Heat gathers in my palm.
They do not govern me.
Pressure builds at the front of my skull, but for once, I don’t try to fight it. The warm tingling that vibrates from my neck to the tips of my fingers flows like a river of certainty.
The sparks snap from the fire in a great burst of orange light.
One of the warriors steps back.
You do not belong here . . .
The flames flutter higher into the air, mere inches from my hand, but they don’t burn me.
You are alone . . .
The pressure at my temple thumps madly. There are three pulses. One in my head. One in my neck. One in my hand. They beat as one. Call to each other. Grow closer. I feel their ends tie together. The pulse becomes one. The weight in my hand hardens.
The flames flutter with my pulse like a second heartbeat.
The priest’s hand stills on the vein of my arm, and his eyes widen. Among the tattoos, his skin pales. The shadow blade stops above my skin. The deadly darkness that clings to its blade brushes the hairs on my arm. I feel its caress. Its soft, but evil presence. My skin warms beneath the touch.
The warriors’ hands tighten. Bruise my skin. Hold me captive.
I am not their slave. They do not decide whether I’ve the right to live or die. They have no right to treat me like this. They have no right to put their hands on me. They have no right to speak to me of my fate. They have no damned idea what the hell I’ve gone through!
I am not a vagabond.
I am not trash.
The fire sparks. The embers beneath the flames begin to jump. Dance. Swirl.
The weight in my palm tightens above the heat. Beckons it. Commands it. The flames surge up towards my balled fist. I close my eyes. I can see the fire.
No! I do more than see it. I sense it. Control it. I open my eyes.
I am the fire.
I open my hand.
The flaming embers explode from the iron ring and strike the warriors with an assault of sparks and flames. Screams fill the air. Fire licks at the edges of their clothing. A warrior’s cloak bursts into orange tongues of fury. The flames spread to their skin. The screams echo off the ceiling as the muscled giants dash around madly in an attempt to deliver themselves from the fiery monster that clings to their flesh.
The flames strike at the priest. He screams too. Backs away. Runs for the doors, but his bodyguards are in the way. He drops the shadow blade.
The fire molds itself to the darkness on the dagger.
My chest tightens.
The flames lick at the black, trembling sheet that clings to the demonic blade.
The muscles in my chest clench. Air leaves my lungs. I fall to my knees.
The sheet on the blade begins to shrivel up. Its ends curl over and over like claws retracting into a cat’s paw. A hiss screams from its retreating form. My heart skips a beat. Then another. Another. I gasp for air, but there is none.
The heavy weight in my palm is like a mountain now. Crushing me. Killing me. The pressure in my skull is growing. Threatening to explode from my head. To overpower me. I hear the bones inside my skull bending with tension.
The flames reach the hilt of the blade – the last of the darkness.
The grip on my lungs retracts. I suck in a sharp breath. The weight in my palm is gone.
Smoke curls off of the shadow blade. It is no longer swimming with the presence of a ghastly evil. It looks like a normal weapon, and its surface is a beautiful, black, crystal color.
The pulse in my skull spreads fingers into the corners of my mind. I feel its gentle touch against the soft strands of control I attempt to cling to. The strands begin to rip apart.
Behind me, the door crashes open.
The smoke in the room clears as a breeze brushes it away.
“Get the hell out of here!” a calm voice whispers.
Shade.
A hand touches my shoulder. His hand. He leans down by me. His moon blade clatters to the ground.
“Kyla . . .” he whispers.
The last strand snaps.
The council room disappears. I am floating in darkness.
There is a light ahead of me. I flutter towards it. The light is reminiscent of a glass wall. From behind it, I hear things. Screams. Blades. I try to drag myself back but there is nothing to grab. The connection between the wall and myself collides in a blinding white flash.
I open my eyes.
I am in Kirath. In streets I don’t recognize. People run madly around me. They run through me as if I don’t exist. They trip over one another. Fall to the ground. Are trampled beneath maddened feet. Through the chaotic crowd, I catch blurs of red and black emblems. Flashes of steel. Screams of pain.
Celect Knights.
Blood seeps between the cobblestones. Pools around stagnant bodies stretched across their surface. Lifeless eyes stare up at me. My stomach clenches.
Ahead of me, the noise is deafening. The screams of pain are replaced by battle cries. The clang of weapon on weapon. The fight of death against survival.
I move like a ghost through the mob.
The bloody street opens up into the City Square. I recognize the podium upon which Lord Telman was so cruelly mistreated. A hangman’s scaffold bedecks its surface now. Five bodies dangle from thick ropes. Their ankles are swollen and their eyes bulge at the sockets.
One of the faces is familiar. Though the skin has become swollen and bloated and the eyes unbecoming, it is the youngest High Lord of the Community – Lord Brand. And carved into the middle of his forehead, with blood-soaked lines, rests the ostracized symbol.
The four remaining bodies are his family!
He was one of the High Lords who must have voted for my release.
Celectate Wood found him.
Celect Knights crowd the City Square, weapons drawn, and armor covered in blood. But the common-folk are not running in this place. They, too, have weapons. And they, too, are fighting.
A Celect Knight screams in pain as a man drives a six-inch bolt through the armor covering his neck with a common hammer. He falls to the ground, blood spurting like a fountain from his wound. The man grabs his sword. Raises it above his head. Hacks the blade against the Celect Knight’s neck again and again. I turn my eyes away, but the Celect Knight’s head rolls in front of my gaze.
Not Landor’s. Not Landor’s.
The Celect Knights surround the podium, spears elongated.
The people want their High Lord returned.
A familiar face appears among the thousands of tanned, angry common-folk. It has grown thinner, the cheekbones are more pronounced, and the jaw is sharper. But the eyes are the same. Sharp. Fiery. Dark.
Daria.
Her tunic is torn. Her torso splattered with dark red blood. Her eyes are directed over my shoulder. Past dozens of fearsome Celect Knights. She screams a name over the roar of the chaos, but I only see her lips moving. I see the desperation on her face. The fear in her eyes. I hadn’t believed a calm, collected person like her was capable of such emotions.
She screams the name again. Raises her sword. Hacks a canyon across the chest of the Celect Knight who blocks her path. Dashes through the fray like a rabbit among wolves. A sword misses her shoulder by a hairsbreadth. An enemy’s dagger slices downwards. She grabs the Celect Knight’s arm and twists him sideways. The unexpected action lands him on his back. She uses his own dagger to puncture his heart and doesn’t spare him a glance.
She continues her mad rush towards me, always looking over my shoulder. Always screaming that name. She kicks a Celect Knight hard in the groin when he blocks her approach. He falls at my feet. His blood splatters the ground when she cuts him across the belly. She runs past me, screaming that name again, never seeing me, as no one sees me in these nightmares.
I hear the name.
“HELENA!”
I turn around.
Just in time to watch a Celect Knight slide his blade across the girl’s fragil
e neck. Sweet, blonde, innocent Helena falls to the ground, eyes wide in fright, and lips trembling. She grows still.
Daria pauses. Her back muscles tighten. The sword lowers in her hand. She stares at the body. At the chasm gushing blood in her friend’s throat. At the red pool that forms around Helena’s head. At the blond curls that turn copper against the gray stones of the street.
The murderous Celect Knight moves towards Daria, and punches her across the face with a steel-covered hand. The force of the blow twists her around and she falls flat on her stomach, face angled towards me. A red blotch, marred with little red gashes from his iron knuckles, imprints the side of her cheek. He leans over her and places a hand on the back of her thigh.
For a moment those fiery eyes flash with fear. Her lips tremble. Her skin pales.
His hand shifts upwards, beneath her skirts.
That fear explodes into rage.
Her ankles lock around his throat. She flips him on his back. Before he can stand, she turns around and rams the pommel of her sword into his nose. His head snaps back, and she allows him to fall on his backside again. She straddles him, her knees pinning his hands to the ground. She punches him. Bone shatters. He screams. She pulls a thin blade from her side. It is ten inches long and half an inch thick. She pries open his mouth. He groans helplessly as blood from his decimated nose flows between his lips. It chokes him.
“Ve das inasanas!” she screams. She was innocent. She hovers the blade over his open mouth. I watch, horrified, but unable to look away. She rocks onto her knees and the bones of his wrists shatter beneath her weight. He screams again, blood bubbling out of his mouth. It stains the tip of the blade as she lowers it downwards.
“Ve das gard.” She was good. The tip disappears inside his mouth. Halts as it connects with bone. She twists it sideways and something pops. The man’s eyes bulge from his sockets and he screams. It sounds like a noise someone would make underwater. He’s drowning in his own blood.
“Ve das mi vrenar!” She was my friend. She twists the blade one more time. I hear the tip connect with the cobblestones as it shatters through the back of his neck. He screams again. She stands up above him. Blood bubbles out of his mouth and his eyes grow blood-clotted. The slim hilt protrudes from his mouth and he struggles to move his hands and pull it out, but they remain at his sides, broken.
Daria smiles at him, and that smile turns my blood cold. “Lothalar leran de revelan, you bastard!”
She walks past him and falls beside Helena’s body. Gently, she places the girl’s head in her lap and strokes fingers along the yellow, blood-soaked hair. Helena stirs.
“Helena . . .” Daria whispers, her voice low and deep. Heavy with the weight of tears that pour from her eyes. “Helena . . .”
Helena grips her friend’s hand and places it over her belly.
Daria’s eyes widen as her fingers splay across the barely perceptible rise of her friend’s abdomen.
Helena smiles distantly. “You w-were right. I shouldn’t . . . h-have been scared . . . to fight!”
Daria freezes.
Helena forces something into her hand. Slowly, her own hand drops away. Her head sags to the side. Her eyes become empty.
Daria stares in shock. Grips her friend’s head gently. Says her name softly. Then louder. Until it’s a scream. But Helena doesn’t get up.
Daria gently lays her friend back on the ground. She stares at the object Helena gifted her with. It’s a carved, wooden symbol. At first glance, it looks like the ostracized symbol, but some of the edges have been cut away.
It forms a star.
Daria closes her fingers around it and stands. She looks towards the podium. At the bodies that dangle from its scaffold. She raises her weapon and cries out in rage. From around the square, heads turn to locate her, common-folk and Celect Knight alike. She dashes towards the podium.
Two men grab her arms before she gets a few steps and drag her back towards the streets. She screams and kicks against them, but they don’t let go.
The square empties as the mob draws back, leaving the Celect Knights bloodied and shocked. Leaving the five examples to rot in the sun as a reminder to them in the future. Leaving the fragile, innocent girl and her unborn child to the roasting cobblestones and the absence of a proper burial.
Slowly the darkness surrounds me. Sucks me back into the abyss of nothing. The weight in my head grows larger and larger and larger until . . .
It explodes. I explode.
I open my eyes.
“Kyla!” Shade forces me to stand and look at him. There is blood on his chin. Blood on his hands. Blood on the moon sword at his feet. He takes one look at my face and turns around. He retrieves his blade.
The priest has time for a startled cry before Shade presses the silver tip to the Adam’s apple bobbing at his tattooed throat. “Stand up . . . slowly!” Shade commands. The priest does. “Now step – backwards – through that door or you’ll get the point of this . . .” he nicks the man’s skin and a drop of blood glides downward, “. . . through your neck.”
The priest does as he’s told. His warriors follow. Their skin is blackened and ugly, red welts dot their flesh where the fire burned them. Their eyes are downcast, and they don’t even look at the slightly smaller warrior commanding their every movement.
Outside, Otis blocks their exit. His men – now suddenly eager to obey his command – aim weapons of all entities at the unwanted guests.
“You will leave us now, raavgar,” Otis says, “and if I catch even a whiff of you around Agron again I will personally escort you to the King’s threshold and delight in removing your head from those ancient shoulders.”
“Why not kill the arrogant son of a bitch right now?” Shade steps forward and the Unnamed backs up, eyes widening in fright. The blade cuts his neck.
Otis raises a hand. “Retreat.”
Shade looks at him. “The bastard marched in here and deemed it his personal duty to take the life of an outsider under the King’s jurisdiction. As I see it, that’s direct defiance against his highness. Against the law. And ‘defiance of the law’ is a paraphrase of a very simple word. Treason! How do we punish treason?” He scans the faces of the crowd until he finds just who he’s looking for. “Ah, Dirk. You’ve been very helpful in educating me on the subject. Would you care to provide the answer?”
Dirk glares but stays silent.
“No? Surely a man of your intelligence does not lack the answer to such a simple question?”
“Shade, that’s enough,” Otis warns.
Shade sneers and that animal eagerness appears in his face again. His fingers tighten on the moon blade’s silver hilt.
“Shade . . .” Otis’s voice softens.
“Well, if it ain’t our good old friend, the Unnamed prick who so beautifully welcomed us ages ago.” Axle steps in front of the priest, forcing Shade to remove his sword or cut his own friend’s neck.
Shade growls at the intrusion, but Axle ignores him.
“You’ve grown thinner, my friend. Perhaps, has your health been endangered?” Axle pats the man’s tattooed cheek. His gaze hardens. His voice lowers. “Get out of this village, you bastard, before I change my mind and let my bosom companion carve a new tattoo on your flesh.” He smiles and shoves the man forward. “Nice seeing you again.”
Slowly, slowly the procession moves towards the gates. Axle prods the priest with the sole of his boot teasingly, muttering words of “friendship” to the stooped crone. The Unnamed glances over his shoulder and finds my face. His eyes are bright. Shining. He smiles, those tattoos curling up on his cheeks.
My stomach drops.
I am going to break. Shatter. Fall.
I have to get away.
I turn and run.
“Kyla!” Shade calls.
I don’t stop.
“Kyla!”
I find one of the hidden doors built into the wooden wall and thrust it open. The woods, their trees offering a cave to hide w
ithin, are mere yards away.
I let them swallow me.
I run until the trees all look the same and the ground trembles beneath my feet. Until my lungs are burning, and I can’t breathe. Until I finally fall to my knees and vomit. I struggle to stand, but my knees are weak.
I fight to hold back the stone that blocks my throat, but it is no use.
Alone, I sob.
The visions aren’t true. They cannot be true. I could not have witnessed what I saw. They were nightmares. Dreams meant to weaken – to frighten – me. The siratha must have cursed me. I have to be cursed.
If the visions are true – people have died because of me. High Lord Brand would not be dead if it weren’t for me. Helena would not have died in that foolish assault. Her child would live to see the world. Their blood stains my hands.
I slam a fist to the ground. Again. Again. But the pain is not enough.
The visions aren’t true.
But if the visions are true – if I can witness events in another time and place – what am I?
I am not who I was.
You do not belong . . .
I am not what I thought I am.
You’re not one of them.
I don’t know who I am.
You are alone.
Leaves crunch softly behind me. I know, without turning around, who it is, and swallow my sobs.
I wait for Shade’s chastisement. His disgusted remarks about my “kind” and their weakness. His sarcastic lectures meant to taunt and degrade me. But he says nothing.
He walks around me and wrinkles his nose at the puddle of vomit. Slowly, he sits down beside me and rests his back against the tree. The tension in my shoulders dissipates. He remains quiet.
The silence spreads out for what seems like ages.
I wonder what to say to him. What bravado to force from my mouth. What lies I must make up to explain my behavior. The lump in my throat tightens.
But I’m tired of lying.
So I whisper, “I’m afraid,” and look up at him.
He is already looking at me. His eyes narrow thoughtfully as they flutter over my face.
I grab the dirt beneath my hands, struggling to control the chasm that is calling my name inside my chest. The chasm that houses all my fears and nightmares and doubts. The chasm that is draining me away bit by bit.
Ostracized (The Ostracized Saga Book 1) Page 30
