Chapter 10
The meadery was near empty. No one I saw was anyone I knew except this lord of dark magic. Black veins befell the night, writhing upon Alistair’s whitewashed skin, any humanity gone. His eyes were drenched in ink, strange and baleful. He spun his blade in hand as the three cloaked men prowled, circling him.
I stepped back, trying with all I was not to look at the dead men at my feet.
Alistair stretched his neck, rolling his shoulders, and swung his blade so quickly that my eyes could not find it. He did not lunge for the man at the hem, but deviated right. The man flew back, Alistair’s blade licking the rival’s chest—shirt and skin, cut. A grunt came as they raised defenses, three blades against one.
Despite the odds, there was a hunger in Alistair’s eyes.
A hand tightened around my arm. I yanked back, nearly screamed.
“Rhoswen, come,” Catriona hushed in the cry of blades.
“You’re still here? You-You didn’t escape?”
“Shush.” She set her finger upon her lips then dragged me towards safety. To the tune of clamoring steel, we snuck to the other end of the bar. There was a crowd of others, huddled up, pale, and near tears.
“Are you hurt?” Catriona asked, us crouched on the floor, her, checking for wounds.
“I-I’m all right.”
The god tore through my mind as his eyes scraped against my own. It is not only the gods that long for the corrupt rulers to fall. His tongue slit through his teeth. The lord will crawl to his grave, and by his blood the realm shall lave.
“What do we do?” Catriona asked.
There was nothing I could do. I knew little about blades, but enough to be dangerous in the worst possible way. Not that I had a weapon. No weapon apart from Deceit’s gifts, though I’d best die before using my abilities in this company.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, heart still stuck in my throat, fear stagnating my thoughts.
I took in the battle around the corner.
Alistair tensed his bloodied hand at the hilt of his sword.
Two men charged in unison, blades colliding and pressing Alistair down, battering him towards the ground. The ink beneath Alistair’s skin—that dark, dark blood—was rich and flooding. Thin smoke wafted from the veins. Alistair roared, every muscle tightened, and his strength suddenly outmatched the two.
Black blood dripped from his lips, from his eyes, and I knew the lord was overcome. Not overcome by the men against him, but by the dark magic within him.
Something snarled, I think it was Alistair, and the two cloaked men shuddered at the sight of him. Fists coiling, bones bent wrong, neck cracking, I could hardly recognize Alistair Raven beneath this mask of smoke and sin.
He gnashed his teeth and lunged.
From the edge of my sight, a man clad in black stalked into view.
Catriona pulled me back, but the man came for me. He reached out, grabbed my cheeks, pinching my face, and yanked me to him. Deceit hissed.
“You are the reason my man is dead,” he scraped out a whisper, breath hot upon my face.
My own mortality reflected in his eyes. I did not speak as everyone backed away, clearing distance, leaving me there to die. He held me, shackled.
“I’m here to kill one man. If you get in my way, if I so much as hear you breathe, I’m not afraid to take two lives. You understand?”
I gagged on air.
“Do you understand?”
I nodded, my cheeks stretching in his hold.
“That’s a good girl,” he uttered, leaving my skin to crawl.
“No one moves.” He looked over us, crouched low, and made his way to Alistair, sneaking behind the bar.
“Oh gods, we’re going to die here.” Catriona sobbed until another spat a short shh.
Has the lord’s time come? I asked the god.
The realm might be purged of the Raven’s sins this night, though mysteries of his intentions are vast. Elves, potions, Shadows—the Divine have no answers, for my servant has failed to know her lord.
What do I do?
Should it be for me, I’d see him die. Though his life might not end yet, so says the Divine.
My heart was a war drum.
If Lord Alistair was creating face-altering potions and distributing them, or using them to manipulate the elves, or plotting with other lords… I did not know what Alistair was planning, but I needed to know. The gods needed to know.
My mind was made, and Deceit validated me—he seeped his magic within my blood, gifting me confidence.
I took off my heels.
“What are you doing?” Catriona asked, hand upon my forearm.
Not looking back, I tore away her fingers. The god and I became the predator, prowling in hunt. I stooped low behind the bar as Deceit stooped within me, saturating my mind and veins in a sureness I did not merit. I caught a glimpse of Alistair over the bar, and I second guessed everything I was doing. The dark magic possessed him, animalistic movements drawing out his blade again and again. And I was trying to help him?
No, you do not benefit the lords of this age, Deceit said. You delay his death, so the gods might know more. He will fall, but, should my servant be victorious, his death will come beneath an impending moon when the light shines upon the Raven’s unknown.
Mead was wet at my feet. Footfall light, I delved into the shadows and staked my claim in the unfolding of this night.
I thought of another. I thought of my father’s hand, lifting the blade that left me with years of torment. The peaks of his knuckles beneath weathered skin, the strings of veins that owned cursed blood. I considered the strength he wielded without a blade, but simply in his innate might.
My hand burned, cracked, bolted, and grew.
I needn’t kill, only apprehend.
Feet hounding the heels of Alistair’s assassin, I reached out my hand, and—
He twisted around and grabbed my neck—palm against my windpipe, fingers hard around the bend.
“I told you, girl,” he spat. He plunged me downward, and my spine struck the floorboards.
I had no time to memorize the pain. I choked, air not meeting my lungs.
“Shame, too.” He drew closer as he unsheathed a dagger.
“Such a pretty thing, gone to waste.”
Tension stretched in my eyes, like something had snuck inside the pupils and started to swell. Noises muffled. I reached out to break from his chokehold.
“What?” He gazed at my monstrous hand dominating his, trying to make sense of it. When I ripped off his hold—coughing and wheezing—he fumbled against the bar.
“What dark magic is this? No, no. This isn’t dark magic, is it? You’re a god server.”
Deceit’s voice was murk in the chasm. Now he must die.
I am not a killer, Deceit.
No. You are a survivor.
“A god server protecting a cursed lord,” the man said.
“Just when I thought I’d seen it all.” He lunged, steel coming for me, dagger straight to the chest. I had no moment to think, forced to rely on instincts I’d never mastered. I was going to die, unless—
But, I—
SURVIVE!
Earsplitting, the god’s order was kindle in the flames. My father’s hand broke into the dying gap between my heart and the blade, and I clenched his wrist with all the strength I owned. Steel caught torchlight, the dagger falling from his hand and to the shadow-bathed ground. He heaved a breath and dove in to claim it. I shot my elbow against his chin, he wrenched back, and my father’s hand burrowed in the dark. I searched for steel and found the hilt.
Then, I held the blade.
He threw me downward, hand at the neck, the other hand wrestling with my father’s.
I tried to cry, to scream, but there was no air in me.
Deceit gave a noise I’d never heard before, something of acid and cracking screams.
I tightened my fist around the dagger, drove up my father’s hand, and heaved the blade into his neck.
Stillness.
Air cracked and bubbled in his broken windpipe. Blood spewed from his throat where blade met flesh, mottling my face, and he toppled over.
He was dead. I killed him.
You survived, child.
I do not know if Deceit aided in releasing my paralysis, but shallow breaths found me. My hand snapped into place, my father’s falling from me. The dagger clanked to the ground.
A battle still raged.
I staggered upright like an awoken corpse, rising from the blood and shadows and examined the meadery. Alistair had lost control. Another man was added to the body count, leaving the Dark Lord against a single, cloaked man. He was skilled, this assassin, but he did not have the dark magic with him.
Near the cusp of the bar, Catriona huddled in the corner with others. Her eyes seemed ready to fall out of their sockets when she looked at me, mouth hanging open. I could only imagine what I looked like, standing there, blood upon my face.
No, not just blood. Murder.
Murder was upon my face.
My battle was won, and yet I felt defeat. Slow, raw, gut wrenching defeat. I had never held the blade, never been the final consequence for someone’s life. And now, a hilt in my hand, a blade to my opponent—I had killed. Blood was on my hands.
Blood has stained your hands for years, darling.
Only my own, Deceit. N-Never this. Never the blood of another.
Oh, what lies you tell yourself, my dear. Blood stains all our hands—god servers, savages, elves, those damned by Shadow. Even the gods themselves. Blood is inevitable. This is the era in which you live.
The meadery door wailed open, and the crimson banner whisked in with silver armor.
Guards charged, Tynan at the fore.
“Cease him!” The captain shouted.
The assassin held his own for as long as he could, which was not long at all. The guards threw the assassin to his knees. As soon as Alistair was given reprieve, he bent over, hands on knees, shoulders fanning out for crucial breaths.
“Show me his face,” Alistair managed, the black veins dwindling.
The guards whisked back the man’s hood, long hair spilling over his shoulders. Though his face was held down, all our eyes drew to the same place, piercing through the hairs—
Pointed ears.
Alistair fumbled to stand straight. I’d begun to walk around the bar to get a closer look. To know, without a doubt, the elves had truly done something so bold as to send assassins to kill the Raven Lord. The elves were not assassins. They believed in the honor of valor. Sending an assassin was uncustomary. Callous for a people so good.
“You’re elvish?” Alistair asked.
The elf gnashed.
It isn’t over, the god voiced.
Before I could ask what Deceit meant, the elf shoved off the guards, showing a dagger in hand, and leaped to Alistair. Alistair lifted his blade but not in time.
The realm of Andrael slipped from me, hazy at the edges—there was only the elvish assassin, Alistair Raven, and the dagger that speared between his ribs.