Before – Homeworld, Millenia Ago, After the Burn #2
Dust billowed up in their wake, turning the sky into a gritty haze. The air thickened, coating her tongue and nostrils in a dry, metallic taste. Ahead of the rabble rode Vorian, Daziel, and Kaelric.
The beasts would run wild, flushing out the weak and stir the strong. Whatever survived the initial slaughter would be worthy of attention.
She turned to Malekar as they waited for the air to clear. “How long before Vorian needs a more explicit lesson?”
“Hard to say.” He didn’t look away from the unfolding chaos. “Depends on whether he thinks he could find a replacement. He likes the idea of the Four, and I don’t think he’s ready to give that up, or let just anyone in.”
He didn’t mention the real reason Vorian wouldn’t challenge him. That the man wasn’t afraid of losing, but of winning. They all knew what would happen if someone ever managed to take Malekar’s heart.
She wouldn’t just retaliate, she would erupt. And everyone within ten miles would fall. No one would be spared, including the Horsemen, slain either at the edge of her blade or consumed by the spontaneous white-hot flames.
“Right,” she grunted.
It had been over a century since the last incident, near the plains of Duskmire.
They had ridden for days, alone, chasing rumors—ghosts on the wind—about a hidden village nestled deep in golden grasslands, safeguarding a powerful artifact.
Rynna remembered the scent of smoke in the air. The heat of Malekar at her side.
And the way everything had burned.
The memory.
“I don’t like it.” She glanced at Malekar from the corner of her eye.
Hooves clomped on dry-packed dirt, and the wind whispered through the endless sweep of tall grass. It was the kind of calm that made her skin crawl, too quiet, as if the land itself was scared to look.
He didn’t answer as they drew closer to Duskmire, and rows of massive, rusting cages came into view, lined like livestock pens.
Her eyes went wide.
Inside, women crouched or slumped, their bodies battered, their eyes empty. The guards lounged nearby, laughing and taunting with the same gleeful malice she had seen too many times before.
Her vision went red, and that dreaded spark spiraled within her.
“Run.”
She only had a moment to warn Malekar before it rose. Rage ancient and vast coursed through her far beyond what her human shell should have been able to contain. And with it came the long lost memories, strange and violent, spilling behind her eyes in flashes too quick to comprehend.
She wailed as Malekar dove, pulling his heavy cape over his body.
It tore out of her, splitting the air in a concussive blast before the hot energy exploded from her heart in a dome of pure fury rippling outward.
The cages dissolved first, melting into pools of seared metal and charred flesh. The laughing guards didn’t even have time to yell. They became cinders, scattered in the wind. The women inside the cages, the broken ones—they were gone, too, reduced to nothing.
When the light finally faded, devastation blanketed the village.
Buildings smoldered. Debris burned. And from the furthest edges of that ruin stumbled a few survivors, dazed and coughing.
But she wasn’t done. The curved, gold-tinted sword materialized in her hand, singing as it cut through everyone who remained. There was no flourish or elegance to the slaughter, just precise, unrelenting strikes.
By the time she stopped, even the flies held back. Blood clung to the hilt of her blade, thick and dark, making the grip tacky beneath her fingers with each flex of her hand.
“What…” She blinked around her. “How…”
Her lungs burned, raw from the scream, though she didn’t remember making it. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, like her body hadn’t caught up to what her mind already knew: it had happened again.
She didn’t have to look to feel Malekar move behind her, watching.
The weight of him settled at her back, solid and unshakable.
A glance over her shoulder revealed his dark hair slightly singed and smoke still curling from the ends of the cape he’d paid a fortune to enchant.
The scent of scorched fabric clung in her nose.
It had held against the inferno—this time.
When her knees gave out, he caught her without a word, holding her as the fire smoldered around them.
Over the centuries they’d traveled together, there had been moments like that—violent, unexplainable ruptures of power she barely understood.
He never asked questions or pushed her for answers.
Not about the fire or the buried memories that would leave her senseless for days before sinking back below the surface.
He would simply carry her away from the wreckage, find shelter, and wait for her to return to herself.
He was the sanctuary she clung to when her sanity threatened to shatter, or when the suppressed pain and barely contained fury she’d spent millennia burying overwhelmed her.
It wasn’t love.
After all, who could possibly love her? How could they when she couldn’t hope to return the feeling?
But this thing with Malekar was probably the closest she’d ever get. And she refused to let it go.
The clash of steel echoed up the slope, and the acrid bite of smoke from fresh fires pulled her out of her thoughts. Rynna remained silent, though, as she took in everything Vorian, Daziel, and Kaelric had unleashed.
“You know.” Malekar pulled twin short swords from where they hung on his back. “It wouldn’t be such an issue if we learned how to control it.”
He never looked at her as he spoke, heels digging into the horse’s side, driving it to a light canter.
“No,” Rynna replied. She’d spent over five hundred years searching for answers. Now she sought the only escape that worked.
Closing the distance, flame and sorrow filled her senses. The horses kicked up dirt and blood. Shouts and desperate cries sent her heart pounding, dulling the constant ache within her.
She leaned over Empty Night’s broad neck, murmuring, “Fly.”
The mare responded, muscles bunching, hooves pounding, carrying Rynna down the hill and into the slaughter.
The first soul stumbling into her path was wild-eyed, arms flailing. Empty Night didn’t break stride. Bone crunched under hooves as Rynna rose in the saddle, blade sweeping down in one clean arc, splitting the woman from collar to gut.
Blood struck Rynna’s skin in a burst of heat, coating her arms and cheeks. The woman crumpled, forgotten before she hit the ground. But the pain eased, just a fraction. The inferno inside dulled beneath the rush of it, soothed by the way something else had broken first.
Two more fell before her blade as she charged onward. They had somehow made it past the initial wave of carnage and were scrambling for safety when she found them.
Not that there was any hope of escape, even if they had made it past her.
Daziel’s pack was already at work—lean, feral things with matted fur and eyes too smart to be natural. They tore through the village, dragging down anything that moved.
One broke from the others and lunged at a young man sprinting in her path. He barely had time to yell before it clamped down on his neck and shook until cartilage snapped and blood sprayed in long, red arcs.
Rynna scowled.
She swung off Empty Night, closed the distance in three strides, and drove her boot into the dog’s ribs. It yelped as it sailed through the air, hit the ground hard, rolled, and came up on its feet, snarling.
She bared her teeth right back. “That one was mine.”
The dog let out a low whine, tail dropping as it bolted into the smoke.
She watched it vanish, then turned back to the massacre. The soil beneath her feet was damp but not yet soaked. She needed more.
Rynna walked deeper into the village, fingers skimming along Empty Night’s flank as they moved together.
When they came upon another wounded villager, Empty Night’s ears twitched. She turned her head, one dark eye catching Rynna’s. A pause. A question.
Rynna gave the faintest nod.
And with a flick of her dark mane, Empty Night charged. The man barely had time to raise his head before the mare trampled him into pulp.
A raider, clearly new to their hunt, stood nearby, laughing and pointing at the deranged mare and her mangled victim. The others had taken notice now, too, but not of the horse. Their attention locked on the laughing fool, too stupid to realize he was already dead.
Empty Night looked up, mud and gore streaking her chest and legs.
Rynna paused mid-step, halting her stalk into the town to watch what they all knew was coming.
Thrusting her head forward, blood and spittle exploded from the mare’s jaws, splattering across the fool’s face. He reeled, cursing as he flailed, trying to wipe the mixture from his mouth. Then, he did the unthinkable.
“You stupid horse! You’ll pay for that!” Quivering and red-faced, he leveled a cracked, dirty blade at Empty Night.
His bravado died in an instant, though, as the assembled raiders drew back, a hush washing over them. And before he could finish his insult, Empty Night leaped, smashing into him, her round teeth ripping at flesh as her hooves crushed bone.
The man’s shriek only lasted a moment before ending abruptly, pieces of him stuck to the horse’s hooves, glistening in the fading light.
At least three of the watchers had their hands buried in their pants, jerking themselves off. The others clutched at their weapons or dug their fingers into the dirt, grinning wide, panting with every wet crunch.
Rynna knew what would come next. Once Empty Night was done, they’d crawl through the blood-soaked mud, smearing their faces with flesh and shit like it was sacred warpaint.
The horse stomped once more, then lifted her head with a satisfied snort, flicking goo and bone fragments into the maddened faces of the raiders.