Eve of Destruction

by C. E. Stalbaum

  Maybe after today, she had finally done the same.

  “Hey, so you found the basin, huh?” he asked from behind her. “I told you it wasn’t that bad.”

  She nodded. Her hair was still damp, and she’d changed into her sleeping gown. “It could have been worse. It doesn’t seem like it gets much use.”

  He grunted. “Probably not. We found a new place that had some fish. I guess there’s a lake around here some—”

  He cut off when she turned around to face him. Between some healing magic and a bath, she’d gotten rid of the worst of the cuts and scrapes from her tussle with Shaedra, but some were still visible.

  “What in the void happened?” he asked, bounding over to her before she could even reply.

  Eve raised her hands in front of her. “It’s all right.”

  “You’re bleeding,” he said, reaching up towards one of the scratches on her forehead.

  “Not so much anymore. I mended the worst of them.”

  He grimaced as he ran a hand through her hair. “Shaedra did this?”

  “Yes.”

  Zach glared at the door behind them. “I knew it was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have left you with her—”

  “It’s fine,” Eve soothed, putting her hands in his and forcing a faint smile. “I learned what I needed to, I think.”

  He frowned, and his eyes searched her face for answers. “And what was that?”

  “I’m…not sure I can explain it,” she told him softly. It was a lie, or at the very least a half-truth. She’d been trying to put it into words the entire time she bathed, and then again while she had stood staring out the window for the better part of an hour. She still hadn’t come up with anything, but deep down she understood. For the first time since this entire mess had started, she was finally clear about what she needed to do.

  Chaval wanted her alive and he wanted her close—that much she knew for certain. Most likely, he believed he could turn her into a weapon. He had read the vision; he understood what was supposed to happen. He knew a critical point was approaching, and he knew that the Enclave would soon make their move to stop him. He wanted Eve around for that. He wanted her to give him another Kalavan to turn the people of Arkadia against the magi.

  Her friends would do what they could to prevent it. Mr. Maltus would arrive tomorrow evening, and Eve knew that he would try to set things right. He would probably confront Chaval and leave her behind. He would do everything in his power to keep her safe.

  But this wasn’t about him. This wasn’t about any of the others. This was about her, about her powers and her destiny. Even if Maltus and the others managed to defeat Chaval, it wouldn’t change anything. The war would come regardless, and once it was upon them, Eve would become the Avenshal they feared. She would destroy them all. She would destroy the Fane.

  Unless…

  “You could try,” Zach said after a minute. “Did you…learn to control this thing?”

  “In a way,” she murmured. “I understand what triggers it.”

  He shook his head in confusion, and she smiled up at him. She lifted her hands to his face and pulled his lips down to hers.

  If she waited around—if she let others take action for her—then ultimately this was going to end the same way. Her friends would eventually get hurt, and then she would respond. The power of the Avenshal would well up inside her, and she would kill without even thinking about it—she would Defile without even trying.

  She wasn’t going to let that happen. Maybe that was all Shaedra had wanted her to understand in the first place. Eve had been tip-toeing around this prophecy for almost a week now, and that wasn’t going to fix anything. You couldn’t run from destiny, as the saying went. You had to embrace it, and that was exactly what she was going to do.

  Tomorrow, before Maltus arrived, she was going to confront Simon Chaval. Either she would kill him herself…or, much more likely, she would die trying. But at least then it would all be over. She would no longer be a threat to anyone, and the world could move on.

  Eve eventually pulled away from Zach, and he blinked as he looked down upon her.

  “What was that for?”

  “I think I owed you,” she said with a smile.

  “You don’t owe me anything,” he told her. “I’m your friend. I just want to make sure you’re all right.”

  She ran her hand down the front of his shirt. “You’re more than that and you know it.”

  His eyes softened but he didn’t reply. He just looked upon her the way he always did—as a man who loves a woman.

  He would wait, she knew. He would play the gentleman all the way to the end, even as the passion inside him drove him insane. But for what would ultimately be their last night together, she wasn’t interested in being with a gentleman. And she sure as Shakissa wasn’t interested in acting like a lady.

  Eve brought their lips together again, and she slowly pushed him backwards towards the closest bed. When he bumped against the edge she tackled him down onto it and began to work at his clothing. He resisted meekly at first, but it wasn’t long before he was following suit, sliding his hands beneath her gown and exploring the soft flesh below.

  She knew that she’d already crossed one threshold today, and she could only hope she would never be forced to do so again. But now the two of them were staring at a line that was no less dangerous, and she understood that once they stepped across it, there would be no going back. She simply didn’t care.

  They crossed it together in heated silence.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Cadotheia looked and smelled as awful as Glenn Maltus remembered, and for probably the hundredth time in the last few days he had to bite back a flash of embarrassment at dragging Jean all the way out here. As if traveling into the heart of Chaval’s power center wasn’t enough, now he also got to introduce her first-hand to all the other wonders of this Industrialist paradise.

  “I had heard other Sisters speak of it before,” she whispered as she gazed up into the smog-covered sky. “But I’m not sure I ever really believed it was possible.”

  “I know a spell to block out the worst of the fumes once we get into a less public place,” he told her.

  “I don’t mean the smell. The Fane…it’s dying.”

  Maltus had wondered if she’d been able to sense it as they crossed over into the western part of the country. He should have known better; she might not have been an Enclave magister, but in many ways she’d probably learned more about their craft in the temple than he had in the field. It took a certain level of attunement to sense such things when one wasn’t actively weaving, and he’d first noticed it almost a day ago. Here it was even worse.

  “Weakened, but not dead,” he said. “Not yet, at least.”

  With visible effort Jean pulled her eyes away from the bleak skyline and turned to face him. “So where is this agent of yours?”

  “Outside the station, most likely,” he replied, gently grabbing her arm and leading her out of the station. “She doesn’t particularly care for trains. Or crowds.”

  “I like her already.”

  He snorted. “That won’t last. Trust me.”

  They made their way outside with a swift but dignified pace and did their best to simply ignore everyone around them. They stood out as upper class, but not as badly as he had expected. The crowds weren’t nearly as rustic as the last time he’d been here, and it didn’t take long for him to figure out why: Karyn must have already arrived, and that meant President Janel had, too. Wherever either of them went, particularly Janel, it meant that a healthy mix of supporters—both paid and legitimate—followed.

  After a few minutes Maltus managed to pick out a tall, dark figure slouched against a metal pole eyeing him over a tattered red scarf. He took a deep breath to brace himself, then nudged Jean over in that direction.

  “Not your best disguise,” he commented as they drew close.

  Shaedra glanced between them a few times before her eyes
locked onto him. “You look terrible.”

  “It was a long trip.”

  “That’s not what I meant. You look…older.”

  “Well, it’s good to see you didn’t find a personality while you were here,” he muttered. “This is Jean Lashowe, a friend from—”

  “A Sister in Cadotheia,” Shaedra said. “The first in a very long time, probably.”

  “Hopefully not the last,” Jean replied. She stood rigidly, and he could feel the tension in her body just by touching her arm. To her credit, though, she was hiding it pretty well.

  Shaedra grunted. “Well, I’m sure we’ll all enjoy this happy little reunion.”

  “Take us to the others,” he said. “We might not have a lot of time.”

  She nodded wordlessly and led them down the street. As nice as it would have been to summon a carriage, it wasn’t worth the risk that the animals would react badly to Shaedra’s presence and make a scene. And really, after days stuffed inside a moving box, Maltus didn’t mind the chance to stretch his legs.

  “Any news?” he asked once they’d made it clear of the crowds surrounding the station.

  “Janel and Marose are here meeting with Chaval like you expected. They started their conference yesterday, and it’s still going, as far as I know. I didn’t think it was worth the risk of me getting close enough to learn any more than that.”

  Maltus nodded. “Probably for the best. If Simon hasn’t done anything yet, perhaps he doesn’t intend to at all.”

  “Janel brought a company of soldiers with him,” Shaedra said. “Combined with Steamwork’s mercenary battalion, there are enough troops here to conquer a small country.”

  “Or fire the first shots in a civil war,” Maltus replied gravely. Other than a handful of guards at the station, he hadn’t seen any soldiers yet, but at this point they were walking towards the fringes of the city. Gregori would have hidden the others there for safety.

  “Is it worth trying to speak with Karyn?” Jean asked softly. “Or maybe even her and Simon together?”

  Shaedra snorted. “You really think Chaval would agree to that?”

  “He might,” Maltus said. “I don’t expect we’ll talk him out of anything, of course, but it’s worth the chance. If nothing else, I want to look into his eyes and ask him what he did to Tara.”

  Jean stopped in her tracks and looked up at him. “You said this wasn’t about vengeance.”

  “It’s not,” he insisted. “But it is about closure. I want to see how he reacts, or if he just comes out and admits it. All this time and we still don’t really know what he has planned or what he hoped to gain from her journal.”

  She held his eyes for at least thirty seconds before finally nodding and following next to him again. “I want to know, too. All of us do.”

  “Do you plan on bringing Eve with you?” Shaedra asked. “She’s the one he’s been hounding.”

  “Eve will never be anywhere near him if I have any say in it,” Maltus said flatly. “The rest of us need to find a way to deal with Simon, and then we can go from there. I just want her safe.”

  “You might not find it so easy to convince her of that now. She’s finally decided to face her fears rather than run from them.”

  Maltus frowned. Something in her tone caused a cold tingle to race up and down his spine. “What are you talking about? What did you do?”

  “I helped her understand herself,” Shaedra said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

  He reached out and grabbed her shoulder then spun her around to face him. “What did you—?”

  An explosion roared behind them, and Maltus instinctively dropped to a knee and called to the Fane. A bubble of scintillating energy flashed around the three of them, and no sooner had the shield burst into existence than a hail of flaming debris cascaded down across the streets. Startled horses bolted off in all directions, carriages flipped over, and shrieking citizens dove for cover or simply sprinted away from the explosions.

  And in the distance just over the city skyline, a plume of green fire rose into the heavens, grasping at the sky like the fist of an angry god.

  “Blessed Kirshal,” Jean breathed as she crouched beneath the protective bubble.

  “It’s the Steamworks factory,” Shaedra said. “The original one.”

  Maltus grimaced as he squinted through the swelling clouds of smoke and fire. The eight silos crowning the distant building each ruptured in turn, belching out plumes of flaming ash across the smog-covered skyline.

  Shaedra tilted her head back to face him. “You knew they would act sooner or later.”

  He nodded distantly. He had indeed expected them to act, but not here, not now—and certainly not like this. That factory housed thousands of workers even at this hour, and none of them would be able to escape the growing firestorm.

  Jean shook her head. “You can’t mean…”

  “The Enclave,” he rasped. “May the Goddess forgive them.”

  “The apartment is still almost two kilometers away,” Shaedra told him. “We need to keep moving. This is going to get worse. And quickly.”

  Maltus took a deep breath and dismissed the spell. A mage flashing his powers like that would have normally drawn the attention of everyone for several blocks in either direction, but right now the people were more concerned with running for their own lives.

  And they had every reason to be. Shaedra was right, probably in more ways than she knew.

  “They were waiting until Karyn and Janel were in the city,” he said softly. “They wanted them all to be here when they struck.”

  Jean’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “He means they’re not just here to stop Chaval anymore,” Shaedra said grimly. “They’re here to take over the country.”

  ***

  As it turned out, the difference between knowing something was coming and actually being there for it was about as wide as the Chasm of Gurai, Gregori Danev thought to himself. He stood looking out at the curtain of flame slowly stretching across the eastern horizon, and he curled his fingers tightly about the metal railing on the apartment balcony. The seeds of this war had been sewn a long time ago, long before even Kalavan, but somehow a part of him never expected them to actually sprout. Poleria had proven that war was obsolete, or so the saying went. His was the generation that had grown up at the end of that darkness, and they’d silently promised never to commit that same mistake again.

  And yet here he was now, watching the factory silos crumble as panic gripped the streets of the nation’s most populous city. This was war, and it was his people who had started it.

  He blew a thin stream of air out between his teeth. It wasn’t clear what the Enclave’s goal here was yet, either. Would they be willing to stop their assault after surgically destroying the city’s factories? Would they level the great hall at its center or just raze whatever buildings they felt like? He had no clue. No one outside the Magister’s Council knew the Enclave’s exact strength or what they were truly capable of, and right now it seemed like their attack had caught the local authorities and Steamworks mercenaries completely off-guard.

  The door behind him burst open and Zach raced inside, sweat dripping off his brow. Normally he was as poised under fire as a military man should be, but something had clearly changed. When Eve didn’t rush in right behind him, it wasn’t hard to figure out what that something was.

  “I don’t know where she is,” Zach stammered. “I woke up and she was just…gone.”

  Danev spun back around to look over the railing but didn’t say anything. It was dark now, and even with the street lanterns and rising columns of fire in the distance, it would be difficult if not impossible to identify a specific person.

  “She’s smart enough to stay close,” Danev said. “Let’s just give her some time. Shaedra should also be back here anytime.”

  Zach paced nervously about the room for a few minutes before walking out to the balcony and squinting to try
and make something out. The normally empty alleyway below was flooded with locals screaming in panic. The police would have their hands full trying to deal with the actual assault, and the crash of breaking glass and the flickering of small fires in the distance told Danev that the opportunistic looting had already begun. If Eve was out there somewhere, even nearby, she wouldn’t be safe for long…

  When ten minutes had passed and Danev was reasonably certain Zach had already worn through the soles of his boots, he finally strode towards the door and decided they couldn’t wait any longer. He didn’t understand where she could have gone, or why in the Goddess’s name she would have left the apartment building at all—

  The door burst open again just before he reached it, and Shaedra stood there staring at him. Behind her was a middle-aged man in good shape with a balding head and two-day stubble, and next to him was a woman the same age with bright eyes and a trim figure.

  For perhaps a solid minute the three of them just looked at one another, and it was like they were all standing outside their dormitory together, waiting for the others to meet them before they went out for a night on the town. Age might have whitened their hair and creased their faces a little, but somehow, in that one moment, it felt as if he’d suddenly come home.

  “We picked a great time for a reunion, didn’t we?” Danev muttered.

  “You could say that,” Glenn managed.

  “It’s good to see you, Gregori,” Jean said with a faint smile, offering him her hand.

  He took it and nodded. There were, he estimated, about a thousand things he wanted to say just then, and a hundred questions he wanted to ask both of them. But all of that was going to have to wait.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” Danev said. “And we have another problem.”

  “Eve is gone,” Zach told them. “I have no idea where she went.”