by Zen DiPietro
Meli looked so pleased that Kassimeigh felt reasonably safe in pressing for more answers. “Do you know where Anguish is, Meli? We need to find him. “
Meli’s attention shifted to the trickling fountain. She remained silent for so long that Kassimeigh began to think she’d gone too far and chased Meli back into her shell.
Meli’s attention snapped back to the puzzle. She sorted the last pieces and completed it. As she set the last crystal into place, she evaluated the completed structure.
She didn’t look up when she finally said, “I don’t know where he is right now, but I will. No matter how long he stays away, he always comes back to me.”
While Kassimeigh and Izzy made a breakthrough with Meli, Will handled more combative matters outside. As he flattened himself to the ground behind a small rise, a rough lump of stony dirt dug into his hip but he ignored it. He kept his breath even as he watched for his chance. In spite of the cold Apex air that chilled his throat on the way in and erupted into plumes of vapor as he breathed out, he didn’t wear the typical bulky outerwear that would hinder him. He remained unarmed, other than his own physical prowess.
He saw Justin’s signal. As he launched himself up onto his feet and into a sprint, he hoped for enough speed to take his foe unaware.
He dodged to the left, then threw his full weight into his target. He heard a grunt and they both tumbled to the ground, grappling for position. Will fought hard, trying to force the other man into submission while keeping his elbows and knees in to prevent his opponent from getting a good hold on him.
Just as he seized the upper hand, he heard the hoot that indicated success. Throwing his weight to the side, he hoped to use the element of surprise to escape and provide backup for Justin as he sprinted away with the prize. Will thought he’d succeeded when his foot caught and he found himself slamming into the ground in a cloud of dust and blunt force trauma. He rolled his shoulder under him and managed to pop back up to his feet while his foe scrambled upright.
“Not bad, Car.” Will admitted. “But not good enough.” He stole a glance toward Justin, who was comfortably away from the area, though not yet out of danger.
Carston also glanced toward Justin, weighing his options. Will waited to see his lieutenant’s next move. Not one to miss out on a good fight, Carston shifted sideways and stalked around Will in a defensive crouch.
Will checked Justin’s position again before focusing completely on Carston. Though he wasn’t able to back up Justin as planned, keeping Car occupied left one less person to interfere with Justin. And this way, he got to throw down against one of the best hand-to-hand fighters in the battalion.
They circled each other, and Will watched for an opening. He just needed one step that was too slow, one drop of a shoulder, one moment of imperfection to capitalize on. Before his chance came, he heard a thump, some shouting, and finally a whoop of victory. Apparently the game was over. Too bad.
Dropping their stances, Will and Carston stepped out over the rise. They saw Justin on the ground and Orben Meadows standing over him. Justin held the blue flag, but wheezed horribly from having the wind knocked out of him. A scant few yards past them, Bran Oswell waved the red flag over his head, standing in the victory zone.
“Sorry, Red Team.” Carston grinned at Will. “Looks like you lose.”
Will snorted. “Easy to win when you have a manahi on your side.”
“Let’s play again, then. Orben can be on your side. Blue team will still win.”
Will preferred the greater challenge. “Keep Orben. We’ll beat you anyway.”
The sudden, unexpected progress with Meli threw the mission into forward motion. Kassimeigh knew Izzy hadn’t expected to delve into the past with her quite yet. Meli had forwarded their progress on her own, and now hard decisions must be made. After Meli’s initial revelation, she’d become introspective and quiet. Izzy had decided Meli and Kassimeigh should speak alone after dinner, in the hope that the intimacy of their shared past would encourage more answers.
As a result, Kassimeigh found herself standing with Meli in her own room. Inviting Meli into her personal, though temporary, space seemed like a good way to encourage the other woman to open up to her without retreating into her own mind.
“You sleep in here?” Meli examined the room with naked curiosity.
“I do. This is where I’ve been staying. It’s not too dissimilar from my quarters at the keep, where I normally live. Except that I have a real bed there, instead of a bedroll.”
Meli scrutinized Kassimeigh’s sleeping place, which she’d tightly bundled and stowed to the side when she’d awakened that morning. Kassimeigh supposed it was a needless effort, rolling up her bedding every morning only to lay it out in the same place each night. But she was accustomed to ritual and order, and didn’t mind a little extra effort in pursuit of those comforts.
Though the window had gone dark when the sun set, a mana lamp brightened the room to nearly the level of daylight. Meli’s brief visual tour of Kassimeigh’s digs ended with the bags of gear tucked neatly in the order, along with a couple of scabbards. “You don’t do much to decorate, then.”
Kassimeigh knew that the walls of Meli’s own room had blossomed with colorful pictures Meli had removed from photo books of flowers. It reminded her of her childhood appreciation of printed books. A girl definitely couldn’t decorate her room with a comm screen.
Kassimeigh sat and leaned back against the wall near the window. “I like simplicity. My keep is simple too. In my room there, I have some personal items, but I don’t truly decorate it. I just keep it tidy and comfortable. I prefer a space where I can exist without physical things crowding me.”
“I’d like to see your keep someday. It sounds nice, from the things you’ve told me.”
“Perhaps someday I can show it to you. But before I can go there, I need to deal with some things. You know what I mean, don’t you?”
Meli sighed and leaned back against the wall. She slid down until she was sitting on the floor. “I was hoping we could forget about all that and just do all new things.”
“We can’t. Not yet. There’s a danger on Terath. People have died. All of Umi Cabal, and all of another town called Sorrow. You wouldn’t want it to happen to another town, would you?”
Meli sighed again and she stared down at her hands. “No. But I can’t even help myself. I can’t help anyone else.”
“I think you can. You know Anguish. You might be the only one who does. You might have the knowledge we need to find him.”
Meli’s head snapped up.
“Find him? No, you want him to stay away. Don’t go looking for him. If he stays away, nothing happens. When he comes, bad things happen.” Her face crumpled and she dropped her gaze.
Kassimeigh moved closer, insinuating herself into Meli’s view. “If we never find him, he’ll keep going on the way he has, and people will keep getting hurt. We need to find him and stop him.”
“Can’t be done. He’s too strong. No one can stop him.”
“I think we can, Meli. I do. Together. Luc, the other manahi, you, me, and the whole battalion. You’re not alone now. You have all of us with you. We needed to find you so you can help us, and you needed for us to find you so we can help you. Together, we can do what needs to be done.”
Doubt warred with hope in Meli’s eyes. “Do you really think so? When he first took me away, I accepted that there was no way to win against him.”
“You were just a girl. No one expected you to defeat someone so powerful. But you’re grown now, and you have strong friends. I’m your friend. We need you to help us.”
“What could I do?”
Kassimeigh felt that finally, she’d gained a foothold. Meli was now at least entertaining the possibility of working with her and the others.
&nbs
p; “Tell us how to find Anguish. Once we make it so he can’t hurt anyone, all of this will be over. You could go anywhere on Terath. See everything there is to see. We can all leave the past behind and move forward.”
Meli was quiet for a long time, fidgeting with her hands. Finally, took a deep breath. “I told you, there’s only one way to find Anguish. We have to let him find me.”
“How?”
“The quickest way is to go back to where it all started. If you really want to call Anguish, you take me back to Umi Cabal. He’ll know I’m not here anymore, and he’ll come find me. Here in the fortress, it’s the only place I’m allowed to be alone.”
“You’re sure? He’ll come, even if we’re with you?”
“Yes. Nothing will ever stop him from coming for me.”
Late that night, after most troops had sought sleep, Kassimeigh divorced herself from sound and sight and all the ties that usually kept her anchored to the world around her. Instead, she focused on the sense she had spent her entire life ignoring.
She felt the glow of mana running through her body and used the energy to reach beyond herself in search of other mana. Pulsating threads of energy wafted through the air around her. She could tug the mana to her if she chose. She could absorb it, then let it join the flow that already ran through her. Instead, she ignored it.
She felt four amorphous beacons of power in her immediate vicinity, pulsing faster and stronger than the currents wafting through the air. These patterns were focused, organized, and individual. When she’d first started these exercises, she’d recognized mana only as power, but now she differentiated between inert power and actively harnessed mana. What’s more, she’d begun to develop enough of a mental palate for energy that she discerned minor differences among the manahi. Each of them emitted a distinct mana signature.
“You’re progressing well,” Azure observed.
Kassimeigh released the mana she held and opened her eyes. Thom, Lark, and Luc also sat in the middle of the bare room, which had gone unused due to its awkwardly oblong proportions. It was big enough for the eight of them, though, and they did not run the risk of interruption during her first lesson in the art of conjuring. Joss, Quillen, and Bran, who did not have any ability to conjure, stayed to the far side of the room, away from the other five manahi. They attended only as backup, in case her ability got away from her. No one expected that to happen, but they couldn’t be too safe.
Azure clasped her hands in front of her. Her brown eyes bored into Kassimeigh with deadly intensity. “When conjuring, you need a very strong focus and an image of what you want. If your focus wavers, whatever you conjure will be flawed. Perhaps the flaw will be obvious, and perhaps it won’t reveal itself until a critical moment. Conjuring can be very dangerous in this way.”
Azure took Kassimeigh’s hands in her own. “Open your senses to my mana again. Look beyond the whole. Slow it down, separate it out. Measure my harness, my transmuting, and my conjuring as individual components, and measure the difference in how those abilities manifest.”
Following her instructions, Kassimeigh linked with Azure and found the other woman’s mana signature. From there, Kassimeigh followed the curling tendrils of energy through Azure. She sensed a moderate talent at harnessing. Discerning transmutation and conjuring proved harder, as those abilities were far more complex. Kassimeigh adjusted her approach and increased her scrutiny. She delved further into Azure.
After less than a minute, Azure sucked in a breath. Kassimeigh felt herself suddenly shoved out, like a trespasser who’d been dumped on a doorstep and had the door slammed in her face. Azure had broken their link.
Startled, she pulled her hands away. “Are you okay?”
Azure failed at offering a convincingly reassuring smile. “Fine. You’re doing well. You still have a lot to learn though, and need to be careful when you’re plumbing around in someone else.”
Azure huffed out a breath. “Okay, I’ll be blunt. You have some crazy badass ability in you. But you have to be careful not to scratch an itch with a crowbar and a sledgehammer. What you did, the place you pushed into, was how you’d start with blanketing someone. Or even stilling them. That means blowing out all of their circuits and destroying their ability to hold mana. That’s fatal.”
Kassimeigh grimaced.
“Don’t worry,” Azure reassured. “You got nowhere near causing me any damage. More like giving an uncomfortable pinch. And you’ve already made major strides toward control. You’ll get there.”
Luc broke in. “Let’s ease up and work on some basic transmuting before we break for the night. We all need at least a few hours of rest before we leave for the mid-lats. Daybreak is not far off.”
Kassimeigh felt Joss, who had the strongest harness of Luc’s group of manahi, flare up with mana. Noticing her glance at him, he chuckled at himself.
“Guess I can’t deny I’m eager to get home. I’ve never seen Apex before and now that I have, I won’t be sad if I never do again.”
Murmurs of agreement filled the room. Although Kassimeigh did agree, she remained silent. Complaining about a lack of comfort went against her nature as a shiv. Though the others did not notice her silence as they began transmuting, Kassimeigh felt the difference between her and the other manahi quite keenly.
Leaving the fortress at dawn was a somewhat surreal experience. Izzy found herself in the midst of many conflicting emotions. Finally, the battalion had a concrete goal and direction but the suddenness of their redirect was jarring. The uncertain, aimless days at the fortress had bled into one another. In spite of the system shock, the battalion’s newfound purpose served as a fantastic motivator. In short order, the troops readied for travel. The manahi had already charged all of the carts’ cells. The mechanical aspects of mobilizing proved easy.
It was the human element of their plan that suffered distress. Meli vacillated between excitement and fear of leaving the fortress. She fretted over the care of her garden, despairing to think of it going hungry or thirsty without her. She fussed over what to pack for the trip. Meanwhile, she chattered about the possibility of things that they might see or do once they’d left Apex. Izzy wished she could do more to reassure Meli, but there was no reasoning with fear. Besides, Meli’s fear may prove to be well-founded.
“She’s very flighty,” Arc observed to Izzy as they packed the carts with all of their gear.
“Yes, it’s a daunting prospect for her to leave. However, her preoccupation with leaving does cushion her a little against the anxiety of encountering Anguish. It’s actually good for her to have more immediate concerns to distract her.”
“Is she competent to do this? Can we trust what she’s saying? As much as I like her and sympathize with her, we’ve had a lot of doubt about her mental state.”
“A valid point,” agreed Izzy. “But she’s telling the truth as she understands it. She genuinely wants to help us and has emotionally attached herself to us. She’s positively devoted to Kassimeigh. Meli doesn’t possess a single shred of duplicity.”
“Has she given us any useful information about taking this guy down? I’m perfectly comfortable with my bow and arrow, but that’s not much good against a manahi who can level a town.”
“Luc has some ideas, but no, Meli hasn’t offered much in the way of actual tactics.” Izzy lifted her shoulders and let them drop.
Arc considered. “How is Kassimeigh handling the situation? I know she can’t feel good about using Meli as bait, which is what we’re doing. She hasn’t said anything to me about it, but do you sense conflict in her?”
Izzy pursed her lips, considering what she could divulge and what would violate Kassimeigh’s privacy. “She doesn’t want to put Meli at risk, but with a danger like Anguish, all of Terath is at risk. She’s committed to protecting Meli and to protecting Terath. She’s a shiv. She’s
used to making hard choices and will do what she must to serve.”
“Of course. Thanks.” He paused. “Is there anything I can do to help her?”
Izzy shifted the bag she carried over her shoulder. “Maybe you should spend some time thinking about a relaxing vacation for the two of you after all this is done.”
“It’s a nice thought. That can be the happy place I go to in my mind when crazy mana-holders are whipping around fireballs and turning people into ash.”
“We’re looking for only one crazy manahi,” she pointed out.
“I wasn’t talking about that one.”
He threw a wicked grin her way, then strode off to grab more supplies to load.
Chapter 14
The return trip from Apex was brisk but controlled. The battalion covered as much distance as possible each day without unnecessary risk. The manahi used the time to discuss strategy in dealing with a dangerously strong opponent. Izzy and Kassimeigh spent most of their time with Meli. Her state of mind was critical to the undertaking. So far, Meli hadn’t revealed anything useful, but Izzy remained hopeful that another breakthrough would give them the information they needed to neutralize Anguish.
Luc made a point of checking up on the woman in person every evening. If the slightest clue had been offered, he wanted to know of it. Since they were in touch via hand comm, Izzy suspected that Luc simply had a soft spot for the mistreated woman. Not that he’d want anyone to know that.
“How does she fare today?” he asked Izzy in a low voice on the second night of their journey. He watched Meli chatting with one of the scouts. Her eagerness to please and cordiality won over the members of the battalion who came to know her. Many of them viewed her as a sort of younger sister to look after.
