Disavow, page 5
part #5 of Beginning's End Series
But she stared after him, warming with an unexpected thought.
This is a first for me as well.
THE NIGHT CAME ON SWIFT wings, as the friends settled around the fire.
There was nothing in the woods to disturb them, no beasts or bandits for miles, yet Kiera found that she couldn’t sleep. While the vampire and the fae curled together beside the heated stones, she lay upon her blanket, staring up at a dazzling blanket of stars.
She had tried to learn the names of them once. Eden had been trying to teach her. But the stories tangled together and he soon ran out of patience. She begun to make her own stories instead.
After a long while, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the stone.
The token might have been new, but the gesture felt eternal—as though she’d been reaching for the same thing, long before she knew it was there. Her fingers closed around it and drew it out slowly, holding it high enough to catch the fire’s dwindling light.
“Where is he?” she whispered, gazing at the reflective surface. “Is he even alive?”
There was nothing but silence.
She slipped it back into her pocket, closing her eyes with a quiet sigh.
Did I really expect it to speak?
Chapter 5
Kiera didn’t have a single clear memory of the next eleven days.
She cooked, and drank, and slept with the others. She searched for berries and gathered kindling. She rode enough miles that all of the scenery began to look exactly the same.
Another river. Another forest. Another campfire with its dancing flames.
They passed a few more villages, a few more trading posts—each of them with desperate people, all clamoring around the fae and saying the exact same thing. They had someone who was missing. Please, would he find them? Oh, they were already on the trail?
Oh...they suspected it was a sorcerer?
At that point, most of the faces would go blank. Even worse, some of them looked strangely resigned, as if the search was already over, their fate was already decided, and they might as well start making funeral arrangements instead of wasting any more time. Whenever this happened, the fae would sit and comfort them awhile. He’d listen to stories, share stories of his own, brew some tea.
Then they would ride away and Kiera would end up feeling exactly the same way as she’d done before—caught in a never-ending repetition, cursed to search for the missing shifter for the rest of her miserable life. After a few more days of this, she began to suspect something else.
“What if this is something greater?” she began with no explanation, as if the others were somehow privy to her thoughts. “What if this is some kind of sorcery—one that continually stretches the length of the journey? I can scarcely remember a time before we started to ride.”
There was more truth in the question than jest. She had grown so used to the feel of the saddle and the horse’s loping gait, she’d begun to suspect it affected her own stride. As though she was swaying back and forth, instead of actually moving forward.
A depressing new theme in my life.
Eden threw a weary glance over his shoulder. He, too, had been frustrated by the pace they were travelling. But he’d been on enough journeys to look upon this one with clearer eyes.
“It has only been two weeks—”
“You said it would take a fortnight,” she interrupted swiftly, as though she could argue them faster across the terrain. “That’s fourteen days—”
“I said it might take a fortnight,” he corrected just as fast, “and we lost some time speaking with the other villagers. We are close, Kiera. Take heart in that and do not act like a child.”
She shot a fierce glare at the back of his head, urging her horse faster.
“You know,” she began, “when you call me a child, it makes me want to set you on fire.”
He let out a quiet sigh. “I actually do know that.”
She squeezed her horse again. “Stop trying to ride in front of me.”
THEY CAMPED FOR ANOTHER night, rode for another morning, then shortly after the sun reached mid-day, they came to a sudden stop.
What is that?
Kiera wasn’t sure what had made them do it, but each of the friends halted their horses at the same time. The wind stirred up a rustling of leaves, then died down just as fast, leaving them in sudden stillness, as they stared at a tiny village nestled in the valley below.
It was not Pinard, but something near it. Just a handful of buildings, the same as any other.
And yet...?
“It’s so quiet,” she murmured, staring through the branches. The road they’d been travelling led directly towards it, but they stayed within the trees. “Have you ever seen a village so quiet?”
The others dismounted in silence, staring with the same expression.
Unlike their mortal companion, they were able to hear things that others could not. The creak of a door swinging open, the whispered stirring of cinders, the gentle hum of a woman as she sewed beside the fire. They could hear the rustle of fabric and the clink of glasses, the wet scrape of rope dragging over stone, as yet another bucket of water was drawn up from the well.
But they could hear none of those things.
“Something’s wrong,” Eden said softly.
Kiera dismounted as well, and the trio ventured closer on foot.
They had often tried to forbid her from such things, leaving her within the safety of the trees. But on that particular outing, to recover that particular person, they seemed to sense it would be a lost cause. Better she stay beside them anyway, if they were truly chasing a sorcerer.
They walked close together, their cloaks whispering over the tall grass. When at last they came to the gate of the village, the men exchanged a silent look and Eden drew out his bow. The sight of it startled her beyond measure, not because she was unused to danger, but because some desperate part of her believed that Jesse might be waiting behind those slatted walls. And whatever monstrosity upon which the fae intended to loose his arrows, might be waiting there with him.
“You must not miss,” she whispered, clutching suddenly at his sleeve. He glanced down at her fingers, and even the vampire looked surprise. “I trust your aim, but...you must not miss.”
He met her eyes for the briefest of moments, then pulled himself free. “I do not miss.”
Those were the final words that passed between them, then Evander opened the gate and they stepped onto a dusty road. It wasn’t unlike any of the others they’d travelled to get there, a mound of packed earth that no longer sank or crumbled when they walked. The air stank with the scent of stale water, and the smoke of extinguished fires still hung like vapor upon the breeze.
They walked a bit farther, and still it was quiet. So quiet. Not a single sound to indicate that anyone might live there, drinking in the tavern and sleeping behind the thatched walls. The sky itself grew still above them, as though the sun was hiding, retreating behind the cover of thick clouds.
Then they cleared the last of the houses, and stepped into the village square.
By the gods...
It was difficult at first, to understand what she was seeing. Her first thought was that the courtyard had been strung with banners. So many banners, tattered and heavy, swaying in eerie silence upon that stiff breeze. She felt foolish later for thinking such a thing. But there wasn’t a way to reconcile the sight. Her eyes drifted from one to the next, hanging from storefronts and fence posts, dangling like lank vines from the crossbeam that overstretched the village well.
Then she saw their faces.
Her mouth opened in a silent scream.
They were people. A whole village of people, strung up by the neck and left for dead. Their skin was pale as wraiths, their faces set in an expression of unending terror. Their clothes hung low on their shoulders, threadbare and stiff with rain. Some of them had broken limbs, broken fingers. A few had bloody stains beneath their nails, as though they’d spent those final moments clawing in desperation at the strangling rope, trying with all their fading might to pull in another breath.
Eden lowered the bow slowly, staring in mindless horror. “This cannot be...he spared no one. Not even the children.”
Yes, there were children. They had been strung up like the rest. He took a step towards the nearest, perhaps to cut them down, then shuddered violently, clasping a hand over his mouth.
There was a noise in one of the houses. Kiera turned towards it in a daze.
“Jesse?!”
She took off running before anyone could stop her, tripping over a hundred things she would never remember, before bursting through the door. It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. It took a second after that to find an old woman standing beside an empty hearth.
“Seven hells,” she gasped, jerking backwards. The others joined her at the same time, two different hands appearing on her arms. “What are you...what happened here?!”
The woman lifted her head, then smiled—fraying wisps of snowy hair sticking out from beneath her scarf. “Oh, hello.” She gestured to a kettle. “Have you come for tea?”
The friends stilled in perfect unison, staring across the room.
The fire had gone out, but she didn’t seem to notice. The kettle itself was empty, and still, she lifted the handle to pour. “I’ll have to set out three more place settings,” she continued, counting them in a sweep. “Silly boy, he never gives me any warning when he’s going to come home.”
Home.
Looking around the godforsaken village, the word was the farthest from Kiera’s mind. The place was a tomb, nothing more. Certainly nothing to come back to—one could only run.
“Silly boy,” Evander repeated softly. Beside him, the fae had yet to find breath to speak. “I would so dearly like to meet him. Is he soon to return? We have already been traveling long.”
The woman’s face warmed with a particular expression, one that struck with just as much pain as all those withered bodies hanging in the sun. Kiera would recognize it anywhere, though it had been lifetimes since she’d seen such a thing herself.
She is his mother.
The woman nodded and her eyes flitted to the window. Her fingers still moved uselessly upon the kettle, but the vampire’s question fell on deaf ears, like she was stuck in a loop.
“He was such a happy little boy,” she said with a distant smile. “Always splashing in the river, playing make-believe in his cave.”
Evander took a step forward, staring intently into her eyes. “This cave...where is it?”
There was a hypnotic quality to his voice that made Kiera shiver. Her fingers clenched and she realized she was trembling—though she could no longer tell whether she was flushed or cold.
“It’s just over the next bluff,” the woman answered brightly, taking an empty tray from the cupboard and rattling it in her hands. “I’ll come with you. I’m just going to...to make him lunch...”
She slumped suddenly forward, a knife sticking out of her back.
Kiera screamed in earnest, turning blindly into Eden, before being dragged away from the house. There was no way to tell if the woman was still living, though given the amount of blood, it seemed unlikely. It felt like she’d been dead already and they’d seen only a belated echo, the ghost of a broken mother fixed upon the hearth, waiting an endless eternity for her son to come home.
I will never have children, Kiera swore in that moment, the smell of blood and stale water filling her lungs. They are too great a love and too sharp a blade. They can run you straight through.
Evander stepped outside a moment later, having lingered in the kitchen. For a split second, she wondered if he’d taken the opportunity to feed. Then she punished herself for the thought.
“She is quite dead,” he answered the unspoken question. “There was nothing to be done.”
Eden nodded shakily, lost as she’d ever seen.
“I don’t know what can be done here,” he breathed, those lovely eyes bright with tears. He was facing deliberately away from the bodies, but his body tensed with each stirring of the wind, like he could see them all the same. He looked helplessly at the vampire. “I don’t know what to do.”
Evander’s face tightened with emotion, feeling the fae’s endless sorrow, while the others were merely burdened with their own. He stepped forward, and placed a strong hand on his arm.
“We will seek out this cave, and find Jesse.”
Jesse.
His name struck the silence like a gong. There had been a full minute where Kiera hadn’t thought it. Her eyes cut across the courtyard, terrified to find him already. But the wolf wasn’t there.
“But the others,” Eden said faintly, dragging each word from within. Those tears spilled over, running freely down his cheeks. “We cannot just leave them here. Hanging for the birds—”
“There is no time to take them down.” Evander cupped both hands around his face, forcing the fae to meet his eyes. “We will come back, I swear to you. But right now, we must keep moving.”
“There are children. I cannot—”
“Eden,” he said softly, “there is nothing to be done for these people. But there are others still waiting. Other children who might still be saved.”
The fae stared at him, then drew in a faltering breath. “We will...seek out the cave.”
Evander nodded slowly, never breaking their gaze. “That is how you help,” he replied simply. “It’s what your people do, is it not? You are not meant to lose yourself to emotion, whilst others are depending upon you. You are meant to save.”
If there’s anyone left to be saved.
“We can ride there?” Kiera asked breathlessly, desperate to leave the village behind. The others might return later to bury the bodies. She might even summon the strength to return with them. But strength was in short supply. She had enough for one man. “We can reach it by horse?”
Evander threw a quick glance over his shoulder, but the fae’s eyes were closed and his lips were fluttering with a quiet litany of words the rest of them couldn’t understand.
A blessing, maybe? A prayer?
“We cannot ride the entire way,” the vampire answered the question himself, those dark eyes seeing far across the plain. “We’ll leave the horses at the embankment and continue on foot.”
They glanced again at Eden, kneeling with his head bowed.
“There is truly nothing we can do?” she asked under her breath, forcing down the panic as she felt those bodies just the same. “How many could there—”
“We haven’t the time,” Evander interrupted, “we must continue on with the greatest of haste. The man has committed one atrocity, yes. But these things come in cycles. He will not be content to let them swing. The hunger will rise in him again...and it will need to be sated.”
LIKE ANGELS OF VENGEANCE, the trio of friends rode in a fury across the field.
It was as though the horses understood the sudden urgency, spurring themselves forward at a speed that made Keira’s eyes water and her hair stream behind her like a fiery cloud.
When they reached the embankment, they dismounted like the vampire said.
“Wish me luck,” she whispered, kissing Ciel on the cheek. He bent down his mighty head, nudging her gently in reply. “When I come back, there will be a new friend for you to meet.”
...or a body for you to carry.
“Come,” Eden summoned her sharply, “we’re wasting time.”
The fae might have broken down in the village, but the shock had faded, the fresh air had steadied him, and all that aching grief had hardened into something quite different. He patted his own horse, and pulled a sword from its saddle. He didn’t sheathe it, but held it fast in his hand.
“Shall I be carrying her, then?” Evander asked a bit pointedly.
It wasn’t the burden that frustrated him—one of them would need to carry the mortal, she was unable to travel at the required speed. It was the fae’s obvious intention. He needed his hands free. He was going to cut the sorcerer to pieces. And he was going to do it all by himself.
Eden nodded without looking, those piercing eyes scanning the bluff. “Just as I allowed you to search the woods.”
A mild revision. The fae had been openly banned by the vampire from venturing more than a few feet away from the cave. He’d conceded in the moment, but it was clearly fresh in his mind.
Evander said nothing to contest it. He simply turned to Kiera with a sigh. “You were asleep the last time. But it is easiest like this.”
More gently than she could have thought possible, he swept her legs out from beneath her, draping her over both arms, the way one might carry a child. A flush of embarrassment rose up in her cheeks, but the situation was too urgent for pride. The most she could do was settle against him.
At any rate, it soon became obvious why she couldn’t possibly have kept pace on her own.
Holy crap!
She let out an involuntary gasp, turning her face instinctively into his chest, before peering with great caution over his shoulder. There was no longer any landscape, at least nothing that was discernable to mortal eyes. It was nothing but textures and colors—a rolling sea of burnt yellows and greens, one that seemed to darken and sharpen the further they climbed up the bluff.
She’d thought it might be manic. How could anything remain steady at such a speed? But his stride was even and his breathing was no more hurried than if they’d been strolling in the woods.
After a few seconds, she peeked up at his face.
“Not what you imagined?”
Even his voice sounds the same.
She considered her answer for a moment, then ended up saying something else.
“What if he’s dead already?” she asked in a whisper, knowing he could still hear. A thousand times she’d wondered, but never said it out loud. “What if we find him hanging in that cave—”
