The Darkling

by K L Hagaman

  “Kaden!” Nauraa and Lilja both shouted at the same instant as the man launched at the old weaver, fists lit like molten iron.

  Oscine gave a sick smile, chin down as she watched Kaden careening towards her from the tops of her eyes.

  She flicked a gnarled hand at him, much like she had to Masuku. “Vries!”

  Lilja’s eyes, hung on Kaden in horror, only grew wider as the weaving meant for him simply dissipated on contact—a magic made somehow visible as its essence rippled outwards from him as if he was immune to such trivial things.

  Oscine’s own face fell in a wild and confused surprise as the weaving failed. She hastily drew her hands through the air in new markings to conjure something of aid, but he was too quick.

  Unnaturally quick. He was already halfway down the corridor to her.

  “Kaden!” Lilja shouted. The energy searing from him was out of control—even she could sense that.

  “Sny!” Oscine bellowed.

  A gash tore into Kaden’s cheek, but it only served to infuriate him further, and then that was it.

  The weaver’s death was the only thing that would satiate his heart. This would end. Oscine would end.

  Kaden felt it as he stood in front of her—that push of resistance when a blade hits its mark.

  His mother’s dagger was sunken deep into Oscine’s chest.

  The weaver stood, rocking slightly against the metal in her chest as she fell slightly forward towards Kaden, mouth open in rude awakening as a trickle of blood started to fall from the corner of those parted lips.

  “All of that powa, an no sense,” she choked out in a broken whisper before Kaden pulled the blade out and the wicked weaver dropped to the floor in an unceremonious heap.

  Kaden blinked—the warm blood dripping down his face waking him somehow, and looked down at his fist, panting. He clutched the dagger as a rubied liquid clung to the steel. He’d hated Oscine. Hated her beyond what hate had true strength for. And he’d cleansed her from the earth.

  The radiating light of his eyes started to fade as that reality began to sink in—that Oscine was really no more. With every relieved breath, his beating heart became more and more his own. Eventually, his eyes eased back into their own brilliant shade of green and all about him settled.

  A shade of green that caught movement and had him glancing back up to find Masuku, though still, to be of his own animation again. Oscine’s weaving had dispelled at her death.

  Nauraa helped Lilja off the floor.

  Dulamah, Colvin, and the Faithful left, backing out of the corridor to take off to who knew where outside, done with whatever it was happening there.

  “Uncle,” Lilja called as she stood with Nauraa’s help. “It’s over,” she seemed to plead with him to understand.

  The weaver was gone. The stones were safe. The Accordance was coming.

  “Please…” Lilja hushed on for the madness to end as she swallowed a swell of emotion brought on more so by Kaden than anything.

  And he knew it, too. Her ocean felt the change in tides as he looked over his dead shoulder at her.

  He cast his eyes away when she made to catch them though, and tossed his mother’s blade on the stone ground by Oscine’s empty body.

  Masuku looked at his niece for a moment, expressionless, and then shook his head. He knew his fate if he gave in now. A life of imprisonment rather than the life of glory he craved still—the seeds Oscine planted having taken firm root regardless of her presence anymore. She’d spawned another minion of greed with a delusion of grandeur.

  There was still time, Masuku thought. There was still a way that he could restore his fate.

  “Resisting change only creates more sorrow, Lilja,” Masuku imparted in what seemed to be genuine advice. She needed to understand that. Her father would have testified to that.

  Kaden’s gaze snapped to the man—a source of his Love’s pain, and an energy not his own once more kindled behind his eyes. A vicious energy.

  Masuku felt the heat of the glare and chanced a look at Kaden warily before he too, finally, backed out of the room to retreat for now with the rest of his Faithful.

  Kaden cast his eyes low with a heavy blink, shaking something out of his head that he knew in his heart didn’t belong. That he didn’t think was a part of him. That he didn’t want to be a part of him.

  Hurt, disappointment, sorrow, fear…it was all heavy in Lilja’s heart. Though the Faithful may not have gotten the stones, Tokū had fallen—good men and women had died and who was left would return with their already broken hearts to find their homes destroyed.

  And Kaden…what had fallen over him?

  Nauraa’s arm tightened around Lilja in an embrace of comfort only mothers seemed gifted to provide, and the Princess found her head falling to rest on the woman’s shoulder for a second as she let out a shaky breath to collect herself for the moments ahead. She knew queen Aalin and the rest of the Accordance would be coming.

  This was far from over, and there was much to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Weakness

  Tokū was an odd sort of quiet that night. Many had gathered in what was left of their homes to mourn those that had been lost. The following day would be spent clearing the land of the fallen and laying them to rest.

  And then, they would rebuild.

  It was the way of civilization…when it lacked civility.

  The forces of the Accordance, a set of soldiers from different territories joined as one, had arrived shortly after Masuku and the Faithful had fled, and they would remain until the Tokū were on their feet again or they were summoned to a greater need by the Accordance itself or by their own home territory.

  As for Princess Lilja, she could now, and would need to, return to her own kingdom to rebuild there. To try and unite what Masuku had broken apart. The Wys would have much rebuilding to do themselves in many, many ways.

  And as for those Faithful…they would be hunted by the Accordance now—seen as enemies of every territory. Their actions would not go unpunished. They would be smoked out of whatever hole they’d found to hide in. They would not be allowed to carry on.

  The stones, both mined and those still burrowed in the mountain, were to be gathered together by order of the Accordance for their fate to be handled jointly with the other territories, so that none might rule over another.

  But the son, the Keeper, the weaver, the Towen…Kaden, was currently standing bare-chested in front of the window in his room, bathed—cleaned from the soils of the day. He’d literally washed blood from his hands, though its memory would stain his heart for forever. He knew that for certain as he stared out into the night.

  His arm was gone. Officially, it seemed. It hung as nothing more than a lifeless, black gnarl from his likewise darkened shoulder. He’d done too much…

  He’d gone too far.

  Too far…

  “All of that powa, an no sense.” The words echoed eerily between his ears, but a knock at the door had him drawing out of his self-loathing thoughts with a few hardy blinks.

  It was Lilja. He’d felt her coming down the hall. He’d sensed her hesitancy at the door. He could feel her worry.

  “S’unlocked,” he called a bit listlessly.

  After a brief pause, the flexing door hinges sounded and Lilja came in to close it softly behind her with a click of privacy.

  Kaden turned at the window, and leaned back against its ledge to face her. His good arm reached over and braced his dead elbow in a relatively normal and casual stance for as ravaged as he looked.

  And for a time, the pair simply watched each other, letting…feelings and thoughts breathe between them before any words came.

  Lilja, cleaned up as well and in attire more Tokū than Wys, closed the space between them as she looked up into the face of her ocean. He looked…far away. That place he took himself when he thought he could spare someone else grief by carrying the world himself.

  And Kaden, he looked b
ack down at her, trying to read her eyes. For all he could feel from her, there were still galaxies he couldn’t see.

  “Are you alright?” he hushed of her side, letting his eyes fall there though he could see nothing.

  Lilja faintly nodded, but didn’t anchor there.

  “Are you?” she returned quietly.

  Kaden cast a short glance at his shoulder, but no sooner had he, than Lilja caught his face with a tender hand, her thumb brushing his marred cheek, to draw his eyes to her.

  “That’s not what I mean,” she said of his shoulder. She’d meant his heart. His mind.

  Kaden’s brow knit, and with a lick to his lips and flutter of a few blinks, he sniffed, not really knowing the answer. And in the end, what came from him was a shrug.

  Not a shrug of attitude, but a shrug of that from someone who felt lost.

  “Kaden,” she hushed up at him, eyes filled with love and worry as she let her hand slip back from his cheek to the nape of his neck to hold him closer.

  “Oscine was—” she started in means to help him.

  “Was a terrible woman who I killed out of anger and hatred rather than allow her to face justice from the Accordance,” he finished. He’d acted as a vigilante. What he’d done had gone beyond an act of self-defense and battle.

  Lilja’s brow darkened a little, defensive of him. “And what makes you think what she got wasn’t justice?” she wondered.

  Kaden flicked her a sad smile. “Lilja…if we kill in battle, it’s because it’s battle and we have no choice. But Oscine…it was just her. Standing in front of me.” Taunting him. “And I—” he stopped himself short, working his lips as he closed his eyes to take a breath.

  “And you what?” Lilja wondered, urging his heart to speak that she might hear it and find a way to help.

  “And I didn’t have to kill her,” he told her quietly before opening up his gaze to her again. “…I wanted to.”

  What did that make him? His eyes searched hers for the answer, but all he saw was his own mangled reflection.

  “Kaden,” Lilja hummed softly.

  “My mother asked me what would rule my heart, Lilja…”

  “Kaden,” his Keeper said once more, this time to pull him back from the direction this was going.

  “And I chose wrong,” he whispered anyway, shame and heartache swimming in his glistening eyes. “I chose cruelty and fear. I lacked strength, my moon,” he went on, almost apologetically. “Strength of heart and mind.”

  “You have, Kaden Finton Ashe, the strongest heart I’ve ever felt,” Lilja told him in a grave whisper that he might understand the truth in her words. She didn’t want him to question that. Not ever. He was a wish. Not a weed.

  “Does it not take more strength to forgive than it does to take vengeance?” he asked, eyes still trailing about hers.

  “My ocean…” Lilja didn’t know the words to ease his heart as she combed her fingers through his curls. But sometimes words held no remedy. Sometimes, it was stillness. It was simply standing with someone where they were, that they might know they’re not alone.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into her keep to hold him better.

  Kaden gave easily and folded into her care, feeling lost and broken.

  No matter how foul, no matter his reasons, he’d killed Oscine because he’d felt like it. Something in him could do that. Was that.

  In truth—a truth he’d forever keep as a secret in his heart buried beneath shame—was that he’d always felt it. That darkness breathing somewhere in some dim recess of his core. Somewhere deep where he’d ignored it, dismissed it, thinking it not real or of any consequence to his true being.

  Harmless.

  But it had taken over.

  And now it scared him.

  “Listen to me,” Lilja started, turning her face into his neck. Her breath was warm there and Kaden’s eyes lulled shut for a moment of peace.

  “Your heart is true. It is. I would not ever have you doubt that. Oscine was wicked. And whether justice came by your hand or another’s, it would have come. We’re all fallible, Kaden. One action, one error in your eyes, doesn’t define you. You are not one moment.”

  When he was quiet, Lilja leaned back a little to see his face. It was streaked with a single, tired tear stain. But his expression held still for as unsettled as his heart was.

  “I need to be in Shinrin. I need to figure this out. I need to understand what’s happening and how to control it,” he breathed, broken and afraid.

  Even if he could put the scene with Oscine aside, he’d decimated an entire hall of soldiers—men he knew, without even meaning to. What if Lilja had been standing? What if he’d killed her?

  In that moment, even if her face hadn’t said as much, Kaden could feel the truth in her heart. “I know,” she promised that she understood. He needed help.

  “But not tonight. Tonight…let’s just…” she trailed off, wishing for so much. For a different time. For less of the world around them and more of each other.

  Kaden’s brow rose, and with it, a coy, albeit tired grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. His forehead fell against hers without need of her finding the words to end the sentiment. He understood. He felt it—the desire.

  “Let’s just…be,” he willed.

  She granted his wish with a sweet kiss.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Father

  The next morning, sometime after the sun had risen, Lilja stirred. She took in a deep breath of morning—the air cold and catching her breath in a plume causing her to wake more fully and she looked around her with a shiver.

  The Princess was wrapped in Kaden’s arm, sitting on his lap, pressed against his chest in a chair of his room beneath a blanket where they’d fallen asleep together the night before, talking of nonsense for the sake of time together.

  She looked over his quiet face as he slept on—the handsome lines of his jaw, the touch of sun lingering on his cheeks from summer, and that ridiculously golden hair as it curled about his brow and temples.

  Her eyes trailed down his neck carefully to his shoulder, half covered by the fleece they’d been tucked under, and took in its new color. His tan flesh fell through an ombre effect into a faint purple, and then a darker shade of rich plum beneath mangled silver scarring. And from there, though she couldn’t see it at the moment, she knew the color bled into a blackness that, for as much as such a color signified death, did not seem to bring rot to his arm. It must have been something the Towen had done. Some magic sustaining the limb somehow, though it was otherwise useless to him.

  “Haleth is going to be mad at me,” Kaden mumbled groggily.

  Lilja looked up from his shoulder to him

  and found his eyes watching her. He had been for some time, actually, letting her explore him quietly.

  “Well, if it’s any consolation, she won’t be the first person you’ve made cross and I highly doubt she’ll be the last,” Lilja gave soundly as she leaned forward with a wry grin and kissed his cheek.

  Kaden gave a sleepy smile.

  It earned him another kiss.

  “Does it hurt at all?” Lilja wondered more seriously as she retreated a bit, fingers light on his shoulder.

  Kaden’s eyes swept about hers and he shook his head softly.

  “You really are a terrible liar,” she hushed quietly to him.

  “I am what I am,” he sniffed playfully as he rubbed an eye with his palm.

  It was then a quiet rap came at the door that had them both looking up.

  Lilja took in a deep breath and rolled her head to crack her neck before she got up from their little nest, missing it already—the closeness of her ocean and its warmth. But the world would not wait on them. It never had. It was cruel that way—how it just kept spinning without regard to those it spun.

  Kaden followed in rising from the chair as life outside called to them, feet shuffling across the cold stone floor as he made his way to fetch the do
or. Lilja waited in the wings.

  He flipped the lock and cracked the door, peeking out at the visitor before pulling it wide in welcome.

  “Mom,” Kaden greeted with a faint smile, but it carried behind it a painful sadness—that suffocating shame.

  “My babe,” she smiled softly and sweetly all the same. But her eyes caught Lilja behind him and she straightened a little with a different sort of smile. “I hope I’m not interrupting.” She’d meant to catch him at an unclaimed hour—she needed time to speak with him away from all company.

  Kaden was working his hand through his hair, giving his head a morning scratch when he froze and looked over his shoulder. “Hm?” he wondered, until his eyes landed on his Princess. “Oh! Oh, no…You’re fine. Come in,” he welcomed again with a flush of his neck as he dropped his hand and cleared his throat.

  Lilja tried not to laugh and bowed her morning greeting to Nauraa. “I should actually be going,” she excused herself. She needed to speak with the Accordance and queen Aalin more about the day ahead.

  “I’ll catch up,” Kaden promised.

  “No rush,” Lilja returned, bowing her head once more to them both as she parted and closed the door behind her to leave them to it.

  For a minute, mother and son just stood in the silence, until Kaden moved back to the chair, pulled the blanket from the seat and tossed the quilt over its back to clear a spot for his mother to sit.

  Nauraa sat with a thank you and looked up at him, watching as he turned his back to her to slip a shirt on over his dead arm, snaking his head and his other well-arm through after it, before turning around clothed and taking a seat on the edge of his unused bed.

  But he remained rather quiet as he looked at the floor between them, struggling with his thoughts and words. When he braved looking up and caught her eyes, the look he found had his heart settling.

  Green as his, they were gentle and peaceful—patient and kind. His mother bore no judgement.

  “I’m sorry,” he breathed quietly, brow risen in sincere remorse.

  “No…no, my precious babe. I’m sorry,” she returned gently with a flare of pain.