17. The Rose
Chapter 17
The Rose
T hey shouldn’t have been here. They shouldn’t have been anywhere, but they especially shouldn’t have been on this half of the continent–let alone anywhere near the Academy.
The demons had been slaughtered alongside the elemental shifters when they were purged from our society like an infection burned from a wound. The few who managed to elude the legion of warriors tasked with their demise had been driven far into the Eastern Wastes.
True to its name, the decrepit land was a barren wilderness in which few entities could survive and even fewer—if any—could permanently reside. A demon, who drew its power by feeding off the corruption and malice of others, would have no hope of staying alive without access to its living prey. Furthermore, they had no hope of re-infiltrating society courtesy of the enchantment embedded throughout the borderlands. Everyone had presumed the race to be extinct—for how could parasites survive without living hosts to suck the life out of?
We were wrong.
The implications of their presence here cast an icy weight on my chest. Their last siege had been catastrophic for the Hidden Realm. Courts were overthrown. Races deemed inferior were enslaved. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost. Entire communities were turned to ash.
If they rose to power again, what new levels of destruction could they wreak with a decade to recover from their loss? What plan could they have crafted while the rest of us fell into a false sense of security that they were gone.
How could I ever hide what I was–what I’d done–with their return?
The questions wrapped like a clenched fist around my lungs, but I pushed the feelings down until only whispers of them remained. To succumb to panic in the face of a threat was unacceptable.
We were not twenty yards from the source of the smell and clashing of blades, but we needed to get closer and gain a better view. As tempting as it was to rush into battle before my panic returned, a hint of logic in the back of my mind reminded me we needed to assess the situation before we engaged.
I didn’t dare to whisper a word as I pointed Kenna to the tree on her right. She nodded, and immediately began to climb, quickly ascending its branches without rustling the foliage or making a sound. Under better circumstances I’d have paused to admire the way she embodied the stillness of night in broad daylight.
Though less graceful than my feline friend, I took care not to draw attention to myself as I began my ascent up the tree adjacent to hers. My pulse pounded in my veins and my adrenaline continued to rise, but the bark biting my fingers grounded me. I climbed higher and higher. I propelled myself over one coarse limb to another, wishing I could enjoy being engulfed by the vibrant leaves glinting from the sun. Under other circumstances—other than the sap collecting on my skin—this would be rather beautiful.
Focus. I needed to stay focused.
I kept my gaze fixed ahead of me. I ignored the light sheen of moisture beginning to gather at my palms. I dismissed the ever-increasing pace of my heart as it beat against my sternum.
Perched twenty feet in the air, I could see flashes of silver in the distance. My gesture to move ahead had Kenna and I weaving through the gossamer of tree limbs until we arrived atop the violent scene unfolding below.
There were two of them.
Their orange, gem-like eyes beamed in stark contrast against their ashen skin even from our view overhead. Both of the demons were fixated on the female trading blows with each of them. The trio’s movements were a flurry of blocks and advances as they danced between the trees.
The silver-haired fighter parried each of their attacks with swift strokes of her sword. There was no questioning she was a trained warrior, but her movements were growing more sluggish by the second the longer the fight continued. She turned enough so I could glimpse her face and my heart dropped.
It was Eris.
If the heave of her chest each time she raised her blade was any indication, she wouldn’t last much longer alone. Lucky for her, and potentially fatal for us, aid had arrived.
I pivoted toward Kenna and waved an arm to catch her eye. I pointed to the trees and bade her take up her post on the other side lest the demons try to escape after finding themselves outnumbered. The ideal outcome would be us killing one of them and capturing the other to interrogate. Their presence here was unnatural, and without one of them we had no way to discover if they were merely lucky survivors who’d avoided being detected all these years or if other demonic hordes had survived the purge as well.
As soon as Kenna was in place, I pointed to her and mimed shooting an arrow at the ground below. She would shoot from above while I engaged in close-quarter combat below. I sent a quick prayer of thanks for the paranoia driven artillery she carried. The moment her first arrow was notched in its quiver, I took a deep breath and took note of where I’d need to land to avoid knocking out my potential new ally. After I mapped the trio’s movement, I didn’t give myself another second to overthink what would come next; I dropped.
There was no time to worry about the sting radiating through my feet and into my shins as I landed in front of the cornered fighter. I was hedging my bets that Eris would quickly recognize me and, at the very least, refrain from running me through with her sword out of instinct.
My sword blocked the downward arc of one of their blades at the same moment an arrow pierced the other’s neck. The smell of tar and brimstone only grew more pungent as the blood mist splattered across us in an arc of crimson—freaking gross —but it did nothing to impede the relentless onslaught.
The only reaction my new comrade-in-arms displayed at my arrival was a short, sharp intake of breath before she re-engaged with the demon whose blood now donned our skin. Either Eris’ nerves were too frayed from the woodland battle to give much care to a woman falling from the sky or it was exceedingly difficult to take her by surprise. Then again, I did come across her battling demons whose combined smell could be detected from twenty yards back. Maybe she was less observant than I’d thought her to be.
“You bear a striking resemblance to someone I once knew, little shifter. What an unexpected treat.” The demon whose sword was crossed with mine tilted his head. The corners of his mouth lifted, one side rising slightly higher than the other, but it was too repellent to classify as a grin. “Now the true fun can commence.”
“It seems like you find joy in your downfall rather easily. How fortunate for you.”
I unlatched my sword from his iron blade and propelled it forward. I intended to lance his gut in hopes that his entrails would spill across the leaf-trodden ground, but he jumped back within a hair's breadth of my blade and avoided the jab entirely.
A pity.
“It’s rare to come across a delicacy I find as mouth-watering as you,” he continued, a smile stretching across his face as he advanced toward me. The timbre of his voice rang somewhere between melodic and eerie. “For I look into your eyes and see all you are, my ember.”
Dread washed through me as I felt the blood drain from my face. He couldn’t see anything in my eyes—I knew he couldn’t–but he looked at me like he understood me. He looked at me like he owned me.
My brief moment of shock cost me a gash to my left arm as the demon launched into a frenzy of blows. The jolt of pain shook me from my stupefied stance enough to counter each attempted strike with my own. All the while, arrows continued to rain down around us. My bloodthirsty lion lodged no less than four arrows in the flesh of my opponent, but he showed no sign of distress or slowing his attack.
Dodge.
Strike.
Duck.
Advance.
Our movements grew faster and faster until my arms and legs were guided by instinct alone. There was no time for thinking, only countering each surge as it was launched. Behind us, the second pair was narrated by the clash of steel and the occasional grunt. The sounds of battle assured me that despite the exertion she’d expended before our arrival, Eris was still holding strong against our foe.
“Why do you deny me the pleasure of combatting your full strength?” The demon taunted me, the ever-growing smirk resolutely on his face, “Surely this is not the extent of your power. If it were, I’d find myself wholly disappointed.”
I responded by swinging my sword in an arc at his neck. Of course, I was holding myself back. To do anything else would attract a plenitude of risk and a plethora of questions I couldn’t afford to answer. Questions like: Why are flames shooting from your hands like you’re a living volcano, Briar? Or, how did you propel a grown demon twice your weight into that tree a hundred feet away, Briar?
I was beginning to wonder if the risk would be worth it to see the miscreant’s likeness etched into the wood. Maybe the force of the collision would even cause his skull to implode or at the very least silence his never-ending heckling. My temper was rising and my fingers began to burn, the temptation to give in to the flames called out to me. I couldn’t answer its call, but goddess help me if I didn’t want to more than I wanted a slice of chocolate cake after a grueling run.
I jumped over a fallen log to put some distance between us and regain both my lost ground and sense of control. His pursuit was immediate. He leaped over the log in one go and with far more grace than I’d demonstrated. He landed just a few feet away from where I stood. One of the perks of being close to seven feet tall, I suppose.
“Do you want to know a secret, my ember?” The demon paused and leaned back, shifting his weight to one leg. The spin of his sword in one hand was almost casual as he looked from it and back to me, “I haven’t been using my full strength either.”
I stumbled from the force of his next attack and was thrown off kilter. The hit would surely have taken off one of my arms had I not managed to—barely—deflect it as I found my feet. I had years of training. Years of fighting against the strongest leaders and Enforcers in the pack. As the demon renewed his barrage with even higher voracity than he’d demonstrated before, I realized even the most skilled fighter in the pack would pale in comparison to him.
The demon stole my choice from me. I had only one hope of ensuring my allies and I escaped unscathed: I loosened the leash I kept wrapped around my power an infinitesimal amount—the obsidian stone secured at my ankle aiding my control. My breath still caught at the rush of power now surging through my veins, and I pushed a stream of it out of my hand and into my blade. Sparks flew at the next collision of weapons.
“There you are. I’ve been waiting for you to show yourself. You’ve kept me waiting far too long.”
I must have misinterpreted the pride and affection in his voice. Demons couldn’t be affectionate. It also had to be impossible for a more gentle, subtle smile to replace the mocking smirk that had been on his lips only moments before. And yet, what other explanation could there be?
From this close of a distance, it’d be easy to get caught up in his velvety tone and full lips, but his most entrancing feature in the split seconds between battle and breath was his eyes. I hadn’t noticed before, but the orbs of orange had an underlying layer of shimmer in them as if a sunstone had been covered in citrine. Looking into them filled me with a warmth I did not welcome.
“Stop,” I grunted as I struck, “talking.”
“But it’s so rare I get the pleasure of conversing with another real life, in the flesh —” I followed the strike of my sword with an uppercut to his jaw. He fell backward with a groan and his head cracked against the ground. My sword was lifted high to finish him once and for all, but my blade never fell.
“Briar!”
I looked over at Kenna’s call just as the second demon delivered a ghastly blow to Eris’ temple with the hilt of his sword. She landed in a heap amongst the fallen leaves and didn’t stir.
The distance between us was far too great for me to cross in time to block the death blow the demon would surely deliver any second. I did the only thing I could: I freed two daggers from their sheaths at my thigh and sent them soaring. They cut through the air and struck true. One lodged itself into the demon’s knee, sending him to the ground, where the other blade sank into his neck.
The knife in his neck was embedded to the hilt and pierced through the flesh on the other side. The demon was left sputtering as blood spilled from his mouth and his eyes so wide I wondered if they’d spill from their sockets. Kenna dropped from the trees and grasped the blade’s handle firmly in her palm before raking it out the front of his throat. Her smile at the carnage was nothing short of blinding.
During his companion’s demise, the remaining demon had returned to his feet, blade in hand, jaw clenched, eyes fixed firmly on mine. They were colder now than when they’d trapped me only moments ago.
“I do believe our time together is drawing to an end. I so wish we’d had more of it.” And the dance of iron and steel began once more.
With each block of my blade, each scratch I failed to avoid, I made a promise to myself. The darkness would not steal my last breath today. Every move he made was both powerful and precise. The demon was undoubtedly the most formidable opponent I’d faced in my lifetime, and he was calculated, destructive, and resilient–but so was I.
I forced myself to counter each of his advances with my own. To fail would be to doom not only myself but Kenna, Eris, and whoever may come looking for us as well. To let myself fall was one level of weakness, but to fail my pack mates was simply unacceptable.
Over the demon’s shoulder, Kenna approached swiftly and silently, stalking her new prey from behind. I directed my next attacks to lure the demon toward her and pushed an extra morsel of power through my blade. He flinched at the added force. It’s possible he assumed I’d already called upon my full strength, or maybe he simply didn’t expect me to further risk exposure by allowing more of it to fill my veins. Whatever the case, his shock would be his downfall and my victory.
His jolt of surprise placed his neck at the tip of the arrow in Kenna’s now fully drawn bow. Judging by her mild grin, I’d even wager she’d pressed it to his skin enough to draw a droplet of blood. I didn’t want to risk him finding a way to turn the bow against her, so I hurried to lunge forward and press the blade of my sword against his jugular.
“Drop. Your. Sword.”
“Do you plan to kill an unarmed man?” His sword fell to the ground. “I can’t say I pegged you as merciless, but I’ve been wrong before. I won’t lie and say it wouldn’t be a pleasant surprise.”
“You are no man.” However, if I looked past the ashen skin and crystalized eyes, I could easily think of him as one.
“I’m not going to kill you.” Kenna’s gaze darted up to mine as I spoke. “Yet.” She sighed but nodded.
“And why ever not, might I ask?” He was fully smiling at me now, as though discussing his life and death was the most intriguing game he’d played and I was the gamekeeper.
“You’re going to come with us, and we are going to have a very long chat about how two demons found themselves on the Academy’s grounds and out of the Eastern Wastes. That’s a tale I suspect the Hidden Council would very much like to hear.” The demon’s laugh disrupted the still silence of the wood that could only be found after such a disturbance.
“Do you find that funny, demon?” Kenna pressed her arrow further into his skin. He did not flinch. He ignored her question. He ignored the blood now trickling over his shoulder, down his collarbone, and into his black buttoned shirt. He instead leaned toward me, pressing into my blade until the thinnest line of crimson bloomed across his skin.
“I treasure the time we’ve spent together, my ember.” His voice was a near whisper.
“I can’t say the feeling is mutual.”
His eyes fluttered shut as he rolled his shoulders back and tilted his head to one side and then the other. When he opened them again, he met my stare head-on. He wasn’t smiling now.
“They’re going to find you,” he deadpanned. Then Kenna and I were both gasping. He’d somehow—though I could not for the life of me explain it— straightened his neck before snapping it at an unnatural angle. A crack and pop rang through the air, and his body fell lifelessly to the ground. The forest was silent less the sound of birds singing and trees rustling once more.