16. Caspyn
Chapter 16
Vaelar.
The monster had a name, but I barely cared. All I wanted was his blood on my hands. If I killed him now perhaps Lilly would live. They all would.
Fire exploded from me as I rushed him, his eyes going wide for only a moment before he casually side stepped, letting the inferno that was exploding from my palms slam into the wall behind him. The bang of the impact echoed through the tiny room, the sounds of confusion and fear from those waking up a floor below mixing with the sound of creaking and splintering wood.
“You killed my sister!” I screamed, that same fire popping and spreading over the wood as I faced him.
I needed to focus, not let my rage and anger pull me into chaos. It was, however, always my rage and anger that pulled me toward each death. This time it was uncontrollable.
“I may have.” Vaelar once again avoided my magic. “I have, unfortunately, killed a lot of people. As have you.”
“I have killed monsters. Fae. Not people,” I snarled, drawing my blades.
“You say that as though you are not a monster yourself, Fae killer.”
I roared as I pushed one hand forward, fire ripping through the air toward him. It never reached its mark. The bright flames spread through the air away from him as though it had hit a wall.
A shield.
I had only encountered one other Fae with that skill in my years of hunting the monsters down. Thankfully, it was easily defeated. I drew my blade down, the sharp metal glinting and singing as I swiped and lunged, whatever wall he had used to deflect my flame popped with a sound like a slap, the tip of the knife plunging right to where his heart would be, if the beasts had one.
He was still smiling as he dodged, his hair flowing behind him as he lifted his hand, hitting my elbow and shoulder in quick succession. Pain lanced all the way down to my bones, something inside of me ripping and cracking as my blade nearly slipped from my fingers. I clung on, all of those times I had been forced to fight with broken bones coming in use as I swiped with my long dagger again and again, my feet moving quickly as I dodged his hands as quickly as he dodged my knife.
The Fae I had fought before had always been fast, but somehow this one was faster. He dodged as quickly as I attacked, his attacks coming at a speed I couldn’t match. Even with decades of training, and an entire life of preparation, I wasn’t fast enough. Not for him.
He was armed, but that useless rapier remained on his hip and he stepped forward. I moved to slice his arm, but his flat palm slapped my blade away with a firm attack against my arm as he once again moved to disarm me. I heard, so much as felt, the bone in my arm crack at the impact, my already weakened fingers letting the blade slide from them and clatter to the ground. I refused to scream, even though the pain was ripping through everything, that one point of pressure rattling through my bones as though they were being hit again and again.
My feet slid as I spun to face him, his wicked grin spreading as he stood beside the table where the other two were casually rolling up the map and gathering their things. They didn’t even seem to be concerned about the fight happening steps before them, or that everything was on fire. They went about cleaning their meeting away leaving only Vaelar and I, the Fae smiling as he faced me.
“I am truly sorry for your sister, but you have killed quite a few of my people as well, so there is no way I can let you simply walk out of here.” He raised his hand, that same white light from before dancing on his fingertips, except now I saw it for what it was: lightning. He was conjuring lightning. Wicked victory danced in those sharp eyes with a mischief that didn’t quite fit.
Unfortunately for him, I knew what came next as much as he did.
My skin rattled with cold as I faced him. My power writhed within me as the buzzing forces switched places, my eyes sliding to the icy shade of death.
“Tell me something,” I said as I stepped forward, even as that destructive light in his hands grew. “What color are my eyes?”
Vaelar had clearly seen the change, and he didn’t conceal his shock at the shift in my features quick enough. However, his confusion was quickly replaced by awe as his smile returned.
“Interesting. You carry the blades of a Dám Assassin, I would have assumed you to be of their blood. But you are more. I wonder if you know what you are?” He was playing with me. I knew what I was, if only because he had been the first to speak of this magic, Sypher magic. Although, in all my years of travel I had not found another one like me, another one who could bend time, who could tell all the secrets of this power.
This Fae seemed to be the only one who knew. Perhaps I would torture all I needed to know out of him before I ended him.
The light in his hands grew, but I stood there, everything about me dark to the light that Vaelar held, to the light that he was.
I ignited my magic as he let his light explode. The fire that was consuming the walls froze in place, the light reflecting off the bright flame as Vaelar’s two companions turned and shielded themselves from it.
I had been saving that time for the queen, but this monster would be an even better recipient.
Usually, the Fae would step back in shock as I moved forward in time and I would watch through the shadows of the Ether as they attempted to figure out where I had gone. Vaelar simply stood there, smiling, even as the tongues of lightning in his attack extinguished to nothing.
I stepped around him, swinging my blade in my uninjured hand. I would use my blades to behead them, but I wanted to watch this one die. One knife, right to his back. One attack he would never see coming.
“Nice trick.” I froze at the voice, the clear tone undiluted by time as they usually were. “I had been wondering how you had been killing my people. A mortal shouldn’t be able to kill a Fae, after all. Now, I know. You are not a mortal. I wonder what magic you carry, or how you got the magic of a Vynari. That power is blessed. You should not have accessed it.”
I turned slowly to face the Fae who stood beside me, his features twisted into a smirk as he stood, his hands folded over his chest, even as the lightning he had summoned continued its slow burn through the room that was stuck in time.
The other Fae were frozen, their shock and confusion evident.
Fuck. There was no way this was good. I had thought I was the only Sypher, but now it would make sense that he would have recognized me that first day. He was the same.
A Sypher.
Every thought that was running through my head must have been clear on my face with how he was grinning.
“Did you think you were the only one with the Vynari power?” he asked, that smirk growing as he slammed his hand forward, right into my chest. The impact cracked in my ears and I was thrown back, my feet leaving the floor as I soared into the burning door, the broken thing splintering into nothing at the impact. Wood went everywhere, all of it flinging through the air in slow motion as I was thrown into the wall.
“Vynari? Is that what you call yourself now?” I forced strength into my voice as I propped myself up, taunting him closer as I slid my blade into place. He was stronger than anticipated, I would have to play this carefully.
The movements of the other Fae were slow as they turned toward me, their mouths moving in a slow conversation that sounded more like yawns and grunts through the Ether. Their slow conversation stretched as they watched the wood splinter in a fight they clearly couldn’t see. Vaelar walked through the remains of the door, that slow flame continuing to spread over walls and stairwell, the stilted screams of those uninebriated enough to notice filtering up to us.
“Now? So we have met before.” He was still smiling as he stepped closer, leaning over me now. “Tell me, boy, who sired you? What blood runs in your veins.”
“Fae hunter blood,” I snarled, kicking and hitting the smug bastard at the same time.
That time I made an impact, his gasp of surprise one of pain as he was shoved back into the wall. I jumped to my feet, my broken arm screaming as I forced it to hold the blade, forced those muscles to swing as I darted forward. The blade plunged; the sharp edge ready to slice through him. He shifted a second before the blade cut deep. Instead of cleaving him in two, there was only a deep gash that stretched down the right side of his face, right over his eye.
Right in the line of the scar I had seen him with before. The scar I had apparently given him.
Odd.
Deep purple blood oozed from the gash as he growled, the musty smell of their blood going everywhere as he glared at me. The scream I was sure he wanted to release was locked in the tight line of his jaw, leaving all of that blood to drip down his neck and soak his tunic.
He swung back as fast, his palm slamming into the broken places on my arm in a clear attempt to get me to drop the blade. I held on.
“Does that move usually work when you are hunting my people? I’ve seen more skill in our training yards, it’s no wonder you are so bad at your task.” He wiped the blood from his face, leaving streaks of purple behind before he swung again, missing that time.
I growled at his words, aiming for his face again. And missing.
“Don’t like to hear the truth?” he laughed as he hit that arm again, white lights of pain flashing over my vision as he sped around me, hitting me once on the back before his arm wrapped around me, his fist hitting that arm until the blade dropped, until I screamed as he held me against him, his voice little more than a snarl in my ear.
“Here’s some more. You killed my people, so I will end you in all the ways that matter, and then I will find who created you, and who you created, who you love, and end them too.” The hostility in him was as cold as the threat that was now sending panic through me.
Jayse.
He would track down and kill Jayse; as he had killed Lily, as he had killed them all. I couldn't lose anyone else. But it was not only Jayse, I realized with a pain that flowered over my chest as though I had been stabbed. If he followed the scent of my blood he would also find Amari. He would end that little girl, and me before I even existed.
I needed to escape him, it would take him time to track me, and I needed that time to save Jayse, to wipe away the trail that would lead them to Amari and her mother. There was no way I could win this fight, not against this Fae, this Fae with more power than I had ever seen. I needed to get out of there. The time I was using to hold me in this place slowly running out, but I had just enough left that I could escape this. It could mean losing one of my blades, but if the fate of The Goddess played in my favor it wouldn’t be for long.
“I see why you will become her henchmen. You and the queen are the same, the same monsters.” I spat the words, but his eyes widened, his grip loosening enough that for a split second I contemplated attacking him again, to continue this fight. But I only had enough time left to do this once, it was now or never.
“What are you–” I only barely registered the pure confusion in his voice as I let my magic slip, let the control I had on time fall away and let what little was left of the time I had taken from Yersua sweep me away.
I looked up into the room where his two companions stood, both of them still looking at the door that appeared to have destroyed itself. The Fae was staring as though exasperated, but the man who was not Fae pulled his lips into a tight line as though he was trying not to say something. It was the same as the last time I had seen him on the wagon of Wave Walkers.
Recognition hit me with a force that sucked the air from my lungs. I knew where I knew that second man from. He was in the transport wagon, he was the one that had stared at me for so long. With the look he had given me before, he clearly had recognized me too, which also meant he knew where I lived and this threat that Vaelar was snarling in my ear was possible.
Before I could do or say anything the time I released swept over me, a sharp tug in my stomach pulling me back as everything went black. As what was left of the time ran through me, pulling me wherever it wanted me to go.
I could only hope it didn’t send me too far so I would still have time to save them both. To save me.
Lily’s laugh was the only thing in my ears as time pulled me under.
The smell of human rot and soot was the first thing I registered as the world began to form again, that and the numbing ache that covered every inch of my body. It felt as though my bones and muscles had been broken and removed, only to be put back in all the wrong places. No where was as bad as my arm however. The bone that Vaelar had snapped was now an agonizing pressure that stretched up to my shoulder and down my back.
Pushing myself up with my good arm, not that it hurt any less, I blinked in an effort to make my eyes adjust. I was still in the flophouse, I could tell that much by the smell, not that I could see enough to know much more than that. Was it before I had arrived, or after, and by how much time. Everything was dim, the light that had been seeping through the old planks when I had first entered replaced with a dull light of either dawn or dusk. It didn’t matter which as long as it was before and I had enough time to reach the Qit and get Jayse out of there. Perhaps even Amari and her mother, I had no promise of what this man was capable of, and with the man on the Qit there. They knew exactly where to go.
Body screaming, I pushed myself to stand, my legs shaking under the weight. Everything about the flop seemed the same. The same huddles of people mumbling and snoring, the same group in the corner taking whatever drug they had been able to get their hands on that day.
That was until I turned toward the staircase, toward the wood that was burned and charred.
That hadn’t been that way before, because I had been the one to do it. Even through the screaming pain in my body I raced toward the stairs, the wood creaking and swaying with each step. Everything was coated in black char, the door to the room I had found them in gone. In fact, everything in that room was burned or gone. Everything but a long curve of shining metal that had been placed on the table.
My blade.
The silver hilt looked to have been polished, even the golden blade was gleaming and clean as it sat there amongst the burned remains of the world.
I grabbed the blade, half expecting something to happen when I did, but there was only a scrap of parchment below it, a curled handwriting looping over the surface.
“Until we meet again. Be ready next time, I expect you to actually fight. King Vaelar.”
King.
But not any king, the King of the Fae.
No.
How was it possible that the King of the Fae had been the one to kill my sister, that had killed all of those Catalysts. It was as before, when the queen had offered a reward for Fae ears. It simply didn’t make sense. If they were to be her army, why would she want them dead? Right then, however, it didn’t matter.
I needed to get home. I needed to reach the Qit before they did.