by D. D. Miers
I recognized someone. A single figure dancing among the crowd.
“Dad?” My voice cracked as I grabbed the nearest branch for support. It had been years since my father had died at the hands of the Dark Fae, when they’d wiped our village from the map. In all the chaos, with houses burning to the ground and people being run through in the streets, he’d had only a single thought—saving Killion and me. He’d stolen a horse, threw us astride, and, with a final I love you, had slapped the horse’s hindquarters, leaving him and my mother in the dust.
I still remember, to this day, the telltale rings of the Dark Fae encircling their eyes.
He would have tried to fight, but he was a farmer, not a fighter, and I knew then, that he’d fall before we’d even reached the forest. I’d screamed then, as I wanted to now, and just as Killion had stopped me from returning to our father, Aedan now held me back from racing into certain death.
My father.
Or at least, a figure who had once been my father.
Even from a distance, I could see the thickening of his skin, as if it was covered with perpetual scabs that never healed or fell free. He wore the same clothes he had on the night I’d watched him die, but now they were reduced to mere tatters. Mud and dirt clung to him, caking his hair in ragged dreads and making his putrid skin a darker hue than normal.
It was a wonder I could tell it was him at all, but somehow, I just knew.
“Sloane.” Aedan shook my shoulders, and I spun around. Everyone watched me with grave concern. “What do you mean by dad?”
“That…” Speaking was proving difficult as I jutted a finger directly his way. “That is…” I shook my head. “That was my father.”
“Are you certain?”
Doubt was a thing I wished for as he grabbed ahold of the poor girl who screamed for her life. His nails sank into her skin, digging up flesh and fresh blood as he mutilated all that remained of her. Her voice silenced. Before long, she was barely recognizable as human at all.
I nodded slowly. My stomach clenched over and over, forcing what little I’d eaten back up. Each hard swallow I shoved back was merely a bandage over a larger wound.
Aedan turned me away from the scene, his voice gentle. “Sloane, he’s not your father any longer.”
“I know,” I breathed out, even though I wanted more than anything to run to him, just to hug him one last time. My father had never been a vicious man, and to see him like that pained me. I wasn’t certain if what we’d done for Killion would be enough, but I’d be damned if I ever let that happen to my brother.
“Shit…” I spun back to the encampment, drinking in the sight of the mass bloodthirst. “Do you realize what the old woman said?”
Fleur’s brow rose in question. “What?”
“We have to go through.”
An insane idea, but not a soul protested as we stared in contemplative silence. There really was no way around, not with how wide their camp spread around the opening in the wall.
“We’ll try to blend in,” Quinn quickly offered as he stooped down and dug his fingers into the earth. “We don’t know their level of coherent thought, but even so, there are far too many in their camp for them to remember each one.”
“You’re utterly insane,” Ronen scoffed.
“Yes.” Quinn smeared the dirt across his face, drowning out his features beneath the loamy surface. “And that’s why it will work. Unless you’ve a better idea?”
I scooped up mass amounts of dirt and smeared it across my skin as the others stared one another down in some muted fight for dominance. It clumped it into my hair and dirtied up my clothes like I’d been on an extended hunt without a bath.
Once they’d accepted the inevitable, we helped each other, making certain our backs and weapons were as dirtied as the rest of us. Once we finished, we looked worse than vagrants who hadn’t seen a wash in months. Annoyingly though, Aedan just looked more handsomely rugged rather than dumpy and dirty.
“We’ll need to keep quiet, and mimic their movements the best we can,” Aedan said. He glanced up at me from under his dirt-covered brows, causing a funny swoop in my stomach. I blocked the sensation from registering, trying to convince myself it was nerves from what we planned to do—not because I was attracted to him.
Mimicking them was easier said than done. I could still see bits of my father’s step when he moved, but it seemed every beast within the camp was injured in one way or another. Their limps and haggard steps proved it.
“Are we ready?” Fleur asked. Each of us offered her a solid nod, then we stepped clear of the trees that had shielded us and made our way directly into the heart of the camp.
The closer I drew toward my father, the harder it became to keep my eyes toward the ground. So much of him had disappeared. The dancing light that had once filled his eyes, to the strength his arms had gained from long days of laboring the fields. Now, he looked wilted and touched by evil. A horrific sight, and had it not been for Quinn and Fleur pulling away in front of me, I would have stopped and stared.
A sheen of tears clouded my vision, leaving the figures strung up and the bodies being torn apart a haze of mystery. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to rid myself of the putrid stench of death.
We traveled farther in, our hobbled steps pulling us beyond the center fire, where I felt my tears dry and my eyes pull toward a heap of what looked like trash, but that had something behind it. It was a table-like stone surface on which something sat. There was no explanation for the magnetism that called me when I drifted off course from Fleur’s leading steps. There was something there—something I needed to have.
Stepping just into my view, Aedan shook his head, his eyes conveying a vehemence most could not deny. For me, though, the pull was too strong. I couldn’t explain to him, not now in the middle of mayhem where we’d heard their voices rise in a twisted cacophony of words that barely made sense. I couldn’t tell him the draw I felt to the stone, as if one of the very runes we needed was there.
I sidestepped him, my false limp never relenting as I edged toward the stone slab. My fingers wrapped around the object on top it—a much smaller stone. Inexplicably, the sounds of wretched pleasure and cries of dark revelry dissipated.
My eyes lifted to the sight of thirty—or more—savages turning their fogged and unflinching eyes on me…on us all.
They wanted what I’d taken, and I wasn’t about to let it go.
14
“Sloane, get down!”
I barely heard Aedan’s echoed shout as a flaming spear whizzed past my head. My cheek burned, having caught the brunt of the trailing sparks on its way past. Blood trickled down my chin, but there wasn’t any time to care when we were being surrounded by these savages, by these soulless beasts that were apparently once human and now seemed to be no more than blood-lusting puppets.
We bunched together, our backs turned inward as weapons drew in a string of striking steel. We were outnumbered, any fool could see that, and my first move was still to shove the stone into my pack and tighten the straps far as they’d go. A single dagger rested in my grip, but I couldn’t have prepared for the onslaught that came.
Two rushed me, their mouths agape in dark hisses, chilling me straight to the bone. Whatever they were, their humanity had long gone, along with all sense of honor. They swung tooth and nail with any and every weapon at their disposal.
I ducked beneath the rocks they hurled and defended myself against brutal swings of knives and swords. My dagger swung, burying hilt deep in the chest of a woman whose eyes haunted me with their vacant, lifeless stare. Weaponless and gagging upon a river of her own blood, she still clawed at me, her nails digging into my arms with tortuous abandon. I pulled my blade back, my own screams of agony mingling with hers, shuddering at the thought of her dirty claws in me, even if they could do naught but make me bleed. I jammed it again, over and over, into the spaces between her ribs. Finally, after a dozen strikes, she fell in a heap.
&
nbsp; There wasn’t a chance to catch my haggard breath, not as they kept charging.
“Don’t let anyone past you!” Fleur cried out from somewhere behind me. Our circle of defense was the only thing we had.
Another figure ran full force toward me. My heart slammed into my chest when I cried out for him to stop.
My bloodied dagger trembled, the point aimed for my own father.
“Please, Dad, it’s me!” Tears streamed down my face. I felt them making rivulets through the dirt and blood plastered to my skin.
“Sloane, it’s not him!” Ronen struck from my left, his quick slash taking down an attack I hadn’t seen coming. I was so wholly focused on my father I saw nothing else, not even as Ronen continued to scream at me to listen. “He’s gone, and he’ll kill you given the chance!”
I knew he spoke the truth, but faced with my father’s flesh, I couldn’t convince myself to harm him, even as he continued to attack with a broken shovel rod. He swung, my half-hearted defense allowing him to crack me across the shoulder hard enough to cause a seething cry to slip from between my clenched teeth.
My muscles throbbed, and I tossed my blade to my right hand just as I ducked beneath his next clumsy swing. Several times over, I grabbed the end and shoved, hopeful he’d simply give up each time he tumbled to the ground in a heap.
He never did.
“Stop!” I wailed as he tossed his makeshift weapon aside and came for me once more.
I grappled with his arms, my dagger falling into the dust at my feet. He dug his nails into my flesh, and sent a crying plea from my lips.
“Kill her!” his haggard, unrecognizable voice demanded.
“Sloane,” Aedan called.
Everything dimmed around the vision of my father. His hand grasped the base of my throat, clenching me so tightly the breath my lungs wished for never came. I clawed back, the flail of my hands and solid shove of my knee into his gut bringing no pain to his eyes. I’d thought I would die at the hands of the Fae, but instead, I’d meet my end by the hands of my undead father.
The longer I struggled for breath, the more the sounds of the war raging around me dulled. Bodies that had stacked from Aedan’s endless swings faded from my vision, and my arms went slack.
Spots of black danced before my vision like dark starlight, making the sight of a sword, of Aedan’s sword, difficult to see as it jabbed swiftly between us. Already coated in a substance far darker than normal blood, it found its mark and slid cleanly between my father’s ribs, straight to where his heart lay.
He didn’t widen his eyes or have a moment of recognition where he truly saw me, his daughter, for the last time. I gained no goodbye as he fell again. The air that filled my lungs in gasping, pained breaths was welcome—and unwelcome.
I fell onto shaky legs, my dagger tugging back into my palms as my father’s body slammed to the ground. Aedan’s arm slipped around me, heaving me to my feet.
“We’ve got to go,” he bellowed. “We can’t hold off here any longer!”
Fleur barked out a command that had Aedan hauling me off over the severed bodies of tortured souls.
“This way!”
Quinn took down the last beast to stand in our way, so why did I feel such an unease as we set upon swift feet and ran, not to the city where more came for us, but toward the dark of the forest?
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” I finally said.
I shoved Aedan’s arm and ran at his side rather than flailing about under his control. He’d saved my life, the least I could do was operate on my own two feet.
Far from the glint of their firelight, we ran into uncharted territory peppered with massive trees and more of the same rocky terrain that slowed our escape. We continued, deeper and deeper, until one by one, we fell, culled by exhaustion.
“Well, we did go through it,” Fleur said.
Nervous laughter bubbled from my lips, enough to draw concerned looks from everyone. “I just saw my dad die for the second time. How many people can say that?”
Apparently, no one else.
Aedan reached cautiously toward me. “Sloane…”
“It’s fine. I’ll be fine. At least we got this—” I grasped at my back, clawing at thin air where my pack had been. That damn stone had been the entire reason we’d been attacked at all, and I’d somehow dropped it without realizing.
“My pack!” I jumped to my feet, whirling about in a last-ditch effort to find it. “Where is it? I made sure it was on tight!”
Ronen sighed. “It’s just a pack.”
“No, it wasn’t just a pack. I swear to you, that stone I picked up is one of the runes.”
“And how would you know that? You’ve never seen one before.”
I seethed. “I just know.” Unfortunately, I had no better way to explain it. “I felt…compelled by it.”
“Like you felt compelled to let your father kill you?” Ronen snapped.
I lunged for him, my forward motion halted by the sudden grasp of Aedan’s hands wrapping around my arms. “Sloane, please.”
Somehow, Aedan’s proximity calmed me, lulled me into silence.
Darius’s head shook in reproach. “Ronen, stop being an asshole.”
Surprise didn’t really wear well on Ronen’s face, but he finally relented. “Sorry, Sloane. This…alleged rune, did you get a good look at it?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I mean, it was kind of flat, with a base on one end like it could stand, and sort of rounded on the top, like an arch. But I didn’t get a chance to see anything on it.”
“Well…” Fleur jumped into action, and back up to her feet. “That’s enough to convince me to go back for it. Are the rest of you coming?”
Saying no wasn’t really an option. We checked our weapons and belts, then turned back toward the death-filled camp.
“There it is,” I whispered from our camouflaged position at the outer edge of the camp. We thought we’d killed most of the beasts, but more had flooded the space, making it just as deadly as when we’d first walked through. “Right by that fire.”
Sure enough, my pack sat out in the open, backed by a massive bonfire and surrounded by deadly thralls. Getting to it would be a straight shot—if they all simply stepped aside and let me.
“Plan? Please tell me we have a plan,” I said.
“Yes,” Fleur remarked, calm as ever. “Quinn and I will take point, Ronen and Darius will be at the sides, and Aedan will have your back. You’re in the middle, and you’ll grab the pack. The moment you get it, we run into the city.”
“That’s insane.” Darius muttered.
“Have you a better idea?”
Her question shut him up, and left me counting down the seconds until mayhem would again break loose.
“Everyone ready?”
Murmurs went up all around as everyone, myself included, drew their weapons. As a unit, we rose and charged into the fray. To say what followed was brutal downplayed the viciousness of it all.
Even in the middle of the tight formation, where my blade stayed far from biting flesh, I found myself coated in wide sprays of the thick, raven-black blood. Weapons crashed together so savagely my ears ached from their constant ringing, and through it all, my partners’ voices rang out in cries to keep their offensive moving.
Through the wall of legs and dancing of blades, I saw it—my pack, unguarded and entirely open.
“Almost there!” Quinn cried out. “One more push!”
But the onslaught was too much. He and Fleur were inundated with a barrage of attacks that left them barely holding their ground, and left me staring at the prize.
If I could just get to it…
Fleur’s blade swung across the throat of her next attacker, felling the man, and coating the ground so thickly I wondered if any dirt would remain. She tried to push forward, but two more came charging down upon her, halting her hurried defenses.
Then, I went for it.
I threw myself between their legs, tumbling in a
somersault that halted right before my pack. Elation flooded through my veins as I grabbed it and ran, straight back through the ranks of Fleur and Quinn.
“I’ve got it!” I screamed. “Run!”
Aedan ran ahead of me, his sword’s reach cutting down each attacker with a swift slice to the throat. Never had I pumped my legs harder in a last-ditch effort to survive, and I only hoped the hammering steps I heard behind me were friend and not foe.
We bolted through the open entrance of the city, beyond crumbling shacks held up by the ruins of a world past. I felt far safer running toward the outskirts of Sonola than I did running into a city populated by the Dark Fae, but under the perpetual cover of darkness in streets barely lit with lamps that flickered with a strange and unnatural glow, I wasn’t entirely certain we’d be seen anyway. Only when we’d made it deeper into the city and found ourselves alone in an alleyway littered with ruin and decay did we stop.
Ronen and Darius fell at my side, and I’d followed Aedan, but…
“Where are Fleur and Quinn?”
Darius’s head only shook in response, giving me no information at all.
“Well,” Ronen solemnly asked. “What now?”
“We go back for them.” Fleur and Quinn had saved our asses so many times that there was no way we could just leave them behind.
“We can’t.” Aedan said.
“And why not?”
“You didn’t…see?”
My creased brow swung to Ronen. “See what?”
“They’re already dead.”
15
“What? No. You’re lying.” There was no reason for me to say such a thing, but I couldn’t believe that two of the strongest fighters I’d ever known lay back there dead. Was it because of me? Was it because I’d run out of ranks and fouled up Fleur’s plan?
Ronen’s brow creased. “Why would I lie to you about that?”
“I don’t…” I had no answer. Guilt wracked me, even though I knew I couldn’t blame myself, not entirely at least. I didn’t raise those monsters and sic them on the world.
