Chapter 6 Storm of the Void
I throw my red hood over my head with a victorious smile.
Flecks of snow sprinkle over my lashes as I stare up at the winter starry night. It’s past midnight, so the Chandelier City is quiet aside from this tavern. A peaceful setting for a walk back to my house in the Red Oaks.
As I move down the cobblestone street, I replay that look on his face over and over again. The confusion. The rage. The—
“Do you even realize how pathetic you look for that?” The Demechnef spawn shows up behind me, crunching through the snow until he’s walking with me.
A slow smile creeps over my red lips. “Was he still hard when you tackled him to the ground?”
A muffled growl escapes his throat.
I smile wider.
“That entire act was transparent, Spitfire. Sad, even.”
“What part exactly?”
“Having those men approach you one at a time. You don’t think I saw right through that little act? Wasn’t very creative, was it?” He keeps his sharp chin lifted as we walk, maintaining his dominant stance.
“You thought I orchestrated men approaching me?” I ask with a laugh, stopping dead in my tracks and opening my cloak to reveal my breasts plunging from my dress. “What part of my body makes you think I’d ever need to beg men to come crawling?”
Niklaus comes to a halt with me. And his angry eyes drop to my chest. One, two, three long moments pass, and he takes a deep, steadying breath. Still. Staring.
Victory floods my drunk brain.
His glazed stare flickers back up to my mocking expression.
“Do you want to see more of me?” I taunt with the sultriest voice I can manage.
Niklaus stiffens, dropping his line of sight back down to my chest. The frigid air pebbles my skin, causing my nipples to harden to fine points. And I know he can see it.
I take a dangerous, predatory step toward him. “You see? You’d crawl to taste me too.”
He snaps out of it, clenching his jaw, and crossing his arms.
“You think I’d ever touch you?” He lets out a bewildered laugh. “I can’t imagine any man getting hard for you, Spitfire. In fact…” He leans in, trying to intimidate me with his dwarfing height. “I’d rather fuck your mother.”
“Dezexez fir qasoi nexes.”
These words. That daunting, bone-chilling language is the only thing that could break our focus right now.
Niklaus and I turn abruptly to a lanky man with a top hat limping from the shadows holding a cane with a wolf head on the handle.
He wears a red jacket with gold tassels, black matte shoulder armor, and a smile too wide and crooked to be natural.
He looks like a…Ringmaster.
“This is a private conversation,” Niklaus tells the man.
“Duséaz Demechnef!”
We stay perfectly still.
No one speaks Old Alkadonian here.
And he’s not alone. Men in strange uniforms start approaching us from all around. In a slow, calculated formation, these Vexamen strangers surround us, whispering in Old Alkadonian.
And I hear them say Valdawell.
“We’re being targeted,” I whisper.
Niklaus spares me a quick side glance. We assess the odds as they close in.
There are thirteen of them. It’s odd, I never once thought I’d need the combat training our parents and Uncle Warrose gave us.
It seemed so silly. The time they came from was brutal, violent, chaotic.
We’re privileged here. Safe. Comfortable.
One by one, we watch them unsheathe weapons. Shining glints of metal.
“Fuck,” Niklaus breathes. He doesn’t have his sword.
Though I wouldn’t admit this to his face, the likeliness of Niklaus defeating all thirteen men is strong.
He’s that good with a sword. The greatest of our generation, in fact.
Although, many say he would not have been a match for Patient Thirteen.
They say my father was the greatest swordsman to ever live.
Niklaus has worked half his life to prove them wrong.
“How drunk are you?” he asks quietly.
“I’m not seeing double,” I say, sobering up quickly.
We need my brother. His friends. There are too many of them. And we’re unarmed.
“I have your back. You have mine.” Niklaus looks down at me. It’s the first time we don’t make eye contact with bleeding hatred or tormenting amusement. Right now, we’re all each other has.
“Yes.”
They charge us. They’re smart to rush us at once, overwhelming with sheer brute force and speed. I lower my stance, assessing each man. Who to strike first. Who has preexisting injuries. Whose weight I can use to my advantage.
And they strike harder than I expect. I’m thrown off my feet into a pile of snow, but crack into two kneecaps, and block a killing blow from a sword. Grunts come from behind me, but I can’t see how well Niklaus is doing. I have to focus on the men coming after me.
With a sweep of my legs, I take two men to the ground. But to my shame, I’m not fast enough. The others start wailing on me. A foot thumping down on my stomach. Something jabs into my ribs over and over again. The hilt of a sword pops into my cheek.
“Sapphire!” Niklaus yells over the shrill chaos.
Krimson, we need your help!
My brother has always known when I’m hurt. He’s always been able to sense when I need him. It’s as if there’s an invisible tunnel that connects our minds. If we yell loud enough down its echoing canal, our cries can be heard.
Blood smears into my vision as I’m struck across the face again.
It’s all happening so fast. The blows keep coming. Somewhere behind me, I hear Niklaus fall to his knees.
“Hey!” a familiar voice shouts in the distance.
It’s not my brother.
“Get off of her!” the voice calls again, closer now.
Before another jab can land in my stomach, a body is thrown over me. A golden face looks down at me before turning to face the swords and fists.
“Uncle Niles,” I cough out wetly.
My uncle holds out his hands to greet the slashing of the blades swinging at us. He doesn’t even grunt as his palms are torn to ribbons.
“No!” I cry, blood spraying across my face.
But my uncle stays steady over my body, taking the beating as Niklaus fights to gain control.
Krimson! Please!
A violent sensation vibrates up my spine as I realize what our future holds. Uncle Niles doesn’t cry out in pain, he doesn’t hold his protective stance with a whimper. He’s strong and resilient in guarding my beaten body.
He’s going to die.
A bottomless vibration molds into my bones at the thought. Deeper than pain or fear. Louder than the shouting of men and clanking of swords.
Something shifts.
The panic of watching my uncle use his body to defend mine sets an unnatural event in motion within my core. The world doesn’t exactly spin—it sinks, like reality is being pulled apart at the seams.
Sounds of waves and astronomical winds slosh throughout the fighting. It’s loud and clanking. I whip my head at the men focused on attacking Niklaus, staring in shock to see if anyone else feels it too.
Nothing. No one reacts the way I am.
It’s like time slows down.
One second drags to the span of a minute.
And I’m the only one that notices.
The clock hand strikes at the town hall tower above me. And the whooshing is magnified. It grows and wells over my skin, a living, breathing entity. A foreign place where no one has ever gone.
I can taste the chilled particles of its air, smell its vast darkness, like seawater and stardust. And though physically nothing hits my stomach, it’s as if I’m kicked again. Like a fishing hook slicing into my core, reeling my impaled body out to sea.
What is happening to me?!
I start to scream at the unbearable pain.
Uncle Niles grits his teeth at the rigorous assault.
The chaos decreases as my agonized howls distract a few individuals. But it doesn’t matter. It’s as if the hand of God is dragging me away by my ankles. And with that pull, something wild and berserk rolls out from my fingertips, casting a net. A net that blankets everyone here.
Am I being drugged?!
A starry night blots my vision as that hook tugs harder and faster, and I’m hauled away from the cobblestone street, like falling through quicksand—through space. No longer in the snow. No longer lying under my uncle’s body.
My heart threatens to collapse at the thundering pulse hammering in my chest.
And time stops.
There’s a lonely, dismal blackness that goes on for light years.
Each second is nonexistent.
It is all blank.
Muted.
Empty.
Yet I know I’m not alone. Something inhuman watches me with growing interest, a pair of eyes hiding in the leagues beyond sight.
It’s a hallucination.
I’ve blacked out.
I must be blacking out. Maybe I’m dying? Maybe we’re all dying.
“You’ll be all right,” a small voice says. “I’m here.”
The light of the sky starts appearing in the form of a star, then it expands until the world around me is alive and breathing again.
But…I’m stunned.
The sun is at its peak. The sky is bright blue. And there are no boutiques or street lanterns. I lie under its beating heat in drowsy, paralyzed shock.
“What the hell?” I cough, wincing at the shooting pain climbing up my rib cage.
It was midnight. Did I black out? How long have I been unconscious?
“Niklaus,” I wheeze.
A hand skims my arm. “Where the fuck are we?”
He’s alive. Next to me. At least I’m not alone.
Not too far from where we’re laying in the dirt and gravel, I hear grunts, heavy breathing, and the shifting of bodies. My eyes stretch wide as alarm fills my veins.
“Niklaus.” I grab his wrist. “We—”
“I know.” He reaches for something between us. “We’re not alone.”
My hazy eyes fall to a shiny piece of metal between our legs. Niklaus’s hand searches its length until he finds the hilt. A sword. Thank God, he’s found a sword. I tilt my head up to find he’s already staring at me, blood trickling down the side of his forehead.
“Can you fight?” he asks.
Can I? My body feels like one giant, throbbing bruise.
“I can try.”
He nods, trying to look at our surroundings without lifting his head. The sounds of movement become a little louder, as if people are starting to wake up.
“My dad is a few feet below you,” he whispers, raising the sword off the ground. “Get him up. If we can take down a few of them, we make a run for it. Yeah?”
“Okay.” This might be the first conversation that hasn’t ended in insults with us. But right now, it’s life or death. And clearly, we’ve been abducted. Not sure which forest we’re in, but I’m mostly confused how it’s so hot outside. It’s winter. This isn’t right.
“Now,” he mouths.
We spring up at the same time, blood rushing to my skull, pain exploding down every nerve ending. I jump toward Uncle Niles as Niklaus impales two men while they’re still on the ground.
“Hey! Wake up!” I shudder at the amount of blood dripping from his shredded hands and arms. Ribbons of severed skin hang from his palms. That bright red staining his white shirt, his coat, puddles being absorbed into the dirt.
“Uncle Niles!”
“Sapphire, come on!” Niklaus shouts over the clanking metal.
I shake his shoulders harder, getting his eyes to flutter open. He winces against the burning sunlight, fighting to understand his surroundings.
“We have to run!” I tell him, trying to pull my uncle to his feet. “Hurry!”
A stampede of footsteps thunders behind me. I pivot to a desert landscape of rocky terrain, and tall towers deep in the distance. But most importantly, the parade of soldiers running toward us.
Uncle Niles lifts his head, seeing it too.
“We’re in Vexamen,” he utters in cold, quiet horror.
“No, we’re not—”
“Sapphire!” He grabs my arm with his bloody hand. “I still have nightmares about this country. We’re in Vexamen, and I cannot run.”
“What?!”
He points to his ankles. “They’ve cut my Achilles tendons.”
Deep, gushing wounds are ripped open just above his heels. It’s grotesque and shocking, and I begin to cry. No. He can’t run…
“We have to go now!” Niklaus shouts.
“We’ll carry you,” I tell my uncle.
Niklaus drops down to a knee, panting and covered in splatters of red.
“We have to carry him.” I point to my uncle’s ankles.
Niklaus follows my hand with dread morphing his entire face. Those crushing blue orbs trail back up to his father. They lock eyes for a single, terrible, devastating moment.
“Leave me. Find Ruth and Warrose.” Uncle Niles stares at his son without a sliver of doubt or fear. “Hey! Do you understand me? I’ll be all right. But if you try to carry me, they’ll catch us all!”
The soldiers grow dangerously close.
Niklaus nods tightly. Jaw clenched. Eyes shifting to me.
“No! Hell no!” I sob.
“I am not asking, Sapphire Valdawell. Go now, goddammit!” Uncle Niles barks.
And I’m being hauled to my feet, yanked by my elbow, and dragged away from my uncle as I scream for him. Tears bleeding down my face.
“Find my family!” he yells as the soldiers reach him. “They’ll come for me! Do you hear me? They will come for me!”