took him. When he woke and found her cold and lifeless beside him in the morning light, that’s when the grief had come . . . and it had never left.

  He’d buried the ring box in the mud of the pit that day, after he’d hauled her body out. Then he’d gone home, buried his head in his studies, and buried his magick somewhere very hard to access....

  The room was quiet when Alek finished his story. Lilya had hidden her face in his shirt, absorbing every syllable of his story through the words rumbling through his chest. Tears burned in her eyes. She couldn’t say she was sorry—that was far too mild. She couldn’t say anything meaningful at all.

  “My magick couldn’t save her, so what good is it?” His voice sounded empty.

  She pressed her lips together. Evianna had likely been dead before she’d hit the bottom of the pit, but Alek knew that. Alek also must know that what Byron had said was correct—it had been far too late for Alek’s magick to help. He couldn’t bring people back from the dead. No magick could do that.

  Alek must have some knowledge of the limits of his power, but perhaps not much. He probably didn’t know if he could merely heal a scratch or bring someone back from the brink of death. She presumed from the way he’d told the story that the incident with Evianna had been one of the rare times he’d focused and used his power. That wasn’t surprising since showing off his skills while the Edaeii had been in power would have earned him a one-way passage into Belai.

  She couldn’t stop imagining what hauling her body out of that pit must have been like. He’d been all alone, grieving. She raised her head and looked at him. “Alek, I don’t have any words that come even close to expressing my sorrow.”

  “I had to bury her up there.” His eyes were distant. “I got her out of the pit, but there had been no way for me to get her down the cliff and through the ruins. Her family had been devastated that I couldn’t bring her home.”

  “I think she would have approved of being buried there.” Byron had come nearer to them while Alek had been telling the story. Now he was only an arm’s span away. “She loved that place.”

  Alek glanced at him and smiled. “I think so too.”

  Byron gazed out the window at the falling snow. “She was an amazing woman. Strong, self-sufficient, independent, intelligent. Evianna never let anyone tell her she couldn’t do something.”

  “Do you think she would have said yes?” Alek asked.

  Byron laughed and Alek shifted, his body relaxing. “Do you even have to ask? She was completely in love with you.”

  “I think she would have said yes too.”

  They all went quiet. After a moment, Lilya stepped away from them and began to clear away the dishes. Alek needed time alone with Byron. They were, after all, best friends.

  “I saw dessert in the kitchen,” Alek commented, turning toward her.

  She looked up at Alek and blinked. “Dessert?”

  “Didn’t you make some kind of sugary, chocolaty thing with Byron this afternoon?”

  “Cake.” She stood with a plate cradled in her hands. The tension in the room seemed to have eased. Perhaps talking about Evianna’s death had been a good thing for Alek. “Chocolate cake. Do you want some?”

  “You’re asking me if I want chocolate cake?” Alek gave her a slight smile, but sadness still lingered in his eyes.

  “I’ll get it.” Byron walked to the kitchen. “Mara just bought new coffee too. I’ll make some hot water for it. I can do at least that much in the kitchen on my own.”

  She and Alek finished clearing the table. While they worked, Alek told her more about Evianna. How they’d met, what her parents had been like. Evianna Grusov had been born to a noble house that had originally made their money in the mining of precious gems. Heir to a vast fortune, Evianna hadn’t been required to do anything in life besides make a good marriage, yet her mind had been keen to explore the world. She’d caused her doting parents heartache with her headstrong and unconventional ways.

  Eventually they’d allowed her to follow her passion—education—and had sent her to the university even though it had been against their wishes. She’d flourished there, fast carving a reputation for herself as a female with an exceptional mind.

  Byron served up the cake and the three of them talked more about Evianna as they settled in to eat it. With every anecdote that Alek shared, his shoulders hunched less and his voice and body relaxed more. By the time only crumbs remained on their plates, they were all laughing at happier memories the two men had of her.

  After the dessert dishes had been cleared, they went into a smaller sitting room at the back of the house since it was a very cold night and the fire warmed that room more efficiently than the library. A large, thick throw rug covered the stone floor and a fire burned bright and hot in the hearth.

  Byron had finally given in to the rational reasons she and Alek had given for the hiring of people to do work in the house, but they were like phantoms and Lilya hardly ever caught sight of them. They ghosted here and there, lighting fires, clearing snow from the front steps, and completing other tasks that Byron had been doing himself. Someone had built this fire to a roaring, pleasant inferno while they’d been enjoying their cake.

  Around the fireplace sat an overstuffed, comfortable-looking couch and two wingback chairs. Alek took a chair and she curled up on the couch wit
h her feet up. Byron took the opposite end.

  A contented smile playing around her mouth. She watched snowflakes fall against the velvet black of the sky beyond the window of the room while an easy silence descended over them. The evening had begun a little tense between the three of them because of the edge of rivalry the men seemed to have where she was concerned, but they’d found a good rhythm during dinner, all enjoying each other’s company. She was glad they had—she liked these men, both of them, more than she could remember liking anyone in a very long time. She hated being the cause of discord between them, no matter how transitory it might be.

  The snow came down harder and the wind gusted. It was looking bad outside and getting worse, but here it was safe, warm, and comfortable. She snuggled back against the soft cushions of the couch and sighed in contentment.

  “Do you remember the blizzard during our freshman year of university?” Alek asked Byron.

  He nodded. “We were snowed in at our dorm for three days.”

  Alek laughed. “We lived on stale crackers, old candy, and melted snow.”

  “And you’re laughing about it?” Lilya asked.

  Byron put his hand on her calf. “It wasn’t that bad. We had friends there. It turned into a big party.”

  “Still, stale crackers and old candy. Yuck.” Though Joshui knew she’d lived on less for longer periods of time. She wouldn’t mention that fact since the evening was turning out to be so nice.

  Byron rubbed the tension out of the muscles of her calf. “Well, we did have a little brandy too.”

  “And whiskey.”

  “Oh, yes, the whiskey.”

  “We played strategia the whole time,” Alek added. “Marko cheated, remember? Tried to steal a whole pile of coin from you before we caught on.”

  Byron made an angry sound in the back of his throat that made all the hair on Lilya’s nape raise. “I remember.”

  “Remember Tamryn and how he used to . . .”

  Byron and Alek took a stroll down memory lane and she rested her head on the cushion behind her, happy to walk along with them. Their younger years had been far more carefree than hers had been, and a small part of her was envious of that fact.