by Bridget Ladd
Killer. Assassin. Executioner.
She . . . she showed me who I should be:
Hero.
-Xander
Chapter 34
The Lotus Blooms
That night after washing the mixture of both blood and mud from my body, I found Xander standing resolutely beside a small cloth-covered table, waiting just outside the washroom.
He had pushed the beds to the far walls, procuring the candle-lit table directly in the middle of our hut. He smiled sweetly as I exited the washroom, making me feel suddenly very self-conscious. I glanced over to him, realizing he wore the same sleek black vest and suit jacket from the night of my Coronation, the first night I had set eyes upon him as I hid with my frustrations beneath the table.
“What’s this?” I asked, trying to not sound surprised.
“Dinner,” he said, gesturing in a sophisticated manner towards the table.
I approached slowly. My glass was filled with the same elderberry tea I had liked so much after injuring my forearm. Garlic-Butter Baked Salmon and vegetables steamed their fragrance into the air, the smell delightful.
I nodded approvingly. “I’m impressed. But . . . we always eat dinner together. Why is tonight any different?” I risked asking. “In celebration of our victory?” I added, trying to feign ignorance, though I knew deep down it had something to do with what took place between us today.
Xander gave a knowing smile.
“Lily, please sit. Relax. Enjoy this time we do have together.” His solid presence stepped close behind me. He ushered me into a chair, finally pushing me beneath the table. “Does a man need the excuse of a special occasion to prepare an evening meal with a lady?”
I sat with mouth askew, agreeing with him, but not knowing how to respond. “Xander, my clothes . . . you’re dressed so nicely, I should—” I began to stand, but found him urging me back down.
“You look beautiful.”
I found that I was having difficulty swallowing. I wasn’t used to such compliments. Compliments from someone who truly meant them.
“You sit. You eat. You’re becoming impossibly thin before my eyes,” he said suddenly with a hint of his mirthful brashness.
“This all looks . . . did the Compound prepare this for us?” I eyed the fish suspiciously.
The first few days we’d been forced to stay here, I’d pushed the Compound’s food around on my plate more so than actually eating it. Xander had noticed early on and started making trips to the Warehouse shortly afterwards. Or to the Outlands . . . I wouldn’t put it past him to do so.
“I prepared it myself—which should probably give you more cause for concern. Sir Cormack loaned me the use of his cutlery, tablecloth, and a few special herbs, so perhaps it won’t turn out to be a complete disaster.”
“Cormack? The Compound’s butler? And you trust him?” I asked surprised. “If I remember correctly he didn’t think very highly of us upon arrival.”
“He didn’t seem to think very highly of me. You, he adores. But yes, I do trust him. That energy thing, remember?”
“Oh yes, that,” was all that I managed as a response before tentatively chewing the end of a steaming asparagus stalk, eyeing Xander carefully, wishing he would sit down already.
Xander grinned and sat across from me. Silently, he retrieved his own fork and began to eat. He looked so different, so . . . refined.
Every few bites, I would gaze up to catch his eyes as he sat from behind the flickering shadows in which the candles created. Almost as if he was unafraid to hide his feeling for me now, challenging me with his expression, telling me that nothing I will ever say or do will change the way he feels.
Once Xander had his eyes set upon his prey there was no enemy, no person, no one with enough power who could change the course of his intentions. The best of hunters must learn to exercise their patience and he was no exception. He would wait for me forever if he had to.
I knew this with an undeniable certainty having relived that horrible day in his past—for I’d felt an overwhelming willingness in him to endure. A quality I wasn’t even sure I possessed.
I shivered at the thought of being so highly regarded by someone whom I considered untouchable. Me being a mere shadow of the fighter that he was. My partner. My friend.
“This tastes amazing. Thank you,” I said politely as I wiped the corners of my mouth with my napkin.
“You are amazing, Lily,” he replied, his stare unrelenting. “You saved my life . . .” He paused. “In more ways than one. A feat of bravery I wish you could see the gravity of.”
He blinked, turning his head, a thought coming to mind. “We’re in the final stretches. The hardest days are still to come and yet you continue to fight, you remain unwavering and proud against the Council regardless of the dangers that lay ahead.”
I blushed, my face turning hot. “Xander . . . I just—”
He reached for my hand, forestalling further protest.
“Did you ever wonder why I chose the Lotus for your armor? Why it reminds me of you?”
My fork hung lifeless in the air as I stared at him, not knowing how to respond. Yes, I want to know.
He already sensed my answer. “Your soul remains pure even when you’re treading so very close to the murky waters of corruption. You, Lily, are your very own Lotus Effect. Nothing dark can, or will ever, cling to you,” he said, his stare potent.
But then with a snap—he quickly released my hand. So quickly that it startled me.
“What’s wro—?”
The force field surrounding the hut exploded in a ripple. “Get down,” Xander ordered. He shot from his chair, lying prone against the wall, listening and feeling the energies that lay beyond. His hand reached inside his sleek coat, revealing an assortment of metal daggers strapped to the inner vest. With a furrowed brow, he approached the door slowly.
The presence of destruction eased from his face, letting me know whoever stood behind harbored no ill will towards us. Xander removed the barrier and opened the door slightly, a grim look on his face, his features stiffening . . . .
Affery and Afina, the fighters from Sector 1, stood fixedly on the other side.
“Lily. Xander.” Afina nodded to each of us. “There’s been a disturbance in the Council and we thought you should know before you hear it from another,” she said, her voice light and lilting with an exotic accent.
My heart clenched in dread and a cold trickle of apprehension settled onto my skin as I stepped barefoot onto the porch to meet their wane faces. Something was wrong. Affery and Afina were harbingers of bad news this night.
Afina approached me and rested her hand lightly upon my shoulder. A sympathetic gesture. “Lily, I’m sorry.” She took in a breath. “Your mother is dead. Murdered. I wish there was another way to tell you, but the matter is urgent. Your mother, she never named a successor after you left. She had the opportunity to do so, but never did. You, Lily Emerson, by right of birth are no longer sole heir to the title of Mistress, but are the Mistress now.” She dropped her hand from my shoulder. “Your father is grieved so deeply by the loss that Briggins has assumed the incumbent role of Head.”
“You are a threat to Briggin’s seat now and are in grave danger,” Affery added.
I stood, looking at the pair as though I was an impartial observer to a conversation I was not involved in. That the information they gave was not directed towards me at all.
But then in these shocked moments, the ones threaded with a thin sliver of hope and fumbling fingers of denial, never really last. I wanted nothing more than to weave back the gashes that were quickly becoming all consuming. Reality finally trickled its way through my skin, the pain hitting me like a battering ram to the chest. My throat refused to function properly as I stumbled backwards. Xander caught my shoulder and steadied me with his outstretched hand as I bent over, sobbing for breath under the crushing wave of guilt and despair.
My mother. Dead. Murdered.
“Wh
y are you telling me this?” I finally managed to ask, though it was barely a whisper.
“We may be marked as enemies in the Requiem, but we have watched you closely and now see that we share mutual priorities for the betterment of City Prosper.”
“My mother . . . how . . .?”
Mother and I never saw matters in the same light, but the sudden loss of her was excruciating. A dagger driven through my chest. The sectioned off part of my heart that wanted to make amends with her was always brittle, always on the verge of crumbling away, but now that hope blew freely through my grasping fingers like ash, never to be returned. I clutched at the gaping hole that now extended across my chest, bleeding from within as it slowly festered with regret.
“Our informants say she was found in her study.” Affery stepped forward, his bronze skin marked almost unseen by the night. The moon’s reflection in his eyes being the only thing I could grasp at while he spoke. “Plans of an uprising clutched in her hand. We have solid belief that the cause was of Briggin’s doing.”
Briggins.
“Uprising?” Xander asked as he held me with a firm grip, grounding me into place. “And what of these informants you speak of?”
“We’ve had allies inside the Estate for over fifty years now. Their information can be trusted,” Afina said, redirecting her gaze from Xander back down to me. “Lily, those plans we found, they revolved around you. Your mother being the one who commanded the Magistrate to stop your first fight. Your mother who sent the Sonic Spike to deter you from fighting at all . . . . Your mother, Lily, she was trying to save you.”
My eyes filled. Hot with denial and guilt.
This cannot be. My mother hated me. Hated me for what I could never be: A faithfully abiding daughter.
The news was all too much. Running my hands over my face and through my hair, I found I calmed after I took a few gasping breaths of the chilled night air. Regaining my composure, I directed my attention towards the twins again.
“My mother . . . where did they take her?” I asked quietly, not wanting to hear their response.
Afina’s exotic eyes looked upon me with tenderness. “I’m so sorry. Her body as well as her spirit have already been released to the winds.”
My throat clenched again, this time from anger.
The Council wouldn’t honor her with a proper Giving Away ceremony.
“I see.”
With jaw tense and emotions numb, I stepped past the twins. Descending off the porch, I fixed my gaze before me as my bare feet skimmed over the short grasses of the cold earth below. I knew not what I was doing as I fell to my knees and stared openly towards the moonlit sky in my despair.
I’m so sorry Mother . . . so, so, sorry.
Not caring for who watched my display, I released my anguish, bowing my body and anger into the earth, clawing my fingers deep into the cool dirt beneath.
And in that moment—I released a scream, a scream that all of City Prosper could hear. A scream that the citizens would never forget and the Council would soon learn to fear. A scream to haunt not only their nights but the days they sit idle, watching and waiting disquieted in the knowledge that their newest creation would come for them.
And reap retribution.
My face lay close to the ground, the dirt shifting with every breath. I felt something shatter deep inside—a barrier crumbling, no longer blocking my true potential.
I felt different. Stronger.
I looked up slowly, my face chilled by the remnant trail of hot tears upon my face. Swallowing deeply, I pushed myself to my feet, and turned around.
Xander looked at me. His face full of empathy—and the same sense of hidden confusion he’d shown when we fought in the Outlands.
Did he sense the change within me just as I had felt?
“We hoped to not whittle away your spirit by bringing this news, but it had to be done,” Affery added, his tone sharp though still woven with a hint of sympathy.
“No, thank you for coming to me with this. I will mourn my mother in my own time,” I said hoarsely, wiping at my eyes and taking a step closer to the pair. “I will never forget what you have done for me this day,” I added solemnly, holding out my arm in the way of showing gratitude, first to Affery and then to Afina. We clasped forearms, sealing within it the understanding of the importance of alliances. We needed each other if we were to defeat this foe, this pollution that infested throughout the rule of the Council.
“I will not allow Briggins to get away with what he’s done,” I said boldly. “I will invest everything, everything plus all my power, my station, if that’s what’s needed to bring him down. I will watch him fall.”
Xander squeezed my shoulder in silent accession to my sudden declaration.
Affery and Afina in unison nodded their own agreement and bowed slightly. Turning quick on their heels, they quietly leapt from the porch and disappeared into the shadows of the night.
I watched them fade away before I turned to stare at Xander with a cold determination. “Tomorrow we fight Sector 4, Margie and Damaris, as according to plan. The final round falls shortly after that. If it’s a fight Briggins wants, then a fight he shall receive.”
With gaze not deflected from the path ahead, I stepped inside the darkness of the hut—the flames of the candles long extinguished by the chill of the night and the absence of a closed door. The news of my mother’s death, raw and unexpected, sent a rush of authority through me, invading my every sense.
Let us hope that now, even though she is gone, I can do something of myself that will finally make her proud.
Of her daughter, Lily Emerson, the Mistress of City Prosper.
Chapter 35
The Mistress With Fire
I glanced at Xander, standing tall and ready in his lethal armor. He was once again in his rightful place, fighting by my side. And despite how every other aspect of my life seemed to be crumbling away, he made me feel strong, determined.
He didn’t question me further about the events of last night, knowing I would come to him if I wanted his sympathy.
His eyes though, they questioned me at every moment.
With helm crooked under arm, he caught the way I was looking at him and raised an eyebrow. I assured him earlier that I was fine, but he knew something had changed within me. It had him concerned.
“Lily? You look as though you’re about to go to Market with a newly filled bag of coins. This is dangerous, remember?”
“Not cockiness, only confidence,” I muttered quickly. “I finally have you fighting by my side again and I feel . . . complete, somehow.” I hoped my vehemence alone would persuade him.
He looked at me, eyes appraising. “Just make sure your ‘completeness’ allows you to focus. I can’t have you getting hurt because of it.”
Gliding his helm over his head, he transformed himself from the teasing and kind Xander to the silent, battle-ready one. The side of him that before somewhat frightened me but now felt like a natural presence that I expected, and no longer depended on. A balance to what had awakened within me.
Finally we had become true partners—each carrying strengths of our own.
~
Time surrounded us like the swirling carousal of my grandmother’s trinket box, the minutes, seconds, interweaving like prancing horses.
It was a surreal moment, finding ourselves walking into the cheering mass of onlookers so soon after our triumphant fight with the Shadow Kanes and Sector 5. Over the years so much blood had been shed and soaked into the soil of the Requiem that even the small grasses refused to grow, as if the souls of the lost forbade it.
A shiver ran down my spine at the thought, the area for the first time giving me an uneasy feeling that ached at the back of my throat. The contrast between the cheering crowd and the landscape ragged at my nerves oddly. My assertiveness like that of a faulty machine: flickering in and out of power. I shook my head, dispelling the strange feeling and blinked my eyes, pulling in a deep breath.
And to think, just a moment ago I’d felt so sure of myself.
I looked around, remembering the crowd cheered for us and for change—not for death.
“Keep alert, you never know what new tricks they have waiting for us,” Xander whispered, his gaze far in the distance, swords held prone in front of him. “They however aren’t the only ones with tricks,” he said, his bronze helm turning to me quickly. “If I ask you to trust me, will you?”
I frowned at him, unsure what he was up to. “Of course I trust you.”
“Good, in that case—head towards the rocks and make yourself look vulnerable. Time to draw them out.”
And with that Xander deployed his metallic wings with a great whoosh—close enough to my side that it made me involuntarily jump back. The blue jets at his back lit up then and lifted him swiftly into the air. The crowd behind us gasped and fervently applauded the impressive display.
I stood, brow-creased and unsure if I should proceed further from the arena as he had instructed. Make myself vulnerable? Was I not already vulnerable enough, standing out in the open?
Trust, I told myself.
Let go of the old. Embrace the new.
Gripping my axe and shield tightly, I starting jogging ahead towards the rocky up-slope to my left. I didn’t see where Xander had gone, anywhere on land or in the sky.
What is he up to now?
Apprehensively, I climbed higher and stopped, looking around for any sign of either Xander or the Klaive donning Margie and Damaris. My breath steamed warmly against the interior of my helm as I searched.
Nothing. No one.
An inner instinct however told me they were there, waiting, and watching. I could sense their hidden presence: the prickly feeling of intuition crawling up my skin with the all too familiar clammy sweat of dread.
Vulnerable? My nostril’s flared from the undesired self-restraint. My chest tightened in disapproval of my next action. Acting as if I thought it was safe, I reached down to re-adjust the clasp on my shin, carefully placing my axe and shield on the ground beside each boot.
