by Megg Jensen
“And we still don’t know its meaning,” Ademar said, frustrated.
“I think we’re about to. Maybe we’re waiting for Brax to finish his test.” Tace’s words were hopeful, but her tone wasn’t.
“I thought both of you were dead,” Ademar admitted. “Yet here you are.”
“He’ll be here. Soon.”
They both stared at the closed door.
It clicked.
Ademar grabbed Tace’s hand and squeezed it, relief spreading through his body. “See? Brax is okay.”
But it wasn’t Brax who walked in the room.
“Frensia,” Tace said. “I thought they weren’t testing you?”
“They didn’t. The tests are over.” Frensia took a deep breath. “I regret to tell you Brax did not pass his.”
Raseri flew through the doorway behind Frensia. Tace dropped Ademar’s hand and strode to her dragon. “Are you two coming, then? Let’s get what we need and get out of here.” She passed over the threshold, Raseri flying behind her, leaving Ademar and Frensia alone.
“I am sorry about your friend,” Frensia said. “I am familiar with the human ways of comfort. Would you like a hug?”
Ademar gaped at the silver being. “No, thanks. I’ll be okay.”
Ademar had hoped he’d be able to count Brax among his friends eventually, but time hadn’t allowed them the opportunity. The man had been difficult to get to know, though Ademar had marked Brax as a brave man from the first time he’d met him. It hurt to know he’d failed in his pursuit to make up for all the humans had done to the orcs. If nothing else, Brax had had integrity, and Ademar would remember him fondly.
Tace’s reaction puzzled him. He would have expected at least a moment of silence, even though the two had never really gotten along. Then again, when did Tace ever do as he thought?
“I suggest we follow Tace,” Frensia said. “I was sent to fetch the two of you. She doesn’t even know where to go.” The umgar scurried out of the room, and Ademar followed.
He spotted Tace disappearing around a corner. “Tace!” he shouted. “Wait for us!”
The sound of her footfalls ceased, and as Ademar rounded the corner, he found Tace rubbing an arm under her eyes.
“Are you okay?” He placed a hand on her elbow.
Her eyes shimmered with tears. “I’m fine. We need to keep moving. The orcs of Agitar are sick, and I need to know how I can keep them from dying. Who knows what else Drothu is sending our way in the meantime.” She shrugged her arm away from him. “Don’t you see? Everyone is doomed to die if I don’t do something! Brax died. Who else will die? It’s all on me, Ademar.”
He took a deep breath, thinking of his test. They had told him not to discourage Tace’s more violent and unforgiving side. He had to sacrifice himself for her. And if he was being honest, that was exactly what he’d done ever since he’d first seen her in Hugh’s apartment, ready to kill his mentor. Somehow he’d known, even then, that he would dedicate his life to protecting the assassin, no matter what it cost him.
“It’s not all on you,” Ademar said. “I am with you. You can’t get rid of me that easily. For whatever reason, Brax failed. We may never know why. But all three of us knew the risks. Brax could have left at any point, and he chose to press forward. We have to honor his choices by moving forward now.”
Tace sniffled one last time, then pulled her shoulders back. “I didn’t ask for any of this.” She glanced at the tattoos on her arm. “But I’ll be damned if I don’t finish it. Let’s go.”
Frensia walked down the hall without a glance back at them. “Follow me. Someone needs to speak with the two of you.”
Ademar held out an arm to Tace. “You first.”
Tace looked at him for a moment, as if she was debating saying something back. Instead, she gave a wry smile and followed Frensia.
Ademar waited until she was halfway down the hall before he let out a long sigh. They’d been through so much, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that their troubles were only beginning.
Chapter 54
Tace steeled herself for what was to come. They had been promised information if they passed the tests. Well, she and Ademar had done it. Brax, the poor human, had died in his effort. While Tace was relieved Ademar had survived, she couldn’t help but feel guilt over Brax’s death.
Whatever information the Fifth Sanctum had to offer, she would do her best to use it.
She followed Frensia into the dining hall where they’d met the boy when they’d first arrived at the Fifth Sanctum. The long table was gone, and its place was a glowing orb, twice Tace’s height and quadruple her girth. She walked around it, curious as to its origin. She reached out, but her hand was quickly slapped away by Frensia.
“I wouldn’t touch that, if I were you,” Frensia said, shaking their head.
Tace took a step back. She would be more cautious. After what she’d seen in her test, she knew the Fifth Sanctum had power far beyond anything she could imagine. To make something false feel so real…
She could still sense her mother’s presence. Part of her even wished the illusion had been true—that outside the front door she would find her mother waiting for her. They could run away, leaving behind everything she’d experienced since that fateful night in Hugh’s apartment.
Ademar stood off to one side, strong and stoic as always. She had to admire the man. He’d been thrust into the same chaos as she had, but it had to be worse for him. He’d lost his mentor. He was among a race of beings he’d barely begun to understand. And yet, here he was. By her side, still.
Tace had to fix all of this madness. For the orcs. For Ademar. Even for Brax, who’d failed the test.
Brax’s death was on her.
The lives of the orcs of Agitar were on her.
Everything was on her—and on the knowledge she could glean from the Fifth Sanctum.
“Hello,” a childlike voice said.
Tace spun around. The small boy had returned. He stood with his hands clasped in front of his chest, as if in prayer.
“Two of the three survived the tests,” he said. “I assume you want to know why Brax failed?”
Tace did want to know, but at the same time, she didn’t. Instead of answering, she waited for the boy to continue.
“Brax proved disloyal. He would never have followed you the way that is required.” The boy turned to Ademar. “But you. You made a difficult choice, and because of that, you are here.”
Ademar’s face remained neutral. Too neutral, as if he was trying to hide something. The choices she’d been forced to make in her test had been horrible. Ademar’s had to have been just as bad. But if Brax had failed because he’d refused to follow her… what sort of choice had Ademar been forced to make? What had he sacrificed for her? Even if it was a test, had he given up a part of himself to succeed?
It was yet one more burden upon her. Another weight to carry along with all the others she’d collected.
“Tell us what we came here for,” Tace demanded. She was tired of the games. “We’ve done as you asked. Ademar and I passed your tests. Tell us about these runes. Tell us how we can help the infected orcs. If this disease has spread to uncontainable levels while we were here, prancing around this damn castle at the mercy of your whims, then all of this will have been for naught.”
The boy smiled. “I’m happy to see you are taking this seriously, Tace. The information you seek is here, in this room, waiting for you to take it. You need only act.”
Frustrated, Tace looked around the room. There was nothing in it other than them and the orb. No books, no scrolls, nothing that would tell her what she needed to know. Her eyes took in the stone walls and the cold marble floor before her gaze settled once again on the orb.
Her first instinct upon seeing it had been to touch it. Frensia had stopped her. But what if the answers she needed were within the orb?
Steeling herself, Tace strode toward the orb. She expected Ademar to call out to her, but he
was just as silent as Frensia and the boy. Only Raseri got in her way.
The dragon flew between her and the orb, blocking her path.
“Let me go, girl. Please,” Tace said.
Raseri hesitated, then flew over Tace’s head to the other side of the room.
Tace continued forward. Somehow she sensed that she needed to do more than just touch the orb. She had to step inside it. So she did.
Warm, pulsing fibers swallowed her whole, seeping into her skin and filling her lungs. She could no longer breathe, but breath was not necessary here. Her eyes did not see. Her hands did not feel. Her nose did not smell. Her senses were blanketed in something she couldn’t describe. There was warmth, but most of all, there was knowledge.
Sinking into the orb’s embrace, Tace surrendered, letting it consume her. Fill her. Become one with her.
“You have proven yourself worthy,” a voice said. It was the little girl who’d taken Tace to her trial. “I am glad you survived. I wanted to tell you there was nothing to worry about, but that is not our way. Though I knew what your choices would be, I still had to let you make them. Now you will learn the truth. You can choose how to use it.”
Tace gave no response. She simply listened. Waited. Knowing the information would come to her unbidden.
“The orcs of Agitar are infected with a virus no force on Doros can cure. You must unite the two sides: the living and the dead. Bring them together to cleanse the infected. Only you have access to this power. Only you can open the gates to the Nether and free the beings there who can save your orcs. But to do this, you must also give evil direct access to your world. You will save the orcs, but you will doom everything you know to a war with evil. Drothu will rise. He will come to claim all lives for himself.”
“I can’t fight him on my own,” Tace said without moving her lips. Perhaps she thought it. Within the orb, all things were one. It was confusing as hell.
“You won’t have to. Go to the Nether. Free your allies, for Drothu holds them captive.”
Before Tace could ask any questions, the orb dissipated around her. She fell to the marble floor in a crumpled heap.
She wasn’t surprised to see Ademar rushing to her side. She’d told herself over and over since she’d first met him that she didn’t need him—but in a silent rebuke to that pride, she allowed him to help her to her feet. Raseri flew over and wrapped herself around Tace’s neck.
“What did you learn?” Ademar asked.
“I have to go to the Nether and free allies who will help us cleanse the infected.” Tace realized how ridiculous the words sounded. She had no idea how to even get to the Nether, an afterlife rooted in religion, nor what sort of ally she should expect to find once she arrived there.
Ademar looked to Frensia, who shrugged their shoulders. “I know much,” said the umgar, “but as for a way to get to the Nether… the only proven way we know is death. And even that is based on religious teachings, not on anything concrete. It’s not as if anyone has ever died and come back to life to tell us how it works.”
Tace looked at the tattoo on her arm, pink and swollen. The two curved half moons were separated by a straight line. Life over death. She knew now what it represented. Not the coming together of human and orc, as Brax had suggested—with a bawdy implication—but life over death. Their unending relationship.
Unsheathing the daggers at her hips, Tace backed away from Ademar.
“What are you doing?” he asked, but his tone told her he knew what she was contemplating.
“This is what needs to be done. We came here for knowledge. We survived the tests. But that wasn’t the end. This is what I must do.”
“Tace…” Ademar’s voice trailed off. He knew nothing he said would dissuade her. He understood her. He respected her. It was possible he even loved her.
“If what they said is true, I’ll be back,” Tace said. “If not… find a way to help the orcs.”
Before Ademar or Frensia could argue, Tace stabbed the artery on the neck that brought death fastest. The cool steel sliced through her skin, and Tace experienced the agony she’d bestowed upon so many others as an assassin. The blood quickly began draining from her body.
She stumbled back into a wall and slid down it, her breath catching in her throat. Ademar rushed to her side once more, cradling her, his lips upon hers. Raseri let out a sonorous keening as Tace lost consciousness.
Chapter 55
Maysant watched in horror as the elves followed her mother’s orders to march back to the shore and leave Doros for Gailwyn.
“I don’t understand,” she said to Gashta.
Behind them, the orcs were fighting the strange army that had invaded from Agitar. In front of them, her people, who had come here to help the orcs, were abandoning them in their greatest time of need.
“I’m going to speak to my mother,” Maysant said to Gashta—the orc she wished she could call a friend. They had formed an uneasy truce over the last few days. It was more than Maysant could have hoped for, especially since Gashta’s sister, Nishta, really seemed to hate her. “Do what you need to do.”
With a nod, Gashta turned her back on Maysant and took off for the battle fray, her sword raised and a war cry bellowing from her lips.
Maysant made her way through the throngs of departing elves toward her mother’s tent. The flag flew high while her servants took down the tent. Her mother was already mounted upon her white horse, sitting proudly with her back straight and her chin up.
“How can you do this?” Maysant said, without bothering to greet her mother in the typical fashion. At the moment, Maysant cared little for tradition. “You came here to help, and now you’re leaving?”
Her mother looked down her nose at her daughter. “We tried to help, but the orcs would not accept our ministrations. We tried to heal their sick, but they would not do as we said. We tried to protect them with the barrier, but they would not leave it up. They repeatedly rejected our offers of help. Why should our elves die helping a race so haughty?”
“Haughty?” Maysant spat the word back at her mother. “You think the orcs are being haughty? They are fighting for their very lives while you look down on them. We need to stay. We need to fight!”
“I will not allow any of my elves to die in the name of this ridiculous battle between orcs. If they wanted our help, they would have accepted it when it was so generously offered. Let them kill each other. I have no more use for this place.” Queen Ambrielle waved a hand in the air as if she were swatting away a gnat.
Tears fought to burst from Maysant’s eyes, but she gritted her teeth and held them back. She wouldn’t turn and run away. She was ashamed of the elves, ashamed of her mother.
She stood her ground. “I won’t go with you. I’m going to stay and help as best as I can.”
Her mother shaded her eyes with her hand, looking over Maysant at the battle raging in the background. Then she looked down at her only daughter again. “It’s just as well. I have no need of you in Gailwyn.” She pressed her heels into her horse’s haunches and took off at a trot to the west.
Maysant’s jaw dropped. She’d expected an argument, a blow-up greater than any they’d ever had. But this… this she hadn’t expected.
“Maysant!”
She whirled around. Her brother, Kazrack, stood nearby, his hands gripping the reins of a horse.
“What?” she snarled at him. He probably wanted to get a word in, too.
Kazrack looked down at the tips of his boots. “I’m staying, too.”
Maysant rubbed her ears. “Excuse me?”
“I said I’m staying, too. Our mother is running scared.” Kazrack slowly looked up at his sister again.
Tilting her head to the side, Maysant studied him. This was the last thing she’d expected to hear from her pompous brother. “Why?” She had to know it was for the right reasons. Kazrack had already tried to take the throne in Agitar once. If he still harbored fantasies of grandeur, Maysant needed to know. She
would fight with the orcs, for the orcs. Not for herself.
“I’m starting to see things a bit differently,” Kazrack said. “Perhaps Mother isn’t the magnificent leader I once thought she was.” He ran his fingers through his white mane. He looked a bit disheveled, which was very uncharacteristic. He took more pride in his appearance than anyone Maysant knew.
Maysant held out her hand. “Then come with me. We’ll fight beside the orcs.”
“I’m not sure I’m the fighting type,” Kazrack said. “Is there something else I can do?”
Maysant resisted rolling her eyes. Her brother was changing, but it was going to be a slow process. “Maybe you can help the injured?”
“Blood?” Kazrack shrank back. “I don’t think so.”
“Then stay out of the way. I’ll find something for you when the fighting is over. I don’t have time to waste when I could be out there helping.” Maysant patted her brother on the shoulder. “I’m proud of you. I’ll see you soon.”
Before Kazrack could answer, she took off toward the battle.
As she approached the battle fray, Maysant drew her bow and nocked an arrow. She let it fly, and tracked its flight path with her sharp eyes until it landed directly in the chest of one of the infected orcs.
The orc flailed, her arms and legs jerking spasmodically, and pulled the arrow out of her chest. She threw the arrow to the ground and looked around, furious, for the source of the missile. Her eyes settled on Maysant. With a howl from Maysant’s worst nightmares, the orc charged toward her.
With a steady hand, Maysant pulled another arrow and shot the orc in the shoulder. Despite the wound, the orc kept moving toward her with renewed focus. Maysant shot another arrow, and then another.
The orc still didn’t stop coming.
Maysant backed up, then tripped and fell to the ground. She scrambled back to a standing position, but her feet got tangled up in the bowstring, and it snapped. Maysant grabbed one of her arrows instead. She held it tight in her hand like a dagger, ready to defend herself when the orc got closer.
