36. Chapter 36
CHAPTER 36
Von
V on’s stomach burned as he heaved up sea water on the beach. Sand gritted in his teeth and stung his eyes. Pushing the sopping hair out of his eyes, he searched the sore for the Maiden, but she was nowhere in sight. When they fell into the water together, a rogue wave had wrenched them apart.
He pushed up on his knees, wincing in pain. He had been burned and cut. Von stumbled to his feet, wounded and disoriented. Blood leaked from the many cuts on his cheeks, and he felt debris in his back.
The pier glowed with fire. It teemed with people and Shieldmen working hard to put it out. He glimpsed a minotaur with an auburn coat running for the town.
Good. Sorren was at last free.
Von clutched his broken arm to his chest as he called out for Dyna. But she wasn’t amongst the faces that passed him. She must have made it out and fled the beach. Or…
His eyes lifted to what remained of Tarn’s ship.
The flames burned high, glowing brightly in his sight. No. He had to believe she made it out as well.
Von closed his eyes as an echo of Yavi’s scream crashed with each wave on the shore. “He is gone, my love,” Von whispered to the sea. “Rest now…”
That monster was dead.
Now that it was finished, he didn’t know what else to do but disappear. Into the bottom of a barrel of ale, into some decrepit town across the world where no one knew him, or into some hole in the ground.
It didn’t matter now.
He had completed his purpose.
Von turned away from fire and went against the current of the crowd. Bodies and voices surged around him. His only focus was the end of the beach where it was empty. He wasn’t looking at faces. If he had, then he would have seen the blade before it sank into his stomach.
He jerked to a stop with a gasp for breath. His trembling hands clutched the blade. The hilt was made of ivory, carved elaborately with some design he couldn’t make out through his blurred vision. Distant cries filled his skull as he looked up at Sai-chuen.
“There is a proverb in my clan,” the Xián Jīng man told him idly. He herded him backwards towards the shore until the sea splashed around their boots. “To kill a beast, you must first cut off its tail. When it loses balance, cut off its legs. When it can no longer move, cut out its eyes. And when it’s blind, only then can you cut off its head.” Sai-chuen twisted the blade and tore it out. Von jerked back a step with a ragged gasp of pain. “You were your Master’s legs, Von. But I had to cut off your tail first.”
The world lost balance and Von dropped. His knees splashed into a wave rolling over the shore. The metallic taste of his blood gushed into his mouth and spilled down his chin.
Cut off your tail…
Yavi.
That wasn’t right. She had been everything. All of him. He now may as well be blind.
Why? Why did he hurt her?
Von didn’t understand. This was part of Sai-chuen’s plan. Tarn was the beast in his proverb. Yavi had been merely a casualty.
Who was he? Why did he do this?
But Sai-chuen gave him no answers. He strode away to where a she-elf waited for him. She looked back at Von with an expression mixed with concern and confusion. Sai took her arm, and they vanished into the crowd. Thunder shook the skies as rain began to fall.
Von reached out with a trembling hand, “Why?” He croaked; his faint voice lost beneath the crash of waves. “Why?”
The last of his strength faded and he fell face first into the wet sand. Waves rolled over him, running red as it rolled away and returned. They smothered his mouth and nose.
Why! The question screamed in his head. He had to know before he passed through the Gates. Why did his wife have to suffer?
Rain beat down on him as his vision began to darken. His injured body wouldn’t move off the cold ground, not that he cared to go on anymore. Von couldn’t hope for more than the quiet sadness of this ending.
He would die here without ever knowing why.
Faint steps walked through the puddles and came to a stop beside him. Another wave crashed on the shore and rolled over him. It rushed up his nose and burned his eyes. He blearily blinked up at the blurred image of young woman with hair the color of flames.
Hands grabbed under his arms and hauled him onto dry sand.
Dyna crouched down and smiled at him sadly. “Ah,” came her soft voice. “There’s a familiar face.”