Chapter 19 Harkin
Chapter nineteen
Harkin
The ache of drowning overwhelmed my senses. I clutched at my burning chest, heaving painful, hacking breaths that seared and stabbed at my waterlogged lungs. My mouth watered with the urge to retch, and spittle dribbled over my lips, numb with cold.
It was a dark night, the air oppressive. The sun had long since settled below the low line of the mountains, and I didn’t know how long I had lain unconscious in the snow.
The fight came flooding back in images of glinting metal and dripping blood.
I wished I had not let her bait me. I had been a fool to falter under the weight of her provocation, but she was so infuriating.
Seren was gone. I knew that with chilling certainty.
“Goddesses damn that fucking woman.” I let out a string of muttered curses and pushed myself to my feet, remembering the dagger wound at my ribs a painful moment too late.
I peeled back my tunic, torn through and blood-sticky. It was a bitter, deep hurt, and a crusty mess, but I would survive.
A sharp, painful inhale, a quick beat, and I was pushing forward toward the stable.
Equinox was restless. Her hooves stamped into the ground, ears pinned back, but her keen nose led our path. A trail of broken branches and fallen blood cut through the forest.
We followed her path for hours. Exhaustion and blood loss weighed on me. My head felt both stone weighted and dizzyingly light as I focused on keeping my seat.
As the moon reached its apex, I rode upon the crumbling facade of an old church. I allowed Equinox to circle the building once, but did not see a point where Seren’s trail continued. She must have stopped here for the night.
My first thought, as I dismounted, was that I had not stepped foot inside a church in a very long time.
I had abandoned my faith after Prince Claudian forced me into his employment as a mercenary.
I no longer deserved the favor of the Goddesses.
But, Seren was inside, and I had no choice but to retrieve her.
Even careful footsteps sounded far too loud in the echoing stone chamber of the sanctuary. The shadows were inky; the barest lick of moonlight trickled in from a hole in the ceiling far above. Dust and debris littered every surface after years of disrepair.
An altar rose in front of me, proceeding the large gathering space. It remained surprisingly intact. Tomes and scrolls littered the top, and dozens more lay forgotten on the floor. Hundreds of images of the Three Goddesses were sketched and scrawled and painted across each and every one.
Their countenances were barely discernable in the dim light, but I knew them well enough. Lunanya, the Moon Goddess, bathed in glittering silver, Soliana, the Sun Goddess with a halo of gold, and Stellány, the Star Daughter, with twinkling light bursting at her fingertips.
“I remember going to church with my parents when I was a child, my sister just a babe in my mothers arms.” I spoke quietly into the dim, but the words echoed back like water lapping at the shore.
“We would pray for guidance and bring gifts to lay at the altar. We performed mágik to celebrate and honor the Goddesses.”
Glass crunched under my boot as I moved deeper into the dark. Dust tickled my nose.
“Who did you worship, Seren? Humans may have shunned our Goddesses, but surely you believed in something. Surely you had faith in something.”
Seren remained silent, hiding, biding her time.
“I remember the stories, too,” I continued. “That there was nothing more powerful than the mágik of the Celestials, but they wanted to share that power—generous as they were. They sent a rain of mágik upon the world to allow their people to hold the Goddesses' love in their hearts and minds.”
I passed pew after pew, fingers trailing over their wooden backs. They were crusted with dried blood, a trail leading me to Seren.
“Have you heard this story before? The story of how the Rázuri were born? I’m sure you have, but I’ll tell you again.
” I settled myself onto the penultimate bench.
She must be just behind me now. I was so close, but I was so tired.
The wound at my ribs ached something fierce.
I struggled to breathe slowly, to hide my pain from her keen ear.
I continued on, the tale so clear in my weary mind.
I had heard it so many times. “Humans transformed into something greater with mágikal gifts over the elements of the universe. The Goddesses rewarded their reverence with power. They prospered under the love of their heavenly rulers, but not all humans were bestowed with the Goddesses’ gifts.
“War broke out across Szrestia, bred of jealousy and fear. Acsilla and Ordelés divided into two kingdoms, each determined to destroy the other. We were not alive during the times of peace. We have only ever known the darkness of a world touched with deep, lingering hurt, Seren. But we can make a different choice.” Regret saturated me.
I missed the Goddesses and what they represented, the goodness from which I had strayed so far.
A clinking sound rattled at the back of the chamber. I scanned the space, eyes catching on the chipped glass bottle which rolled to a stop at the base of my broken pew.
“Seren.” I spoke her name calmly, softly. “We do not need to make this difficult… Again.”
I rose slowly, inching my way toward the exit. My pulse pounded, the weight of both our fear in my blood.
Feet shuffled on paper to my left where the door yawned open to the forest outside. I lurched toward it just as she did, and we crashed—together—into the stone wall. I grabbed her by the back of her neck, pinning her cheek to the doorframe.
“Enough. We are both injured. I, for one, am exhausted, and I really do not wish to continue to fight you tonight. Please, Seren.” I was dead on my feet, the edges of my vision darkening.
Seren pushed halfheartedly against my grasp. Fatigue weighed on her just as heavily.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” I offered.
“I choose the hard way,” Seren gritted the words between clenched teeth, coarse as black sand. She was equally venomous with blood dripping down her arm and sleep threatening her drooping eyelids than she had been at her best.
“Perfect,” I grumbled. I turned her roughly and knelt so my shoulder pressed against the warm flesh of her belly. I wrapped one large hand around her thigh, bracing the other against her ribs.
Seren thrashed against my hold. My fingers dug tighter into her leg. The muscle bunched, fighting against me with every winding kick.
“Let me go!” She screamed, voice breaking on a sob. “Damn it, just let me go! I don’t want this… I don’t want this!”
“These are the cards we have both dealt,” I grunted. “Your words, not mine.”
Her fingernails caught my neck, scraping across delicate skin and tearing at the collar of my cloak. She screamed, and my ear drums rattled with the force of it.
“I don’t want to be like this! I wasn’t like this before you…”
“Seren!” I snapped, pushing her hard into the door frame.
She moved to swipe at me again, nails reaching—eyes blazing.
I sucked the air from her lungs before her aim could land true. It winnowed away, leaving her gasping with futility. She clutched my shoulder, fingers digging deep into the well of my collarbone.
My teeth gritted together, jaw flexing—knowing it would only be moments before the fight left her oxygen deprived limbs. I pressed her harder into the wall, biding my time until she finally sank against me—dizzy and uncoordinated.
Seren was helpless against me as I tossed her over my shoulder. I pinned her body against mine, dragging us back to the treeline where Equinox waited.
I let the air trickle back into her lungs little by little then dropped her to her feet, catching her elbow when she teetered. I convinced myself that it was only to prevent her from running again and not out of any misguided sense of care I might hold for her.
Retrieving a length of rope from the saddle pack, I made quick work of binding her wrists together.
I secured the other end to Equinox’s saddle and mounted, leaving Seren standing on the ground below.
I urged my mare into an easy walk. Seren emitted a disgruntled noise of protest as the rope yanked taut.
“You said you wanted to do this the hard way. Keep up.”
“Fuck… you…”
Time passed in a blur that was not uncommon for the Varázis Erva. My eyelids slipped open and closed over tired eyes until I was jolted back into awareness by the heavy thump that sounded at my back.
It was Seren, body dragging slack along the ground by her tethered wrists. Her eyes were closed, her fingers blue with cold and lack of blood flow. I cursed and stopped Equinox. With an unsteady dismount, I approached her.
Seren was breathing shallowly in the depths of unconsciousness. My eyes raised to the sky for a moment, cursing my terrible luck.
The hard way, indeed.
I gathered her limp body into my arms, straining as the wound in my side released a fresh wave of hot blood. It soaked into the fabric of my tunic, stiff with old blood and sweat. I draped Seren across Equinox and mounted as well as I could.
When we reached the cottage, I could have cried with relief.
I untied the rope binding Seren’s wrists and slid her back into my arms. I carried her into the cottage and deposited her on the settee.
Clumsily, I lit a fire and collapsed to the ground before it. I could already feel the edges of sleep pulling me under.
Sometime in the night, Seren stirred. My eyes blinked open sluggishly then fluttered shut. I reached out a hand, catching her fingers in mine as she rose from the settee.
“Don’t go, Ren. Please. Just sleep.”
“Okay,” she whispered, and I fell into the abyss once more.