Chapter Thirty Sylas
Deathbringer believed to be dead. The Grand Master of Poison is offering a million gold coins for the safe return of Scar, the Deathbringer’s aspier.
thirty | sylas
The achingly sweet smell of roses made it a point to follow me through the three-day journey patrolling Gorhail Woods.
Wren, our unit leader, has an awful habit of picking every rose she sees along our path because they are essential to some poison she uses to coat her daggers. To me, they are reminders of Viola.
“You’re going to be transferred to a desk job,” Gryff grunts as he stalks toward me.
His white-blond hair is streaked with blood—not his, never his—and his left cheek is caked with dirt.
We got into a scuffle with five poachers while responding to reports of a poacher cell in Gorhail Woods, and I was… distracted.
My first week on the Grimm task force was uneventful; Firstline has been throwing out every lead at the request of DOTS.
Everyone is more afraid of propaganda than a potential copycat of the deadliest mage in history.
During our downtime, Gryff and I have been digging into reports and pressing Firstline officers for information. It’s been excruciatingly slow.
“Who’s the girl anyway?” He throws me a rag soaked with alcohol.
“What girl?” I catch the rag, pressing it to my side, the cool sting a welcome feeling against the burning pain. Being on the field without Railesza is a nightmare; I don’t die, but Haal, it hurts. I cannot wait for Beau to retrieve his aspier.
“Whoever has you moping like a lovesick bird.” He stretches his arm, and Freya slithers the length of it, yawning as if she, too, is tired of my… moping.
“I am not moping,” I retort. Viola was clear about not wanting to see me, and, by Haal’s grace, so be it.
“Archyr, Darro, stop gossiping like old aunties,” Wren snaps at us.
She wears her hair like the Deathbringer, long and loose in the wind.
How does it not bother her in the middle of fights?
A poacher could easily strangle her with all that hair.
“Tonight’s our last night in Gorhail Woods.
Then I’m splitting you up. Archyr, Riverview office for a week. Darro, up in Osneau.”
I roll my eyes, and Gryff gives me a pointed look. We’ve only been in the same unit for a week, and now I have to sit behind a desk while he gets to enjoy all of Osneau’s fine food. “Girls are distracting,” he mutters.
“I’ll be sure to mention that to Lyria.” I grin.
“Jokes aside, you missed twelve throws in the last week.” Gryff polishes his dagger with his shirt.
And I have five new cuts to show for it, including one the length of my left jaw that has yet to heal. “I’ve also killed as many poachers.”
Poachers have been crawling the woods in search of magical animals and plants. Four days ago, they ransacked the Northern Greenhouse, leading to DOTS pulling all Secondline units from Gorhail Woods and sending us here instead.
Gryff gives me a look.
“Sorry,” I add. He is right. My mind has been wandering the halls of Gorhail, wondering if Beau and Lyria are with Viola. Leaving her alone with Lorne circling her like a famished shark was out of the question. “It’s the stupid bond,” I mumble.
“Ah, the bond,” Gryff drawls. “Everything makes sense now.” By the way he’s trying to hide his smile, Lyria must have told him about Viola.
Raiku stirs against my wrist. At the same time, Freya slithers to Gryff’s hand, her head scanning the grounds.
Around us, Firstliners straighten. Arkani get into position, manipulators with their knives and illusionists ready to weave any defense illusions we need.
Mortemagi summon their undead in anticipation of any danger.
Here, on the field, there is no division.
Arkani, Mortemagi, Aspieri—we fight as one against poachers, whether we like it or not. Our survival depends on it.
“Do not attack,” Wren says. “The illusionists are shrouding us.”
Everything goes still. I can hear our breaths against the cold air, the slither of aspiers against our skin, and the single crack of a branch that lets all the demons loose.
The poachers come in threes. My eyes dart to Gryff. They are outnumbered. This should be an easy fight, so why is Wren telling us to stand down?
The poachers halt in front of us, a woman stepping forward. She stops inches from me. She cants her head, a wicked smile crawling on her bloodstained lips. Raiku tightens around my arm, and for a sliver of a second, I swear I feel Raiek move.
“Will you go down as fast as your brother?” The woman bares her teeth, and I see red. She’s the one who killed Beau? My dagger unsheathes at once. Beau’s killer stares straight at me, and all I want is for the knife to land between her eyes.
“Stand down, Archyr,” Wren instructs quietly. “She’s taunting you. She’s projecting thoughts to your mind. We can’t hear anything she’s saying.”
My wrist tightens around the hilt. It doesn’t matter that they can’t hear. This woman killed my brother.
“Archyr, do not move,” Wren says, her tone measured, as if she doesn’t want to disturb the poachers. “She’s an Arkani Mortemagi crossmage, a reader-whisperer; look at her cuff and the key molded to it. She’s fueling your rage to break the barrier.”
“Unregistered crossmages are outlawed for a reason,” mutters a First-liner.
“Demoted for useless commentary,” Wren clips. “Archyr, for the last time, she is toying with you. That’s what they do.”
“She killed my brother.” I bite down.
Gryff tries to reason with me. “Beau is back now. Don’t engage, Sylas. We aren’t immortal.”
He’s right. They aren’t immortal; we don’t have Railesza; and there’s only one healing Aspieri in this unit. I can’t risk everyone’s lives.
“What did you do when your father was begging for his life?” The poacher draws my attention back to her. “That’s right, Sylas. You ran. Like a coward. And now you’re hiding like one, too.”
I don’t think. I throw.
The next moments are utter chaos. Poachers swarm the unit. Wren barks out orders, but I ignore them. All I see is the woman with bloodstained lips running away into the woods. Raiku slithers from my arm. “Don’t let her get away.”
I stalk after her through the trees. The unit has half a decade more experience than I do on the field. They will be fine while I catch this monster who killed Dad and Beau.
Raiku stops. When I look up, the woman stands frozen in front of me, her head unnaturally bent forward. Her skin pales to gray, and in some areas, it begins to decompose, showing the ivory of her bone. And with it comes the agonizing stench of death.
No. No. It was a trick. How could I not see that she was a puppet?
Without second thought, I run back to my unit. Bodies drop, and what remains of our squad is swarmed by a row of skeletal creatures, oozing darkness, with the sickly sharp smell of death. The same creatures that killed Mom. The undead.
Are these undead ones our Mortemagi summoned, or are they the enemy’s?
I have my answer when one of them digs their claws into a First-liner’s torso.
Blood pours down her body as the sharp fingers rip across her chest. I bite down on my tongue.
Why aren’t our Mortemagi snapping their threads?
They are allowed to use the blood arts on the field for this very reason.
As I fight my way toward Gryff, Raiku bites as many poachers as he can. Some drop dead, and some are entirely unaffected. “There are too many puppets here,” I yell to Gryff when I reach his side. “Why aren’t the Mortemagi doing anything?”
“Because they’re all dead,” Gryff growls as his dagger tears through a poacher’s shoulder.
I look around at the carnage, and my throat closes. So many bodies, and in the middle of the pile, right next to his Aspieri, the unit’s only healing aspier snapped in half. Haal, this is barbaric.
Clutching my dagger, I’m unable to move, like the night Dad died. All this is because of me, because I didn’t follow orders. Again.
“Stop standing there like a statue,” Wren barks as she pushes a poacher off her. “Get their relics. Most of them have young children.”
Her words wring my insides. They have children. These children will grow up alone, without one or both parents. What have I done?
Tucking my guilt away, I unclip a cuff from a dead woman perhaps a decade older than me. I don’t know her name, but my hands are warm and crimson with her blood. Her abdomen is ripped, her legs bent in ways that shouldn’t be possible, and she lies there, alone and lifeless. Because of me.
“Sylas.” Gryff’s muffled cry snaps me out of my circle of self-pity. His arms claw at the ground as he tries to pull himself toward me. Two poachers are on top of him, one slicing his arm with a knife.
“Raiku,” I call out, but my aspier’s already ahead of me. He loops around one of the poacher’s necks until he’s weak. I push him to the side, planting a dagger straight to his heart.
Gryff turns and strikes the other one, and Freya slithers to the poacher’s throat, sinking her fangs in until his eyes are glassy and his breath stops. I reach for my friend’s arm to pull him up, but when he stands, I notice the gash in his left leg. “Can you walk?” I ask.
He tries to take a step and stumbles. I catch him, wrapping a hand around his back. “We have to leave. You’ll die without healing. Gorhail’s not far from here.”
“We can’t leave the unit, Sylas.” Gryff grunts in pain. “If we fall, we fall together.”
“That’s absurd, Darro.” Wren grunts as she pushes a puppet off her, slicing off its head with her short blade.
Her long hair is dripping with blood, and her face bears the claw marks of an undead.
She looks like an avenging god with her weapon drawn.
“It’s not your time yet. Retreat. That’s an order. ”
“But…” Gryff protests, but I pull him forward. I will drag him back to Gorhail if I have to. “I’m not letting you die.”
As we move away, Wren struggles with the last poacher, a man who towers over her. He knocks the knife from her hand as Gryff stops and turns around. “Dagger,” he says, but he’s already slipped my dagger out of its sheath. He throws it, desperately.
But it’s too late.
The poacher draws his own knife, slashing across Wren’s neck to her collarbone.
I nearly gag from the blood spraying everywhere.
She drops her dagger, clutching her neck as her knees thump against the mud.
We don’t hear her scream, but the poacher lowers himself and snatches the knife relic around her neck, then takes off into the woods.
He didn’t take any other relics, yet nearly all the relics in our unit were heirlooms. He came for Wren’s.
I have to stop this poacher; whoever he is working for is now one step closer to completing their collection.
I jerk forward, forgetting that Gryff depends on me.
He yowls in pain, and I move back, taking most of his weight again.
“Sorry,” I say through gritted teeth, as the shadows of the trees swallow the poacher. “Sorry,” I repeat, softer this time.
“Your recklessness…” Gryff sighs in pain, as we limp back to Gorhail. “You knew better. You were warned, yet you still gave in to your anger… Their blood is on your hands, Sy.”