Oracle of ruin, p.12
Oracle of Ruin, page 12
A sick tugging at my heart tells me to ignore her bitter words, but they’re so raw from someone usually so composed… I find my gaze trailing down towards the foot that bears the least weight. Her pant leg has snagged on my bedpost, pulling the fabric away from a shiny metal leg. My breath hitches in my throat as I try to tear my gaze away, but find that I can’t.
Neris doesn’t balk or move to cover the appendage. Instead, something like pity flickers across her features. Her warm eyes bore holes in my face before I’m reminded to breathe again and greedily inhale the stale cavern air. Gooseflesh prickles along my arms and raises my hair. I know it is not from the chill inhabiting the compound.
Her hand reaches forward and ruffles my already mused hair. “You’re loyal, that’s a good trait to have. It’s just a little misplaced right now. Finish getting dressed. I’ll meet you outside.”
I pull my remaining clothes on and my lips part to remind her I cannot go anywhere without someone else opening the door, but I stop myself. My outstretched fingers inch towards the door where it sits, shut after her departure. I wince prematurely and wrap my hand around the cool metal. It doesn’t burn. I risk twisting the knob slightly. The door clicks and snicks open, baring the empty hallway to me. Nearly empty hallway.
Mavis crosses her arms over her chest with a knowing smirk. Neris leans against the wall beside her, too deeply engrossed in their conversation to notice my arrival. Or so it would appear. The general has keen senses and I know she knew the moment I laced my fingers around the doorknob.
Mavis wears her hair tightly woven to her scalp, small and intricate braids creating a pattern resembling that of a crown. Her skin is paler than her usual bronze tan, drawing out the severity of her two-toned gaze. Her emerald eye slides in my direction, freezing me in my spot. She raises a well-manicured brow as if to ask, well, what are you waiting for? “Took you long enough.”
“Sorry, not all of us wake up perfect,” I bristle under my breath, low enough that she shouldn’t be able to hear it.
The mercenary queen’s knowing look tells me she did.
Neris shoulders a large pack, her gaze never leaving Mavis’s face. Her intense features soften to better match her personality. Something new flutters within my chest. She looks at Mavis like she hung the moon then gave her the stars.
I trail behind the both of them, feeling oddly upset and left out. I shake my head. I should have no desire to take any part in their twisted world. This trip is only to serve their wants. I have no choice in the matter.
The opening of the cave stands before us in mere moments. I hadn’t had much time to look around as I was dragged in here, naked and bleeding, by Argon, may the gods damn his soul. The opening is guarded by a multitude of soldiers, dressed the same as Neris, though notably less well decorated. They bow deeply at the waist, their chests near brushing their knees as they do so. Some sit atop a large pillar that resembles the guard towers we used to have at the palace, before it crumbled and took those towers with it.
Large tapestries loom on either side of the entrance. Those, I am sure I have not seen yet. My neck cracks as I crane it to admire every stitch, the bold colors reflecting in the bright torchlight. Raon and Deun. Night and Day.
Usually, portraits and tapestries portray Raonkin with dark and muted hues, with no care made to provide her a face of beauty. Gilded colors, jewel tones, and other forms of glory are saved only for Deungrid—anything else would be considered blasphemy.
Yet this artist thought differently. Deungrid is portrayed as he usually is—intense and commanding, haloed by golds and reds. But Raonkin… Her usually stern face is soft and lovely, those hollow cheeks filled in and her scarred hands soft. Bright colors explode behind her, silvers, purples, blues, and the occasional tinge of pink. She smiles with her eyes closed, serene and caring. The tapestry portrays darkness as a comfortable blanket that covers all the world’s hurt. Light illuminates, but darkness covers. Both serve their purpose and balance each other out.
“We don’t worship either god over the other here,” Emi sneers, suddenly appearing beside me.
My year of schooling my reflexes with Rowan is the only thing that stops me from knocking her out. “That feels like a pointed remark.”
“Good,” is all she says before stalking to stand beside Mavis and her general. No sign of injury on her body. I suppose it wasn’t too serious after all.
I trail closely behind as Mavis raises a single hand. The sound of metal grinding on stones booms through the cavernous room, popping my eardrums and causing me to bite my cheek. Mavis doesn’t flinch as the gates are raised, her soldiers saluting as we exit. Neris offers some command and a clap on the shoulder to one of them as she exits, and the blood bond tugs me forward silently, crawling under my skin when I dare to lag behind.
The cold stings my cheeks and brings tears to my eyes the moment I step outside. Winter has fully arrived in Krycolis, its biting caress tracing every inch of exposed skin. Neris extends a cloak my way that I gratefully slip over my shoulders. I burrow my face in the fur-lined hood, watching fascinated as tiny snowflakes and bits of ice stick to the fur.
Icicles sparkle in the midday sunlight, their frozen elegance gracing the branches of every tree we walk past, frost having frozen the moss on their trunks as well. The snow crunches delightfully beneath my feet, and despite the beauty of it all, nausea roils through my stomach.
I used to love the snow. Torin, Blaine, Tanja, and I used to wait by the library window every night leading up to winter, waiting for the first flurries to descend. We would burn through oil lamp after oil lamp, sneaking out with the help of my nanny, Tanja’s mother. She would leave hidden sacks of goodies such as cookies or jelly tarts among the bookshelves. The librarians eventually caught on and would bring milk of molten chocolate that they had conveniently gotten too much of from the cook. If Irene ever knew of our rendezvous, she didn’t say anything, which in itself was enough to make the first frost seem holy.
Until she ruined that too.
I can still remember the sting of the snow as it soaked my nightgown and froze my eyes open. Steam arose from my wound, the blood and flesh hot enough to melt a bit of the snow and ice, but not enough so to stop the hypothermia from setting in as the blizzard began again.
I’d read stories about monsters lurking after dark, how wolves can smell blood and search for the softest spots to attack. I was a child. I was easy prey, for both the wolves and my mother.
Blaine found me the next morning, and Tanja and Torin came to visit me, as well, while the healers did their best to save my young life. Torin’s mother often visited Blaine’s, and she allowed him to come into the palace despite the blizzard when news got out that the princess had fallen from a tower.
They all expected I would be afraid of heights, if anything, but it was never the fall that froze my senses with fear. No, the fall took me away from the horror. It was my mother waiting at the bottom, ready to leave me in the snow, that stopped my heart.
The frost came that next year, and when I pressed my face to the window like we had been doing for years, all I felt was cold dread.
That same dread settles deep in my stomach now as I stare down at the white powder. So clean, so pure, so evil. On instinct, I reach my hand out to hold onto… someone who is no longer here.
Mavis watches with feline curiosity, but says and does nothing. Neris kicks snow at Emi, who shrieks and throws a glob at the general’s face.
“No rocks,” is Mavis’s stern warning, but otherwise, she lets the two play.
The feared general of Mavis’s army, the queen of mercenaries’s wolf, playing in the snow with a freckled teenager while the world falls down around us. Thankfully, neither of them includes me in their game. I am especially thankful when Emi doesn’t heed Mavis’s warning and includes pebbles and sticks in her snowball, a stray rock cutting across Neris’s face. That puts an end to the game, and Emi is forced to carry the heavy sack the general has been carrying since we left the compound. She whines, to which Mavis launches into a long-winded speech on discipline, and Neris chuckles behind her hood.
We’ve been wandering for near two hours by the time I finally find my voice again. “Where are we going, and what the hell are we doing other than walking through a blizzard?”
Mavis groans and lolls her neck from side to side. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is if I say it is.”
“Can you stop being a bitch for once and give me a straight-forward answer?”
“We are searching for someone, that’s all you need to know.”
I laugh mirthlessly. “You’ve brought me along to kill someone. Lovely.”
“I brought you here so you don’t kill yourself,” she finally snaps. “So hold your tongue and keep walking.”
Even if I wanted to fall down into the snow and let it finally kill me, I know I cannot. Even if I tried, she would force my blood to pump through my heart and my feet to move. She has effectively stolen any agency, even the sweet kiss of death from me. My feet move against my will and I follow her into the dark and snow like an obedient dog at the heels of a wicked master.
Spindly icicles dangle dangerously from tree branches, the scent of pine and snow hanging thick in the air. I allow myself to breathe deeply, the cold chilling my bones with each breath. The others press on ahead, Emi occasionally tapping the cold spires without the slightest flickering of fear across her face.
Tentatively, I reach out and wrap gloved fingers around the tip of one. The pointed mound breaks free from the branch and spirals downwards towards me. I shriek, stumbling back. Neris hides a chuckle and Emi sticks her tongue out, but I only stare at my hand.
I grabbed it. I wasn’t thrown into it or forced down. I grabbed it.
No panic attacks. No remembrance of the howling wind or freezing snow. Any fear caused was from the jarring motion of the fall and not the ice itself. Pride swells in my chest, though the others only continue their walk.
Leaning forward, I scoop a fistful of snow into my hands, then throw the snowball as hard as I can at the back of Emi’s head.
Chapter 18
Rowan
Torin meets us outside just as he said he would, cloaked in midnight, illuminated only by starlight. He lowers his hood with a gloved hand, revealing his messy blond hair with the roots grown out. Dark circles crown his undereyes, but he still nods with a smile, allowing a bit of warmth onto his face. The three companions that flank his sides do not spare the same courtesy of allowing us to see who they are.
Blaine embraces the Nevan man, patting him firmly on the shoulder as they part. I follow suit, leaving my hood up as well.
“Noiteron.” Torin dips his chin, plastering on a courtier’s mannerisms.
I accept his hand in a firm clasp before stepping back. I turn my faceless hood towards the other travelers.
Each bows in reverence to a false king before spinning on their heel to lead the way.
The darkness was my first friend as a child. Even before Irene attempted to murder me and my mother, and my father lost his mind, I never had any friends that I could remember. I would play with other children, but never stayed anywhere long enough to remember names. I spied on them from locked windows, wishing desperately to be one of them. To be normal.
There was a girl I saw once after Irene shattered my semblance of a life. She and a boy ran into a clearing my mother and I were in. She was demanding, but possessed such commanding light that I found myself reaching for her before I was pulled back into the shadows.
I never wanted to bathe in the light so badly as then, until I met Vera.
But before Vera, there were shadows. They clung to me like a second skin, cloaking me in the night when the wind howled too sharply. Hiding my bruises from my mother when I first began picking up odd jobs to pay bills. I told her the sword was for safety. I told her I was simply an errand boy. It wasn’t until Amír came home with me, splattered in blood with bruised wrists and ankles, did she realize what I was doing.
Then Amír found Kya and Derrín, and we amassed our army. Mavis was supposed to be just another recruit, another underling. Amír brought her in, trained her. I loved her, and part of me was killed by her.
Yet they still chose to follow me, even after I lost half our profits to a slit-tongued succubus and our kingdom began to crumble. To Amír’s credit, I can see how I might have fooled others into believing me a fit ruler. I can see how the appeal of a hybrid who fought tooth and nail like them could paint a pretty picture upon a throne.
I stare at the scars lacing my forearms. They don’t know the curse of this blood. They don’t know like father like son. I may not be a monster yet, but by gods, I must be destined to be one.
I’ve never been a good man. I’ve never claimed to be. The poets say everyone has a villain in their story, and I have always been my own, happy to play the part. I try not to think of the innocent lives I’ve taken, whether they were caught in the crossfire or used against me as leverage by Mavis or some other enemy. An indirect kill is still blood on my hands. The wicked that I’ve put down do not haunt my dreams, but the deaths that could have been avoided do. They scream in tones only I can hear, and when they threaten to rip me to shreds, the darkness shields me once again.
Torin and the rebels lead us into that darkness now, all walking in dead silence for fear of what monsters lurk in the trees. My eyes adjust quickly, outlining pines and other dead or dying foliage. Kya picks her way nimbly next to me. The assassin’s fingers wrap around Amír’s wrist, guiding her past tree roots and loose stones. Amír is more than capable of finding her way on her own, but makes no protest as the other woman leads her in the dark. Blaine keeps pace ahead with Torin. His hand never strays from the sword hanging sheathed at his hip.
One of the rebels leans towards the other, whispering something just out of my earshot. Kya is behind them in a second, completely undetected as they finish their conversation.
“That’s not a nice thing to say,” she whispers between them, making a shallow cut across both their thighs—far too close to something more valuable. She’s back by my side by the time they turn around in bewilderment and fear.
Blaine stifles a chuckle while I lean in closer to the assassin.
“What did they say?”
“Oh you know, the usual.” She shrugs, despite no one else being able to see her. “They expected me and Amír to be men. Thought we were just company at first.”
“If you slit their throats, no one will know.”
“You will.”
“Sinners can’t preach.”
Kya snorts. “No, I suppose not.”
“We’re here,” Torin whispers roughly. He knocks thrice on a hidden door against a wall of rock that not even I could spot, then kicks it once more when it won’t open.
A thick voice speaks from the other side, muffled by distance. “Who is it?”
“Last I checked, Lio, the Kijova don’t know how to knock,” Torin drawls.
The door opens and a burly man with a ruddy face appears. He claps Torin on the shoulder hard enough to nearly knock the man over. “You can just give a name instead of talking out your arsehole,” Lio answers, his voice thick with an accent.
Torin laughs, that bastard’s grin still lighting his lips.
The large man takes that as a response and ushers us all in.
I take note of the seven bolts on the door and their locking mechanisms. A few pin locks, some that just slide into place. Get the top three loose and the final four will pop clean off with a soft enough hand.
Kya and Amír trail my gaze. I already know they’ve thought of every way to get them unlocked in the span of fifteen seconds.
“The boss is this way.” Lio knocks my ribs with his hefty elbow. “He’s been expecting ye.”
“Good.”
The others have lowered their hoods, but I keep mine raised. It earns odd stares, but I’d rather not make my face known to the entirety of the rebels until I’ve guaranteed Vera’s safety. Only a few have seen the face of the Noiteron—my Nightwalkers, Mavis, and people who now lay beneath the earth. Anonymity is a luxury to keep in the fine industry of crime.
Amír and Kya wear their faces proudly during all our hits unless the particular heist calls for the thin cloak of stealth. Their faces are their own weapons, their objective beauty just as lethal as the gun and daggers hanging at their sides. Mavis’s generals may not fall for that form of weaponry, but her foot soldiers—her predominantly male foot soldiers—fall for it every time. Hook, line, and sinker. They’re still staring into Amír’s green eyes with wonder as her bullet pierces between their brows.
They stand just slightly behind me now, their eyes constantly scanning. A few of the scattered rebels hunch their shoulders and drop their gawking gazes as we pass. I cannot feel the cold and yet some of them shiver. Gooseflesh prickles the back of Blaine’s neck. He shoots me a sideways glance, the whites of his eyes peeking out from behind his lashes like whitecaps cresting on the ocean.
“We are here,” one of the hooded figures says now, dropping their cloak to the side. His sandy hair falls out in waves, framing his freckled face. He clutches at where Kya sliced him earlier, blushing as he tries to hide the blood. The other does the same, too ashamed to explain how he got the wound.
Torin nods. “The mask goes on now,” he whispers, just loud enough that I can hear it.
I dip my chin beneath my hood and the young man opens the door. I pinch my shoulders back as if a board is between them, flexing every one of my finely carved muscles. Amír scoffs.
The room is dim, but by no means is it poorly lit. No, the mounds of bodies piled into the small space absorb and block out the majority of the light, leaving only shadowy shapes along the walls. I bite back a grin. They let the king of night into their territory all while hiding in the dark—where I thrive.
