Red lands and black flam.., p.7
Red Lands and Black Flames, page 7
No one would follow her up here.
Marai hated that she’d been put in this situation. She wasn’t a leader. She had power, but knew not how to wield it. Why had she been given this responsibility?
Whatever I decide will affect them, too . . .
Magic throbbed within her, wanting release along with her frustration.
She let go, feeling the sparks travel down her arms and out through her fingertips. A rightness settled over her. White strands of lightning snapped in the air all around her, unhinged and wild . . . She’d been born with lightning at her heels and in her veins. An agrestal storm cloud bloomed in the sky.
Marai let the magic loose until that pent-up need, anger, and confusion subsided. She took several long, deep breaths, inhaling the bone dryness of the Badlands. There was nothing and no one around for miles and miles. Ehle was the least consequential of the Nine Kingdoms, with the sparsest population. Most of Ehle was covered in the red desert, uninhabitable except for those desperate and resourceful enough to survive. Marai was alone up on that plateau. Alone, even amongst the other fae. Alone, with the weight of responsibility heavy upon her shoulders.
Ruen, she thought, dropping to her knees. Her fingers dug into the copper dirt. What should I do?
Chapter 6
Marai
Leif and Aresti didn’t say a further word about the ring. Marai supposed Keshel, Raife, or both, spoke to them in private. She was appreciative, but knew it was only a matter of time before someone brought it up again.
Two more weeks passed. The fae celebrated Ostara, the holiday honoring Lirr and the welcoming of spring. As they did each year, the fae lined their entryway with flowers from Kadiatu’s garden, mimicking the path of blooms Lirr supposedly left in her wake whenever she stepped foot on soil. They left the goddess offerings of desert fruits and fish in baskets by the river next to blazing candles of green flame, created by Leif. Thora waved incense around the cave and chanted in the language of the gods, cleansing away the dark of winter, ushering in the light.
“Did you know that ancient fae is also the language of the gods?” Keshel asked Marai as they listened to Thora’s melodic voice fill the cave.
“No, I didn’t,” said Marai. She’d been a child the last time she heard ancient fae spoken by her father. The language was lost to her, as it was for the others, except for the few holiday chants.
“Curious, isn’t it?” Keshel pondered. “Humans despise us for our magic, but why would Lirr have given her own language to us if not out of love?”
Her lessons with Keshel were stressful. Marai’s magic didn’t want to be controlled. The lightning was feral and yearned to be released, to stretch for miles. Keshel had been correct—her power was immense, but it was dangerous to everyone around her. More than once Marai had almost turned Keshel to ashes, but he’d been quick to put up his shield. Her lightning crashed against it in a bright explosion, ricocheting off, unable to penetrate his barrier.
Keshel had given Marai specific breathing and mind-shaping exercises. He instructed her to imagine her magic as a living thing, part of her physical body, something that must be shaped and honed. She was to visualize her magic flexing and shifting like any normal muscle. It was boring, tedious work. Merely standing there breathing and visualizing was more exhausting than fighting in a battle.
Eventually, though, Marai got the hang of it.
Lightning climbed up the high canyon walls; slunk like a lynx over the water. With a mere thought, Marai directed it, and the strands of white light turned, creating a circle of crackling power around Keshel. Then she reeled it all back inside, as easy as sucking in air.
Trying to catch her off-guard, Keshel threw a ball of blazing fire at Marai. With the flex of her hands, an invisible shield erected around her. The fireball exploded against the barrier, then burnt out, scattering cinders into the red dirt.
“Excellent work,” Keshel said, giving Marai one of his rare smiles. “I don’t think anyone else could’ve mastered their magic faster. Including me.”
“I still don’t have complete control.”
“You will,” Keshel said in a tone that meant he knew because he’d seen it. Keshel was never forthcoming about his visions. Marai guessed there were many things he knew about her that he’d never share. Keshel had told her once years ago that it was often better to let things happen the way they were intended. That sometimes knowing something was going to happen made things worse. She couldn’t comprehend how much those visions of the future weighed on Keshel. He never showed weakness. Perhaps she’d learned that from him.
Every day, Marai awoke and her heart seemed a little lighter. Every hour, a fissure in her soul healed over, and stitched itself together. She gained sturdiness from the laughter of her people. Resilience in their passion, their dedication to each other. She’d crawled through broken glass to reach this point. To find herself again. Marai’s soul was bloodied and torn, but healing.
“I know you miss him,” Thora said as they washed bloody bandages at the river. Raife had accidentally sliced his hand on Aresti’s sword during training, and the wound had bled a lot before Thora could magically seal the cut. He was fine, but they’d used several strips of cloth to soak up the blood. “Your prince.”
“He’s not my prince,” grumbled Marai.
Thora stopped vigorously scrubbing the cloth, and gave Marai her usual knowing look. “No? Then what is he?”
“Nevandia’s prince,” said Marai.
Thora raised an eyebrow. “It’s alright, you know . . . to feel more.”
Ivy curled and tightened around Marai’s mending heart. They’d saved each other, in a way. Ruenen had shown her possibilities. A future that didn’t reside at a blade’s edge. He’d opened her eyes to more.
“You’re one to talk,” Marai quipped, letting those feelings of more drift away.
“You’re not the only one struggling with those feelings,” Thora said, face falling. “I know what it’s like to care for someone and not be able to be with them.” She clutched Raife’s wet bandages to her breast.
Marai looked away, staring hard at the water lapping on the pebbles as if the river had personally affronted her. A hollowness took over, encapsulating her heart. “It doesn’t matter what I felt once, because he’s dead.”
“Of course it matters, Marai,” Thora said. “Attraction isn’t a choice, but loving someone is. And choosing to love is a brave, scary thing.”
Marai had been brave once; had been willing to cleave her heart in two and share it with another, with Slate. That youthful courage and brashness had been punished. She’d vowed to never let love blind her; that no man would ever hurt or claim her again.
Ruenen had never tried to claim her. He’d chosen to care. Marai still didn’t know what her feelings for Ruenen were . . . was it more than friendship? Did she love him?
But Ruenen was dead. It’d been a month since the day she’d portaled to the Badlands. Rayghast had slain him by now. The cruel king had probably overthrown Nevandia. Keshel hadn’t mentioned he’d seen anything about it . . .
Marai briefly considered portaling to Paracaso to see if there was any news about Tacorn and Nevandia, but then she shook the thought from her head.
Do I really want to know? Because then it would be real . . . then there would be confirmation of Ruenen’s death, and Marai didn’t think she could bear to hear those words spoken aloud.
Aresti’s figure appeared, barreling in from the boundaries of the fae territory. She’d been on watch duty all afternoon. Marai stood at once. From a distance, she spotted the frantic expression on Aresti’s face.
“What’s wrong?” Marai asked.
“Riders,” Aresti panted as she neared, sweat plastering hair to her neck and temples. “Twenty–heading this way. Fifteen of them wear black armor.”
Tacorn.
Rayghast, the bastard, had arrived.
Marai dashed inside the cave and grabbed Dimtoir and her dagger. It was time to wage war.
The others followed her outside like lost kittens, panic knitting their brows.
“How did they find us?” Thora questioned, biting her lower lip, glancing between Marai and Keshel. “And why so many?”
Twenty wasn’t many. Rayghast could have sent dozens more.
“What are you doing, Marai?” asked Keshel. He placed a hand on her shoulder, briefly halting her. “My barriers will protect us. The riders will leave if they can’t find us.”
“Rayghast ordered those men to find me at all costs. I’d rather kill them now and be done with it.” Marai was a threat to him and his plans. She’d killed too many of his men; had humiliated the king by escaping with Ruenen from his dungeon. And more than that, she was fae, and Rayghast wanted to eradicate all traces of faerie blood from Astye.
Marai stalked off in the direction Aresti had come from, ignoring Keshel and Thora’s calls from the cave entrance.
She’d make them bleed. The riders weren’t Rayghast, but it didn’t matter . . . Marai would make them pay for what the cruel king did to Ruenen.
The riders weren’t hard to spot, cantering through the canyon pass, beside the river, to the edge of Keshel’s barrier. Fifteen brawny soldiers sat astride their mounts, sporting Tacorn’s crossed-sword emblem pins upon their chests. Marai briefly wondered how suffocatingly hot they must be wearing all that black armor. Their five bounty-hunter companions were olive-skinned men of Ehle in lightweight linens and protective turbans. They couldn’t proceed through. Their horses reared and neighed at the sensation of magic; their ears twitched. Animals could always sense magic in ways humans couldn’t.
“What’s going on? Why can’t we get through?” one of the soldiers asked.
Hidden behind Keshel’s invisible wall, Marai crept closer to the men. Maybe they’ll turn back.
A bounty hunter pressed his hand up against the invisible shield. “It’s magic!”
The soldiers stirred, grabbing for their weapons.
“We found them! The fae are here,” one of them said; their commander, based on the red plume on his helmet. “Find a way through this barrier.”
The soldiers and hunters began pummeling Keshel’s shield with their swords and spears, hoping to break through. Marai wondered if Keshel could feel each strike. Would he weaken? Would his barrier fall?
Feet pounded the earth behind her. Aresti, Leif, and Raife had followed. As reluctant warriors, they lifted their bows and arrows with trembling hands. Twenty against four was frightening odds to them as inexperienced killers.
“Stay back behind the barrier,” Marai whispered. “You can shoot from here, and stay out of harm’s way.”
Aresti, Leif, and Raife didn’t move, not forward, or further to safety.
Passing through the shield, Marai leapt onto the nearest rider, pulling him from his saddle. Men swore in surprise. Horses whinnied. Before any of the hunters or soldiers could raise their weapons, arrows flew from behind the barrier.
One of Raife’s arrows lodged in the throat of an Ehle man. Blood gurgled from his mouth as he tilted out of his saddle. Leif hit another man in the thigh. He yelped, falling from his horse into the dirt. The bounty hunter was then trampled by hooves in the frenzy.
Bodies tumbled onto the ground. Dimtoir slashed through stomachs and necks, any exposed skin, whistling in the carnage. Eventually, Aresti tired of waiting behind the barrier and joined Marai in the fray. Her two swords became blurred silver in the air as she brought down a rider. His flailing sword sliced through her arm as he fell. Blood spurted, and Aresti gasped at the pain.
Leif and Raife’s arrows kept flying, hitting true. Marai cut down a hunter whose spear was aimed at Aresti’s heart.
All twenty men were dead in minutes. Their horses galloped away through the gorge.
Leif let out a shuddering breath as he lowered his bow. He was pale, despite the high sun of the afternoon. He’d struck five men with his arrows. Raife had six kills. All shots had gone straight through the eye.
“Is this what you want me to do to all the humans?” Marai asked him and Aresti. “Use the ring to inflict this kind of slaughter on everyone in Astye? I know death. Killing makes you numb. It rips out your soul. I don’t want you all to become me.”
Leif cringed, like he might vomit, but he still managed to lance Marai with a glare. His hands shook as his eyes settled on Marai’s cream linen shirt. She’d borrowed it from Thora, and now the shirt was stained with splattered blood. Perhaps Thora wouldn’t be cross, what with Marai protecting her, and all. Aresti clung to the wound on her arm with clenched teeth.
Raife approached, staring down at the dead men with a pained expression. “We’ll need to bury them right away. They’ll rot faster in the sun. And Aresti, make sure you have Thora tend to that wound.”
Leif and Aresti went to retrieve their shovels from the cave. While they were gone, Marai knelt to search the dead men’s pockets.
“What are you doing?” asked Raife, a twinge of horror in his tone, as Marai pilfered coins, valuables, weapons, and food from the dead men.
“They don’t need this. We do,” Marai replied. She handed Raife two daggers and a long, thin knife. Her hands grasped a piece of paper inside a soldier’s breastplate. She unfolded it as Raife loomed over her shoulder. Leif was returning with the shovels.
The note was from Rayghast to his soldiers.
I want the Lady Butcher found. I have reason to believe there are more of her disgusting kind still alive in the Badlands. You have one job: find her, and kill all those associated with her.
Merely seeing the king’s signature at the end electrified Marai’s blood again. She crumpled the note in her fist, and tossed it into the mass grave Raife and Leif dug behind a boulder.
For you, Ruenen.
Marai dumped a shovel-full of red dirt over the bodies.
Rayghast could send a hundred men, a thousand men, after her. She would never let him win.
A week later, Keshel came to her by the river. The sky was brilliantly bright with layers of tangerine and peach. Marai sat on a rock, meditating as usual before training.
“Beautiful morning,” he said, and it was. Insects chirped, a frog croaked; there was a gentle, warm breeze, bringing with it the smell of blossoming cactus flowers. Keshel sat on the rock near Marai. He stared at her, taking in every inch, as if truly seeing her for the first time.
He’d been softening, too. Day after day, Marai saw the signs of life in his face, a light in his eyes. He kept finding reasons to be around her, like sitting next to her at meals, or helping her and Kadiatu in the garden. Keshel had his own stone walls inside, and the longer Marai stayed, the more of those walls crumbled.
Unnerved by Keshel’s attention, Marai scowled at him. “What?”
“I wasn’t sure who you’d be when you came back to us,” he said, catching Marai off-guard. “I assumed you would still be that ferocious little girl.”
“The demon child?” Marai snorted.
A smile flashed upon Keshel’s face, but it was gone quickly. “You were never a demon, just wild. Unhappy. I understand why you were, but it was my duty to protect you, and you never wanted to be controlled. That’s why we clashed so often.”
“I know that, but it doesn’t mean I liked it.”
He smiled, this time for real. “I was never surprised you left. Honestly, I’m amazed that you’re still here now. But I’m glad you are. You brought a much-needed spark back into our lives.”
Marai picked her fingernails, avoiding his gaze. Worms wriggled around in her stomach at the earnest, tender tone of Keshel’s voice.
“But there’s something you must know.” Concern darkened Keshel’s expression. Whatever it was he had to say, Keshel struggled. He hesitated, pursed his lips, like he didn’t want to say it at all. “Ruenen is alive.”
The words hit her like a punch to the gut. A bucket of ice cold water dumped over her head and now she had to gasp for air.
Alive? The word ignited. It shredded through her, leaving her breathless and unraveled.
“How?” Marai managed to croak out.
“He never made it to Tacorn. He escaped the bounty hunters.”
Marai’s vision went blurry, then white as a thick fog. Magic and rage ripped through her as relief and joy caused her heart to stutter a frantic beat. Lightning crackled at her fingers.
“You told me he was dead. Was it all a lie?”
“No, not a lie. I told you that visions can change. I think because you decided to stay, because you chose the harder path, you changed things. Perhaps Lirr rewarded your sacrifice.”
Marai didn’t believe in that religious nonsense, but it didn’t matter as she imbued her words with venom. “How long have you known?”
Keshel wasn’t afraid of her fury. He met her glare, but with sad eyes. “I had a vision the day after we began training. After you decided to stay.”
Marai bolted from the rock. “You’ve known for weeks? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
He’s alive. He’s alive! Her emotions spiraled, conflicted. Joy and fury entwined, making her hands shake and stomach knot. Her heart hammered, dancing a merry jig.
“You were in no shape to leave here. What would you have done? You couldn’t use your magic to portal to him, and you might have been killed in the journey.”
“My magic’s been recovered for days now, and you know that,” she snapped. She’d left her weapons inside the cave. If she had them with her, she would’ve put her dagger to Keshel’s throat.
“Yes, I knew. I know everything, Marai,” said Keshel morosely. “His fate is entwined with yours. With all of us. I thought that if I kept you in the dark for as long as possible, I could delay the inevitable. I don’t want my people to die, Marai. I fear for our lives.”
“You never should have kept this from me. It’s my choice what I do.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” Keshel said. He never apologized for anything, because no one believed Keshel ever did anything wrong. The others thought him so wise, so above baseless emotions and petty squabbles, but he was half-human, and no different from them. “I’m afraid of what will happen if you join him. I see us dying on a battlefield bathed in blood. I see you in chains.”
