Chapter 59 Hakara
Hakara
Langzu – on the road from Bian to Xiazen
Here is the thing about oral histories: they work well so long as there are enough people to hold them.
Information can be cross-checked, verified, and consensus can be reached.
No one need hold more information than they can handle.
But over the long years, the Aqqilan people have diminished as realm after realm has undergone restoration.
Now the few left must carry the burden once meant for so many.
This wasn’t where I’d wanted to end up. Hadn’t wanted to kill her friend. Hadn’t wanted to kill any of them. I watched Rasha’s expression shift, and I wasn’t sure if this was a thing we’d be able to mend.
Lithuas was pushing Thassir back; he was barely able to defend himself, the wound in his side still bleeding.
In that moment, when Rasha had shoved her dagger into him, I’d felt the shock of it as surely as though she’d thrust the blade into me.
It felt like a violation, a thing that shouldn’t ever happen – this intentional harm of someone I cared about.
And I, unthinking, had done the same thing right back to her. Only I’d killed the person she cared about.
Rasha screamed and leapt at me. I looked to Thassir, hoping he would still have the strength to know what I needed from him.
Another small sip of aether. I held it, felt it reacting with the corestone.
I could feel a reserve of power behind a wall, one I couldn’t quite access.
And Thassir refused to give me that access.
Frustrated, I fought off my sister’s furious attacks.
Her dagger slipped through my guard, catching my forearm.
A sting, the warm sensation of blood dripping to my elbow.
Thassir faltered.
It was this that broke me open more than anything else.
I’d been so angry with him for all the things he hadn’t done, the differences he could have made long in the past. He was supposed to be the Defender of the Helpless, and he’d let that go.
I’d focused on this instead of the incredible loss he’d suffered.
He’d become less than himself, unwilling and unable to cope.
I’d wanted him to be like me – screaming in defiance in the face of everything, putting myself on the line over and over, not caring about the value of my life.
And that wasn’t always the right way. I’d done what I thought was right, yet I’d let so many people down. So had he. But we were both trying to fix those mistakes. I’d wanted grace for my mistakes, and I hadn’t given him any for his.
I put all my strength and my magic into shoving my sister back. I took a breath, my throat aching, head pounding. “Thassir, I need you!” I shouted.
His raven-dark eyes met mine. Something ground into place, the rusty teeth of our hearts finally aligning.
Without exactly knowing why, I called out his name. “Nioanen!”
He straightened. His wings snapped out. The black of his feathers cracked like the dried earth of Langzu. It flaked away with the breeze, whirling into the rain, dark specks of ash mixing into the water and mud.
The feathers it left behind were gold, shining with their own light. Lithuas fell back at the sight of them, and Nioanen extended a hand.
A bright blade, wreathed in lightning, appeared in his palm. Zayyel.
I felt a fraction then of what people must have felt so many hundreds of years ago when they saw him. A being of golden light wielding a crackling white sword. Fearsome and beautiful.
The wound in his side still bled, but this time, when he summoned aether for me, I felt the thickness of it in my throat.
My belly burned with the corestone’s power, my veins alight.
I couldn’t care about what effect it might have on me in the future.
Right here, right now, Alifra was in trouble and so was Talie.
Nioanen and I gravitated toward one another as we fought Lithuas and Rasha until our backs met, his feathers brushing the back of my neck. I took a moment to breathe, and my sister leapt at me. “Alifra! Talie!” I called. “Hold on!” A moment of air, and then another breath of aether.
Rasha snarled as she attacked, and I was still only holding her off, even with the corestone. I didn’t want to kill her and I couldn’t see a way to incapacitate her. We wouldn’t make it.
I was going to have to choose – my sister’s life, or the lives of my comrades. The burning of my belly seemed to extend into my chest, a slow and fiery ache.
Hoofbeats came up the road. Someone slid from horseback just short of the fight, cloaked all in midnight blue.
She tore the hood from her head, the veil from her face.
Velenor. In one smooth movement, she’d drawn her sword.
Velenor was not Dashu, but she’d forged his sword, she’d taught his ancestors how to fight.
“Lithuas!” she called as she approached. She took down one of the godkillers attacking Alifra, pivoted and sliced a wing from another that had slashed a cut across Talie’s nose. “It’s time to put down your sword.”
I could feel Nioanen rallying behind me, the flash of his lightning blade sparking at the corners of my vision.
Rasha’s face went still as Velenor approached, her attacks weakening.
I knew the effect Velenor could have on people – her glittering skin, her luminous eyes, the grace with which she moved.
Even when she lifted her sword, there was something soothing about her, a lullaby sung from a mother’s lips.
The closer she came, the more I could feel the presence of the three elder gods together, like the heat that emanated from a bonfire.
Lithuas hesitated. “Velenor. You were supposed to stay in Pizgonia.”
“And I might have,” she said, “if I’d never realized you’d left more of us alive.
I’d always thought it was just me, that fighting would be pointless.
And now I know – no fighting is pointless, not when it can bring hope to others.
If no one makes a stand, no one ever will, because who wants to stand alone?
So drop your sword, Lithuas. You spared us for a reason. ”
I rushed to help Talie and Alifra, my breath still tight in my chest, taking advantage of the distraction.
Didn’t know if Velenor would convince Lithuas of anything, but my friends needed me.
I slammed into one of the two remaining godkillers fighting Alifra, hamstringing one.
Alifra darted away from the last one, pulling her crossbow and taking aim at the godkillers harrying Talie.
Lithuas’s laugh sounded behind me, mingling with the pattering rain. “It’s too late. I might not have killed any of you, but I have killed countless other gods in Kluehnn’s name, and even more mortals. No one wants me on their side.”
I was fighting a godkiller whose face was nearly covered in mottled brown and black scales, dagger whipping about as ferociously as his tail. I heard a cry of pain from behind me, across the muddy road, and knew Alifra had hit her mark.
We could win this. My belly spasmed and I let the aether go, sucking in a lungful of air.
The burning in my belly and chest didn’t diminish.
I thrust at the godkiller. He sidestepped, but my aim was still true, my sword piercing his leather breastplate a handspan above his hip.
I felt the blade exit out his back. Not close enough to center to hit anything vital, but I’d hurt him.
A hand grabbed me from behind, pulling me back, an arm wrapping around my neck. A godkilling blade rested against my collarbone.
“Hakara.” Rasha’s voice in my ear, strangled. Her other hand seized my wrist, keeping my blade from reaching her.
“I didn’t want to kill your friend.” A crawling sensation filled my chest, something tickling at my ribs. “She would have killed me.”
A moment’s hesitation. “I know. But… the other of my cohort. Kluehnn holds him in the den. I’m sorry.”
She was doing this against her will. I wriggled in her grasp, trying to get free, to look her in the eye. We could handle this together, if only she’d let me try.
Wait. Sorry? What was she sorry for?
She let go of my wrist, grabbed my other hand. For a moment, I wasn’t sure what was happening. The blade was no longer on my neck. I tried to twist, to lift my sword.
Something struck the end of my left hand, like someone had somehow managed to punch me there with a hand gloved in hot iron. I glanced down, found my little finger gone, blood pouring from the wound. My finger was in her grasp and she was pulling away, and I couldn’t even think, my ears ringing.
Lithuas had dropped her sword. She and Velenor were speaking but I couldn’t hear their words.
Nioanen appeared in my narrowing vision, grabbing at my injured hand.
I’d dropped my sword. Pain finally flooded in, a deep and throbbing ache.
My knees gave out and he lowered me to the ground.
“Help Alifra and Talie,” I said, pushing him away.
“I’ll live.” I could barely get the words past my tongue. Nothing felt real.
Every drop of rain fell against skin that felt suddenly too sensitive, bursting with pain. But as I let my head fall back into the grass, the rain falling into my open eyes, I felt something that disturbed me more than the missing finger.
My heart thudded in my chest, a quick rhythm. But next to that pulse was another one. Slower and fainter, but steady all the same.
A twin heartbeat that was not mine.