Crown of Crimson

by Rose Reid

  I stare in half horror, half in unbelief at the assassin that stands over him.

  Is that how Lyom saw me? Am I like that?

  Quay must see the stirring in my eyes because he tries to calm me with his words.

  “Aerietta, they are the Cruel King’s men — they are nothing.”

  I hear nothing he says. Red clouds my vision, making it difficult to see anything else. Before I realize what I am doing, I have lurched towards the assassin, striking swiftly. The assassin — though ill trained — senses my approach and spins to block, his forearm connecting with mine but I feel nothing. I toss the knife into my other hand, turning so I have access to him again. I jab my knife into his side, spinning out of the way before he can snatch me.

  “Aerietta!” Quay shouts directly behind me.

  I raise my hand to strike the assassin again but am interrupted by Quay, who kicks my knee out. I roll to my back and kick up to my feet, bracing for his next advance.

  Quay strikes just as he did during my training, as if he has not aged a day. He lunges towards me with swiftness and precision, blade moving accurately as he slices through the air. I narrowly avoid his first blow, ducking beneath him and rolling out of the way. I try to reach up to slice him in the back but Quay catches my arm, throwing me backwards.

  He knows my moves, anticipates my every strike. He spins and slashes, catching me on the arm. I react by pushing off him and reengaging. I see a window of a target on his face and I flip my knife in my hand, jabbing forward. His arm shoots up, capturing mine in a block. I quickly bring my leg up and knee into his stomach but Quay hardly flinches, using the block he already holds on me to twist my arm backwards, bending me over.

  I hear someone nearby call my name — Jamas maybe? — and realize most of the new Cannon’s assassins have retreated to the shadows, watching as Quay and I fight. But I am too busy trying to stay away from Quay’s blade to realize what the situation has morphed into.

  I feel the bones in my shoulder creak as Quay holds me down, not ever raising his knife to kill me. Of course he won’t; his schemes involve me in them.

  To get out of my former master’s grasp, I kick off the ground, flipping up so that my legs twist around Quay’s neck in my signature move. I begin to spin but he is fast and knows my tactics — he is the one that taught them to me.

  Somehow I am thrown to the ground, air being shoved from my lungs. I am only on the ground for a fraction of a second yet as I stare up at the rocky land bridge overhead I find myself thinking, I am NOT losing. I cannot be losing.

  The knife comes down, nicking my forehead. I slice at Quay’s leg before springing to my feet to escape being caught in his blade. Quay grunts in pain and turns around to face me as I advance again. I slash towards him, hoping to connect with hard muscle or bone, but my arm is shoved away and the breath is knocked out of me again when Quay lands a blow to my stomach. I recover quickly and slink under his arm, kicking him hard in the kidney. He staggers for a minute and when his knee bends slightly, I take it as my opportunity.

  Jumping up onto his bent knee, using him like a step stool, I leap up, hooking my knee around his neck, and spin sharply to bring him down. Quay falls backwards but is quick to respond, flipping back over onto his hands and knees. Just as I am beginning to stand up, he has slashed at me, connecting with my cheek and then shoulder. I flip over backwards and jump to my feet but he is on me again. I feel the slice of a blade on my arm, then at my side. There was a time when the burn of the silver would distract me but now, all it does is refocus me.

  I spin out of his way and deliver as many cuts to him as he does to me but slowly I am beginning to realize that I have met my match, and that Quay is winning.

  He trained me. He knows my every move. He knows my weaknesses and my strengths because he programmed them into me. He understands how I fight and above all, he does not underestimate me, stealing from me one of my greatest defenses.

  I hear my name shouted again but I can hardly hear. At this point I don’t care how many times I am slashed, I only want to make Quay remember who he trained — and what I have become.

  I jab quickly, dodging his next move, but then feel cold air at my lower back. I try to roll out of his way but then his hand clamps around my throat. Acting swiftly, I bring my elbow through his to break the connection and then use every ounce of strength I have to kick up and plant my two feet in the center of his chest, shoving him back.

  Quay stumbles backwards and I jump to my feet, still breathing heavily. I am bleeding, knife wounds all up and down my arms, across my chest, over my back and legs, and even on my face. Some of them may scar, forever reminding me that I barely survived my master’s attack.

  How shameful! I chastise myself. Quay is but an old man that stopped going on assignments because of his feebleness years ago! Yet I have proven that as old as he is, as weak as he may seem, he is still my master, and I his lowly apprentice.

  Quay actually laughs, a deep-throated thing welling up from the pit of his stomach. Around him stand some of his assassins, behind them stand Lyom’s men, swords drawn and ready to continue their assault. As my gaze scans the scene, my eyes snag on Lyom, finding him with his men. He does not breathe heavily like me but he is injured. The short sleeve of his shirt has been torn and hangs in tatters, his shoulder covered in crimson, but I know it will heal soon, reminding me that he is nothing but not Afterlighter.

  Quay continues to chuckle, shaking his head. I look back at him, planning my own attack in my mind, promising that Quay will suffer for laying a hand on my friends.

  “Look at you.” Quay says scornfully. “Gone soft because of your time of disuse. Once the Queen of Crimson, now bathing in her own blood.” He stares at me with half disgust, half unreadable emotion. “I had hoped we could do this the easy way but I now I see that was an impossible dream.”

  Quay’s words shame me because they are true. I have become soft. I hadn’t wanted to kill Dominik. His words have gotten to me and I am even starting to believe that I was not born to be this assassin.

  “Berut,” Quay calls.

  One of the assassins steps out from the shadows. He is a thinner man with a tall lanky build and no shirt. Across his chest he sports the scars and oozing wounds left by Lyom and his men, yet he lives. When he comes to stand beside Quay, he is handed something gleaming. I recognize it the moment it is retrieved from Quay’s belt.

  “You wouldn’t.” I hiss.

  Quay smirks. “You have forgotten how ruthless we are to be, Aerietta.”

  Berut aims the barrel of the pistol at me unflinchingly. I want to move out of the way of the bullet but any sudden movement could cause Berut to squeeze the trigger.

  I look at Quay venomously. “If you plan to kill me, at least be a man and do it yourself.”

  Quay looks at me for a moment then shakes his head. “No, I don’t believe that can happen.” Quay waves a hand at Berut as he begins to walk away. “Berut.”

  I hear Lyom shout something and then hear the shing of a sword.

  “You know the king will kill me if I do not return with Dominik.” I spit at Quay even as he begins to disappear into the shadows. “Your plan fails if I —”

  I do not hear my last words.

  The gunshot goes off, a resounding crack through the night.

  I feel the moment the bullet hits my chest, the familiar zip of electricity racing into my veins. My chest heaves and a ripple runs through my body. It’s like a powerful punch has just been delivered to my sternum, zapping all the breath from my lungs.

  No pain follows, though. The air in my lungs is gone but I feel nothing. I can hear the shouts of those around me but cannot feel anything. Confused, I look down at my chest, waiting to see a large hole in the center of it, blood pouring from the wound.

  Nothing.

  It’s like the bullet never left the gun.

  Time seems to pick back up again as if it had held still for me to examine myself. In complete and utter
confusion, I look around for Quay.

  Did the assassin not shoot me?

  I find Berut with my eyes and my mouth drops open.

  Blood seeps from Berut’s bullet wound. It lies in the center of his chest, exactly where I had felt the spark of electricity. Silence falls over us all as we watch Berut struggle to take in a breath. He suddenly collapses to his knees, choking on his own blood as he falls over, completely lifeless.

  The world goes quiet. I can’t tell if it’s my own hearing that’s failed me or if all the assassins are just as bewildered as I am and have forgotten their mandate.

  “A perk I discovered,” whispers Quay from behind me.

  I start to spin around to look at him but hesitate, not wanting to take my eyes off his faithful assassins — so faithful that even after Berut collapses to the ground, they stand firm where they are, never doubting Quay’s ultimate goal.

  I was like that, too.

  “Neither of you can be killed. Tortured,” Quay continues from behind. “yes, but never killed. Not until you both are ‘activated.’ So the king may have fun with you. I will always return for you.” I feel Quay’s finger skim my left cheek where blood trickles down my neck. “Until next time, Aerietta.”

  I begin to attack but my legs and arms feel numb, my entire body feeling weighted to the ground. Blood loss, confusion, and panic are all getting to me, making my breathing more difficult and my body not respond to my commands. So I am forced to watch as Quay walks away, his new assassins melting into the shadows of the night.

  XXII

  “Oh stay at home, my lad, and plough

  The land and not the sea,

  And leave the soldiers at their drill,

  And all about the idle hill

  Shepherd your sheep with me.

  Oh stay with company and mirth

  And daylight and the air;

  Too full already is the grave

  Of fellows that were good and brave

  And died because they were.”

  — A.E. Housman, Oh Stay at Home, My Lad, and Plough

  “Careful!” hisses Carnahan as Lyom slides to the ground next to me, eyes skimming over my inert form. I don’t want to move because it would prove I am alive when I should have died of shame.

  Lyom’s eyes hold no kindness as he lifts me up off the ground. I feel the cuts in my arms and shoulders opening but bite back my scream until Carnahan is at my side, pouring alcohol over my lacerations. Everywhere hurts. When was the last time I was this bloodied? This close to death by injuries?

  No. Quay said I couldn’t die. Does that mean that seeing the Afterlight Forest … the cloaked man … none of that was a strange hallucination had between this life and the next — it was all real. I was not dead but completely lucid and alive.

  “You are witless,” Lyom seethes in my ear.

  I almost try to apologize to him but what do I have to apologize for? Should I say that I am sorry that I could not defeat my master and save Gresham? Should I apologize that I kissed him and discovered his little secret?

  I look at Carnahan. He knows what Lyom is. Why is he not running for the hills? The enemy of my enemy is my friend? Is Lyom the greater of two evils? Quay spoke of darkness that the Afterlighters were going to overthrow — perhaps even the same darkness that Dominik and Zenith spoke of. It feels unfair that I am the last to know this.

  The thought of Dominik has my mind reeling and suddenly everything makes perfect sense. Dominik was always so modest for an assassin, never removing his shirt when the other men would during training. He never really told anyone about his past and mostly kept to himself. That is why he seemed to know so much about the Afterlighters when we were at the Aerie; that was why he warned me about them in the Menca Denu. It is why I felt a connection to him in Zahlemia, like a cord being strung tight.

  Because he is the Boy … and I am the Girl.

  My gaze wanders up to Lyom’s face in an attempt to ignore the pain rushing over my arms and chest as Carnahan scrubs horrible alcohol into my wounds.

  Did he know? I wonder. Did he know that Dominik was the Boy?

  An annoyed voice in my mind shouts, Of course he knew, fool! He hunted the Girl of the Elements and Dominik Giovani! What other relationship could they have possibly had?

  If Lyom knew that Dominik was the Boy, then he must also have known that he could not be killed, and that whoever tried to kill him would die. I feel like a complete idiot staring up at him now. That is why he never wanted to kill Dominik — because he knew it would end him. It is why he insisted that I be the one to kill him. He had no way of knowing that I was the Girl so … he knew it would kill me. Perhaps he hoped it would kill us both.

  Lyom pushes into his tent, followed swiftly by Carnahan, who is never a step behind him. When Lyom turns around and I catch a glimpse of the battle field, I see Moher, Ulric, and Jamas burying their fallen comrade, carrying his headless body and laying it to rest in the earth of the Menca Denu.

  I feel as though I lied to Gresham. I told him that if we dug his dead brother up, he would be safe and make it home to his parents or sister or perhaps even his wife, if he has one.

  Had one.

  Gresham is past tense, now.

  I wanted him to live and tell Northam’s story. I promised him that by defaming his twin’s body, he would live.

  Now neither of them will return to their parents. Lyom, or perhaps Jamas, will go to them and deliver the crushing news that not one but both their sons were lost in the Menca Denu, and I was the cause it. Had I not made a scene and gone after Dominik at first glance, Northam would have been allowed to stay, and had I been able to help Gresham, he would still be here.

  It does not seem fair for Gresham to be buried here under this barren rock. He should be buried with his brother, the man he spent his life with. He died within the same week that Northam did. I wonder if that holds some weight with God — or the Branch, as many call him — or if they will always be separated from this point on.

  Did I do this? Did I cause their eternal heartbreak?

  The tent flap closes and I shut the door on my conscience. Lyom lays me down on his cold bedroll and my back screams in pain but I do nothing. The agony registers in my mind but I’m almost numb to the sensation by this point. I feel as though I am already dead, or at least that my heart is slowing down. Is it possible for me to die this way? I know what Quay said but if he is not around when I die, does that make God my killer? Blood loss? With no one to take my place, would the Girl of the Elements just die?

  “Lay still,” Carnahan grumbles, lumbering towards me, grabbing a needle and thread with his bad arm. He crouches beside me, eyes glancing up at my own. I can tell from the look on his face — he thinks I’ve already lost my mind.

  “He’ll kill her,” Carnahan murmurs as he works, stabbing the needle into the flesh of my arm and tying the string through the skin and into a knot.

  “I know.” Lyom says, not looking at me, just holding my other arm down in case I decide to strangle Carnahan. I feel the weight of his fingers boring into my skin and pins and needles working their way across my hand.

  “Without the Boy and the princess, we are returning to the king empty handed.”

  Lyom’s glower turns on Carnahan. “And what do you expect me to do? Azmar and his assassins are already long gone, the Boy with them.” I feel Lyom’s grip tightening around my arm, pain flaring up where his nails dig into my cuts. My breath hitches in my throat and Carnahan notices.

  “You’re opening the incisions further.”

  Lyom looks down and sees my blood on his hands and quickly wipes it on the ground as if I will infect him. At this point, I am more concerned about him infecting me. Can darkness rub off on someone? Could Lyom’s blackness somehow leak out of his skin and into mine? I wonder if being a Riser is contagious. To be perfectly honest, I do not even know what a Riser is. Someone that comes back from the dead, I’m fairly confident of that much, but what else does it entail
? Being the lackey of the cloaked man for the rest of your life? What is he? A demon? A fallen angel? Or the angel of death?

  “Honestly, I won’t miss the little thing.” Carnahan says, looking down at me. He leans closer, teeth bared. “You hear me in there? I won’t miss you when King Dryden has your throat split open!”

  I ignore him. I don’t expect him to miss me.

  The tent opens and Jamas takes one tentative step in. His gaze flickers to mine but I’m not really looking at him, just sort of staring into space, completely lost in my own world. It is how I deal with pain, betrayal, heartbreak, and whatever other feelings are coursing through me right now.

  Jamas’s hands are covered with dirt that travels even up his arm. Smudges of the same soil stain his forehead, and his ordinary, brown hair somehow looks more handsome than usual. When I first met him, I wouldn’t have called him handsome, but I suppose that was because he was standing next to Lyom. And I don’t think anyone could compete with him. He is, after all, something straight out of the Afterlight Forest.

  “Is she …” Jamas doesn’t finish his sentence, just watches me. I must look like death for him to suspect it as my outcome.

  “I wouldn’t be stitching a corpse.” Carnahan huffs.

  “She looks dead. Can she hear us?”

  “No.”

  It’s Lyom that says this but I cannot tell if it is because he really believes it or if he is just telling Jamas that.

  “Is it done?”

  “Yes.” answers Jamas.

  “And the assassins?”

  “Gone without a trace.” Jamas replies. “Dominik’s chains were broken and left on the rock we had him attached to.”

  Lyom stands and paces and I know his fury is getting the best of him. He is practically growling. “As soon as the assassin is ready to ride, we leave. We must get back to King Dryden. He will want to know.”