by Rose Reid
Breathing heavier than I should be, I lower my newly acquired bow, relaxing my shoulders some. Lyom notices the woman under my knee, notices that she is still breathing, and gives me a curious lift of his brow.
“She is harmless.” I say.
Lyom half smiles, one of the few smiles I have ever seen on his face, and I find myself treasuring it, knowing that I am surely one of the only people on Earth that has seen him do this. And I may very well be the last.
“Before I knew you, I would have looked at you and called you the same thing.” he says.
I smirk. “Now you know better.”
Lyom nods and drives his sword into the ground, cleaning it. I get off the woman and nudge her with my boot. She whimpers pathetically, covering her head. She has dark hair and ragged clothing and looks as though she might be Adaaian. Her halo of hair is matted and the cap she wears on her head is made of torn cloth. Acting on the assumption that she speaks Adaaian, I say, “Swak,” shooing her along.
She slowly begins to get to her feet, hands and arms shaking from either fear or exertion.
I sigh. “Veka, veka!”
The woman picks up her pace, hurrying off. In this flat expanse we will be able to watch her wander back to her campsite for miles. I wonder idly if she has someone to return to or if we have killed her only relatives.
I turn back around, beginning to head back to the others, but Lyom sighs. “Your eye.” he says.
I reach up and dab it, seeing my fingers come away with blood. I shrug and see Lyom open his mouth, likely to tell me I should have Carnahan see to it, and I immediately silence him. “It’s a scrape. I’d rather die of blood poisoning than have that swine inspect me.”
Lyom laughs softly.
He laughs. I try not to stare in amazement at him but in the end I know I am grinning stupidly, proud of myself to have made him chuckle.
“You laugh,” I say in amazement.
Lyom smirks halfway. “Mount up. We have a ways to go before I feel we can make camp.”
I nod calmly but inwardly feel it a small victory to have made him laugh. Before I leave, I grab my knife from the dead man’s hand, slipping it back into my belt. I make my way back to the others where Carnahan is helping Ulric off the ground, having already removed the arrow from his shoulder. Moher comes alongside the two of them and dips beneath Ulric’s shoulder, helping him back to his horse.
“Can you ride?” asks Moher.
Ulric snorts. “Well enough.”
Lyom goes to his men while I return to Dominik, telling him to get back on his horse. Dominik — who frowns in dismay at the cut above my eyebrow — telling him to get back on his horse.
We head out again, trying to get far away from where we were intercepted by the marauders, galloping across the expanse. The sun begins to set only hours later, the days drawn shorter by the quickly approaching winter. What will Evrallon feel like? There is a drastic change in temperature at the end of the Menca Denu, when one makes their way to the Evrallonic border. Has it snowed in Evrallon yet? I am ready to see snow. Not long ago, I’d imagined that I’d never get to see another snowfall.
Quay let us indulge in few things when we were younger but snow was one of them. It helped train us to be impervious to the chill of it but I believe most of us, even the assassins that were already trained killers, played in the frozen rain for the fun of it. We would gather snowballs and create snowball fights, claiming them to be tactical training. Quay would allow it so we did it often. We all waited for the snow to return every winter, counted the days until the first snow fell from the heavens.
Dominik came onto the scene soon after. He would not play in the snow like us but would watch from the steps of the Lydovier castle above the Aerie, reading a book or studying something Quay had given him. The others would tease him about it but I left him to his own business; despite what one may believe, Dominik and I were not instantly friends.
When the sun has set completely below the horizon and darkness overshadows the land like a reaper, the noises of the night begin to start up and I hear beasts beginning to move about, creeping through the black shadows.
I kick my mare faster, catching up to Jamas.
“Is the plan to outrun the creatures of the night?” I inquire, nearly having to shout due to the rushing breeze that drops in temperature by the moment.
Jamas nods. “We plan to ride until we come to shelter. It would not be safe to stop until dawn but …”
“The horses will not last until then.” I agree.
Jamas nods again. “We will stop when the horses tire.”
A tendril of fear leaks into my stomach when I turn and see a dark figure lurking in the shadows of night, lit only barely by the eerie glow of the land. Quay used to tell me that only demons could survive in the Menca Denu. I used to remind him that demons no longer existed but tonight I would not place any bets on their extinction.
A horrible howl is released into the night — completely unearthly, yet completely of the Menca Denu. If the kings, emperors, and monarchs could come together for one purpose I pray it would be to eradicate the Menca Denu and all the vile creatures within.
We ride for a ways until our horses cannot take much more. Afraid to lame them, we slow to a walk and allow our horses to catch their breaths. The moment we stop our frenzied pace everything becomes absolutely silent, the only sound in the night that of our horses’ breathing. The cicadas have quieted, the howls have ceased, and the screeching of wytrian in the distance has ended.
“Yep,” Carnahan grumbles. “This is eery.”
“Quiet.” Moher hisses. “You’ll give away our position.”
Ulric chuckles. “And here I thought the thundering of our horses’ hooves gave away our position.”
Carnahan snickers in response.
“Men,” Lyom reminds.
Dominik, who rides beside me, whispers, “Do you recall all the tales Quay told us of the Menca Denu?”
My brows furrow. “They were just that — tales.”
Dominik nods. “I only mean for you to be watchful.”
I nod in response and kick my mare faster, having her trot up alongside the others. A whisper flows through the land — a coarse, dry whisper that is anything but melodic.
“That’d better be the wind.” Carnahan mumbles.
“Ten notes say it’s not.” Ulric grunts in reply.
The whispers continues, rolling around us. From beneath, a thick fog rolls in, covering our horses hooves. Immediately my mare becomes uncomfortable, snorting and picking up her feet as though she’d like to take flight. The fog only continues to rise. I squint at it, trying to make out where it is coming from. A puff of fog reaches up from beneath, fingers curling toward me. The world around seems to flicker momentarily and I swear I see tree roots covering the ground, dark-green moss blanketing them like snow. But then it’s back to sand and dirt.
“We have hours yet until morning,” says Lyom, though I am barely listening. “We cannot just run all night. We have to be able to stand our ground.”
The fingers move closer, closer, until they are at my cheek. I expect to feel the humid coolness of the fog but instead what I feel is solid, hard bone caressing my cheek. I begin to jump away but the hand grabs me by the neck, fog swirling around my face. I try to scream out but the fog draws the air from my lungs, suffocating me, and I instantly know what it is.
My hand clutches at the bony one at my throat, feeling jagged knuckles and grooves within the otherwise perfect bone crafted of smoke and air. My lungs burn from the lack of oxygen and I fumble for the knife at my belt.
Suddenly a sword slashes through the fog in front of me, nearly meeting my nose on the way down. The fog at my neck disperses at once though the blade struck nothing. Air returns to my lungs and I suck in a breath, grabbing my dagger quickly in case the fog returns.
Jamas holds his sword out, watching the fog swirling at our horses’ hooves.
“What is it?” Ulric
snaps.
“Not fog,” I croak.
The hands suddenly appear everywhere, reaching up from the eery ground, fingers curling as if beckoning us to come closer. That’s when we bolt — not us, our horses. They are the ones to decide the time has come to leave the area.
I lean forward on my mare’s neck, looking over my shoulder as she gallops. The fog behind us seems to be dispersing at first, flowing aside. I believe it is sinking back into the ground until a murky figure begins to step from the fog, tendrils of smoke leaking from its body. The fog takes form, showing the figure of a man, and though it is nothing but smoke and illusion and has no eyes, I know it is looking straight at me.
Yes. I believe in demons.
XX
“A good face, they say, is a letter of recommendation. O Nature, Nature, why art thou so dishonest, as ever to send men with these false recommendations into the World?”
— Henry Fielding, Amelia
We do exactly as Lyom said we could not and ride until dawn — and our horses do not mind a bit. When we finally slow, the sun has risen above the Evrallonic cresting far in the distance. We still have five days left unless we travel through the nights as we did last night. The use of fire seems to extinguish any of the creatures of the night so if we choose to camp tonight, we should have fire in every tent — particularly mine, as I am not fond of bony-fingered figures in the fog wrapping their hands around my neck and stealing my precious air.
We at last come to a stop, allowing our horses to drink from a nearby pool. The temperature today is not as mild but not as deadly as our first journey through the expanse. Today the sky is not overcast and the sun beats down on us heavily but there is a cool breeze in the air, making it more bearable.
I slide off my mare, dropping to the ground and wavering on my feet. She drinks the water we provide her but does not seem extremely thirsty and begins to look around for anything green to eat. I wander with her, watching as she tries to eat the dried brown leaves. We brought apples and carrots for the horses but have been too preoccupied with staying alive to remember them.
As my mare searches for something to nibble on, I look over my shoulder and find Dominik with my gaze. I’ll need to kill him soon. Lyom won’t allow him to ride across the Evrallonic border with us and is only allowing him to live to humor me. He and the other swordsmen will not touch Dominik; Lyom considers him my responsibility.
Looking away, my gaze lands on Gresham, who has been completely silent since we left the Adaaian border. He feels the loss of his brother. Part of me would like to tell him that losing family is just what happens in life, that he needs to buck up and be a man — that is Quay coming out in me, the assassin he molded me into. There is another part of me, though, that feels his loss. While I never had siblings to fear for or even really a mother to love and learn from, I had Quay, who is now gone.
In more ways than one he was a father figure to me. The other assassins would call him a relentless leader, a close friend of King Cress’, and a cruel disciplinarian. Quay was all of this to me but he was more. Quay practically raised me. Now he is gone, without leaving a trace. Where did he go off to? Most suspect that he found a young girl and went off with her but is that truly Quay? I don’t think I could imagine him doing that, especially not when he had young assassins that still needed to be trained. Quay stopped going out on missions long ago, otherwise I would suspect he was killed during an assassination.
I have thought it all through, considered every angle, and still have no idea where Quay could have gone. Before he was killed, when he had first disappeared, my father told me Quay had done this before — just … vanished. He always returned, though. Perhaps he will return one day to the Lydovier palace to find it destroyed, even the stone scorched.
I should look for him someday. What will Quay do without his Cannon? I snort. He’ll make a new one, no doubt, and part of me will want to find it and join it, because what else will I be able to do with my life? But deep down, I know the sentimental girl in me, the one that never got to experience being at a dance, or having a boy hold her hand, or getting in trouble for simple things like forgetting to wash the dishes will win out and I will disappear from Quay’s line of sight.
I wonder what life will be like after I leave Evrallon and go to Belaroux, or perhaps back to Adaai. Will I find a boarding house and begin to work there for the keeper or the home, paying my rent in that way? There is a whisperer in the back of my mind that tells me I’ll never be satisfied doing that. Living a simple, normal life never seemed to be what I was made to do. I am a Child of the Elements, after all … power and darkness will always find me, no matter how long I hide in the light.
I run my hand down my mare’s neck, stroking her coat even. Taking her reins in my hands I turn and lead her back to the pool of water where Gresham guards Dominik. Handing my horse off to Gresham I practically fall into the pool. Gresham scrunches his nose when I splash and I smile at that, glad to bring some emotion to his face.
I duck underwater, though it’s only about two feet deep, and scrub the blood from the cut above my eye. My leg still burns from where the wytrian bit me but I choose to ignore it, climbing out of the water and wringing my hair out.
“Your steed,” Gresham says, handing me the reins of my mare.
I take the reins, examining Gresham’s expression. “You and Northam were twins?”
Gresham shoots me a dark look but I persist.
“You know, I got confused between you two for the first few days.” I admit. “You look identical.”
“Looked,” Gresham corrects venomously.
I sigh, deciding that the sympathetic, kindhearted assassin does not play well on me. “It was not your doing, you know. Whatever attacked Northam, it was not your fault.”
Gresham nods fervently. “It was.”
“If you blame yourself you’ll only end up feeling guilty.” I warn, wringing the water out from my shirt. I run a hand through my hair, shaking it out. “Take it from me, Gresham. If you always allow yourself to feel guilt, one day you’ll be crushed by it.”
Gresham’s jaw clenches and I see thoughts turning in his head. He shakes his head slowly. “You don’t understand. It was my doing. I was lulled to sleep by them.” He laughs, shaking his head in incredulity. “They sang me to sleep! I’d no idea they could do that.”
Hold on. Sang?
I blink at Gresham. “Gresham,” I say, trying to reel in his attention. “Who sang?”
Gresham glowers, speaking through gritted teeth. “The nymphs.”
My spine goes rigid. “Nymphs don’t exist in the kingdoms. They were banished to the Forest.”
Gresham laughs, raking a hand through wild, wiry red hair. “Oh, believe me, they’re alive. They may look beautiful and they may be able to hit all the pretty, ladylike notes, but their claws can gut you from the inside out.”
“They —”
“Mount up!” Lyom calls.
Gresham grabs Dominik, who is looking at me with a serious expression, and tells him to mount up. I am barely paying attention to anything that is going on around me, still reeling from Gresham’s words.
Afterlighters cannot be alive; the monarchs banded together years ago to exterminate them all. Quay would tell us stories about them, would warn us to always be wary in case they were to ever return, but how could they? When you exterminate a species, you leave none behind. King Cress told us all they were eradicated — wiped from the earth, pushed back into the Forest, and good riddance to them.
In a daze I mount my horse, knowing Lyom will suspect something if I don’t. Has Lyom known this all along and chosen not to tell me? How many are privy to this information? Perhaps I was the only one that chose to believe the words of our kings, trusting that they had indeed eradicated the species. And not just any species — a species that could control magic.
The day passes slowly and our horses move even slower. It isn’t nearly as hot as it could be, though, which is much
appreciated. Lyom leads, as always, with Dominik behind him, guarded by Ulric and Carnahan, who have been taking turns holding his chains. Dominik will not reveal Laderic’s location to me, no matter how I have tried today. I have attempted to question him on his journey from Evrallon to Adaai, ask him when he and Laderic parted ways, and blatantly demanded to know where Laderic was.
When we stop again, watering our horses, Lyom takes out his sketchbook and though I cannot see what he draws on its pages I know what is inside — and what lies at the front.
Frowning, I look to Jamas, who stands beside his horse, side by side with me. “What is Lyom’s relationship with Princess Haraya?”
Jamas frowns, looking up from where he watches his stallion drink. “What do you mean?”
“I mean what is his relationship? She seemed … fond of him.”
Jamas nods, bending down to stroke his stallion’s muzzle. “A couple years ago … I believe he loved her. In his own sort of way.”
“And now?”
Jamas looks up at me. “I don’t believe love ever truly dies. How does one fall out of love?”
I look away from him, centering my gaze on Lyom, who continues to sketch in the notebook, standing beside his stallion who eats from the apples he offered him. He still loves her, then. If Jamas is to be believed. But I still cannot imagine Lyom being anything other than stern. “And the princess? What does she think of this?”
Jamas sighs, straightening up. “I’m not sure I am supposed to be divulging this information.”
I turn to Jamas. “It’s only me. Who have I to tell?”
Jamas frowns and his caramel eyes flicker to his Swordmaster. “I’m not sure the king knew of it, but they had some form of relationship two years ago. He was in charge of her wellbeing then; a palace guard, not the Swordmaster yet, just in training.” He narrows his eyes in thought. “An assassination attempt was made by an Adaaian soon after Lyom was placed over her care. He stopped the assassination and …”
