56. Redemption
ALIA & SHEN
Alia
I t took days to clear the area and put to rest all those who had died.
Graham had died along with thirty brave Reds who had stuck by my side and battled their old mistress and countless more magical creatures, those who had come to me with needs and then came to our rescue when we needed them most.
We mourned. But we would rebuild.
I stood in front of my entire city on the outskirts of where the battle had been held four days ago. My Reds were fully decked out in their cloaks, polished to shimmer in the moonlight. All the villagers were present as well, people who weren’t warriors but had turned out to support with bringing food, hugs, care, and whatever else we needed. Today, not everyone wore the Red Cloak, but everyone wore red, from a scarf to a tunic to bright headdresses.
Even the unicorns and the magical creatures had somehow learned of this tradition, wearing ribbons in their manes while the other creatures had aprons, hats, literally anything red. I had a feeling Shen had had something to do with that.
The red worn by all was a final tribute to the blood spilt that day. To the sacrifices made.
“They’re waiting for you, hon,” Mom said, patting my cloak and making sure there were no wrinkles or dirt, her callouses sometimes catching on the thread of the willow tree.
Shen stood behind my family, his eyes sad yet filled with joy. Over the bond, I felt a strange sense of both contentment and bereavement. As if he didn’t know what to do with himself.
His scowl was still in place as he glared at anyone who got too close to me, like a guard dog protecting what was theirs.
Ran chuckled in my mind. Great analogy, she said, cackling.
I nearly rolled my eyes but refrained. You do know it was him who came up with the guard dog analogy, right?
She cackled over the bond.
I knew what was expected of me today, but I was still nervous. I could face a battle with dark mages with little thought, but facing a crowd of people made me want to pee my pants and barf my breakfast.
Dad set his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. He kissed my forehead and gave me a nod that said he was so very proud. And that meant the world to me. Jess clung to his leg, her big eyes watching me with hope, sadness, and joy. I leaned down and hugged her little body, breathing her in. She melted into me, her arms wrapping around my neck.
I had been so busy I had spent very little time with her and my family. It was time to change that. It was time to lead... by taking care of myself. I couldn't lead if I was lacking. Just as Shen couldn't have supported me without first finding healing.
This life was about living our best, finding our wings, and holding onto the morals of the Creator. For I had learned just how skewed my viewpoint could become.
“Kick butt,” Jacob said, stumbling over his own feet and barely avoiding a play dart from some of the rowdier kids in the crowd.
Anna smacked the back of his head, then turned to me as he glared and rubbed the spot. “Kick butt,” she repeated.
“Hey!” Jacob said, scowling. “That was my line!”
I felt something cold placed in my hands. I glanced down to see a mage stone with swirling letters. “Just in case,” Shen whispered in my ear, making a shiver go down my spine.
He knew exactly what he was doing to me.
I didn’t need this distraction at the moment, especially since part of me wanted to escape this and just let Shen hold me. I debated it, but when I went to lean back against him, he released me as if he hadn’t just made my toes curl with his voice and the whisper of warm wind from his breath. But over the bond was an impish satisfaction. I stuck my tongue out at the cur of a werewolf, who merely met my eyes with a raised brow and mischief sparkling in his gaze.
Brat, I sassed. Should we tell them of your feeding of a certain puppy…
His eyes darkened, brows lowering, even as his lips twitched. Should I tell them of how you threw yourself over a cliff to save said puppy?
Mom would kill me.
Precisely.
I huffed out a breath of displeasure, but a smile was trying to cross my lips.
“Stinky dragon’s breath,” I whispered.
He grinned. “Careful, Carissimus, or I might take you to the chapel today,” he said.
“What, insults make your heart patter?” I replied blithely, fluttering my eyelashes at him like I’d seen the girls at ale houses do. I felt like an idiot.
And based on his grin, I looked like it, too. “Only yours, stinky fenbutt,” he teased.
I cracked a grin.
“You’ve stalled long enough, Luna. Be brave and show them the leader you know you are,” he whispered into my ear, pushing me forward.
I rolled my eyes and grabbed his hand before he could disappear. If he was gonna tease, he was gonna join me, the cur.
Ran chuckled in my head.
I approached the crowds, Shen at my back and Fenbutt gamboling along beside him.
I stared out at those gathered. Those who had changed so much, given so much. They now stood side by side with creatures we once hunted for sport and the so-called greater good. There would still be problems ahead, but we would face them together.
“People and creatures of my tribe, family of my heart, we come together today to celebrate the lives and Gifts of those who left far too soon. They were here for a time, and we wish to remember them for how they lived and how they died. They lived for their families, for their people, and for their honor.”
I paused, staring out at the pyres. "They died as heroes, protecting the very things we nearly lost: freedom, life, and honor. For many long years we have done a disservice to this world, spitting in the face of Source and all her Gifts. We forgot all we once knew and became the monsters we sought to conquer.”
My fellow Reds hung their heads in shame. I felt their needs grating against my soul. “I have killed. I have broken families. I have lied, cheated, stole, and done every sin for the greater good . My hands run red with the blood of innocents and the guilty. But should I leave myself there, I would become but a faint shadow of who I could be. There is no rule in this world preventing us from becoming who we were always meant to be. We have broken sacred laws and we have been broken, but the only ones holding us back are ourselves. You can change. Today.
“Do not just take someone’s word for things, research it. Find the truth in their words. Or the lies. Do not believe someone merely because they are older or because they are of higher rank. Find for yourselves the truth.
“The funny thing about facing hard truth is that it brings freedom where there is only fog. Bring to light those shameful things that are hidden. Do not avoid the hard things in life, and it will set you free. I stand before you today, a broken individual who murdered her own grandmother. If I can change, anyone can,” I said with a wry smile. That brought a bit of a laugh from those who were more morbidly humorous.
“I stand before you today, a murderer of a very good man,” Shen said, startling me. I blinked at him. I hadn’t known he would speak.
Even I must maintain some secrets of the bond, Alia of the Reds, he said.
“What are you doing?” I whispered out of the corner of my mouth as I tried to maintain a sickly smile.
“Bring to light the shameful things. I will not have any further secrets someone can use against us, Carissimus,” he said, gently kissing my forehead. He turned back to my people. “I am the one you know as Hood. I was trained from an early age to assassinate Reds. I killed a man in cold blood. You knew him as Sir Darius, Alia’s grandfather.”
Gasps came from my Reds. They hadn’t known Hood was the one who killed my grandfather. Very few knew that sensitive information, and I’d planned to take it to my grave.
Whelp, that jackalfish is out of the bay, Ran whispered from where she watched in the woods, her keen eyes picking out the more murderous in the crowd.
Shen got to his knees before my people. “I have no right to ask, but I beg for forgiveness from those I harmed the most. Perhaps the damage the former matriarch inflicted could have been mitigated had this man been here.”
I stepped forward to get between my agitated people and Shen, but he held up a hand, glancing up at me with eyes that implored me to let him do this. I didn’t know if I could, but I stepped back. If anyone tried to harm him?—
“And should you deem me guilty, I will take whatever punishment you wish to meet. Including death.”
He’s a bit dramatic, isn’t he? Ran said.
You don ’ t have to sound so gleeful about my beloved on his knees about to be swarmed by a bunch of werewolf assassins with a grudge, I replied.
“Son, I am the one who killed your father,” a voice said. My dad stepped forward, his eyes glistening.
“Dad?” I gasped.
But Dad didn’t hear me. He merely stopped before Shen and dropped to his knees, leveling himself with my beloved. “I am an old man with many crimes. Many more than your young years could hold. If you ask forgiveness, then I should also beg it of you,” Dad said. He bowed his head and gave Shen his neck in the wolven form of submission.
“I have ordered the death of a hundred werewolves, fifty mages, and two hundred unicorns,” Elder Pulma said, his lips trembling as a tear dropped from his eye. He quickly wiped it away.
“I have killed thirty werewolves and ten mages,” said Elder Vera. “I beg your forgiveness.”
“I’ve killed two werewolves and a mage, I beg forgiveness,” Jacob said, coming beside Dad and the elders. More came forward, admitting their crimes, and bowing before Shen.
Eventually, I and those who weren’t Reds were the only ones standing.
I swallowed, but then I knelt before Shen. “I have killed thirty werewolves and sixty mages and thirty unicorns, I beg your forgiveness.”
Shen
That did not go how I expected.
Alia knelt before me, submitting to my leadership. But she was my Luna. We were equals.
“Do not bow before me,” I said, my voice choked. “I am no greater than the next, and my forgiveness means little. The one who we truly hurt is the Great King himself. And he is the only one who can bring us peace.”
Latin emerged from every person who knelt on the ground.
“ Vita Source dimitte nobis.”
I glanced out at the people. At the Reds whom I had harmed. Whose father, brother, mother, son, or daughter had I killed?
The only way through this would be together. It would be hard, but it was possible. These people, despite what they had been through, were capable of great kindness even to a killer such as me.
They may have lost their way, but just like me, they admitted their wrongs and faced the consequences, all of them willing to change.
As Alia grabbed my hand and we both stood, it was to a new people. A people absolved of their guilt and ready to face a new future where we all could become better and live .
Alia
I couldn’t resist the grin on my face. Nor my pride. My lovely, kind people.
I once thought they were too far for change to reach them. I once thought myself too far for change. But the proof was before me. We would be a people who protected the innocent and the weak and the less fortunate, no matter if they were human, werewolf, elf, nymph, unicorn, mage, or any other creature upon this planet.
“ Tutela vita fons,” I said.
“ Fides familia,” they replied.
I held up my hand and Ran jumped from the trees with a mighty roar that seemed to vibrate the very core of the earth.
The crowd ducked as I watched her bank and soar over my people. She flapped her wings, pausing in her flight as her chest glowed red between her glistening scales. She spat a streaming flame upon the massive pyre and the bodies that were laid there covered with gold-embroidered red blankets. Among those bodies was a woman bound in white—Shen’s mother. Others were creatures of all kinds, from the smallest horned rabbit to the largest unicorn.
Ran released a second red stream at a second pyre stacked with rogue werewolves and dark mages and turned Reds who fell in the battle—and my grandmother.
The pyres were a cleansing. A way to burn away what was and commemorate those who’d been threads along our journey as we embraced the growth of today.
A cheer rose from behind me as I watched the pyres burn, shooting sparks high into the night sky. The crackle somehow soothed my soul.
“Graham, Sera,” I began, reciting the names of each who’d given their lives. The people behind me were doing the same as we sent the bodies back to the earth as ash.
“They are no longer with us. They fly the skies of Seventh. Sunt liberi ,” I said, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“ Sunt liberi,” repeated my people.