by K L Hagaman
The man didn’t back down though and even had the audacity to reach out and open the flap of Lilja’s coat pocket, searching for loot.
“You look a little busted, Keeper,” he voiced in a cool quietness, as if to suggest he’d be useless to uphold such a charge if the need arose.
In a flash, as an untamed blaze of anger tore though him, and with his bad arm just to make a point, Kaden decked the soldier with a stone-like fist to the face. He felt the man’s bones give under his knuckles but had zero regret while he watched the offending soldier stumble back from his Princess to a more suitable distance.
“Kaden!” Lilja reprimanded as the wounded Tokū wobbled on weak legs, dazed as warm drippings poured from his nose. For as brazen and protective as her Keeper could be, the snap action was out of character.
The other soldier with bow still drawn, took aim at Kaden with fingers sure on the notch of his arrow, increasing the tension seconds before he meant to give the shaft flight, but he was harshly halted by a third voice—intrusive and unexpected.
“Stand down!” they bellowed in order.
Both parties looked to the newcomer. She was by no means a soldier, but she did have weapons aimed true at both sides—small caliber pistols that spoke of a technology not native of Tokū.
Based on her tattered layered robes and her overall weathered appearance, despite a youthful age and keen hazel eyes, one could safely assume she was a wanderer—a drifter with no territory of her own.
“You deaf? I said stand down,” she reminded the man with the bow. When he didn’t cater to her demand instantly, she fired off a hot round at his feet, the earth there erupting in a small plume of steaming dirt.
“I don’t miss. That was a warning—Not a pleasantry I’m known for, so I don’t recommend testing my patience any further.”
The soldier lowered his bow, and the other, nose in crimson shambles, tottered over to join him.
“You’re a disgrace to your people….and to humanity in general,” she tossed in for good measure with a wobble of her shaved head to the bleeding bastard. She’d seen how he’d behaved towards this presumed Princess and her Keeper. Men like that were nothing more than petty weaklings who mistook perverseness for power.
Kaden and Lilja exchanged a look of curiosity, but they were interrupted by a sharp demand.
“You got proof?” the wanderer ticked in their direction. “That you are who you say?”
“No—” Lilja had started to say when she was cut off by her Keeper.
“Yeah. In my bag.”
Lilja looked to him curiously, but Kaden didn’t meet her eyes.
The wanderer raised her pistol at the might-be-Keeper and cocked her head. “Then fetch. Toot sweet. M’getting itchy,” she warned of her trigger finger.
Kaden moved slowly back to the boulder and withdrew the pack. He made to loosen the cinched top when he was advised otherwise.
“Uh-uh. Bring the whole thing, blondie,” the wanderer directed. She didn’t need him pulling out his own weaponry and ridding her of her upper hand.
Kaden, ever the good listener when push came to shove, brought the pack to the girl and slowly set the offering on the ground in front of her before stepping back a safe distance for her to explore the sack’s contents freely.
One pistol still aimed true, drifting between her targets of both Wys and Tokū, she knelt down and opened the bag herself and rifled.
One of the soldiers, the one with the busted face, suddenly made a run for it in the truest and most solidifying form of cowardice. Without even looking up, the wanderer shot him square in the back—a thick pith of a sound ending things for him as the man of flawed character and poor life choices fell face first into the rocky ground.
Silence.
“S’this?” she finally asked looking up, unimpressed as she held up a golden ring. She saw nothing else that resembled identification—just some jars, scrolls, and a spot of bread that she’d helped herself to, taking a pinch off and chewing loudly.
Lilja, Kaden, and the last soldier standing, looked back from the corpse to the sharpshooter in front of them with a variety of stupors. What Lilja saw, however, made her surprised face fall.
The golden ring, flat on its top, bore the crest of the Wys—those familiar spires and river. She knew that ring.
Kaden nodded. “Read the inscription on the inside of the band.”
The wanderer held her arm out and looked down her nose at the jewelry to make out the lettering.
Lilja looked to Kaden, speechless. That was her father’s ring. How had he come in possession of it? When had he?
“Alright,” the wanderer huffed, dropping it back in the bag and moving up to her feet. “I’m an innocent until proven guilty kinda girl, so I’ll buy this for now.”
The soldier from Tokū looked back at his fallen comrade still in shock, and the wanderer took note.
“He was proven guilty,” the gun wielding girl assured him before he could get too choked up about the loss. Then with a sigh, she looked back down at the pack. “What are you doing with scrolls like that?” she questioned the Keeper.
It was a peculiar question to an interesting observation, and Kaden didn’t answer right away. He wasn’t hiding the truth, rather he was just trying to understand the intent behind this particular inquisition.
“They’re weavings,” he answered.
“Yeah. I know what they are,” she huffed as if he was stupid. “I asked what you were doing with them. Are you a weaver?”
Lilja looked warily to Kaden.
“More or less,” was his answer. Feeling the need of adrenaline passing, he was starting to realize just how much damage he’d done to his arm as a deep burn started to sear his muscles. He let the appendage hang close to his side where it wanted, shoulder turned in.
The wanderer ticked her chin up, looking him over first, sizing him up properly and unabashed, and then the Princess. “Since when do the Wys care about the Tokū mining in their own territory?” she asked, sniffing out the plot. She usually didn’t care one way or another about the affairs of others, but as they were all here now and in a tangle…
She seemingly sensed the man from Tokū moving uneasily and pulled back the hammer of her pistol with a deft click as her way of telling him to reconsider any pending foolishness.
“They’re collecting stones—magic opals. There are rumors as to what they’re planning on doing with them,” Lilja shared.
“Huh,” the wanderer kicked out in a puff of breath before looking to the remaining soldier. “That true?” she queried in a curious sort of interest.
He nodded slowly.
“What for?” she pressed, looking at the soldier over the sight of her pistol’s barrel. The man looked like a deer caught in a spotlight.
“Tick-tock, tick-tock,” she sounded off quickly, miming the rhythm with her pistol impatiently.
“We’re going to merge them,” he voiced urgently before disobedience earned him a bullet, hands held out as a useless shield of flesh.
Kaden and Lilja exchanged a look of disappointed exhaustion at the corroboration. The truth confirmed was complicated for a vast number of reasons.
“Whoa,” the wanderer sounded off in a chuckle born of uncomfortable intensity. “I see why you’re here then,” she gave the Princess and her Keeper.
“But only to better protect the magic!” the soldier felt the sudden urge to spit out.
All eyes landed back on the Tokū in a mingle of confusion, curiosity, and wariness.
“Protect it?” Kaden voiced in a tone demanding he explain.
“I’ll allow it,” the wanderer spoke of the Keeper’s interjection without so much as looking at him, waiting for the soldier to answer.
The Tokū licked his lips nervously, hoping the truth would win him a longer life-span. “We honor magic. We’d never abuse it. But we know other territories would. So if we could merge the stones we’ve discovered into one Master Stone, it would be easier
for us to hide and protect. Listen…” he carried on now that he had an attentive audience. “I’m not like him,” he shared, ticking his head to his fallen comrade. “He may have been an idiot, but he was harmless overall. And I’m….I’m not even an idiot,” he said through a cracked voice.
“Not even an idiot?” the wanderer repeated with a humored glance between the soldier and the Wys. “That’s his defense.”
“Well, in fairness, that gun you’ve got trained on him’s probably making him a little nervous,” Kaden had to defend with reason.
Refined words usually didn’t come easy when one feared for their next breath.
Lilja turned slowly to her Keeper, eyes a little wide as she wordlessly encouraged Kaden to be quiet.
The wanderer stared at the Keeper a moment, pistol still raised. “Your scouting sounds like the Tokū might have been right to worry about the other territories,” she balanced before he got too comfortable.
“The rumor we heard was that they were going to use a merged stone’s power to gain control of the other territories,” Lilja explained. “There are those plotting a charge against Tokū as we speak. But we wanted to find out the truth first—to avoid war if we could. That’s the only reason we’re here as we are.”
The girl’s brow bounced and she frowned, sorting out her thoughts and stacking everything said against grains of the saltiest of salts, given that she was the current judge and jury preparing to bring down sentencing. “So…it sounds like a misunderstanding that could lead to disaster,” she voiced, seeming exhausted by the repetitive stupidity of humanity.
She holstered her pistols with a flourish of her cloaks, hiding them back beneath the layers to come out empty handed.
More silence.
The wanderer looked between them all in expectancy. “What? Sounds like you all know what to do from here. You,” she said towards the Wys, “Need to go back with what’s-his-face to Tokū and sort this out before war rains down. That is, since everyone’s intentions here are so noble,” she added in mock-laced praise.
Time would tell.
Lilja and Kaden shared a look while exchanging some unsaid thoughts before they finally eyed the Tokū soldier and nodded their end’s agreement.
The nod was returned.
“Lovely. I think I’ll tag along,” the wanderer decided with a nose-scrunching wink to the fun times ahead.
Chapter Seventeen
The Lost
The newly formed group of traveling companions set out after a brief moment taken for the Wys to collect their belongings. The wanderer decided she favored the bow set of the Tokū and was currently sporting her plunder on her back alongside her own well-stuffed pack. The trip to the citadel would take more time than they had that night, but they’d decided to put some ground behind them before making a camp anywhere.
The four of them hiked down the mountain in the cool tones of evening in relative silence. Well, that was until the wanderer piped up.
“So how is it your people are planning on merging these stones exactly?” she quizzed.
Kaden’s green eyes slipped up from the ground beneath his feet to the soldier at the wanderer’s question, heart quietly invested.
“With the help of weavers,” the soldier shared with the ease of innocence. Or ignorance.
“What weavers?” the wanderer inquired, lacking just the second’s pause after the revelation that would have made her interest appear less than meaningful. But that second and the air around her made Kaden’s attention redirect towards her. There was something about it—she knew something of it already—the weavers. Something of Tokū.
“There are some that have joined our cause. The weavers know the risks better than anyone as to what would happen if the
wrong territory got their hands on this much power.”
“Hah! So you’re telling me you’ve got a bunch of weaving sympathizers who heard of the stones and who’ve voluntarily taken up the mantel of heroes?” There was so much wrong with that. So much that stunk of stupidity.
“Well…yes,” he answered nervously all the same…and apparently incorrectly.
The wanderer spun the soldier around in front of her, and nose to nose, whispered gravely in his face. “And if I don’t believe you?” She wondered what he’d do then—if the words he spoke were discovered to be the sour lies she obviously presumed they were, murder sitting easily behind her eyes.
“Who was taken from you?”
The girl paused in the snap of silence that followed the sudden and intrusive question before slowly looking over her shoulder at the Keeper. The Princess did the same.
“Someone was taken, right?” Kaden pressed on easily all the same, familiar with the pain he saw—felt from her. “My mother was stolen when I was just a boy.”
As was trending, another moment of silence blotted the air. The wanderer eventually abandoned the Tokū and walked over to Kaden with the crunch of dry, brittle leaves beneath her boots, and though at this stage of the game she’d stowed her upper hands on her hips, she still presented an air of threat—carrying an odd level of authority that Kaden was working on placing, though he was by no means intimidated by.
She was fearless. But was it the brave sort of fearlessness? Or the nothing-to-lose sort— born of distorted perceptions of reality? There was a vast difference.
“My brother,” she answered curtly. “I was young, too.” —Too young to correct the wrong-doing. But not now. She’d spent the days of her life since following the breadcrumbs of his abduction, and they’d all led her here—to Tokū.
“I’m sorry,” Kaden stated.
“I don’t need your pity.”
“You don’t have it,” the Keeper assured her with eyes honest as ever under his curls for as tender as his voice was. “Pity is different than understanding.” The line was fine to some, but not to Kaden.
There was a beat before the girl puffed an expression she’d yet to present before—one of more…sincerity, maybe? “Kaden, right? …I’m Solly.”
Her eyes played around his face a little bit. “You here to get our families back? You know they’re here, don’t you?” she murmured and prodded curiously to feel him out further—what sort he was. They were both missing family, a weaver, and they’d both ended up here. That couldn’t just be chance.
Kaden glanced at Lilja over Solly’s shoulder, but the wanderer was quick to tilt her head into his line of sight to refocus him. “I asked you. Not the pretty Princess.” He was the one that could relate.
Kaden’s eyes narrowed on Solly, not in annoyance, but in gravity—she needed to understand something. Though they were both victims of thefts most foul, being out for blood and out for justice were two entirely different things. And he could sense her lean.
“I want to get the truth.”
“The truth?!” Solly scoffed incredulously, stepping back in blatant disappointment. “That sick sack of flesh right there just lied straight to our faces. You know that. I know that,” she said, pointing at the soldier with zero propriety. “They took our families from us! That’s what the truth is, sunshine. So what do you wanna do about it, huh?” she pressed as if challenging his humanity and sense.
Kaden, collected as ever, held a patient smile just behind his eyes—a sad sort of smile. So her brother was a weaver—maybe her too. That’s how she’d known what the scrolls were. That’s why she was here…
“What do I wanna do?” he repeated tenderly, cooling the moment with his sincere thoughts. “I want to make sure I don’t mess this up, because there’s a lot more to this world than just you or I—more than just your brother and my mother.” So much as that stung, it was the truth. And if they didn’t handle the Tokū and the other territories with great care, many more brothers and mothers would be lost.
“And what’s the world ever done for you that it deserves such a courtesy?” Solly hushed dimly.
Kaden’s brow knit a little, mulling her over in a way, that for whatever reason, mad
e Solly waiver under his gaze, if only for a minute.
“Even if you truly believe the world’s given you nothing,” he shared easily, softly even, the air around him steadfast. “Acting just like it won’t help it change, will it?”
Behind them, Lilja’s eyes passed sadly over Kaden, her Keeper, her love. He’d spent his childhood being ostracized with his mother by society, only to have her taken from him in the cruelest fashion, just to find himself at the castle, being hazed and harassed by his peers, and yet…his heart and soul had remained good and kind. He’d meant what he said. And suddenly Lilja understood—she understood why he let so much seemingly roll off his back.
He knew that the only way to change the world, was to not give in to it.
“The unjust things that have happened to us don’t justify being heartless and reckless,” Kaden laid out for Solly.
For a time, the wanderer just looked at him, but behind her eyes he saw movement—a movement that mattered. In the end, she said nothing and started her walk again, passing between Lilja and the soldier without so much as a glance at them.
“You know, he’s right—” the soldier chimed in.
Solly stopped mid-step and landed her weight back on her heel to slap him upside the head and shut him up. “You’re still on my bad side,” she warned before he got too chummy. “And you are an idiot.” She wanted him to be sure of that truth before she walked off again.
Kaden came up alongside Lilja, cutting her a casual, wide-eyed look and giving a little shrug, but what he got in return was unexpected. The Princess rocked up and kissed his cheek.
“What was that for?” the Keeper murmured in the space between them with a bit of a helplessly pleased chuckle. Not that he was complaining, he just thought it an odd moment for affections.
“For being a wish and not a weed,” she whispered through softly smiling eyes.
It was an expression returned.
Before she could walk off, Kaden caught her hand and tugged her back, stealing a proper kiss from her lips, slow and steady for however brief it was before they were on their way again.
