“You’re his deathsworn?” she asked. “You took the oath? Meaning if he dies, you die?”
Yamar nodded. “Are you so shocked? Each member of the Dynasty has at least one deathsworn. When I saved Enos before, or really you saved him and I was there to be credited by the Dynasty, I was the natural choice.”
Kay turned forward as Yamar lowered his arms. She slowly guided the light back to the blue line. “I guess I didn’t think of it. I sometimes get a little caught up in what’s in front of me and forget to look around.”
“I would agree with that assessment,” Yamar said. She could hear his grin. “But I think that focus, even at the expense of other things, is what makes you peerless at what you do.”
They began shuffling deeper again. “So if whatever plot the Gyudi have planned works,” Kay asked, “and somehow Enos and the rest of the Dynasty die, that’s it for you too? You’ll fall on your sword? Not try to avenge them, right the wrong? Not try to find a new life outside of their shadow?”
“It won’t come to that.”
“But if it did?”
He was silent a long time, the only sound the scrape of their feet on the stones bouncing off the walls. “There is no life for me beyond his. My purpose is laid out clearly. The consequences of my failure would be immediate and irreversible. And that is what I willingly agreed to. But, as to falling on my sword, that would not be my burden. My brother and sister deathsworn have vowed to relieve me of that decision. They would end my life, swiftly and mercifully, as I would theirs should duty call me to.”
“But that’s awful. Why should one death require another? You could still serve their interests better alive than dead.”
“This is why the Wrang rarely speak of the deathsworn outside our ranks. It is too easily misunderstood. You focus on the ultimatums. I live in the spirit of the idea. Every day. It adds an edge to my blade, knowing that what I do in his name, I do in my own name as well. It is an honor, one I had every right to refuse. I chose to accept it and strive towards greatness. It shapes my death, yes, but it shapes my life far more.” He paused. “Besides, I love Enos as if he were my own child. If he were to be killed, I may welcome a release from a life of shame and regret.”
“He’s a little shit.”
Yamar gave a low laugh. “Admittedly, he’s in a rough stage. And I’m not the only person whispering in his ear and shaping his actions. Shaping his person. His obsession with you has been…challenging for me. Thus far, it hasn’t gone exactly as I’d hoped.”
“As you’d hoped?”
“I’d nurtured hopes that he may learn from you, something of your spirit and selflessness. But he’s been exposed to too much poor guidance. He still believes love to be another possession to own or realm to conquer. I’d hoped you would be a teacher, a better guide.”
“I don’t know that I could teach him anything about love.” In her mind, the Pathfinder’s eyes were on her boots. He got sick on the road home, Kay. By the time we reached the border he was dead. There was nothing anyone could do. I’m sorry. “Why would you think I could teach anyone anything?”
This time it was Yamar who stopped in surprise, his hand tugging at her hood as he slowed. “Joah,” he said.
“What does Joah have to do with any of this?”
“He didn’t tell you? I approached Joah almost a year ago and offered him a position with the Wrang.”
Kay’s brow furrowed in the darkness. “I thought entry into the Wrang required training from birth. And all of you are from noble families, right?”
“So is Joah. And yes, it requires an incredible amount of training. Not only in martial skills, but in strategy, diplomacy, and a thousand other areas. And Joah has those skills and more. He has heart. Grit. In the past one might argue he was, as you might call it, a little shit. And you reshaped him. He is a credit to your training, your leadership.”
“I’m not sure Joah could catch an arrow that was fired at his heart in midair.” She let a few footfalls pass before asking, “And he turned down your offer?”
“He turned down my offer. He barely finished his drink before he was off to run his next errand in your service. Esteem, gold, an apartment at the Palace, all met with total indifference. It was a response I’ve only seen once before. From you.”
“I should give him a raise.”
“You don’t have to. You have given him purpose.” Yamar’s voice grew more hushed. “I always assumed he told you about the offer.” He continued, “Furthermore, if we needed another point of evidence, I have to note that Abi has been playing the Palace game for just a few short years and is already a legend. Far surpassing what I am able to accomplish with a lifetime of training behind me. It was tough hiding a smile when she put Enos in his place. You can imagine no one ever, ever speaks to him like that. We had a long talk afterwards. It made me hopeful he would try harder to listen to others, get out of his own head more.”
“Abi came to me with those skills. Just needed to point them in the right direction.”
“But you have a habit, Kay, of bringing out the best in those who are wise enough to remain close to you.”
“I don’t know that that’s true.” She thought of Ewan’s body, facedown in a dirty alley. “But it’s good to know you’ve been trying to poach my staff. All subsequent hires will be warned of your scheming ways.”
Yamar gave a small snort of laughter, then fell back into silence. They pressed onwards through the dark.
Shortly after, the blue line vanished. They kept going. It had stopped many times before and always picked back up. Kay imagined Jenna Weiss, quietly fumbling to find more paint by the torchlight of her captors, or hiding the brush in the folds of her cloak as a masked face turned back towards her. The line always picked back up. If it didn’t, they were lost.
The tunnel opened out into a wide junction. Several intersecting tunnels branched off. Kay and Yamar stopped in the center. “We’ll have to try each of them,” Kay said. “The line should start again past the intersection.”
Kay guided her spark towards the first tunnel, sending it near the ground on the righthand side. No blue line. She brought it back, then led it towards the next.
“How is that possible?” Yamar asked, staring at the dancing flame.
“I really don’t know, Yamar. But it is.”
“How long…have you always been able to do that?”
“I’m not sure I can answer that question.” Kay directed the flame towards a third tunnel. Still no sign of the blue marking. “Whether I could always do it or not, I only learned it a few years ago. Before I controlled it, it controlled me.”
“Controlled what?”
“The spark inside of me.” She shouldn’t be talking about it, but what was the alternative? More silence, as the black snakes closed in, whispering in their lost tongue. She’d told only Joah, Abi, and Ewan about her powers. And they’d stopped asking for explanations she didn’t have years before.
“But it’s…magic.”
“That’s just a word for something you can’t explain.” Kay turned towards him. “Sorry, Yamar, I don’t really have any answers. And the reason I keep it quiet is so I don’t have to face the questions I can’t answer.”
“It could be studied. Others may know more.”
“Oh, I’ve considered it. I even had someone offer to teach me once. And I’ve searched every library in Celest, including that monstrosity at the Palace. I haven’t found anything to help me. I’m feeling this out on my own. And this whole idea of certainty, this idea that we even can know more about something like this…” Without thinking, she produced a second flame in her hands even as the other was slowly navigating towards another tunnel mouth. She looked at it in surprise for a moment. She’d never done that before. Her powers, meager as they were, were strengthening under the Fire Eye’s influence.
It took Kay a moment to regain her train of thought as she stared at the fire in her hand. “But this idea that this can be conque
red, harnessed, I just have a feeling that’s wrong. It is what it is and no more. What matters is how it helps me do what I need to do. And sometimes feel what I need to feel. Your certainty, that’s a luxury. Something that may feel natural to someone sitting in a position of power. The people who can burn the history books, blind the historians. Certainty is rare. It’s what you do amidst the confusion that matters.”
Yamar was staring at her, and she saw that same sadness in his eyes she’d caught before. “That’s very true,” he said, turning away from her.
“There,” she said, pointing. The flame had finally fallen on a blue paint mark. They moved to the tunnel and looked down into the black, then started forward together.
The silence returned, awkward and thick. Kay again felt the darkness pressing in, the slithering of countless black snakes at her feet. The flame ahead seemed weak. She was pondering adding another to the mix, to test her capabilities, when the snakes abruptly vanished. The feeling of danger intensified rather than dissipated. They had only been in her mind, surely, but why had they fled so suddenly? She had a vision of a larger predator making its way towards her, slithering thick and black along the tunnel floor. One who wouldn’t fear the light. One who would use it to find his prey, or just as easily hunt in the darkness. Jug-Desh hunts the children, feasting on the helpless who have no one to protect them. Jug-Desh hunts the shadows, where the screams of his prey bounce off blackness. He approached.
“Something’s coming,” she whispered to Yamar, then released the flame, surrounding them in darkness.
Yamar fell silent, so quiet she wouldn’t have known he was there if it weren’t for the firm hand on her hood. Kay stared along the long, dark tunnel. Blind, as she’d been when masked. No way to penetrate the blackness. It would hide the snake, first a thing of smoke, weaving its way, floating an inch above the ground as it danced towards them, then a thing of solid, black scales, one orange Fire Eye looking ahead, touching the ground and slithering forward, still as quiet as smoke. It was hunting them. It had eaten the children she was here to save. It would eat them. Then it would slither past, following the blue line to the surface, where it would feed on Celest’s undefended, a trail of blood and smoke in its wake.
A light bloomed ahead of them. A distant torch, quietly making its way towards them from far down the tunnel. Kay jumped as Yamar’s other hand found her shoulder. He pulled her behind him, then drew his sword.
The sense of wrongness from ahead was strong. She leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “It could be a youth. Another Jenna, seeking escape.”
“It’s not,” he replied. “It’s the Chosen.”
As the torch bobbed closer, Kay saw he was right. It was held by one of the masked men who had seized Kay and taken her below. There were probably more. She couldn’t yet tell.
“We should hide,” she breathed in his ear.
“No time,” he replied. “And whether they are on the blue line by chance or purpose, this is our only path. It needs to remain open.”
Kay looked at him and realized she was starting to make out his features. The light was finding them. Shortly they would be exposed.
“Can you put out that torch?” he asked, reflection of the approaching fire dancing in his eyes.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never tried.”
“Stay here. When they see you and they stop, try.” And then he was gone, moving towards their enemies.
Kay made a quick, desperate grab at his cloak, but he was gone. There was no place to hide. Where was he going? She watched the light grow closer, hungrier, trying not to imagine it was the single orange eye of a giant, black snake, one so large it filled the tunnel with its bloat and muscle.
As the torch marched down the tunnel, Kay drew her baton, moving more smoothly around her sling with her recent practice. She felt exposed, standing still in the center of the tunnel where the light would reveal her. The shapes behind the torchbearer started taking form. At least four of the Chosen, though there may be even more at the end of the train. Bad odds.
Where had Yamar gone? As the light grew, she saw a shadow tucked away in the corner, maybe ten paces before her. There were no other features in the tunnel. Surely they would see him. The only way this worked was if they were looking at her. She remained in place, breathing deeply to control her fear.
She waited, feeling the light crawl over her, until finally the Chosen slowed, still several paces from the hiding Yamar. The torchbearer was looking at her. He raised a hand and his followers matched his slower pace. The mask stared at her, considering, all the while moving forward. With his tight, black clothing blending into the murk beyond the torch, it looked as though the mask floated in the darkness.
“Can you speak?” she said finally, surprised to find her voice remained steady.
“You are lost, child,” the Chosen said, words creeping out murkily from inside the mask. “You do not belong here. What good is speech when we both know you are lost?” He had nearly reached Yamar.
“I know who you represent. And it’s not going to end well. The Gyudi will fail,” Kay said.
“Who are you to speak such of the Gyudi in their domain?” He leaned closer. “I remember you. You are the messenger.”
“The Gyudi will fail,” Kay repeated. “You will be broken and killed. There is still time to cast aside those masks.”
“The Melor will fall, messenger. There is still time for you to don one.”
The torch flickered in his hand. So much fire, so hungry. Could she possibly quell such hunger? They were moments away from finding out.
“No? No matter,” the Chosen said. “Jyurik will want a word with you.” He finally stopped, mere inches before the dark shape of Yamar, waiting in ambush. He raised a knife with a wide body, a diamond-shaped pommel. The steel shone in the firelight.
“Did you know the Gyudi used to blind their followers for looking at the sky?” Kay said. “Messed up, isn’t it? Trapping them in eternal blackness. Like this.” Kay reached out with her spark and quelled the torch. The light went, leaving all in the tunnel blind.
Chapter 20. Battle of the Black
Kay could follow the first few seconds of what happened after the darkness took the tunnel. She heard the noise of fumbling from the Chosen who had carried the torch, searching his clothing for matches or some means to relight it. And she heard swift, sure footsteps followed by a horrible, wet noise of violence. She’d never so clearly heard a sword entering a body before. She had a feeling it would haunt her dreams. Then the sound of that body hitting the floor. Yamar had taken the lead Chosen. After that, the tunnel descended into a black chaos she could make little sense of.
The struck Chosen did not die clean but instead began wailing, his cries of pain and helplessness muffled by the mask strapped to his face. Something flew past her in the dark and Kay realized staying in the place she had been standing before the light went was folly. She stepped to the side of the tunnel, even that small movement causing a dizzying and terrifying sensation as she blindly sought the wall with a hand. She could hear more running and clatter down the tunnel. Yamar hunting the others in the dark. As she pressed against the wall, she gripped her baton tightly. The sounds of struggle were moving farther down the tunnel to what seemed to be an impossible distance. The Chosen’s wailing did not last long. His moans diminished to the ragged breathing of one at the threshold of death, readying for a journey through tunnels far blacker than these.
But this wasn’t just Yamar’s fight. Before her, beyond this latest challenge thrown in their path, were the children she’d been charged with returning. Cora, Melanie, Marlo, all the unnamed. Kay stepped off the wall and worked her way quietly down the tunnel, using the breathing of the dying Chosen as her compass. She could create light, perhaps she alone. It would give her an advantage in this fray. It would also mark her for attack if any of the Chosen had survived Yamar’s ambush and slipped behind him in the confusion. Or if Yamar were already dead
.
She could feel nothing, see nothing. She had only the breathing to orient her. As she carefully picked her way around the dying Chosen, the sound finally halted, and the silence grew as oppressive as the darkness. The sounds of struggle down the tunnel were faint and so far they may as well have been across the Sea of Colors.
Kay carefully worked her arm out of her sling to hold her left hand in front of her, ignoring the bolt of pain as she straightened the cramped and throbbing limb. She held her baton tightly in the other hand. The sounds of struggle were momentarily stilled. She drew a spark from within and summoned a single flame to hover above her hand.
Her breath caught as she saw a shadow against the side of the tunnel, hidden as Yamar had hidden, only an arm’s length from her. It moved, reacting to the light. It was the mask of a Chosen and the orange Fire Eye turned to her flame. A snarl more animal than human came from the Chosen as it faced her and began to rise. The blade of its knife reflected the dim light.
Kay brought her baton down hard, catching the crouching Chosen across the jaw. She felt the mask break under the force of the strike and the man crumpled to the ground. She leveled two more strikes, her full weight behind them. Kay stared at the unmoving shape a moment, then remembered she didn’t know what was farther down the tunnel. Her light made her a target. She extinguished it, listening carefully for any sounds of the Chosen before her recovering. He was not breathing. She’d killed him. Which meant two dead and at least two more to account for.
She left the bodies behind her and began moving forward down the tunnel. After several steps, she summoned her flame again. The images which had hounded her earlier came back stronger, finding a better hold now that she had to face them alone. Jyurik lying in ambush before her. Snakes below her feet. Vascal still tracking her from behind. She realized how much harder the journey would have been without Yamar. Now she could add to her fears the image of his corpse, sprawled out ahead of her on the tunnel floor, waiting for her with the patience of the dead, just as Ewan Silas had done.
The Fire Eye Chosen_Sequel to The Fire Eye Refugee Page 15
