Crown of Crimson

by Rose Reid

  I glance over at the Swordmaster. Does he believe in magic, or would he call it foolishness? One look at Lyom tells me he would glower at my Jezdah, thinking it nothing but a superstitious marking. And he is probably correct. It has never glowed, never tingled or set fire to my skin. It acts like the dyes and tattoos others mark their skin with. Maybe when the Afterlighters were all driven out, the Jezdahs lost their destructive power.

  Or perhaps my mother marked my skin when I was young, just to show my father she could do it. Or perhaps a religiously zealous scholar snuck in and marked me to prove that magic still exists in its own form. Either way is just as unlikely as the first. Despite the mark being placed on my skin when I was young, it has not stretched or left gaps in the ink as my skin has grown with me. It remains perfect, rich with black color and thick with designs. It has not faded at all.

  Lyom catches me watching him and frowns at me, giving me a warning glare that is edged with hostility. His anger towards me is beginning to annoy but continues to remind me who I am so I decide to leave it alone. He shouldn’t trust me; he’s wise not to. I wouldn’t deserve it.

  The wrought iron gate before us opens slowly, hinges squealing their objection, foreshadowing the dark journey ahead. It’s as if the gates scream their protests while the horses snort their readiness.

  Lyom’s horse stomps its hoof, eagerly anticipating the ride ahead, while mine seems to be backing away. It would figure that I was given the cowardly horse. I kick her sides and she perks up again, muscles engaging, preparing herself for the lunge.

  When the gates are open and silence once again fills the night, Lyom watches the barren valley beyond. I can see for the first mile of the flat land — nothing but dried up grass and a few sparse trees. In the distance I see dark shadows — hills and mountains covered with the most vegetation the Menca Denu holds. Beyond that I cannot say. In the bleakness of night it is hard to see past five feet in front of you; the Menca Denu just has a sort of otherworldly glow to it, such that even in the dead of night, you can make out the landscape. It’s as if something under the ground gives the land light.

  Lyom looks back at his men. “Be ready for anything.” He looks to the two archers of the group, Northam and Gresham identical twins that are difficult to tell apart. “If you see anything move, shoot it.”

  The twins nod, chorusing, “Understood, sir.”

  Lyom looks back at me. “Stay close to me.”

  I frown in confusion rather than detestation. Does he believe I need his help? Or that I want it? It would be better that he never help me and that I owe him nothing.

  “Lyom …” I begin.

  “I mean it.” Lyom sneers. “Stay close. We have a short amount of time to ride across the expanse and I do not intend to spend half of it burying you.”

  My mare prepares to lunge forward and I hold her back. “Might I remind you, Swordmaster, this is not my first venture into the expanse.”

  Lyom does not take that well. He glares at me, shooting daggers. He says nothing until he commands his company to move out. My horse must understand his command because she lunges ahead. I grab onto her mane and lean close to her neck, feeling the breeze flow over my back as we go.

  We dart through the gates into the Menca Denu, the guards closing the gates behind us. The thundering of our horses’ hooves rings through the expanse, alerting every creature in a three mile radius to our presence.

  My eyes scan the darkness as we ride, ever alert, waiting for something ominous to leap from the darkness. Contrast to the Swordmaster’s beliefs about me, I do not take this lightly. I do know what dangers the Menca Denu holds, though I’m not fully sure he does. Has he ever been far from Evrallon? Was Lydovier the first kingdom he has been in besides his own? It did strike me as odd that the king would have such a young man as his Swordmaster but it is possible that his father was the Swordmaster before him and Lyom only recently acquired his position.

  The freezing air bites at my cheeks and soon my face is numb from the constant gale. Sweat prickles my mare’s neck in spite of the cold. Dark shadows move in the distance, both swiftly and slowly. The eery glow that hovers over the land illuminates almost nothing, giving everything a sinister, otherworldly feel. Something flickers and for a moment I think I see trees — dark, uninviting trees. But then the image is gone … lost to the wind.

  We stay to the trading routes, keeping our horses from straying off the paths. We are only able to run for little over a mile before our horses are breathing heavily and we are forced to draw to a walk. The dark shadows do not dare to move closer now and remain at a good distance, which puts me at ease. Dawn is still hours away, though, and we have much ground to cover.

  The slow gait of our horses puts the swordsmen on edge — the two twins have their bows drawn and the rest of the group has their swords unsheathed or at least nearby. Lyom has his sword still sheathed in its scabbard beside him but its hilt is close to his leg for easy reach.

  “What do you think stalks us?” Carnahan asks in his typical grumbly voice.

  Lyom’s blue eyes sweep the landscape and for a moment I compare his eyes to the glow of the Menca Denu. Like the expanse, Lyom’s eyes seem to take on a light of their own. And akin to the Menca Denu, Lyom’s eyes are eerie.

  “Knowing the expanse, it could be anything.” Lyom replies, continuing to keep his gaze on the land around us.

  “Could it be beautiful nymphs singing tunes to lure us to our deaths?” chortles Ulric.

  Lyom opens his mouth to scold Ulric but I interrupt him. “Of course not. If it were nymphs, you would have already been drawn in.”

  Lyom frowns at me but chooses not to grace us with his voice.

  We continue to walk along, allowing our horses adequate time for rest. We should water them soon. We have brought with us enough water to satisfy ourselves but not quite enough for our horses as well. There must be a pool of water along the trading route, though, otherwise the traders of Erod would have made alterations to the path so that they could walk by a water source. In the next two or three miles we should come upon a place to give our horses water.

  “You know Dominik.” Lyom begins, not quite looking at me. “How long until he reaches Adaai?”

  “It depends on when he left.” I reply.

  “Assuming he left yesterday, how fast will he be able to travel?”

  “He took a horse, that you can be sure of. Dominik is always prepared. It will take him less time than it will for your company to arrive in Adaai,” I continue, considering. “But he will not be able to get into Adaai as easily as us.”

  Lyom arches a brow. “Why is that?”

  I consider whether I should continue revealing information to him or not. I don’t see the harm in it, though. Not when we are both on the same side, a thought that still seems foreign to me. “When I knew Dominik, he was not very conniving. It was always my responsibility to get us in and out of kingdoms.”

  Lyom’s skepticism is etched into his elegant features. “I find that hard to believe, considering he is an assassin of the Cannon.”

  “It’s true.” I counter. “He was not fond of killing so naturally breaking into other kingdoms was not one of his stronger assets. Because it required killing and, as you put it, a bit of ruthlessness, Dominik left that bit up to me.”

  Ignoring the last sentence, Lyom goes on. “You don’t believe he will know how to get into Adaai?”

  “Whether he was feigning his distaste of killing or not, he still has little experience breaking through the borders of a well-established kingdom. Adaai’s walls will be quite the feat for him.”

  “But you have broken into Adaai before?” Lyom says it in a way that makes me think he is worried about our ensuing incursion.

  “Calm yourself, Swordmaster, I have made more than one run into Adaai. Please don’t tell me you believe Adaai’s border to be more thorough than yours.” I say.

  Lyom grows silent after that, his posture going rigid as he continu
es to watch the landscape. The silence between us draws out for six minutes until a random thought comes to mind. A voice inside me attempts to keep me quiet but I cannot hold my tongue.

  “What was the prince of Belaroux doing in Evrallon?” I inquire.

  Lyom turns to look at me, raising a brow, his gaze filled with suspicion. “Why do you ask?”

  “Perhaps he has piqued my interest.” I reply.

  Lyom seems to inwardly cringe. “The prince is negotiating with King Dryden. He will be with us over the next year or so as his father’s emissary.”

  I recoil in disgust. “The nasty old King Devereux sent his son to negotiate with the Cruel King?” I scoff. “And I thought King Cress was a maniac of a father.”

  I nearly slap my hand over my mouth. How absolutely foolish of me. Idiotic! I nearly proclaimed King Cress to be my father aloud. I cut a quick glance to Lyom to see if he has noticed my mistake but he seems oblivious to my remark.

  “Yes,” he hisses. “King Devereux sent Prince Finnegan, but you shouldn’t delve into the matters of the royals.”

  It takes me a moment to compose myself. My secret has not been displayed for all to see yet, despite my own shortcoming. I take in a breath and attempt to remember what Lyom has just said and form a coherent response.

  “Oh,” is all I manage. I had more questions for Lyom, I’m sure, but my mistake has caused me to lapse into an uncomfortable silence as I fear that if I open my mouth again I will surely reveal my identity.

  We ride for miles more until the sun begins to peek between the distant hilltops. It glitters off a large stream that is just ahead. Lyom has us stop here at the stream to water our horses and even as the sun rises we keep our weapons nearby, in case an animal decides to spring from the dying shrubs nearby.

  We have successfully survived our first night in the Menca Denu. I had not feared the worst for myself but had assumed that at least one of Lyom’s men would be picked off. I’m surprised we did not even see a creature lurk from the darkness and lunge towards us. Apart from the eery shadows, nothing moved. The Menca Denu seemed to have been lulled to sleep around us.

  Jamas approaches me as we water our horses in the early morning light. He carries with him a woven basket of bread and fruit. He extends a slice of bread and an orange to me.

  “Eat up.” he says, placing the food in my hand.

  I give him a dubious glance. “Did Carnahan or Moher poison it?”

  A small smile forms at the corner of Jamas’ mouth. “I prepared it. Believe me, Assassin, you’re safe.”

  It is his sad, easy smile that eases me and has me taking the food from him. It reminds me too much of Dominik’s old smile, the way he would attempt to encourage me either before or after an assassination. When I would return from an assignment, Dominik never displayed the jovial excitement the other assassins did. He would always smile, pat me on the back, or embrace me if it had been a particularly long assignment, but he would never applaud or triumphantly thrust his fist into the air like the others.

  How much of Dominik’s life has been for show? Was he already the deceitful slug he is today when Quay picked him up in Evrallon? Was it Quay’s teachings of being completely selfish that drove him to betray his companions? Or was the betrayal concocted by Cicero and Sebastien? Knowing what I do of my compeers, Dominik was the one to have schemed it up. Laderic is more of a puppy than anything, and if there is any one person less blameworthy than the others, it would be he.

  But Dominik is smart, crafty. He would know how to lull me into a sense of security, would know where and how to capture me, but would also be smart enough to leave the area before I discovered their disloyalty.

  When Jamas leaves and I am left alone with my mare, I wonder again how I could have let Dominik’s treachery slip by unnoticed until the last moment. I am not easy to fool, but Dominik would have known that from years of being with me. He probably had the entire night planned out. He knew King Cress would demand a private audience with his assassin. He would have known that telling me he would be at the rendezvous point would comfort me. He would have known kissing me would have sealed my faith in him.

  I feel like wiping my mouth at the thought of kissing such a traitorous beast. My horse sneezes in the water, casting droplets up onto me. I groan and splash my arms off with the freezing water. What I wouldn’t give for a warm bath right about now. But I am not so dirty that I would bathe in this stream of ice water and risk catching a cold on the way to the Adaaian border. Bathing correctly would also require taking my clothes off, which — even without my condemning Jezdah — would definitely not happen.

  When Lyom calls us to head out, I pull my mare away from the water and mount up. With the sun rising high in the sky it becomes easier to see the landscape and to watch for potential threats, but with the coming of the sun is the unbearable heat.

  Despite the horrid winters of Evrallon and Lydovier, the Menca Denu experiences exceedingly scorching days and frigid temperatures during the night. It is the extreme version of the deserts in Adaai. I have been to several of the barren lands of Adaai and experienced the lack of moisture in the air by day and the heavy cold that falls over the land at night, but the Menca Denu is different. Like its strange glow, its temperatures are unearthly. By the time noon rolls around, the land has turned into a searing inferno, blistering sunlight pouring down on us.

  Some of the men strip their shirts off, not realizing that the hot sun will blister their skin within hours. Lyom orders them to pull their shirts back on before real damage can be done but the urge to remove articles of clothing is strong.

  Sweat trickles from my brow and lands on the withers of my mare, who is already growing faint due to the lack of water and the intense heat. But the traders of Erod prepared well and soon enough another pit of water can be seen.

  When we reach the pool of water, I practically fall off my horse and gulp down the fresh water. We have some of our own in the saddle bags but it is unbearably hot and this water comes from a spring beneath the ground.

  My mare swallows as much of the water as she can stomach before we both step away from the pool to allow others to drink. I am tempted to sit on the ground but know better than to let my guard down and be caught unprepared. I stand beside my mare, learned against her. My head is spinning from my sudden hydration and I remember why I chose not to cross the Menca Denu during my last assignment into Adaai. While its border into Adaai is easier to break through than the border along the sea, it is far more miserable.

  In the heat of the day, few animals scurry around. Even our horses struggle to walk. Their legs are weary from our first long day without much rest and limited water. The zeal the swordsmen had when we first burst through the Evrallonic gates has drained from them the farther into the Menca Denu we travel.

  Little breeze blows across the expanse. The sun is hours from setting when we find the next watering hole. The air around this pool is cooler and the water seems cleaner. Our horses drink greedily, pinning their ears back in anger at one another when one ventures too close to another horse’s space.

  I keep my mare a good distance away, watching the other horses plunge their whole heads into their water before shaking out their manes.

  Lyom comes to stand beside me while I water my mare, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, but for once I believe he is wary because of his surroundings, not because of the assassin that stands at his side.

  “We should camp tonight. The horses are weary.” Lyom observes.

  My gaze sweeps over the swordsmen. “As are the men.”

  “We’ll need to find somewhere safe to camp. I would rather not have a repeat of our last camping endeavor.” says Lyom.

  I nod in agreement. “The forests aren’t exactly the safest location,” I begin. “And it isn’t as if there are any along our immediate —”

  I stop abruptly, a new smell in the air. I feel a shift in the space around us and suddenly go rigid. Lyom must sense the change as wel
l because his hand inches closer to the hilt of his blade.

  I should have known. This water is too clear, too inviting, the air around it too peaceful. Everything about this place is beguiling, especially to weary traders who have been riding through the Menca Denu’s scorching days.

  I begin to reach for the knife in my boot, and that’s when the world around me explodes.

  XI

  “A hanging in a good quarrel is an easy death they say, though I could never hear of any that came back to say so.”

  — Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow

  The first of many things to happen is a burly man leaps from the bushes, knife in hand. I narrowly avoid being skewered by the blade and duck out of the way, careening back into my horse. After that, more men emerge, all brandishing weapons. The air is sliced, a shout rings out into the expanse, and blood begins to moisten the cracked earth.

  I land on the ground and all the breath is pushed from my lungs. The brute comes to sit on my stomach, positioning the knife over my head. He drives the knife down towards my skull and I throw my forearms up to block his attack. The force of his own arms hitting mine is so sharp that my barriers nearly drop.

  Before I know what is happening, the man is hoisted off me and thrown across the dirt. A strong hand grabs my shoulder but I am blinded by the sun and cannot see who it is until Lyom draws me to my feet. He gives me a quick glance over to be sure the knife did not touch my skull before throwing his own dagger into the chest of our assailant.

  I have little time to thank Lyom for his timely rescue. A dark-haired man throws himself at Jamas, who parries with his own sword. Lyom clashes into the mix of the battle, using his own weapon to help defeat Jamas’ attacker. I’m tempted to watch him, to see if he really does fight like a wraith, but the onslaught of assailants draws my attention away. I take out the knife from my boot and twirl it around easily in my hand, allowing the rhythm of battle to awaken in my heart.