by Alana Serra
“Traditionally the guardians are like lieutenants,” Wesley said, drawing her attention. “As you assemble forces, we help command them. That’s why we each have vastly different specialties.”
That made sense, though Rhia had no plan of commanding troops. She couldn’t even imagine it.
“But you’re still bound to me… not Aeredus?”
It was a risky question. If any of them truly were loyal to the Dark God, she would pay for her impudence. But the general mood about him seemed frosty at best, with Liam’s jaw tightening more and more every time his name was even mentioned. Perhaps they were all more aligned than Rhia would have thought. She’d have to observe them to be sure of it.
Then maybe they could help her.
“Unofficially, yes. We’re here to serve you, but we’re not exactly bound to you. Not yet,” Wesley said.
Oh, she didn’t like the sound of that. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she remembered her pact with Aeredus. “What does that mean?”
“It means every Dark Lady before you has pacted with each of her guardians, benefiting both her and them,” Liam began. “You accept us into your service, we devote ourselves to you, and we both get something out of it.”
He spoke so callously, as if this were some kind of mutual arrangement where they shared a bed for the sole purpose of sex. A flush stole across her cheeks and she looked away from him, hating that he could fluster her so.
“When we pact, our abilities help augment yours,” Wesley explained. “You’ll gain new powers, and you’ll be able to know where we each are at any moment, and how we’re faring. We’ll also be unable to lie to you.”
Liam snorted, but said nothing, feeding another stick to the fire.
“That only sounds like it benefits me,” she said, her brow furrowing. “What’s in it for you?”
“You can aid us with your magic, provide us powers as well,” Karak said, “but in truth? My hope is that you’ll be more invested in our individual plight. I’m sure we all have things we want to accomplish.”
“That would be my hope, too,” Wesley said.
Once again, Liam revealed nothing. He wasn’t even looking at her now, his focus on the fire, his gaze distant.
That was fine. She didn’t care to know any more about him. She was curious, but she wasn’t going to beg. And if they expected her to take part in revenge plots or anything so heinous, she didn’t want to know about it, anyway.
Rhia drew the fur tighter around herself, considering their words. She still wasn’t comfortable having men around to essentially do her bidding, but it was actually good to know there was something in it for them. While she believed people could be altruistic—Desmond certainly was—these were men who served Aeredus, willingly or not. There was always going to be something in this for them.
All that said, the idea of making another pact made her queasy. Bile rose in her throat as she recalled the way Aeredus had toyed with her. The price he’d exacted before she’d even fully known what she was getting herself into.
“What happens if I don’t pact with you?” she asked, her gaze meeting Wesley’s, as he seemed to be the most knowledgeable.
“We’ll all be weaker for it, but it’s your choice.”
He’d paled some, and she could tell from his pinched expression that he didn’t like the idea much. Whether he’d actually honor her choice was anyone’s guess, but she imagined Karak at least would be on her side.
For his sake, she offered an explanation. “Aeredus fucked me over in our pact,” she explained unflinchingly. “I’m not eager to enter into another any time soon.”
“Well, that makes two of us.” Liam’s words were spoken with an edge of biting humor, but there was a darkness in his eyes as they met hers again.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Karak assured her, his tone soothing. “If ever you’re ready.”
It was obvious Wesley wasn’t thrilled with the sentiment, but he nodded as well. “I think we all felt forced into the pacts we made with Aeredus. I don’t want to do the same to you.”
For evil men, they all seemed to be surprisingly… nice. Well. Two of them were nice. Liam was something else entirely, but at least she could content herself with the knowledge that he wasn’t interested in pacting with her, either.
She sat by the fire for a time, her eyelids growing heavy. It was so tempting to just sleep, but as she snapped herself out of it, she realized there was one more question she needed them to answer.
“Where are we going?”
“Ah. If you hadn’t intended to become the Dark Lady, I guess you wouldn’t know,” Wesley said, reaching a hand up to rub at his neck.
That woke her significantly. She looked between them, none of the men seeming eager to meet her gaze. “Know what?” When answers weren’t forthcoming, she narrowed her eyes at Karak. “Know what?”
“We’re taking you to Ebonhold.” The name didn’t register with her, and Karak must have seen that in her face. He continued unprompted. “It’s the fortress Dark Ladies have used for centuries. At the heart of Aeredus’ domain.”
Chapter 10
Her expectations for what Aeredus’ lands and people might be like had proved wrong so far, the tales she’d heard as a child now seeming laughably far from reality. But as they approached Ebonhold, the keep the Dark Lady was meant to occupy proved to be exactly what Rhia would have thought it to be.
It was made of obsidian or onyx—she wasn’t entirely sure—with black stone cobbled into thick walls in various states of disrepair, ivy crawling up the sides like some kind of malicious creature. The fortress rose into four impossibly tall spires that likely served as lookout towers, though the presence of a ballista at one of them told her they’d been used to defend the place before, as well. For all the good it had done. In addition to crumbling walls, one of the towers was half-destroyed, the top missing as if some great winged beast had swooped down and picked it up in its talons.
A thick tangle of razor sharp brambles barred passage from the road, and while it had long since dried up, a moat provided yet another barrier to reaching the fortress proper. Something glimmered in the fading sunlight, a shiny black carapace catching Rhia’s attention, and she saw a massive lizard-like creature ambling along in the moat.
“This place is absolutely ridiculous,” Rhia muttered under her breath as Liam led them around the thicket. “It screams ‘evil lair.’”
“The previous Dark Ladies weren’t exactly subtle,” Wesley said, the corner of his lips twitching into a smirk.
“Not to your liking, princess?”
It’d only been two days, and she was already tired of Liam. Oh, he was a treat to look at. She’d watched him surreptitiously, especially when they’d stopped by a creek the previous day and he’d splashed water over his face, the droplets rolling down to wet his shirt. He was what Rhia would call “traditionally handsome” in the same way Desmond was, with chiseled features, a strong jaw, and rippling muscles she found herself wanting to run her tongue across. That short-cropped red hair only seemed to lend him an air of mischief, the faint smattering of freckles on his face making her wonder if he had them everywhere, and what it might take to find out.
But his personality was absolutely atrocious. He had no tact whatsoever and spent the entire journey deliberately trying to goad her. Though he said he would serve her like the others, he seemed to take no pleasure in it. Liam was the only one of them—aside from herself—who was absolutely against pacting, and in his case, she imagined it was just because he didn’t want to be tied to her in such a way.
“I’ve lived in far worse places than this,” she said tersely. “You haven’t seen the state of the orphanage in Esrinas. But yes, keep teasing me about being too high-maintenance.”
That shut him up. To Rhia’s surprise, he actually looked a little contrite, if not outright remorseful. She hadn’t even intended to play the orphan angle. She didn’t like people knowing where she came fro
m, especially people she didn’t know well. But Liam had a way of provoking her into the truth.
“It’ll be easy enough to fix up,” Wesley said, stopping his gelding at the opening in the brambles. “I believe Aeredus has given you the ability to make your fortress whatever you would like it to be.”
She blinked at that, staring at the man as if expecting him to reveal he was joking; trying to make a fool of her. Aeredus—the Dark God, the Dread Tyrant, King of the Damned—had given her the power to drain life from those around her. He’d given her the ability to create deadly, explosive charges of dark magic on command. And he’d also given her the power of… interior design?
“You’re joking.”
“Not at all.” He dismounted, stroking the gelding’s mane before withdrawing an apple from his saddlebags. “Part of being a Dark Lady means knowing that adventurers will eventually come for you.”
He said it so casually, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Rhia stared at him, then looked at the others. Liam’s expression was unreadable, though grim enough to tell her Wesley was being honest. Karak’s brows were drawn together in a furrow and he looked at her with sympathy.
“I’m sorry. Adventurers will come for me? That’s not something that was mentioned to me.”
“Because it’s common sense,” Liam said, his jaw tight. “You are Aeredus’ pet. No matter what you do, the guild will believe we’re here conjuring up the most terrible evils the world has ever known.”
“Ignore him,” Wesley said, rolling his eyes. “He’s being dramatic.”
“I’m being realistic. If the rest of you want to live in a land of delusion, you’re welcome to it. In the meantime, I’m going to prepare us for the inevitable raid.”
Her head was spinning. She’d done absolutely nothing in the name of Aeredus yet aside from trying to help a group of villagers deal with an orc problem that they created. But apparently the Adventurers’ Guild already hated her simply because she wore the mantle?
It was insane, but… was it not so different from what she would have felt? Had she been inducted into the guild, she wouldn’t have thought twice about hunting down a Dark Lady and her guardians. They were evil incarnate, put on this earth to do Aeredus’ bidding and nothing more.
Why shouldn’t someone think the same of her? Why shouldn’t Meliva show up at her doorstep with an army of adventurers ready to put her head on a pike?
“They won’t even make it past the portcullis, Lady,” Karak said fiercely, baring his teeth and those stubby tusks. After a beat, he corrected himself. “Rhia.”
She shook her head, feeling as if the gnarled fortress was going to collapse on top of her at any moment. “Let’s just… go inside.”
Liam and Karak took out their weapons to cut through the thick bramble while Wesley conjured some small, imp-like creatures that seemed to surface from the earth itself. They glowed a red-purple color, their little faces so ugly they were almost cute, their pudgy bellies making them look far more harmless than they probably were. Tiny wings barely propelled them, little hooved feet pattering over the ground as they followed Wesley’s direction, gnawing at the tangle of dead vines.
Even with the three of them working, it was taking longer than Rhia liked. She closed her eyes, imagining a manifestation of dark magic that could wrap around the thicket and tear it apart. When her eyes opened, she saw thin tendrils extending from her own hands, reaching out to grip the thorny debris. She could practically feel her fingers closing around it, but there was no pain, and the only force she exerted to pull it apart was a force of will.
Between the four of them, they managed to clear a path wide enough for the horses to fit through easily, as well as—at Wesley’s suggestion—most sizes of merchant cart and wagon. The moat was the next thing to conquer, for though it was bone dry and would have been easy to cross under normal circumstances, Rhia wasn’t keen on sharing space with that strange lizard-beast.
“So… is there any chance that creature I saw is on our side?”
“If it’s sapient, maybe,” Liam said. “Use your powers in range of it and we’ll see how it responds.”
“If it moves to attack, we’ll kill it,” Karak said, his axe still hefted in his hands.
Liam, meanwhile, simply leapt across the gap and started fussing with the winch to try and raise the portcullis. His muscles flexed and strained, his teeth clenched, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Need some help with that, princess?” she taunted. He only grunted in response. “You’ll have to wait until I find out whether or not this lizard thing wants to kill me.”
Walking the edge of the moat, Rhia considered what she should even do. The first thing that came to mind was… ridiculous, honestly, but as the beast lumbered into view, she conjured glowing purple lights in the sky before her, making them sparkle and shimmer.
Double-lidded eyes took in the sight of it, unblinking. Its long mouth opened, revealing a purple tongue and rows of sharp teeth. For a moment Rhia thought the creature was going to charge her, but it seemed utterly transfixed. Karak stood at her side, axe at the ready. Wesley’s imps were waiting, too. But when the lights dissipated, the creature merely peered at her, as if waiting for something.
“Can it understand me?” she whispered to Wesley.
“One way to find out.”
What did she say to a lizard beast? It stood there, the frills on the side of its face billowing outward, the sack beneath its chin puffing out, and Rhia was at a complete loss for words.
“Uh… if you want to serve me, you can… stay here, I guess. And guard this trench. But if we’re going to have a problem, I’ll have my guardians kill you now.”
It made a trilling sound in the back of its throat, its head cocking to one side like a puppy. Like Wesley’s demonic little pets, it was strangely cute. But that sack beneath its chin was glowing red, then bright orange. It reared back and made a sound like it was retching, and Karak leapt in front of her.
“Get back!” he called, swinging his axe around.
“Wait!”
Wesley’s voice rang out just before the lizard beast blasted flame into the ground. Instead of sending it toward she and Karak like Rhia expected, it walked backwards on its hind legs and directed the fire down into the trench, coating it in a magma-like substance that crusted into thick black rock with bubbling lava beneath.
The sack depleted, and the creature dropped back down to four legs, its chest puffing out in its exertion. It looked at Rhia, and she swore it was seeking her approval.
She blinked, then came up with some words she didn’t quite trip over. “Good job. More of that, and I’ll… get you some meat? Goddess, I have no idea what you even are, let alone what you eat.”
“I can do some research,” Wesley said as Karak slowly put away his axe.
“That would be great.” She gave him a genuine, grateful smile and warmth spread through her as he smiled back. “If this thing might grow in size, it will be a good deterrent.”
Like her very own dragon. Without the wings. In reality it seemed to be some kind of overgrown fire salamander, but so long as it wasn’t interested in attacking her, Rhia wasn’t going to insult its size.
She would happily insult Liam if he didn’t stop trying to crank an obviously broken winch.
“If you’re hoping it’ll open by sheer force of personality alone, you should probably let one of the others do it.”
He let out a growl of frustration, nearly panting as he stepped back from the thing. “I’m sure you can manage.”
Wesley claimed she had the power to fix up the fortress on her own, so repairing a busted winch should be no problem at all. Climbing down the bank of the trench and back up again, she approached the winch and tried to see what the problem was. She quickly realized she had no idea. Desmond had some experience with mechanical things, and he’d wanted to show her, but she’d never been good at it.
Closing her eyes, she tried instead to see what might
be wrong using her magic. Within her mind, the framework of the entire fortress was displayed, as though she was looking at a blueprint. So much of it glowed red, including the winch, that she could conclude it was meant to tell her when something needed to be repaired.
Channeling energy into it, she saw the red begin to fade to yellow before the color was gone completely. When she opened her eyes, the world snapped back into place in an instant, her eyes forced to adjust. Her stomach lurched and a deep fatigue settled over her.
“Try…” she breathed, wavering slightly. “Try it now.”
To her great surprise, Liam was there, his strong body supporting hers as she actually swooned. Not over him, of course. It didn’t matter how gently he held her, or what that brief glimpse of concern looked like before his features hardened again.
“Too much magic,” she murmured.
“This is why you shouldn’t try and do it all on your first day, princess.”
And he was back to his normal self. In record time, too. She pushed away from him, making a note of disgust in the back of her throat at the fact that her skin still tingled where he’d touched her.
Thankfully Liam didn’t offer further commentary. He cranked the winch with ease and the portcullis rose, creaking and groaning as it did so, dust dislodging from the top.
The first glimpse into the outer bailey was about what she expected. It looked like an explosion had been set off inside. Barricades were splintered and littering the main yard. Training dummies were knocked over, swords and shields strewn about. Part of the battlements were crumbling to the ground and the stairs looked like they might go at any moment.
There was so much work to be done, and they’d barely even made it inside the fortress.
Karak must have read the exhaustion in her features. “We can help with things while you rest. Clear rubble, start repairs.”
“That would be a huge help,” Rhia said, that fatigue working its way into her voice.
She was tempted to ask them to clear the way to whatever her bedroom was going to be, but if it was in as much disarray as everywhere else, it was going to break her heart. Especially when she imagined seeing a bed, nice and soft, only to find the frame of it broken.
