by R. J. Blain
I hated the necessity of what I needed to do, but I saw no other choice. I couldn’t justify sacrificing so many others for a chance of survival, not when one death, mine, would protect everybody else. Some choices in life weren’t really choices at all.
I would go to my grave with a clear conscience, my integrity intact despite breaking the one promise I cared about over all others.
Except I knew the truth Anatoly might never learn: I’d truly done my best to survive.
I wanted to, but I couldn’t.
My survival could become his death—and the deaths of everyone else I’d learned to love.
Releasing the Hope Diamond, I headed for the outcropping of large rocks extending into the sea. It marked the start of the tearing current, and the place I’d go to reach where the seas churned and killed any foolish enough to fall into its cold embrace. I expected death would strike without hesitation or remorse.
As long as I lived long enough to destroy the tube with the Starfall stones in my possession, it would be enough. It wouldn’t take long for the tide to take me where I needed to go. Sunder would take care of the rest, the Weapon Clan Starfall stone that warriors feared.
If Sunder couldn’t break the tube, nothing could—and Sunder hungered for metal it could destroy. With a single touch, its work would be done.
I removed the other Starfall stones from the pouch and set them on the beach beyond the sea’s reach for someone to find. As fate enjoyed playing cruel games, I bet the damned things would follow me to my death, as there was nothing the Weapon Clans’ Starfall stones liked to do more than linger in my shadow.
Maybe they’d hold a wake over my drowned body before going off and doing whatever it was semi-sentient stones did once their target of choice kicked the bucket. Perhaps they’d have some tea and chat about every stupid thing I’d done in my life.
Steel Heart, in particular, could kiss my ass. It’d brought my mate to my door, he’d tempted me, I’d tattooed him, and the cowardly thing had run away. Then, as it couldn’t leave well enough alone, it’d rolled right back into my life and brought even more trouble with it. I credited it for helping to save the unborn. I assumed all the stones had played some part.
This time, nothing would bring Anatoly to me.
My mate needed to fight a different war, one of equal importance. He’d understand he needed to prepare Charlotte for the onslaught of traitors. The battle would go to him, the mercenary guilds, my aunt, my uncles, and everyone else who would have to rally the city’s defense. I held the traitor’s main weapon, the one that would destroy everyone and leave their conspirators free to take over.
It wouldn’t exist for long.
Clutching Sunder in one hand and the tube in the other, I jumped into the Creek Bore and allowed it to tear me out to sea.
While the ocean appeared to boil, the water’s chill tore into me. Somehow, I gasped with my head above water, caught myself, and took another deep breath before the current dragged me under. I battled my instinct to struggle. I needed all of my strength for when the tide tossed me into the raging ocean beyond the safer waters near shore.
Then and only then would I use Sunder to destroy the weapon, far enough from shore its toxic influence might not poison the land. I had no idea if it would work, but I would hope for the best. That hope was all I had left.
My life’s final task wouldn’t take long.
Without mercy, the current jerked me out to sea, spitting me out where monstrous waves crashed, spraying white froth everywhere. I broke the surface long enough to gasp before water slammed me down and drove me towards the deeps.
It would do. Nothing, especially not me, would survive long in the violent waters. Sunder and the Hope Diamond would disappear with me, although I expected both would somehow find their way back to shore and bother someone else.
Life had a bad sense of humor, and I pitied the poor bastards stuck with the stones, although despite its destructive nature, I rather liked Sunder. Of all the stones, it sought to destroy what might hurt those I loved the most.
I brought my hands together.
The ocean exploded around me, countless bubbles seething in the water. A bright light blinded me, and the pressure of the Hope Diamond around my throat vanished. The waves caught the setting and the Starfall stone, tearing them away from me.
Blue and black consumed the sea, and a pressure built around me, worse than the burn of my air-starved lungs. Terror should have consumed me, but instead, I found something peaceful and calming, spreading through me from somewhere deep within my chest.
The tube broke apart to nothing, falling through my fingers to disperse, forever lost.
Miracles could happen, although I wouldn’t see the aftermath of the one I’d wrought with the help of a dark Starfall stone most were wise to fear. As death would come for me soon enough, I opened my mouth to whisper thanks. Instead of water, pure, crisp air swept into my mouth.
The Hope Diamond burst in a pulse of pale blue light, and the bubbling ocean froze around me. Ice crackled, chilling my skin as it spread. The necklace hung, the same as I remembered in the watery temple on the outskirts of Fort Lauderdale. I reached out my hand for the jewel.
The setting’s clasp shattered, and countless pale diamonds fell into the sea and disappeared into the depths, passing through the frozen waters as though it were air.
I closed my fingers around the Hope Diamond, brought it to my bloodied lips, and kissed its faceted surface. While I still breathed, I tasted the blood and understood I died.
Unlike so many I’d seen perish over the years, I wouldn’t beg. From the moment I had turned Miracle east towards the shore, riding her at a gallop long after any other horse would have fallen over dead, I’d been prepared.
For those I’d loved, I would have given so much more than my death. Had it been an option, I would have lived with them and for them, ready to battle for a future with my tiger and friends and family.
I waited for the end, and my only regret was my awareness that there wasn’t a future with me in it.
The ocean hated me, but it didn’t want me to die. Whether afraid of the Hope Diamond’s wrath, the Starfall stone had a mind of its own, or Sunder had opted to use some unknown power, I’d never know. Instead of dying in the churning waters, I choked on my own blood on the stone shore while gentle waves lapped at my feet. I breathed, and something rattled in my chest.
I lacked the strength to do anything about my situation, which ultimately meant I’d die a slow, painful death on land instead of a quick, merciful death in the violent waters. I’d emerged bruised and aching, but I couldn’t tell how much of the pain came from being battered in the current, tossed on shore, or from the tube’s lethal presence.
I just couldn’t do anything the easy way, not even die.
The clatter of rock on rock warned me I wasn’t alone. I should have done something other than struggle to breathe. Not breathing would put an end to the pain, providing a permanent escape. I thought about it and tried to hold my breath to help myself along, but my body refused to obey.
It kept breathing.
My own damned body hated me and didn’t want to die.
I needed to have a long talk with my lungs about why it wasn’t ethical to torture people. A clean death, quick and as painless as possible, was the way to go. I’d have to remember that the next time I went into battle. Swords through the eye brought quick deaths, as did severing the spine. Gut wounds took longer. I’d have to try to spare the time to slit my victim’s throats if I somehow survived through hell.
Maybe I could retire, catch my tiger, and hide under my bed with him.
Maybe there was a future with me in it after all.
Hot fingers brushed against my throat, and someone grunted, a masculine sound, but not one I recognized. I’d heard my tiger, Gentry, and Todd grunt often enough I’d never forget them.
“You were born stubborn, little girl,” a man announced, and he pried open my fing
ers, retrieving Sunder before taking the Hope Diamond from me. After he checked the necklace, which had seen better days, he located my belt pouch and put both of the Starfall stones inside and tied it closed. “You could have just used Sunder on shore and dropped it into the tide, you know. I will have to teach you how to think things through a little better, I see.”
Something about the man’s voice, deeper than most, sparked a memory of long days and roaring flames, a marvel in our often cold world. I still wondered how the Blade Clan had been able to control flames hot enough for metal to melt, but I’d been too entranced by the flickering orange and red to ask questions.
One by one, memories filtered through the pain-induced haze.
It occurred to me I’d seen something like my katana before in that distant forge, but it’d been a raw blade with no hilt, flawed and destined to be destroyed. Blade Clan warriors weren’t supposed to beg for anything, but I remembered.
I’d cried that something beautiful would be destroyed because it wasn’t perfect.
Instead of melting it back down, the blacksmith had indulged me, and the imperfect blade had been spared.
I’d learned about mercy that day.
I opened my mouth, and I coughed before croaking, “Blacksmith.”
“You remember my voice.” In his statement, I heard pleasure. “Yes, I am our clan’s blacksmith. I noticed you left Steel Heart with the other clan stones. It is sad you left it behind.”
At least I could justify that action. “I didn’t want it to drown, too.”
The blacksmith chuckled. “It is a stone. It cannot drown, but I am sure it will be appeased that you cared for its fate. You should be more worried for yourself. I need to move you, and this will hurt. I will tend to you until your mother comes, and then she will beat me for not tending you well enough, I am sure.”
My mother? “Why?”
“You are my greatest forging, and your mother gets upset whenever she catches wind you have done something else to hurt yourself. You are very good at hurting yourself, I have noticed.”
I was his what? “You’re…?”
“Who else to tame you than your own father? The rest of the clan could not handle your fire, so they tossed you into my forge and ordered me to teach you. From your first breath, you were determined. You were so determined only I could rein you in and charm you into learning our ways. We broke many traditions in your early days. I cannot take my eyes off you for even a moment, can I? No, I cannot. Have children, the Blade Clan suggested. Take a bride. I picked a grizzly and bred a Siberian. What have I done to our world? And yet, you remain my greatest forging despite your tendency to create trouble wherever you go. Brace yourself, my little girl. This will hurt. If I could take that from you, I would, but I cannot. Try to bear with it, and I will do my best to return you to your groom in as good health as I can. You still breathe, so I am certain you are too stubborn to die this time.”
I meant to reply, but my father worked an arm beneath me, and the world vanished in a flash of pain.
I had a mother and a father, and they bickered worse than anyone else I’d met before in my life. When I was coherent to watch them, they dedicated themselves to their verbal sparring without reservation. If I gave them knives, I worried someone wouldn’t walk away alive.
They bickered over the strangest things. The first argument, my father worried I wouldn’t like the blanket, which was blue. My mother thought it matched the Hope Diamond, and she refused to accept the red one he’d picked out.
I lacked the strength to tell them a blanket was a blanket, and I’d take both.
Sickness, as always, made it hard for me to get warm.
The next time I caught a plethora of colds and everything else the world had to offer, I wouldn’t complain. I also held a new admiration for what Miracle had endured.
She had tolerated dancing at death’s door a lot better than I did, and I spent most of my time fighting to keep from screaming or crying. On the screaming front, I fared fairly well. I cried more than I liked, one part from frustration, the rest from the relentless onslaught of pain.
Sometime after I’d washed up on the shore, my father found my horse. Miracle stood vigil over me whenever my parents looked the other way long enough for her to sneak into the abandoned cabin they’d taken over. She usually nuzzled my cheek and made certain I understood I wasn’t alone.
She also tried to bite my father and mother whenever they forced soup down my throat. Nothing settled in my stomach well, and pain stabbed through my teeth and jaw every time I tried to eat anything. After every meal, my little mare managed to drive my father away for a little while, and she stood tense guard, stomping her hooves on the wood floor until I recovered enough to reassure her.
Time lost meaning, but every time my mother visited, she brought news and information, and she often wore the blood of those she’d dispatched on her one-woman mission to end the rebellion and seek revenge for my piss-poor condition. To her, if they hadn’t been ambitious, greedy bastards, I wouldn’t have had to prove I was truly my mother’s daughter. That meant every last one of them needed to die.
It didn’t help I was also my father’s daughter.
Unlike me, my grizzly of a mother, who reminded me a lot of my aunt with a softer face, did not follow anyone’s rules other than her own. Her rules said she preferred to rip her foes apart limb from limb. If she was in a mood, she’d use one of the limbs to beat her next target into submission before dismantling her prey into four or more pieces.
My mother terrified me sometimes, and her behavior offered a few insights on how I’d become a Siberian.
She had eyes only for my father, and she was right to fight him—and fight for him.
I’d somehow turned her natural inclinations into magic.
My tiger would love my mother for that.
When I dozed off or feigned sleep, my parents spoke of the weapon I’d destroyed in low voices, and they’d recover enough letters to identify who they needed to trick to turn the tables in my family’s favor.
Then I learned a secret about my father; not only could he forge weapons, he hand a steady hand and had mastered the art of forgery, too. In another man’s script, he changed the entire face of the war, concocted lies about the weapon, and had my mother plant them. When she finished her work, he took over, gathering the clans to participate in the inevitable battle brewing.
I missed a great deal of the planning and had vague memories of skirting death’s door without understanding why I couldn’t seem to get any better. I lived, but I didn’t heal.
When rest didn’t help my body recover, my father dragged me out of the cabin, gave me a wooden stick, and beat on me until I found the strength to fight back. Miracle snorted her disapproval of his methods, but unlike rest, I could breathe easier when I held a weapon and pretended I might match the man who’d played a part in my life.
After the first spar, such as it was, my mother wandered off and didn’t return, which bothered me, as my hazy memories refused to provide more than fragments about her; my memory failed more often than not right along with my ailing body.
The day I managed to scramble onto Miracle’s back, we left the cabin and headed for Charlotte.
Either I healed or my tolerance for misery grew, but I survived the ride. Along the way, the weapon clans joined us until we created an army that marched on the United States’ seat of power.
The government wouldn’t appreciate the chaos so many clans would bring to the city, but at least we could claim we were on their side for a change. The clan stones remained in my pouch, and representatives from every clan visited me to confirm I possessed their stone.
They liked to glow in the presence of their clan’s elders, but none of the stones seemed inclined to return to where they belonged. Sometimes, the Hope Diamond gleamed and sparks played across my skin, a warning the stones were to stay with me. I had a vague memory of my father attempting to fix the necklace, but he’d abandon
ed the effort, instead turning it into a bracelet and securing it with a piece of leather strap until he could find a way to repair it—or make a new setting for it.
He got snarly if anyone suggested they should examine the priceless Starfall stone.
I suspected my father transformed into a cat of some sort, but he’d only tell me he wasn’t a Siberian like me, and that I was the pride of our family, as there was no better species for me to be.
I thought he needed to tone back his biased attitude.
The Blade Clan joined our motley army last, and the tigress within me roused to the challenge, and I snarled rather than greet any of the men. Some I vaguely remembered, idolizing them before I’d taken a different path in life. The clan’s elders looked me over, and the bastards dared to smile at me.
I hissed in reply.
“Please forgive my daughter. She is surly. The enemy’s chosen weapon made her quite ill. It is a testament of our ways she lives to tell the tale of how she defeated even the ocean.”
Biased bastard. Miracle snorted, and if horses could roll their eyes, I suspected my mare would have. She tossed her head and gave herself a shake as though hoping to dislodge my father’s nonsense. I wished her luck with that. Stroking her neck, I relaxed in the saddle, grateful I no longer coughed blood often.
Henry and Cleo wouldn’t be happy when they figured out I would once again put their magic to the test. My tiger wouldn’t be happy, either.
“Only you would sire a daughter and set her out to change everything. You were just as much trouble as she was from the day you were born.”
Well, at least I could blame my father moving forward. I regarded the elder, a man so old I wondered if he’d witnessed Starfall personally. Some first generations refused to age much, like Todd. Others lingered, their bodies old and tired but resilient against death’s call.
My father smirked. “Show him Steel Heart, Jesse.”
He hadn’t used my name often, and I had a faint recollection he’d been the one to encourage me to take it. Suspicions rattled around in my head, as he’d encouraged me to like pretty things, like the katana’s flawed blade and a name suitable for both a boy and a girl. While tempted to argue with him because I could, I removed the Starfall stone from the pouch and displayed it on my palm. It decided to roll up my arm to my shoulder, where it hid beneath my tattered hair.
