by Anna Carven
As I reach the stairs, I draw my swords.
The citadel below is crawling with Ven, and now they have been released from their suspended state.
They still have no idea what has happened.
They will come after me.
But we were taught to kill by the same trainers, and if there’s one thing I know very well, it’s how a Ven assassin thinks.
Twenty-Eight
Amali
My eyes flutter open and I groan in pain as the ship lurches… then comes to a stop.
Above decks, men are shouting.
A shrill whistle splits the air.
I can hear birds… those white, soaring birds called gulls that are only seen near the ocean.
Where are we? What’s going on?
I roll over onto my side and wince as fire rips across my back. Not long after Trise’s men threw me back into my cell, the ship’s medic came and applied a stinking poultice to my wounds. Fat lot of good that’s done. The acrid smelling medicine has done nothing but make them sting a hundred times worse than before.
I wrinkle my nose. What is that smell? I don’t recognize the herbs. If it were up to me, I would have applied a heavy Brimsonweed poultice mixed with white Ardaba mud under a boiled Snakeleaf wrap.
But that’s just me.
Perhaps those things don’t grow down here.
Faint lamplight filters through the small, dirty porthole. I stare outside, trying to get a sense of my bearings in case I speak with Kaim again, but I can’t see much of anything, because it’s dark outside. Is it night already? How long was I out for?
I’m completely disoriented.
Faint voices filter through the door. “Hurry up. The riverboat captain’s been waiting for a day and a half, and he’s gettin’ proper antsy. So is Commander Trise. Coronation’s in four days. They want her in Daimara in three.”
“Well, good luck with that. Half the river’s frozen up north, from what I hear.”
“Won’t be a problem. They’re using the new icebreakers Emperor Krogen ordered from Inshad.”
“Inshad? I don’t know about them boats. That bloody steam looks like sorcery to me. Seems… I don’t know, ungodly. Can’t trust those evil-eyed bastards. They say they can steal your emotions from your soul.”
“Are you thick in the head, Barken? Emotions from your soul? What does that even mean? The Inshadi make the best steel in the world, so their boats can’t be half bad. Hurry up and get the bloody Tieglander. The sooner we get her to the riverboat, the sooner we can get off this bloody lump and go find some whores. Can’t do a thing with the commander breathing down our necks all the time. I’m bloody glad he’s going on the riverboat with the witch. Can’t wait to see the back of that miserable old bastard.”
Revulsion roils around in the pit of my belly. Trise is coming to Daimara? Well, that makes sense. He probably wants to personally hand me over to the emperor.
“Quiet, idiot. You’ll be hanged from the mast for insubordination if any of his lackeys hear that from you.”
The door bangs open, and the one called Barken barges into my cell, his footsteps heavy on the wooden floor. “Get up, Tieglander.”
Bleary-eyed, I raise my head.
“Hurry up, woman. Captain’s waiting.”
I try to push myself up, but the sedative has made me weak. My vision blurs. I feel lightheaded. I sway around, tempted to fall back into my bed of rags and go to sleep so I can see Kaim again in my dreams.
“Don’t be insolent, girl, or you’ll cop another hiding.”
“She’s drugged up to her eyeballs, can’t you see, Barken? Let’s just carry her out. It’ll be quicker.”
“But…”
“What, you scared of putting your hands on this little Tieglander, soldier?”
“Don’t be fucking stupid. I’m just cautious, is all. What if…”
“What if what?”
“It’s just… you know, about her being the death-god’s chosen and all. What if it’s really true?”
“Elar’s teeth, Barken. Didn’t you hear what the commander said? The death-god thing’s just a myth. It’s all just propaganda drummed up by the imperial news whips to make people afraid and pump up the emperor’s reputation. He is Elar’s chosen one on this earth, don’t you know?”
“I-I bloody well know that.”
“Then you shouldn’t worry about stupid old world superstitious nonsense. Most of the regular plebs believe in it, but we aren’t regular plebs. You’re a bloody imperial soldier, Barky. Stop spouting that village nonsense.”
“Yeah, Sir. Let’s just get her out of here,” Barken says gruffly, shuffling over to my side. He hooks his hands under my arms, his palms grazing against my raw skin.
I whimper as white-hot pain shoots through my body.
The other soldier takes my legs and on the count of three, they lift me up.
I stare up at the hazy ceiling until the pain becomes too much.
Then I promptly black out.
Twenty-Nine
Kaim
I race along the narrow path, holding time in my cold hands as I run a precise, winding route down the mountain.
Waiting for Vyloren to receive her meal, I released time just long enough to see the sun sink completely below the horizon and then some. Now the world is frozen again at my behest, and the stars are out, glittering spectacularly in the cold winter sky.
But I barely notice, because all I can think of is getting to the capital.
It has become an all-consuming obsession.
How long will it take me to reach Daimara on foot from here? Moons? Seasons?
If only there were a horse waiting for me at the base of the range.
If only horses were immune to my powers.
I grit my teeth in frustration as I evade loose gravel and hidden potholes and the occasional dislodged boulder, gaining speed as the path starts to grow wider. This narrow mountain path, the only route to and from the Black Mountain, is in poor condition, much worse than when I left the Ven all those winters ago.
Didn’t Khelion keep up with the proper bloody maintenance? What was he thinking?
It was already dangerous to begin with, but now it’s a veritable death-trap, with some parts of the path having fallen away completely, leaving precarious gaps that could easily cause one to plummet to a lonely death below.
Those, I leap over.
To think my mother would have walked this path so many winters ago, just to leave me with the Ven.
How brave, how determined she must have been.
Why the fucking Ven?
For starters, they are well known for taking in lambs and turning them into wolves. Only the Ven take in orphans and raise them.
She must have been desperate. What happened to that cursed mountain trader of hers? According to Anaya, he was supposed to raise me if she died.
There are a thousand reasons why that might not have happened, but if I ever find out that the bastard betrayed her and caused this suffering…
I will make him wish he’d never existed.
That is, if my father hasn’t already.
I race down a narrow set of worn stairs that’s been carved into the mountainside, taking care not to slip on clumps of fresh snow. From here, the path turns and snakes toward Belhenna, the ancient capital of the Ioni empire.
But I don’t want to go to Belhenna right now.
I want to cut across the range, making a straight line for the capital.
It’s the quickest way.
So I leave the path, entering the mountain wilderness proper. I run into the deep shadow, into the cold, drawing some small comfort from the cover of darkness.
Fatigue hovers at the edge of my consciousness, trying to sneak its cursed little tendrils into my body.
I shut it out.
As I scale down cliffs and climb up slopes and cross frozen streams, I shut it out.
As I trudge through thick snowdrifts and climb up steep ledges
and leap over narrow crevasses, I shut it out.
I shut it out until I realize that this half-human body of mine still has mortal needs, such as food and water and sleep. For all my father’s cryptic talk about me dying and transforming into whatever I am now, my body here in the living world still gets tired and hungry and thirsty.
I’m going to have to stop soon.
I curse profusely under my breath. I don’t want to stop for anything, but I’ll be no good to anyone if I ignore these warning signs and lose my grip on time entirely.
Eventually, I find a vast overhanging rock that provides shelter in the form of a small cave. I will rest here for just a short time, until I feel strong enough to run for an entire day without stopping.
I will eat snow for water. Any creature I spot with two legs or more will become my meal.
My stomach rumbles.
Half the blood in my veins comes from a god and I’m running through suspended time, and my body still has the nerve to succumb to hunger.
I dream of the sweet, nutty tubers Amali used to dig up for me and roast in the hot coals of our campfire. Somehow, she was able to find those things anywhere. She’d probably be able to find them in the middle of a winter blizzard if she had to.
My hunger sharpens.
My yearning for her grows almost unbearable.
Can’t stop.
Don’t be stupid. You have to.
Ignoring the tiredness in my legs, I steal into the cave and find a sheltered place to sit amongst the rocks. I remove my swords from my back and lay them beside me.
Then I stare out at the snow; at the shadows.
I really do not mean to fall asleep in this position, but then…
Hey, Kaim.
Suddenly, she’s here with me.
Therefore, I must be dreaming.
Shit. I need to wake up.
Stay a little while, Kaim. Her voice turns from a thought into a very real whisper. “I’m asleep right now. I’m dreaming. That’s why I can see you.”
I look around, but all I can see are the same old rocks and mountains. Am I asleep, or am I awake? “This is slightly unfair,” I say slowly as her gentle, invisible presence swirls around me, raising goosebumps on my skin.
Strange. I never get goosebumps.
“Oh?” she murmurs, her ephemeral breath caressing my ear as her voice becomes very, very real. “Why is that, my love?”
“Because it seems that you can see me and touch me, but I can’t see you, Amali. I can’t even take you into my arms, and that’s all I want to do right now.”
I want to whisper sweet nothings into her ear and tell her that nothing and nobody will ever take her from me again.
“You will,” she says simply, curling her invisible arms around my neck.
“Why are you dreaming, my love? It’s a little early to sleep. The sun’s only just set.”
“They gave me something to make me sleep.”
“They drugged you?”
“It seems that way.”
“I’m going to kill them, you know. Slowly, painfully… The pain they inflicted upon you… I’ll return it a thousandfold.”
“Be calm, Kaimeniel. Not all of them deserve to suffer so. Ignorance makes men do cruel things. But they aren’t all like that. There was one… he tried to do the right thing by me, and for that he was killed. Please tell your father to look out for him in the Underworld. His name is Iyen.”
“I can do that,” I say gently, wanting to please her now more than ever.
Your father…
I sit bolt upright. A chill goes through me. “You know he is my father?”
“I met him.”
“You…” I shake my head, not knowing whether to feel angry or relieved.
“I was dreaming again… looking for you in that silent place where there is no color, and he was there. It was he who gave me this ability to talk with you in my mind… and also in dreams, it seems. He said it was a gift.”
“You went there again…” Now that I know the colorless forest is the entrance to my father’s kingdom, I do not like to hear of her going there. It means she was close to death.
“He said he wouldn’t let me in. It isn’t my time yet, apparently. Don’t worry so, Kaim. He was terribly kind to me.”
“He had better be,” I grumble. “Always.”
Invisible arms wrap around my neck. She’s behind me, her familiar warmth spreading through me. Even that is enough to stir my lust. My cock grows hard and fire spreads through my body, obliterating the cold.
“I need to get to you,” I whisper, my voice cracking with need. “I can’t stand this any longer.”
Amali’s gentle love radiates through me, and all I can do is marvel at her strength. “It doesn’t matter where you are right now. I’m with you. Always. Why don’t you rest a while, Kaim? You look terribly tired, like you haven’t slept in days. I’m not going anywhere, and there isn’t anything these Midrians can do to me that will break me. Not when I know that you’re freezing heaven and earth to get to me.”
“You are an impossible woman,” I say slowly, my voice echoing off the cave’s cold stone walls. “When we are together again, I will give you a million rewards. Anything you desire.”
“I just want you. That isn’t too much to ask, is it?”
“Never.”
“Rest, beautiful man. You need it. And just remember one thing. That power you were searching for your whole life? The power that would make you your own master in this world, subject to the whims of nobody? It’s yours now.”
Amali surrounds me with her ephemeral embrace, soothing my savage, seething soul. Only she has the power to do that. Eventually, I tip my head and close my eyes, and dreams and reality all blur into one.
I fall asleep, wrapped in a warm tapestry made out of my lover’s dreams.
And for the first time since Amali was stolen away from me, I start to feel whole again.
Thirty
Kaim
When I wake again, it is the middle of the night.
“Amali?” I frantically search for her presence, but she is gone.
Did I dream?
Was it really her?
What’s certain is that I have let time slip by again. The moon is high in the sky now, casting a silvery glow across the mountains.
I pull time to a standstill again, and I run.
That short period of rest has done wonders. I feel fresh and strong and ready to annihilate anything that tries to stand in my path.
I climb up forbidding peaks and down into silent valleys, through deep ravines and vast craters and gravelly volcanic slopes.
I cross impassable mountains.
I scale unscalable cliffs.
I trek through the still, silent world, and this time, I don’t stop moving until I reach the very edge of the mountain range.
How many days would this be equivalent to? Two? Three? More?
I can’t tell, because the moon is moving ever so slowly.
This is eternal night, and it is mine.
Eventually, almost abruptly, I find myself staring out across the gravelly plains that mark the beginning of the Kalabar. In the distance, I spy a herd of wild horses suspended in mid-gallop, their glorious manes and tails streaming out behind them.
How strange, to see signs of life after all this time.
Having travelled a distance that would take an ordinary Ven three or four days to cross, I am exhausted again.
So I slump down on a smooth flat ledge and try to steal another morsel of sleep.
Time spins away from me.
Freed from my power, the horses thunder across the plain, kicking up dust, their tails and manes flying gloriously in the air.
How oblivious they are, to their perfect freedom.
I close my eyes.
Fitful, restless sleep comes.
But this time, Amali doesn’t come to me.
Thirty-One
Amali
The Midrian so
ldiers bundle me up and haul me onto another boat; a smaller vessel designed for sailing on rivers.
They lock me inside a windowless room that smells faintly of fermented, rotting fruit and stale cabbage.
“Good bloody riddance,” the one called Barken growls as they slam the door shut behind me and disappear in a flurry of heavy footsteps.
I curl up into a ball, hugging my knees and legs to keep warm. The rough cloth shirt they’ve given me is scratchy and irritating; it rubs uncomfortably against the raw skin on my back, but I resist the urge to take it off, because it provides some scant protection against the cold.
The boat creaks and sways.
Nobody comes to explain anything to me. Why would they? These Midrians revile me as a criminal. I’m just a prisoner, soon to be executed.
The next few days pass by in a blur; in a haze of pain and euphoria, punctuated only by some gruff Midrian boatman bringing in food—usually a thin, watery gruel and some stale bread—or that same foul-smelling salve, which I’m apparently supposed to apply to my back on my own.
“Put this on your wounds, Tieglander. Gotta make sure them whip cuts are at least closed up by the time you get to His Majesty.”
It’s a small mercy that I don’t see Trise again. Maybe he’s had his fun and has finally grown tired of torturing me.
As my back heals, the pain becomes worse, the wounds and red welts from Trise’s cursed whip weeping, then scabbing over, my skin growing tight and itchy as it knits together.
I’m going to have scars from this.
It doesn’t matter. I’ll wear them with pride, in memory of the young sailor Iyen, who was killed simply for being kind.
What horror. If only I could escape from all this right now and be with Kaim again.
This powerlessness… I detest it.
If only I could go back to my people, and make sure they are safe.
Elders, women, children, strapping young lads on the cusp of manhood…
