Crown of Crimson

by Rose Reid

  I let my eyes drift close, not wanting to see any of them and also too tired to keep them open.

  “And what do we tell him?”

  I’m surprised to hear the note of annoyance in Jamas’ voice. He has always been nothing if not respectful to the Swordmaster and has never questioned one of his orders.

  “That we lost the Boy and are no closer to finding the Girl?” he asks, and even though his voice is calm, I sense a tinge of frustration lurking behind his words. Of course, that could just be because of the blood loss. For all I know, I am imagining this conversation.

  “Might I remind you that we left the king with orders not to return until we had the Boy in hand?” Jamas continues.

  I can feel the tension in the tent rising. Heat doesn’t fill the small area, but a heavy chill sets in, which is my only way of knowing that Lyom is furious.

  “Then what? You expect us to hunt Dominik down! The assassins are gone!”

  “But you could track them, could you not?” Jamas says. “It would not be difficult for you to follow them. From what I have gathered, the only reason we needed Aerietta’s help was because the Children are the only Afterlighters whose presences you cannot trace. We know at least one of the men in Azmar’s order was an Afterlighter, so track him.”

  “Do not presume to tell me my place, Jamas.” Lyom snaps, venom dripping from his lips. “We return to the Keep the minute the assassin can sit up.”

  “Dryden will kill her, Lyom!” Jamas shouts. “Is that why you have begun calling her ‘the assassin’ again? So you do not have to think of her as a person? So you will not flinch when King Dryden has you behead her?”

  I cringe. Not because I see my own head rolling on the ground — it would be the Riser who died if he attempted to kill me — but because I realize that Jamas’ words are true. Lyom only wants to return to the Keep because he knows King Dryden will kill me.

  Carnahan must feel my flinch because he slaps his hand down on my arm so I can’t move it away from the needle.

  “Will you both get out of here?” Carnahan half growls, half shouts his annoyance. “Stitching isn’t easy as it is, let alone with you both barking orders at each other!”

  I hear the malice in Lyom’s voice when he says, “Leave, Jamas. You would do well to remember who your Swordmaster is.”

  I hear Jamas duck out of the tent before Carnahan says, “You, too, Swordmaster. There’s enough tension in this tent without you.”

  I know Lyom hates being bossed around but he just exits the tent as well while Carnahan goes back to sewing up my collarbone. I suddenly wish Lyom and Jamas hadn’t left me in here with him.

  “How long do you plan to keep up the ruse?”

  My eyes snap open when I hear the dark man’s voice in my ear. Panic lurches into my heart and I suddenly feel the pain of the needle in my collarbone, as if reality is snatching me back from whatever dream world I escaped to. Or perhaps this is the dream world.

  The dark man sits in front of me. Now that he does not have his hands clutched around my throat, I can see more of his features. His eyes are black but his skin is pale, like Lyom’s. He has long, dark hair that is pinned behind his neck and scruff on his face. Everything he wears is black, from his cloak down to his boots. He sits casually on one of the rocks in the tent, watching me with the kind of curious look one might have when studying a strange or delicate flower.

  “How am I seeing you?” I hardly hear the words coming out of my own mouth. They’re like a coarse whisper, barely even heard.

  Carnahan frowns. “What?”

  He leans over me and sees that my eyes are open. I glance up at him, willing him to see the cloaked man, but even when I look back, the man in black is gone.

  I imagined him.

  He was never really there, because he could not have been. He is an Afterlighter, after all, bound to stay within the realm of the Forest. The only reason I saw him in Adaai was either because I’d brought him back with my consciousness or the walls separating the Forest and the kingdoms are weakening.

  Carnahan looks down at me with one of his incessant smirks. “Are we hallucinating?” He asks it like a sarcastic parent would pose a question to a dimwitted child.

  I stare straight ahead as Carnahan goes back to stitching a place on my shoulder.

  “Did you know about Lyom?” I ask, my voice hardly recognizable.

  Carnahan’s hand stills momentarily before he says, “I wouldn’t try to talk, if I were you. You lost a lot of blood. As in, you look like you’re dead already.”

  Do I look that bad? I remember what the cloaked man looked like — what Lyom looked like — and pray that I do not look that terrible.

  I do not try to talk to Carnahan again, just let him continue to stitch my right shoulder. He moves over to the other side, beginning to stitch up the wounds on my left.

  My brain is slow to react, either from the amount of stress, panic, or blood loss, but when it catches up with what Carnahan is doing, I almost scream my protest. I weakly attempt to move away from him, shaking my head, and then imagine what I must look like to Carnahan, feebly trying to bat his hand away. Enough fury washes through me at my tired and weak state that I’m able to push up off the ground and roll over, away from him.

  Carnahan’s bowl of bloody rags topples over and he throws his hands in the air. “Hey! What on Bodeman’s vessel are you doing?” He tries to move closer but I put my hands up to stop him. Scowling, he gets to his feet. “Don’t make me call Lyom and Jamas back in here.”

  “Stop,” I manage.

  Carnahan shakes his head. “No can do. Swordmaster says you have to be in tiptop shape for your funeral so get your sorry self back over here.”

  I see him reach for me and try to move away but he manages to grab the neckline of my shirt. My pulling back only makes matters worse, tearing the fabric’s seams and revealing my thin, blood-stained undershirt beneath it, but more than that, it shows my Jezdah.

  I see it the moment it registers on Carnahan’s face. His expression morphs from slightly amused but still annoyed to complete shock, then disgust. I start to open my mouth or to put a finger up to my lips at the very least to keep him quiet but there will be no reasoning with the brute. I have only enough time to send up a silent prayer to whoever will listen before Carnahan stabs an ikketra dart into my neck.

  XXIII

  “All the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one class included all the girls in the world except her, and they had all the usual human feelings and were very ordinary girls; while the other class -herself alone- had no weaknesses and was superior to all humanity.”

  — Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

  My dream is a cascade of eery premonitions, whispers, and forgotten memories. Dark faces surround me, becoming clearer by the second. The shadows that lurk in nearby in all my dreams are no longer shrouded in mystery but stand close to me, moving silently though they whisper through the eerie gloom. Faces appear in the blackness every so often — a face from deep within my memory, sometimes, and other times someone entirely new.

  Creatures with horns stand close by, watching me with increased curiosity. The flutter of wings nearby calls my attention and I turn sharply, hoping to catch a glimpse of the creature.

  “She will be killed.”

  “They cannot kill her.”

  The voices, spoken by two different beings, are nearby — not Lyom or another outside my dream. I spin to see who speaks but see no man standing close, only darkness and wisps of shadows and fog. I immediately fear it is the cloaked man but it does not sound like his voice. No, it is the two whisperers I’ve heard so many times before in other dreams.

  The whispers suddenly vanish, leaving me in intense silence and utter darkness. I shout in frustration, wanting to run into the darkness, but after taking one step I realize it is not a good idea. My foot sinks into whatever marshy land I step into and I struggle to get the swamp to release my leather boot. I end up rolling ba
ckwards, nearly stopping myself before I fall over a cliff behind me.

  Fog rises up around me, making everything seem more sinister. I bring myself to a stand again. I am dreaming, always dreaming. Time to wake up.

  The first thing I feel upon regaining consciousness is the cold metal against my bare wrists, then the chilly breeze that writhes around me.

  My first thought is: Quay. The prospect of escaping he and his men is not enticing. But how did Quay get me? The last thing I remember was being shot, then … very little. Bits and pieces. Quay said something to me … didn’t he?

  I was not actually shot, obviously. The bullet went straight through me and into Berut, the brutish assassin that Quay enlisted to do his dirty work. Berut is dead now, that much I remember.

  I look around the tent, hoping to see a weapon of any kind, but before I can even assess my situation, my gaze stumbles over my cape, lying on the floor where I left it. I remember haphazardly shedding the cloak that felt like a second skin from my shoulders, fingers lacing around the hem of Lyom’s shirt as I pulled him closer.

  I am not in Quay’s tent. Quay left me here. Lyom picked me up. Carnahan tried to seal my knife wounds. He found my Jezdah.

  My heart does a strange flip as I look down at my body to see that I am no longer wearing a shirt but instead have bandages wrapped around my chest as my only form of coverage. The white fabric stops at my ribs and even from the front, one can see the ends of swirls licking up from my back.

  I look around for any sign of my shirt, hoping that I can pull it over my head. My only chance of survival is if somehow the Jezdah magically disappears from my back long enough for me to convince the Swordmaster, Carnahan, and Jamas that they saw something that was not there.

  I am still empty handed when the sound of approaching footsteps draws my attention away from the task at hand.

  The tent’s flap is pushed open and my eyes dart up to meet Lyom’s as he saunters inside, Jamas and Carnahan following him. I look between the three of them, knowing exactly why they have such hardened expressions on their faces, why their hands are clasped meticulously behind their backs, their eyes completely dead. They know exactly who I am, and from the looks of it, Lyom is not pleased at all.

  Fear drips icily into my heart, pooling in the pit of my stomach. Panic is a cruel thing, making the speed of my heart increase and my thoughts scatter like windblown chaff. I want to reach up and cover my shoulder so that they cannot see the markings that twist down my side but I force myself to sit up taller, unafraid, despite the quivering of my breaths.

  “Seems you have been hiding something from us.” says Lyom, hands clasped behind his back like the serviceman he is.

  I gauge Lyom’s expression, hoping — praying, really — that there is uncertainty in his eyes, or at least pity, that I may use to my advantage, but I see only distrust and even revulsion. That stings more than it should. A month ago, I would not have cared what Lyom Livingstone, Swordmaster of King Dryden and born of House Wells, thought of me.

  It doesn’t seem fair that Lyom is allowed to judge me for hiding something almost as large as his secret. I lied to someone I did not trust, to someone who I knew would kill me, but Lyom has been lying to Ulric, Moher, Gresham … all his other men if my hunch is correct. No one knows who he is besides Jamas, Carnahan, King Dryden, and perhaps Princess Haraya.

  Watching the two closely, I wait for a crack in Lyom’s facade, hoping that he will tell me that he plans to release me or even just give me a few day’s head start but I find no crack, just as I find no weak link in my chains.

  I want to suggest that Lyom tell the king he killed me, that he discovered my identity and he killed me and left me to be eaten by the wytrian or nymphs that surely live in the Menca Denu, but I highly doubt Lyom accepts that offer.

  “Get her up.” Lyom demands.

  Carnahan walks towards me and I glance up at him as he pulls the keys from his belt, turning the lock on the chain. It takes me less than a second to be free from the pole, and even less time to use what little bit of strength I have gathered to leap up and hook my arm around Carnahan’s neck, dragging him back down to the ground and wrapping my legs tightly around him, snatching his knife from his belt. I thrust the knife against his neck, holding it firmly to his throat as a warning to Lyom, who only gives me a stern look threatening malice.

  Still handcuffed, I hold Carnahan to the ground, who is far stronger than me but does not dare move now that I have his meticulously sharpened knife at his neck.

  “Release me, Lyom.” I order, trying not to let my voice quaver.

  I see a muscle in Jamas’ jaw tic. Perhaps I am not speaking to the most persuadable person in the tent. Jamas seems far more prepared to release me than Lyom.

  Lyom only glowers. “Your days of freedom are over, Assassin. I am curious to see who you blame for your current predicament.”

  “You are the only one to blame.” I lace my tone with venom, but no amount of forced malevolence can still the rapid beating in my chest when I look at him — nothing in the world could.

  I watch him with suspicion and wariness but can’t help seeing the boy with eyes of sapphires, holding me against him and keeping me from falling. I can’t help seeing the first boy I have ever kissed and meant it.

  I feel Carnahan move and press the knife further into his neck as a warning but Carnahan ignores it entirely, still trying to wriggle out of my grasp. In retaliation, I dig the knife into his skin, hearing him hiss in pain as blood trickles over my hand.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this.” I tell Lyom, eyes flickering to Jamas. “All I’m asking is for a head start. Three days … give me three days to run.”

  It is Lyom who answers, not Jamas. “You know we cannot do that. You are property of King Dryden until your assignment is complete, and you have failed your assignment.”

  Then the craziest thought slips into my head. If I slit my own throat, will I die? There is some sort of charm that has been put over the Children that ensures they cannot die until they have been “activated” or “awoken,” but if a Child commits suicide … will they not die?

  I don’t want to die, don’t want to find out if Children are sentenced to the Afterlight Forest after death, don’t want to meet the dark man again.

  My hand is shaking, I know it, and Carnahan knows it too but he does not attempt to escape. It’s as if he already knows what I plan on doing.

  How have I become so soft? A few weeks among these men and already I cannot kill even the most vulgar of them! I’m unable to take my own life, unable to go on a rampage and kill them all.

  Quay knew, I think. He knew when he left me here that I would either have to return to my ways of senseless killing or be left with the unthinkable fate of being dragged back before King Dryden to be tried and tortured for not only my crimes against the Crown of Evrallon, but against humanity. I will be tried as an Afterlighter — and not just any Afterlighter. I will be tried as a Child of the Elements.

  I look at Lyom, praying one last time that I will see some sort of sympathy in his eyes. But all I see is blankness. There is no emotion, no heart, no soul. He has been reduced to what he was when he found me in that outpost in Lydovier, and I feel any resolve I’d clung to crumble.

  I drop the knife to the ground and Carnahan leaps to his feet, backing away from me with a wary and confused expression on his face. Maybe he didn’t suspect I would let him go. Maybe he was waiting for me to kill him.

  This is Dominik’s fault. Dominik planted this seed in my mind, the thought that I did not have to be an assassin any longer. He is the reason I am now defenseless in front of three Evrallonic soldiers with the soul purpose of finding the Children and dragging them back to the Keep.

  Lyom glares with unfeeling eyes when he says, “Knock her out.”

  The last thing I see is Jamas flinching ever so slightly and Carnahan lifting a blowgun to shoot me with a dart.

  The next time I awake, it is not in a can
vas tent, nor is it on the back of a horse. I am groggy, my mind a haze of confusion. When I open my eyes, I find that I am staring up into the stone ceiling of a dungeon. My mouth is dry and my muscles ache painfully when I try to pull myself into a seated position. The rattling of chains and weight on my wrists remind me that I am no longer a friend of King Dryden’s. I am again considered his enemy.

  I lean my head back against the wall behind me, trying to decide where I am. We must be out of the Menca Denu but surely I have not already been brought back to Adandyrl. Judging from the strict fortifications around me, the stone, unyielding walls that have no windows or vents to escape through, I would venture to say I am in Soldier’s Pond, or perhaps an outpost like it. Simple villages have small prison cells but nothing this well made. No, these are dungeons, meant to keep the worst of the worst in. But there are no dungeons on earth fit for me.

  I test my chains, learn their length and strength. They are five feet long, allowing me to move about the room. At the bottom door made of heavy brass there is a pan of water and an identical pan with a single slice of bread, not even large enough to satisfy a mouse.

  Starving me, I see. I stand from my seat on the ground, rolling my neck and shoulders, my muscles practically groaning with the effort. How long did they keep me sedated? Perhaps they continued to jab me with the ikketra in my unconsciousness.

  I am barefooted and in new clothes I don’t recognize but at least I am clothed, no longer wearing scant bandages. I wear a thermal tunic and pinstripe trousers. The ground is chilling, telling me that winter has already arrived in Evrallon. The room itself is just as cold, if not colder. Compared to the air the stone walls are almost warm.

  I walk across the room, silently glad that Lyom did not chain my feet. I crouch and take the small piece of bread, finishing it in one bite, because what is the point of savoring it? It’s nasty dungeon bread that probably molded months ago but why tell lowly detainees that? I take up the bowl of water and down it quickly, trying to ignore the floating dots of grime and dirt in it.