6. The Hope That Kills
Chapter six
The Hope That Kills
S irens conjured by Aire Wenders echoed through the night. Solveig broke into a run, hoping that Malik could keep up with her. The rain was relentless, falling akin to unbreakable sheets of ice. Their hurried footsteps splashed and slipped through slick reddish-brown mud, coating their shoes and clothes in a thick layer.
Further into the trees, they delved; the foliage growing thick with every step into woods that rarely saw passage. Solveig’s leather suit protected her from the sharp scratch of branches, but Malik struggled. With every draw of blood, from the scrape of Nyteberry bushes and every splash of mud on his sodden clothes, he lagged Solveig’s punishing pace.
The years in the mines had taken its toll. Malik was closer to knocking on death’s door than ever before. With every second, minute, hour and day that passed, he welcomed it as an old friend. He’d lost all hope of rescue mere months after his arrival, having witnessed untold numbers of prisoners executed for the smallest infractions, the lucky ones at least. The less fortunate became test subjects for all the new methods of torture that the royal family could conjure up.
Solveig had got them further in their escape than he’d ever seen anyone manage. That had to count for something, but he knew it was the hope that killed the most. Still, he couldn’t stop that small glimmer etching its way into his heart. The same hope that had abandoned him many years ago. He no longer dared to dream of seeing his siblings’ faces again; nor of smelling the salty air of Farrenhold. In the early months of his incarceration, the memories had kept him alive. Made him long for simpler days, strolling through the cobbled streets of Trivellian. Recalling the sights and smells, the smiling faces of their citizens. Years later, he had forgotten even the warmth brought by a caring smile.
Bone deep weakness soon snapped him out of his daydreams, ripping that last glimmer of hope clean from his heart as he crashed on to all fours in the dirt. Solveig spun on her feet as though she had heard him fall above the crashing sounds of chasing guards and rolling thunder. She tried desperately to pull him to his feet, but he had become a dead weight in the mud.
“You have to move, Malik,” she heaved, straining as she tried to pull him up, her boots slipping in the slick mud. She ripped the sodden scarf from her face. What use was hiding her identity when she desperately needed air to carry on?
“My time is done.” Malik groaned, “take your dagger and get out of here before they catch you.” He reached for the weapon he’d stowed in the waistband of his trousers, but even that was too much effort as he slipped further into the mud.
Anger flashed across Solveig’s face, her jaw tense. “You are a Sun Prince of Farrenhold. I did not set you free to have you die in the rain-soaked mud of Torrelin. Now stand.”
Malik hesitated before reaching to take her hand. He pushed himself to his feet as Solveig pulled with all her strength to help drag his weary bones out of the mud.
A branch snapped behind them. Blood curdling fear traversed Malik’s spine as he and Solveig spun in search of their unseen attacker. Another quieter step had Solveig’s head swivelling a second too late, as a shot fired, and a dagger gleamed as it arched toward them. She threw herself in front of Malik. The dagger lacerated her arm, a flesh wound. Nothing compared to the fiery pain that raged from where the pointed iron tip of a crossbow bolt lodged in her shoulder.
“Run, Malik,” she rasped through gritted teeth, as she snapped the bolt in half, ensuring it would stay in place until healers were on hand to stem the blood flow.
“You can’t hold them off on your own.”
“There is no fighting, Malik. Not for you. Head for the bridge. Your brother’s men will spot you as you cross.” She tried to push him away, but he held his ground, a tortured expression on his face.
“Don’t die, Solveig,” he whispered, before turning heel and running for his life.
Solveig ripped the scarf from where it hung at the edge of her hood. Tying it around her shoulder to staunch the flow of blood as she spat.
“Come out and play, cowards.” Her fingers twitched at her sides, poised to grasp her dagger. “I promise I don’t bite.”
As the years passed and Solveig’s hydromancy failed to grow beyond simple manipulation, her family had instead transformed her into a merciless killer. A hunter with keen senses, so when the sound of rustling foliage resumed, she was ready. Letting her dagger fly. Aim true, she heard the unmistakable splash of a body falling into the waterlogged dirt.
One down.
The bolt had come from her left. Next was the dagger thrower. Her patience a keenly refined being, she could wait them out all night if she had to.
A blast of searing fire came at her suddenly. Solveig whipped a hand to her soaked leathers, drawing out some of the water that lingered there and used it to deflect the fire ball before it even got close. She let the attacker’s own dagger fly back at them, hitting home once more with a second splash and squelch of a fallen man.
But the distraction allowed for a third attack to come from behind. One Solveig hadn’t expected. The surrounding air became heavy, her arms constricted to her sides by the whim of an Aire Wender. They sauntered over to her now, confident that he had her trapped.
“Not quite formidable now, are you, Reaper?” he whispered as she struggled against the invisible bonds. She couldn’t reach for the sword at her back, her last remaining weapon. Had no way of distracting the guard to force his concentration to slip.
“If I remember right, you always preferred daggers to death by magic, right, Princess?” He laughed as he plunged a dagger into her stomach. Pain lanced through her as she bit into her lower lip to silence her scream, waiting for the pain to settle.
It would be his first and last mistake.
“The reason I prefer daggers,” she spat. “Is because it’s more personal this way. You need to be close to your target for a killing blow if you lack experience. Close enough to leave yourself open.” Quick as lightning, her hand gripped his arm, and she channelled all her power into pulling the nourishing, life-giving water from every inch of his body.
His muscles atrophied.
His skin pulling tight over his bones was enough for him to drop his hold, and Solveig took her chance. Disarming him quickly, careful to keep the dagger in her body, to staunch her blood.
With the invisible bonds gone, she made direct contact with his skin with both hands. Could sense every drop of liquid churning in and around him as she connected with it.
The blood loss from the bolt and dagger strikes hampered her strength, but still she pressed on. Wrenching the fluid from him, letting it seep into the ground at their feet. In her weakness, it was taking too long. His screams echoing and endless.
“How many of you followed us?” she demanded. But he couldn’t respond, teeth clenched, veins in his neck bulging as agony racked through him. Solveig removed her hands, letting him catch his breath for a moment, before asking again.
“Tell me how many of you were on our trail and perhaps I will show you mercy.”
“Go to the pit, Witch Bitch,” he spat in her face.
“Only if you come with me.” She smiled, eyes glittering in the dark, as she brought her hand down on his exposed neck to begin again.
“Give me a number and your family will have something more than a husk of a man left to bury.”
The guard tried desperately to breathe through the pain. All the soldiers had gone through extensive torture training in case they ever found themselves held hostage by a prisoner. But no one alive today had ever heard of the type of power that the princess could wield. Any books that would have contained the knowledge were long since destroyed. So they never prepared for how it would feel to be desiccated alive in mere minutes. To live through your organs shrinking, muscles shrivelling, bones splintering. The pain eventually broke him, and he fell helplessly to his knees in the mud, as though bowing before a vengeful goddess.
“Three of us,” he managed. “We spread out in teams. All we knew was that the prince was gone. We didn’t know where or when.”
Solveig sighed, drawing her sword from down her back, before skewering him through the heart, killing him instantly. Barely a drop of blood seeped from the wound as she wrenched the sword free.
Bending to retrieve her fallen weapons, Solveig felt weakness wash over her. Already depleted from her injuries, and the magic she wrought to deflect the fire without proper summoning. The added strain of drawing the fluid from the guard’s body had pushed her to the edge. She fell beside the dried-out corpse. Slick mud seeped into her clothes as blood dripped from her nose.
The last thing she heard as her eyes fell shut was splashing mud and crunching branches before her consciousness abandoned her completely.