Scarlet Tempest, #1

by Juniper King

  “You’re not coming?”

  “No, my father won’t allow it. It’s a very special ceremony, only a select few people are allowed to be there. Father is waiting for you by the front door, you shouldn’t keep him waiting.” She flashed me her usual smile and I tried to give her one in return, but all I could manage was a nervous grimace.

  “You must be nervous, finally meeting your father after so many years,” Eliza said, mistaking the source of my unease. “Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll be happy to meet you. Everyone speaks so highly of him, I hope I have the opportunity to meet him myself.”

  I gave her a nod and a murmur of agreement before she ushered me through the door. It was clear that Eliza didn’t have a single suspicion against her father or this ceremony. Not like Gwen. But it wasn’t my place to stoke mistrust and turn Eliza against her own family by sharing my concerns about Lucan. I still felt guilty that I had caused so much turmoil for Gwen.

  As I carefully made my way down the stairs, I noticed Gwen waiting at the bottom with her back against the wall. Her head was hanging low, blonde hair completely covering her face and hands clasped behind her back.

  She glanced up at the sounds of my wooden shoes clunking down the stairs and I almost lost my footing when I saw a hint of purple bruising around her left eye before she quickly looked away.

  “Gwen!” I hurried down the stairs as best I could, my hand clutching the railing the entire time. “What happened? Are you alright?” I put my hands on her shoulders and leaned towards her face, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes again.

  “She’s fine,” I jumped at Lucan’s deep voice from behind me. “Just a small accident last night.”

  Small accident, my ass.

  I refused to look at him. “What happened?” I asked again quietly, fingers gripping her shoulders a little tighter. “Did he hit you?” I spoke so low it was little more than a breath.

  She glanced up briefly before peering back down to the floor, but I had seen the tears glistening in her eyes. I’d seen that look before, I was beginning to know it well. Shame. She was hiding something from me.

  “Come Selynna, we must leave. Gwendolyn is fine.” His last words had an edge to them, almost as if he were threatening her to remain quiet.

  I bit the inside of my cheek. I knew not to trust this man, I knew he was far from a decent human being and I wouldn’t have put it past him to strike his own children, but I couldn’t force Gwen to speak if she didn’t feel comfortable, either. I certainly didn’t want her to receive any more punishment from her father. I tried to give her a face that said, ‘I’m here if you need to talk’. My hands fell from her shoulders and I started to turn towards the door and Lucan.

  The moment I picked up my foot to take a step away, Gwen’s fingers latched onto my wrist and I flinched in surprise, turning around to meet her wide eyes.

  “Selynna, don’t—”

  “Gwendolyn!” Lucan boomed. Her fingers snapped away from my wrist as if she feared she might be struck again. “Upstairs. Now.”

  I couldn’t see the look he was giving her, but her frown wavered, hesitating for a moment as if she desperately wanted to say what she had been about to. But her fear of her father was stronger. With one more fleeting, heartbreaking look, she turned and fled up the stairs.

  “I am sorry you needed to see that.” Lucan said as I listened to her door close. “Sometimes a father must be firm. Children must respect their parents, after all.”

  I couldn’t seem to peel my gaze away from her closed door. “Of course,” my voice came out quiet.

  Lucan slid the front door open and ushered me out into the morning sunlight. I looked up to the blue, cloudless sky, but even that was not enough to assuage the creeping feeling of being trapped—of being in grave danger. I steeled myself, preparing for anything that might happen today.

  Looking across the road, I breathed a silent sigh of relief. Aksel stood in full deydric form, sword sheathed and ready at his waist. Given that no one was panicking or even looking at him, I could only assume that his illusory magic was working well. I didn’t give him anything more than a glance, remembering his words from last night and not wanting to draw any unwanted attention his way. Ayre must have been around somewhere too, but he had to be more subtle since he didn’t have the same stealth magic.

  A few men standing outside of Lucan’s home gave him a short bow before taking up position behind me like an escort. Lucan’s hand fell against my back, “Come Selynna, it is time to go.”

  My legs felt like they were made of lead as I picked them up to stride beside Lucan. He marched confidently up the dirt trail, not noticing or not caring about my hesitant gait.

  Not far beyond Lucan’s house, near the edge of town and looking over the entire village, was a large wooden building built into the face of the mountain, the same one I had seen when riding into town yesterday.

  “This is where our daemon lord used to reside,” Lucan gestured to the building. “Come, we shall proceed with the ceremony inside.”

  I felt like a lamb being led to slaughter, desperately wanting to look back at Aksel for reassurance. I clenched my clammy fingers together, wishing they were wrapped around his.

  The large wooden doors creaked as the two men who had been following us pushed them open. I followed Lucan inside and my eyes had to adjust to the darkness inside the building. There was not a single window to light up this huge, open room. The only light came from the few braziers along the walls and chandeliers on the high ceiling.

  A few townsfolk, men and women, were already standing in wait in the large open room, their eyes trained on us as soon as the doors opened. Lucan continued inside, not even glancing at the gathered people, and I followed behind. I jumped but managed to keep my eyes forward as the large wooden doors closed behind us with an ominous thud. Had Aksel been able to follow us inside before the doors were sealed?

  “This building has always been a place of worship for our people,” Lucan said. He continued walking through the large room towards what looked like a throne at the opposite end. The small cluster of people stepped aside to let us through. I noticed something strange about these people though, their expressions were not as welcoming or awed as the villagers from yesterday who had been watching my arrival. I couldn’t quite pin down the expression, but it was almost… expectant. Covetous.

  “Before Muse found us,” Lucan continued, “We’d used it to worship smaller deities, common deities worshiped by most humans. But Muse chose us. He chose to come to us instead of any other human settlement. He brought prosperity and happiness to our people. He became our god.”

  Everyone in the room was silent, listening to Lucan’s soliloquy, the fire softly crackling along the sides of the room.

  Lucan stopped a few feet from the steps leading up to the throne and I came to a halt behind him. My eyes were drawn to the ground where an intricate design was chalked onto the wooden floorboards. One large circle with interconnected rings and patterns flowing through it, large enough for about five or six people to stand comfortably inside of. I noticed Lucan was careful not to scuff the design with his feet as he stepped right to the edge.

  When I’d told Aksel this town had cult vibes, I’d been exaggerating slightly to express my concern about the weirdness of the townsfolk. But this circle screamed cult.

  I took a risk and looked over my shoulder. Aksel stood a few meters away, giving himself an unobstructed path to me if something went wrong. His complete rigidity and the fact that his eyes were glued to the circle on the ground did not fill me with confidence about the situation.

  With Lucan and I at the front of the room, the group of people shuffled forward and closed in on us. One man came up along Aksel’s left, while another slinked up on his right a few feet away, both of their eyes remained on Lucan and I. Neither of them even twitched in Aksel’s presence, he blended into the crowd like a ghost.

  My heart thrummed steadily in my ears as I stared back at the
circle. Even I could feel the power emanating from it.

  Gwen’s unfinished warning echoed through my head. All she had been able to say was “don’t” before she was cut off. Don’t what? Don’t trust Lucan? Don’t step into the circle? Both very obvious things not to do. Maybe she had meant to say don’t even enter the hall, but it was a little late for that.

  “Selynna.” I flinched at the sound of Lucan’s voice. “I ask that you step into the circle.”

  “No.” It was more of a reflex than a conscious denial of his request. I knew that if he wanted me in this circle, then inside the circle was the last place I wanted to be.

  Footsteps echoed through the room and Lucan’s eyes peeled away from mine as he turned towards a man approaching on his right. The man carried something that looked like an ornate pillow with a knife on it. My knees went weak. Lucan gingerly plucked the knife off the pillow and turned back to face me, picking at the tip of the blade with his opposite thumb and forefinger. The man bowed and receded back into the crowd.

  “Selynna, this would be much easier for everyone if you voluntarily stepped into the circle. Don’t you want to see your father?” Lucan took a step closer to me, his voice cold.

  I tried to swallow through the dryness in my throat. This is where his game ended. We may have followed along until this point, I may have wanted answers, but a feeling all the way down to the tips of my toes told me not to get into that circle. It felt wrong. A thrumming, pulsing feeling that scrapped against my bones. Aksel had said there was no way a human could summon a daemon, so what was this circle going to do once my blood touched it? How much of my blood did they really need?

  Two men I hadn’t noticed in my periphery began to approach, flanking me on both sides. It was now or never. Aksel flinched, but the moment he attacked his presence would be exposed and we might still need the element of surprise. I moved faster.

  With a flick of my wrist the knife shot from Lucan’s loose grip and stabbed into the wooden ceiling thirty feet up with a loud thunk.

  A few gasps escaped as everyone’s attention was trained on the ceiling, the quivering of the tang echoing through the quiet room. After a few seconds of awed silence, an ominous laugh bubbled up from Lucan’s throat.

  “Incredible,” he drawled, slowly dragging his gaze away from the blade. “Truly incredible. It is as expected that someone as remarkable as Muse would sire a child capable of using magic. Even if that child was born of someone no more impressive than a common whore. The charade is over, grab the deydre.”

  Aksel’s fingers could barely even brush the grip of his sword before a swift kick to the back of his knees pitched him forward onto the ground. The men that had been standing a few feet away on either side grabbed his arms as the man behind him drew a knife and pinned it to his throat. They’d been flanking him this entire time and we didn’t even notice!

  “Aksel!” I lunged forward, darting past Lucan only for him to snatch a fistful of my hair and whip me back with enough force that I tumbled into the circle.

  As soon as my hip hit the wooden floor, the weight of exhaustion hit me. It felt like my lungs couldn’t inflate, I wanted to vomit.

  The sound of thrashing and the scuffing of feet drew my attention to the back of the hall. I looked up with a heavy head and saw two more men hauling in Ayre. How had they been so prepared for this?

  “So, you knew all this time that I couldn’t possibly be your father, yet you played along anyway. What a fool you’ve made me, Selynna, just like your harlot of a mother,” he smiled. A dark, malevolent smile. “Too bad for her it didn’t matter in the end. Just think, had she not tried to hide you from me in the first place, Muse would never have left, and you would not have had to die.”

  To my surprise, Lucan turned away, leaving me incapacitated in the circle, and in a few leisurely strides he closed the distance between himself and Aksel.

  “How did you know I was here?” Aksel struggled to speak. I could see a thin line of blood leaking from under the tip of the blade.

  “Muse told me, of course.”

  Lucan reached forward and pulled Aksel’s sword from its sheath.

  No. I tried to summon my magic, tried to knock the blade from his hand like I had done only moments ago, but I couldn’t pull any of my power. I had nothing inside of me. The comforting warmth that used to fill me was replaced by a cold nausea flooding my body. I staggered to my feet and stumbled to the edge of the circle where I was hit by an impassable force containing me. I pushed against the invisible barrier as hard as I could, but it was like pushing two opposing magnets together. My body shook from strain before I was thrown back to the ground.

  Lucan grabbed Aksel by the hair and pulled his head back to expose his throat, readying the blade. “Disloyalty from someone as inconsequential as an errand boy is something I simply cannot let stand. You should have taken your money and left, deydre.”

  With no other options, I grabbed the only weapon I had. I tore the shoe from my foot and threw it as hard as I could towards Lucan’s head.

  My aim was dead on, the solid wooden shoe hit its mark with a satisfying ‘thunk’. Lucan grunted and the sword clattered to the ground as he grabbed the back of his head.

  Unfortunately, the men holding Aksel didn’t waiver in their duty.

  After taking a moment to compose himself, and having his followers fuss over him, Lucan’s attention was drawn to what had hit him. Seeing the shoe on the ground, his eyes quickly flashed to me, which was exactly what I’d wanted. As dire as Aksel’s situation was, I was sure that Lucan’s followers wouldn’t do anything without his consent. If Lucan was preoccupied with me, they wouldn’t hurt Aksel—he was out of immediate danger. I ripped the other shoe off my foot, preparing for another throw.

  Lucan picked up the discarded sword and stalked towards me. He’d thrown me into the barrier with little effort and the shoe saw no resistance, so the barrier was obviously passable, but once he was inside, the magic would have us both at an equal disadvantage.

  He stepped over the boundary and I was ready for him to fall to his knees, or at least stagger, but he continued towards me like the magic didn’t hinder him in any way. I froze, too late realizing the flaw in my plan. Why was Lucan immune to the magic in this circle?

  Lucan clutched Aksel’s sword in his hand and I had nothing to defend myself with. When he was close enough, I tried using the shoe in my hand to bash his, maybe knocking the sword out of his grip, but he slapped my hand away and the shoe—my only weapon—clattered to the ground. I stumbled backwards until my back hit the invisible buried.

  “Nowhere to run.”

  I lunged for the sword but I was far too slow in my current state, Lucan easily deflected my charge. And my failed attack gave him the opportunity.

  He once again grabbed a fistful of my hair, pulled my entire body backwards, and, with one swift movement, plunged Aksel’s blade through my stomach.

  Time stopped. I could feel the sharp edge of the blade scraping against my insides as Lucan held it in my abdomen. He leaned in close then. “At least your death will be more beneficial than your mother’s.”

  “You did kill her.” It hurt to speak.

  He smirked. Pain lashed up my torso, blood flooding my lungs as the blade was wrenched upwards. Blood surged up my throat and erupted from my mouth. The sword was ripped from my stomach and the thick, warm liquid gushed from my wound with each wavering beat of my injured heart, running down my stomach with each breath I took until breathing itself became a chore. Each inhale became shorter and shorter. My legs faltered and I fell to my knees. The room began to swim in and out of my vision, it sounded like I was underwater. I barely felt my body hit the floor. The room was upright and then it just wasn’t.

  I watched Lucan’s feet retreat as darkness closed in on my vision.

  A red glow bled through the shadows just before everything went black.

  27

  Aksel

  * * *

  The
knife bit into my throat. One human on each arm digging their fingers into my skin as tightly as they could. They were smart to pin me on my knees, it restricted my movement. Even with my greater speed and strength, one wrong move and the human behind me could easily stab that blade into my neck and slice my jugular. And Ayre was in no position to heal me this time. I was completely incapacitated.

  With my arms restrained and a knife on my throat, I was reminded of another failed mission. He had been incapacitated just like I was now. Let’s just hope my fate wouldn’t be the same as his.

  “So, you knew all this time that I couldn’t possibly be your father, yet you played along anyway. What a fool you’ve made me, Selynna, just like your harlot of a mother. Too bad for her it didn’t matter in the end. Just think, had she not tried to hide you from me in the first place, Muse would never have left, and you would not have had to die.”

  Selynna was crumpled on the ground inside the rune circle, looking like she was going to be sick or pass out. How did he have knowledge of this kind of magic? Runes were as distinct and safeguarded among daemon clans as their blood magic.

  With Selynna lying helpless, I was surprised to see Lucan turn his back towards her and approach me. I strained against the humans and their grips tightened.

  “How did you know I was here?” My real question once he was standing in front of me. My magic was strong. There was no way a simple human man could have seen through it, let alone an entire room of people. The human behind me pushed the blade even harder into my throat as I spoke. I could feel the blood leaking down my neck.

  “Muse told me, of course.”

  Muse, that was the name of the daemon they’d been communicating with; Selynna’s father. Could a daemon really be communicating with Lucan, or is he completely mad? What could Selynna’s role possibly be in all this?

  I felt a tug on my hip as my blade hissed out of its sheath.

  The human behind me clenched his fingers in my hair and yanked my head back. My tail lashed on the ground, heart thrumming in my chest. I strained again only to feel renewed pain on my throat.