“For what?” I asked, stamping closer to him so that we were only a couple feet apart. “You already had me captured. If you were going to kill me, you had your chance already.”
“Kill you? Why would I kill you?” he asked, taking a step back and turning his body toward the crowd. “She thinks I want to kill her.”
Creepy laughter rippled through the Royal Guards, and they seemed to swell, like an ocean wave starting to form way out at sea.
“You don’t want to kill me?” I asked, slightly taken aback. Hadn’t he done nothing but try and kill me, like, this whole time? If he didn’t want me dead then why had he tortured my mother and hunted me down?
“Well I do,” Masataka said with a shrug. “But not until I’ve thoroughly beaten you, Lillim. I need to make you pay for what you’ve done. Slitting your throat while you’re unconscious in a dungeon is not really very fun.” He vanished from sight, and a moment later, I felt his hand on my cheek. His fingers were so cold that it was like ice trailing down my flesh as he stroked my face from behind me.
“You know you’re crazy, right? I haven’t done anything to you!” I whirled around, throwing his hand off me. I was done, just done with him. Everything about him was a riddle, some kind of puzzle I couldn’t quite wrap my head around. It was too much.
“You’ve taken everything from me, Lillim. You took Dirge’s memory from me. You took Manaka’s death from me. What have you left me with?” he asked, pushing his trident into the flesh of my throat.
I fought the urge to wince. Instead, I lashed out with my hand, pouring magic into the movement so that I seized his weapon. I rolled backward as I did so and flung him head over heels into the dirt behind me. I rolled, getting to my feet and facing him.
He lay there unmoving as laughter poured from his lips. It echoed across the blackened husk that had once been the outskirts. Behind me, the crowd trembled. Their anticipation was like a weight pressing against me. I glanced back at them once more. Where was my mother? Why wasn’t she with her Dioscuri?
“Dirge’s memory is still there! I’ve taken nothing from you, Masataka. Everything you and her had is still there. I haven’t changed that,” I said as I reached out with my left hand and tore apart the air. The familiar purple portion of space allotted to my spirit pouch appeared in front of me. “Come,” I said.
My blades flew from the spirit pouch, tearing free of the purple light with a loud plop. Isis and Set hit my hands with their familiar weight, and as I raised them in front of me, the energy of Lot surged through me. If we were inside the city, I could have drawn on more power, but I was close enough.
Masataka rolled to his hands and knees, still smirking as I pointed the twin blades of Shirajirashii at him. “Whose weapon is that?” he asked, teal eyes glinting.
“Mine!” I snapped.
“Wrong,” he said, standing. “Those swords belong to Dirge Meilan.”
“No they don’t!” I screamed, and the ground around me exploded in a spray of black dirt. “Why can’t you understand that she is gone?”
“Oh I do understand,” he said, smoothing away the mop of hair on his forehead to reveal a hideous scar. “I know she is gone because I’m the one who brought her back. I’m the one who was sacrificed, the one who stepped into Zef’s swirling pools.” He raised his trident into the air, and the ground beneath my feet shook. “I am the one who gave you life, Lillim Callina. Now, I just want to take it back.”
“Well, come on then,” I said, extending my wakazashi toward him.
“Very well, Lillim Callina. Very well,” he said, turning to face the crowd. “I challenge her to trial by combat.”
A collective gasp went up from the crowd as Masataka turned back to me and grinned. “Your move, Lillim,” he said. “Or are you too scared?”
“I’m not scared of you, Masataka. I’m just a little confused as to why you brought an army out here with you to fight me one on one,” I said, readying my weapons and pointing them at him. “I don’t know what you’re hoping to prove either.”
“They are to make sure you don’t run away,” he said, grinning at me. “Like Kain.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’m not sure how we start though.”
“I know,” Masataka replied as he dropped his weapon to the ground. It hit the dirt so hard that it was like a gunshot across the field.
He vanished from sight, and I whirled around, swinging the twin blades of Shirajirashii in an arc at the space behind where I’d been standing. But instead of appearing behind me, like he’d done every other time, he appeared well… behind me. But the behind me that would have been in front of me, if I hadn’t spun.
His fist lashed out, cleaving through the air and crashing into my left shoulder. Pain shot through my left arm. Set slipped from my grip. It spun off across the dirt, kicking up debris as it tumbled end over end. Murmurs went up from the crowd as I dropped to the ground, avoiding his foot as it lashed out at my kidneys. I rolled in the dirt as his foot came down on the spot where I’d been.
I scrambled to my feet and pointed my katana at him… only he was grinning. “What are you going to do with that?” he asked, making a flippant gesture toward Isis. “That weapon has all the stopping power of a goldfish.”
Which… was true… my wakazashi, Set, was now halfway across the field. It was the one that had all my offensive attacks. Had he done this on purpose?
Masataka snapped his fingers, and the ground beneath me exploded. I threw myself to the side as huge spikes of stone burst from the earth.
“You know what’s interesting about you and Dirge?” he asked, striding toward me. Every single time his feet touched the earth, more stalagmites exploded from the ground so that I had to keep darting around in order to avoid them.
“What?” I screamed as I leapt at him only to be cut off by an explosion of stone. I fell backward on my ass and rolled to the side as a freaking mountain of pointy rock erupted beneath me.
“You never did learn any long range attacks,” he said with a grin. “I bet it’s why you use guns.”
“Actually…” I said, gripping Isis with both hands and whirling around to slash through another outcropping of stone. Power rippled around me and the sky above grew cloudy. “I’ve got one long range move, Masataka. You remember, don’t you?”
Masataka glanced from me to the sky overhead and screamed. He rushed toward me, no longer the calm, collected Dioscuri of a couple moments ago. His teal eyes were suddenly wild as he sprinted at me, hands curled into claws.
“Shikuhakku,” I said, the word slipping past my lips like a winter storm. Above us, crimson clouds swirled into existence. Masataka skidded to a stop a few feet in front of me, looking overhead in horror. “I don’t think you’ll find any cover here, Masataka.” I took a step toward him as the sky above began to bleed. Sanguine tears fell from the sky, turning the ground into bloody mud. “You’re not scared, are you, Masataka?”
“No!” he screamed, diving toward me. He hit me in the chest with his shoulder, and the force of it knocked my breath from my lungs. Isis went spinning across the dirt as his fist came down. My head snapped back under the force of the blow as red rain fell, pelting us.
Masataka’s eyes twitched as the fluid spattered across the back of his head, seeping into his hair and rolling down his cheeks like scarlet tears. “No!” he screamed, and it was the sound of a wounded animal. His fist lashed out again, catching me in the mouth. My lips broke apart in a spray of blood as he lifted his fist once more.
I smiled at him, my teeth a macabre canvas, and reached out to him. My fingers touched his cheek as he shuddered. “Don’t fight it, Masataka,” I cooed. “This is happening.”
He fell forward, eyes rolling up in his head until I could only see the whites. His Vajra pulsed, turning every shade of the rainbow as it tried to fight off the effects of my magic, only I didn’t think it could. The Vajra could ward off the red rain, sure, but not what had already hit his skin and seeped inside. It wa
s like trying to cover a raging river with a beaver dam.
“You think you’ve won,” Masataka said, his voice strangled. He raised himself and pulled back his fist.
“No,” I said as his pain washed over me like a wave of sorrow. It sucked me in, dragged me down, and smashed into me. I tried to close my eyes, tried to ward it off as he fell forward on top of me, crushing me with his weight. His head hit the dirt next to my cheek, and I could feel his breath hot on my neck. “I think we’ve both lost,” I spat as everything turned scarlet, and I was sucked into his memory.
Chapter 12
“Dirge is dead,” Masataka murmured. His voice was so low that he made almost no sound at all. “She’s dead… dead…”
I looked around. Sconces burned along the grey stone walls, casting dancing shadows across the slate floor. Huge crimson curtains were pulled down over immense windows so that no outside light entered the room. What little furniture there was, a couple chairs and an old desk, were all misshapen angles and scarred wood. I wasn’t actually in his memory, so it wasn’t necessarily all real. This was Masataka’s hell, and as I watched him rock back and forth in the middle of the floor, I wasn’t quite sure what to do.
The problem with using Shikuhakku was that it forced those hit by the rain to relive their worst memories and greatest fears… and it forced me into those memories along with them. Excluding the Queen of the Hot and Bright, I’ve only used Shikuhakku one other time. When I was a young girl and Masataka tried to stab me through the chest. I had used it on him… I’d seen this memory before.
Masataka took a deep breath, his fingers curling around the twin blades of Shirajirashii, digging into their hilts. In an instant, his entire reason for existing had evaporated. In an instant, the woman he had followed was gone.
“She’s dead…” he said the words aloud to give them a substance that seemed unattainable. “She’s dead…” he said it once more, his voice only an empty shell.
He was unshaven, though that didn’t mean much since he didn’t need to shave very much anyway. He was haggard, his gaunt cheeks sucked inward against the bone, teal eyes dulled by dried tears and accrued minerals.
I knelt down next to him as his thoughts filled my head. Across from him there was a ceremonial plaque, it was to be displayed on the statue they were erecting. Until it was completed it was supposed to be placed in the main hall, but he had neglected to put it up. He had neglected to put it up because she was dead.
“I want to tell someone. Let everyone know what happened, what she did for them,” he said. “But everyone who cared knows and even some who don’t care know.” He shook his head and looked down at the swords in his hands. “I’d have thought more people would be upset, but again it seemed I was wrong… Wrong like always, wrong like my family told me I was when I decided to train under Dirge Meilan.”
His father’s note of condolence sat on the floor next to him crumpled into a ball. It bore the royal seal, the emblem of the Mawara clan. It was a simple letter, meant to serve no other purpose than to serve a purpose.
“Why,” he sputtered. “Why’d you have to leave me here, alone without you?”
Things were turned around. Things were not as they should be. Other people should have died, more people should have died. All around them, people walked and in their walking and talking and living, they served as an ever present reminder to everything she had given her life.
“If I could, I’d slaughtered them all to bring you back,” he muttered. “That you are gone so they could live is not right, not fair.”
He sighed, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes and looked upward at the ceiling. Wooden planks fastened to a wooden frame and covered with plaster filled his vision.
There were a million ways to go he had been told, and this was a war. “A war,” he said mimicking his brother, Mitsoumi, “by definition involves casualties, if not of lives, then of hearts and souls. A war involves the end of the world as it is known. For a new phoenix to be born, the old one must die to allow its ashes to form. Sometimes it is better, sometimes it is worse. Sometimes it does nothing more than show you how much everything is the same only it hurts a whole hell of a lot more. Sometimes… sometimes, there is no sometimes at all.”
Shirajirashii was heavy in his hands. The blade had, inexplicably, been recovered after the blast by Joshua. Now he had them, only he did not know why. He only knew that he could not forgive the weapons.
How could he forgive them? They had let her die. How could he forgive himself? He had let her die. He could not forgive those responsible for Dirge’s death, he could never. If he let go for even a single second, she would be forgotten. He could not forget her, and at the same time, he could not avenge her. Mounting a war against demons and their master was impossible. It had been impossible for the legendary Dirge Meilan, how could he do it?
“You could do anything, Masataka. I know you have a strange infatuation with joining those underdogs, but with her gone, you can now truly shine. You could become a Hyas Tyee. Masataka, your position with Dirge makes you a shoe-in to lead her squad. In some ways, I envy you, little brother.”
Those were the words spoken by his older brother, Mitsoumi. They were etched into his brain with the red hot poker of the tongue. He remembered his angry, tear-filled response declaring that he would give it all up in a heartbeat to have her back again. But, Mitsoumi was right. There were many things he must do now.
He must make it so that her soul could rest in peace and that meant only one thing.
He must track down Jiroushou Manaka and make him pay.
He must end the sick cycle that had surrounded her life. If that meant he had to kill a lot of people, then so be it. If it meant he had to abandon his duties as a Dioscuri, then so be it.
“Masataka!” Warthor’s voice snapped him from his revelation, and he looked up. Warthor was standing in the open doorway.
“You,” he said.
“Yes, me,” Warthor said.
“What are you doing here?” Masataka asked, standing and walking over to the door.
“Getting you,” Warthor replied with a shrug.
“For what end?” Masataka asked, eyebrows knitting together.
“I have a proposition for you.”
“I’m not interested,” Masataka replied, moving to shut the door. There was a sharp jerk as the door halted its movement, and Warthor stepped into the cozy entree way of the Royal Mawara Clan.
“What aren’t you uninterested in?” Warthor asked, one hand rubbing his chin.
A loud sigh escaped Masataka’s lips before he spoke. “In being a Hyas Tyee. I don’t want Dirge’s spot.”
Laughter exploded from Warthor. Tears rolled down his face, and he fell to his knees, holding up a hand as though to say give me a minute.
“What’s so funny?” Masataka asked curiously.
“The idea of you being a Hyas Tyee. To think… you…” More laughter.
“So…” Masataka tested the waters carefully, dipping his toe in as if not only unsure of the temperature but whether or not there were sharks as well. “Why wouldn’t I be a good Hyas Tyee?” Masataka shook his head. “And what do you want anyway?”
“Someone like you could never become a Hyas Tyee. You’re much too… pathetic. Do you think Dirge would sit here bemoaning your death or would she go out there and do her duty? You just sit in this house all day whining. A Hyas Tyee wouldn’t do that. A Hyas Tyee would be out there doing something,” Warthor said, turning his eyes on Masataka.
Masataka tightened his fists, rage swirling about him. Had he really betrayed Dirge by lamenting her death? What would she have done in a similar situation? If anything, from the moment she learned she was dying, she seemed to think her own loss of life was nothing more than the passing of the tides.
“Someone needs to remember her, Warthor,” Masataka snapped.
“People do remember her, Masataka. That’s why they are building a statue out there.” Warthor’s
voice was strangely soft as he turned and looked out the window. “The city is in rubble. The outskirts are gone. Even if Manaka was actually killed, his army is out there. There’s lots of things the Dioscuri should be doing, but instead, they are building a statue for her.”
“It’s not enough,” Masataka said, reaching out and grabbing Warthor by the arm. He spun the taller man until they were facing each other. “They should be doing more! They should be bringing her back!”
“You can’t bring someone back,” Warthor said, inclining his head so that he could look at Masataka’s hand. “Dirge wouldn’t want that anyway. She made me promise not to bring her back when she died.”
“So what?” Masataka said, shoving Warthor. “I need her back. I know you have a way. You must tell me what it is. You must help me.”
“I cannot do that,” Warthor said, reaching out and awkwardly patting Masataka on the head.
“Then why are you here?” Masataka snapped, pushing Warthor’s hand away and glaring at him.
“We might be able to manage something.” Warthor looked away, staring out the window for a long time before speaking. “But there’s a problem.”
“So what’s the problem,” Masataka asked.
“You need to die,” Warthor replied, not turning around. “There needs to be a sacrifice, a royal sacrifice.”
“Okay,” Masataka replied so quickly that it nearly made my heart stop. Then Masataka turned his head toward me and narrowed his eyes. Recognition filled him as he glared at me.
“And then I got you!” Masataka screamed. “I was supposed to get Dirge back, but somehow I got you!” His voice was so loud in my face that I could barely comprehend what was going on. The scene shattered around us like fine china, splintering into haphazard fragments.
He was back on top of me, which was stupid. Instead of getting away and say… stabbing him in the face, I’d gotten distracted by the vision in his head. Now, his Vajra was glowing so brightly that I had to look away from him, shielding my eyes with my hand. The damn thing must have warded off the effects early.
Pursuit: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 4) Page 10
