Broken Crown

by Drae Box

The Bayre twirled on the spot, more white mist pouring from his hands which he flung around the room, dispersing it as widely and quickly as he could. He glared at one of the female Brethren as she raised a hand and swept a funnel of air towards him. Raneth backhanded the air between them and an icicle sliced into her throat, knocking her to the ground and choking her with her own blood.

  Rider vaulted through the window, hissing as his hand met with a glass shard still sticking out from the frame. He lifted a hand into the air in front of him and three tiny blue horses sparked into life around his hand, their manes a bright white and their eyes a solid black as they grew in size, illuminating his body and the bodies of those nearest him. The horses swept out from his hand and ran through the closest three Brethren, growing in size. The enemy screamed as they fell to their backs, the hooves smashing into their bones and the bulk of the horses crushing their organs. The three horses swept to the left of the room, passing through Raneth harmlessly, but riding straight over Brethren, knocking down each one they touched. Some Brethren gasped as their lungs collapsed, while others screamed in pain as the bones in their legs were crushed by the weight of the gift-horses.

  Raneth threw down more mist before sweeping his gaze around the room more carefully, inspecting every wall. Behind him, on the wall between the two windows was the Kingdom’s Shield. Its silver body glistened from the light of the gift-horses striking its dented body, but the three interlinked gold circles across its upper half shone with a light of their own. Raneth smiled and prowled closer. He grabbed the tear-shaped shield and tugged it off the hooks and nails that held it in place. His arms quivered as he lowered it. In his pocket, the Shotput started to warm. Raneth grimaced.

  Not now, Shotput! He turned the Kingdom’s Shield around and inspected its back.

  “Uh, Raneth,” warned Rider.

  Raneth turned to his friend, who nodded at one of the two doorways that led into the room. Denzel Leoma stood there with the Dagger of Protection in his hand; more Brethren stood behind him.

  “Get out, Rider,” ordered Raneth.

  His friend looked at him and then flung a hand towards Denzel. A fourth gift-horse formed, sparkling motes of purple and blue light as it grew in size. It charged the doorway and Denzel aimed the Dagger of Protection at the horse and Rider.

  Raneth watched as lightning rushed into the horse and the creature exploded, tiny specks of purple and blue light filling the room between Denzel and Rider as a second lightning fork curled around the Dagger’s gold blade. Oh no you don’t. Raneth dropped the Kingdom’s Shield and swept his hands out to either side of him.

  “Rider, get out!”

  The Catagowli didn’t wait a second longer. He grabbed the Kingdom’s Shield and flung it out of the same window they had entered through. He vaulted through and ducked out of view.

  Raneth smashed his hands together and thrust them as a joined fist towards Denzel. The white mist in the room gathered into a ball and smashed into the doorway where Denzel was standing, slicing miniscule icicles into Denzel Leoma and those behind him. As Denzel cried out, the Dagger’s lightning strike failed to leave the blade and instead faded away. Some of the Brethren grabbed Denzel and the Dagger and retreated, fleeing down the corridor. Raneth looked through the window. Rider wasn’t waiting for him.

  Good.

  He turned, and ducked a fist that was speeding towards his face; one of the Brethren had recovered. He slammed the heel of his hand into the underside of his attacker’s chin. The man’s head snapped back and Raneth kicked his gut, sending the Brethren sprawling onto his back. A flick of his hands carried a small slither of ice through the sprawled Brethren’s neck. He turned and stepped sideways as another Brethren reached for him, sparks of the Common Gift of Fire floating in front of his palms. A fireball burst towards Raneth’s chest, so he spun sideways, flinging a large icicle through the fire and into the Brethren’s chest.

  Raneth sucked in a breath, his blue eyes sweeping the room once again. The broken and bleeding bodies of the Brethren around him were his only companions. There was nobody left to fight him.

  Find Denzel. Execute him and bring the Dagger back to Aldora.

  He stalked to the door where Denzel had stood, his boots crunching on the tiny shards of ice that had missed their mark.

  Should have thrown one large icicle.

  But he hadn’t had time to think. If he had, Denzel would be dead or taking his last breaths.

  He inspected the floor of the corridor carefully, grateful that Broken Crown had skimped on carpeting the ground floor, leaving the concrete base exposed. All he needed was some tiny droplets of blood – something to track – so he could find Denzel. Some of his gift-ice had hit its mark, now he just had to find the proof.

  Northwest corner of the building, he thought, stalking warily through the corridor, eyeing each door as he neared and passed it. Some were slightly ajar, others were fully open and the rest were tightly closed. All it would take was one door, one Brethren, and he’d be held back, kept from further pursuing Denzel and the Dagger. He couldn’t let that happen. Giften needed a win. And Cray would want answers. By Giften’s ruddy soil, Raneth wanted answers too. If he could just find Denzel, ask his questions and then do as was required, Giften would be able to move on, with new precautions in place to prevent this from ever happening again.

  Nearest way out…

  He gritted his teeth, unable to remember the rushed verbal summary of the building Enos had given him on their way to the headquarters. Without knowing the layout, looking for Denzel in all this was–

  He jerked back as a door was flung open. A Brethren stepped through and his eyes landed on Raneth before the royal official had pulled in a breath. The Brethren flung a dismissive hand wave at Raneth.

  Freezing wind crashed into the Bayre, flinging him back down the corridor. He crashed into one of the bodies in the common room and grunted as the air was knocked from his lungs.

  Get up. Get up!

  Scowling, Raneth climbed to his feet, even as he tracked the heavy footsteps of the Brethren rushing towards him. This time, Raneth shoved a hand into the air between them and three icicles sped towards the Broken Crown member, white mist trailing them.

  The Brethren batted them away with his Common Gift of Air.

  Have they mastered their gift? What now?

  If he couldn’t beat the Brethren gift-to-gift, he was stuck.

  He yelled as another wave of cold air pulled him off his feet and knocked him out of the broken windows. He grunted as his head smacked into the ground; his legs rested against the wall under the window. He scrambled to his feet, but not fast enough; the Brethren was already at the window.

  “And I kill the captain,” teased the Brethren, grinning, as he held his palms towards Raneth.

  Something hissed through the air. It struck the Brethren in the chest, a white glowing arrow shaft jutting from the heart.

  His chest heaving, Raneth looked towards the rooftops.

  Elenee stood on a building that allowed her a decent view of this side and the east side of Broken Crown’s headquarters. She nodded at Raneth before aiming the Bow of Justice at something alongside the building and firing again. Three arrows of sizzling light sparked into the air in front of the bow and sliced through the air, passing where Raneth could see them. He rolled onto his feet.

  Wonder if Cray knows she’s been teaching herself to use the Bow.

  He climbed back into Broken Crown’s headquarters and slipped his hand to the Shotput of Power in his pocket.

  “Alright, Shotput,” he murmured. He held it out in front of him. “I can’t keep putting off using you because you’re creepy and because of your bloody history.” He checked the corridor and prowled into it once more, cautiously advancing as he had before. “Let’s see what you can do to help. I need as many Brethren fleeing this place as possible. I need them to get in Denzel’s way.”

  The Shotput warmed in his hand and lifted into the air in front
of him. Raneth hesitated, his blue eyes watching it closely, before it burst into flames and crashed through the ceiling.

  Screams came from above and ahead of Raneth, and he set off down the corridor. He ducked as the Shotput smashed its way back into the corridor, leaving flames licking against the shattered ceiling, and then it flung itself through the corridor wall. Smoke began to tickle the air.

  Raneth ran on. He had a murderer and a traitor to catch.

  Chapter Twenty

  Aldora

  The ground shuddered and a crack rushed down the ramp’s left wall. Aldora frowned and stepped further out of the cellar, into the central room. Black smoke billowed from a hole in the wall behind her; shards of glass fell free from the shattered windows. She ducked back into the cellar.

  “Alika, did you do something with your gift?”

  Alika was halfway out of the fenced area. She didn’t pause as she strode to join Aldora.

  “Nope. I can only manipulate emotions, Aldora. Whatever that tremor was, it wasn’t me… Follow me and stick close. I can only make a few people cry at a time, and sometimes I screw up and make myself cry uncontrollably. I need you to cover me if you can.” Alika paused and eyed Aldora’s almost empty belt. “Can you cover me? You don’t have the Dagger. Is it true you gave it to Denzel?”

  “No, I didn’t,” snapped Aldora. “I wouldn’t ever give it to him.”

  Alika hummed. “Alright. Just focus on doing what you can then. Let’s move,” ordered the royal official, grabbing Aldora’s wrist and pulling her out of the cellar and towards one of the doors leading away from the central room.

  Brethren were streaming into the central room from all the doors, some bashing into one another as they rushed blindly towards another doorway, others shoving their friends to the floor to get past them.

  Raneth must have arrived, decided Aldora, dodging out of the way of a Brethren swearing the foulest stream of profanities she had ever heard. Which means this damage is from the Shotput.

  “We need to get out,” she said. “This won’t end well.”

  Beside her, Alika was quiet, her green eyes surveying the black smoke coming into the central room from the windows in the wing walls, but she didn’t stop moving. She headed towards a door in the west wing.

  Above them, a wall exploded inwards, a waft of brick, glass and dust clattering onto the ground as something smashed through it and then out into another building. The girls darted back, narrowly missing being hit.

  “What in Giften’s name?” snarled Alika.

  “I think it’s the Shotput,” stated Aldora as the object flew through the walls once more. She noticed fire flickering at one of the breaks in the walls. “It’s a lot more deadly than the Dagger. We should get out before this whole place catches fire.”

  “Agreed. Stay close.”

  Alika eyed a Brethren standing between them and the door. She narrowed her eyes and frowned at him. The Brethren’s lower lip trembled and he wailed as he sank to his knees, tears welling into his eyes and spilling down his cheeks.

  Aldora stepped past him and grabbed Alika’s hand as she stepped into the wing. Both sisters coughed; smoke was filling the corridor.

  “This way,” gasped Aldora, dragging her sister to the left. “We have to use Raneth’s plan.”

  They followed the corridor, and barely got out of the way when three screaming Brethren, their jackets aflame, barrelled through the corridor.

  Aldora gagged as she caught a whiff of their flesh burning and she rested a hand against the corridor wall. She felt the Shotput smash through the wall elsewhere, and brickwork and wooden beams fell to the ground so hard she felt it in her feet. “This building can’t take much more of this,” she said.

  She rushed down the corridor, sucking in each mouthful of breath as black and grey smoke began to curl around their ankles, toying with their knees and creeping upwards. Her eyes stung, the smoke poking and prodding until each scrape of her eyelids was like rubbing sand in her eyes. Aldora coughed as a tickle started in the back of her throat.

  Raneth better get out alive.

  At last, Aldora and her sister burst through a door, into the cobbled streets outside. On either side of them smoke filled the streets, belching from the building on all three floors. As Aldora turned to look for any sign of Raneth – hoping he hadn’t penned himself in, hoping he hadn’t gotten himself hurt – she noticed the many men and women streaming out around her and Alika, dressed in Brethren and Guardsmen jackets.

  “He’s forcing everyone out,” she murmured.

  “Why?” asked Alika. “Better if he just kills them all.”

  “I don’t know.” At the back of Aldora’s mind, a thread of thought tugged, but she pushed it away. “I hope I don’t know.” She pointed to the right of the building, the east side. “We have to go that way.”

  The sisters bolted, and Aldora was grateful that the Brethren and Guardsmen seemed to pay them almost no attention, their focus only giving way enough to swerve around them.

  “Leoma!”

  She glanced over her shoulder. A Brethren was racing towards them, white mist curling around his sleeves and fingers.

  Thought too soon.

  She yanked her sister harder, forcing her legs to push her further, willing her body to move faster than it could. She had seen how powerful the Common Gift of Ice could be – Raneth had relied upon it in Newer more than ever before – and she had to hope that this Brethren’s aim sucked.

  She shrieked as something cold sped past her ear, claws of frost sinking into her shoulder.

  Alika let go of her hand and spun around, glaring. Aldora slowed and turned to watch the Brethren, her hand clasping her shoulder. He wasn’t stopping, and he wasn’t paying Alika any attention whatsoever. His green eyes were focused on her.

  “Your gift’s not working!” Aldora grabbed her sister’s hand and yanked at her, growling as her shoulder screamed. “Elenee’s over here.”

  “Who?”

  “Icoque’s me.”

  They burst into the street that ran alongside her uncle’s dying building. Bodies caked the ground, fresh blood sparkling on the cobblestones. Aldora paused and looked to the left, seeking their ally, and spotted her standing on a rooftop, the Bow of Justice gleaming in her hands.

  “This way. We have to go to the palace.”

  Aldora jerked into a run again, jumping over the bodies, trying not to notice that many had received kill shots to the head. Some of the wounds dribbled blood and made her stomach turn. She’d have to get used to this, to the blood, if she was going to marry Raneth when this was all over. If they both made it out alive.

  A hissing shriek made Aldora look over her injured shoulder. An arrow of light thudded into the back of their pursuer’s head and Aldora flinched and fell as the Brethren’s head exploded. The blood of her uncle’s traitors pressed against her hands as she scrambled to her feet, her knees wet with the blood of Giften’s enemies.

  My enemies, she reminded herself. Uncle Denzel’s too far gone to be saved.

  Which meant that his men probably were too. No royal official, no loyal Giften to the Three Ks would ever allow what Broken Crown had done to stand. And she wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. Her oath to the Three Ks would come first now too. It had to.

  She wiped her bloody hands against her chest, the heels of her hands burning. She jumped over another body, but gritted her teeth and turned to her sister at her side, grabbing her wrist again.

  Alika stopped. “What?”

  “I can’t leave him,” said Aldora, casting her brown eyes in the direction of the burning building. “Him or the Dagger.”

  “Don’t,” hissed Alika. “You’ll get yourself killed if you go back in there.”

  Neither sister flinched as Elenee’s arrows caught two more Brethren fleeing in their direction.

  “I have to,” said Aldora. “I can’t keep expecting him to fix my mistakes.”

  Alika frowned. “Yo
u’ve never–”

  “But it feels like I do,” said Aldora. “He’s always there to pick up the pieces when I screw up. He always helps.”

  “Don’t be so rid–”

  “Here.” Aldora slipped a hand into her pocket and withdrew a page ripped from a book. On one side, in the margins, a list of street names was written in her handwriting, scruffy from rushing to get them down before she and Raneth had had to end their grebunar call. She pressed it into Alika’s hands. “Take this. Use these streets and then get to the palace. A one-armed man called Erasmus is waiting to escort us. Go with him. Raneth and I will meet you at the palace.”

  “That building–”

  “I’ll manage,” insisted Aldora. “I have to.”

  “Then I’m coming with you.”

  “No,” said Aldora firmly. “If something happens to Raneth, you’re the next person I trust to save Giften from Uncle Denzel and his men. Rider’s too…”

  “Hot-headed and opinionated,” uttered Alika, nodding. “Alright. But try not to die.”

  Alika turned and continued down the street. Aldora watched her go, then she turned back and ran, her heart beating so hard she could feel it in her ears. The smoke filled the streets and clawed at her throat, making each breath harder and harder. She gritted her teeth.

  I have to find the Dagger. I have to give Raneth a chance to get Denzel.

  She had no idea if Raneth needed her help, and given how many Brethren and Guardsmen had already fled, she had to assume there was a good chance Denzel had too.

  Maybe Raneth’s slowed him down.

  Maybe that was why the others were fleeing. Maybe that’s why the Shotput was creating so much damage so quickly – because Raneth wanted to make Denzel panic and grab the Dagger, unaware that she had almost managed to get hold of it herself.

  I can’t let the Dagger fall into the wrong hands. It can’t be like the Shotput.

  She jerked to a stop and surveyed Broken Crown’s headquarters as it came into view. The roof was buried by smoke and flames that whirled into the sky from the gaping windows. The door at the top of the metal stairs she and Raneth had used spewed grey and black smoke. She looked at the wide loading bay door. Hardly any Brethren and Guardsmen were plunging out from the smoke and fire now. Aldora took a deep breath, hacking out a cough as the smoke curled into her chest. She lifted the crook of her elbow to her face and plunged inside.