Bastial Steel (33 page)

Getting up to walk about the tower, his first decision was to investigate the bowl of fruit. Cleve wondered if Jek had decided to take something during Cleve’s trial.

He hadn’t.

The fruit was tempting, even now after witnessing Azaylee’s power firsthand.
She ate right in front of us,
he realized,
as if daring us to take it.

He ran his finger down a banana, testing its firmness. His mouth started to water as he wondered how he could hide the peel.

There was a shout.

Jek!
Cleve ran to the door, pressing his ear against it.

The shouting stopped, replaced by Azaylee’s infuriated voice. Her words were muffled by the wall between them, but her exasperated tone came through as clear as the pristine pools of water within the tower.

Jek screamed again, this time louder and lasting an entire breath.

“Jek, what’s happening?” Cleve yelled. “Are you alright?”

Just kick it in!
a voice screamed.

No, I shouldn’t.

Cleve tried to resist the urge, but he was receiving no reply to his previous question about Jek’s well-being.

Jek’s scream worsened. It sounded now as if he was being tortured. That was enough for Cleve.

The span of a heartbeat was all he needed to gather the necessary Bastial Energy into his right leg. He leaned back and began to kick with the heel of his boot, putting all his weight into it.

He didn’t count how many times he kicked before the door burst open.

Storming into the room with his sword in hand, the first thing Cleve saw was Jek on the floor, his head against his knees and his hands over his temples. His screaming stopped momentarily when Azaylee no longer held her palm out at Jek, but at Cleve instead.

She yelled, “Stop right there!”

Cleve was content to listen so long as Jek was no longer being harmed. But just after he obeyed, Jek said something that jolted Cleve back into motion.

“She’s going to kill me…” His tone was strained. With heavy breaths, it seemed as if it took all his strength to utter the words.

Jek tried to pick himself up, only to fall back down with another scream, Azaylee’s outstretched arm pointed back at him.

Cleve ran at Azaylee. She lifted her other palm at Cleve and pain took his feet out from under him as if a sword had slashed across his knees and shins. His muscles twisted together, at least that’s what it felt like.

But the worst of it was in his head, a tearing sensation. He was ready for it this time, though.

Before his wall crumbled completely, he focused to rebuild it.

She was strong. It felt like her whole hand was in his mind, squeezing, clawing, tearing out pieces of him like a madwoman.

He imagined grabbing her wrist to try tugging her out. She needed to be gone before he could get his wall up again. The focus it took made him scream, his body on the verge of convulsing from pain.

Then it dulled as he fought, just barely, but enough for him to get back on his feet. He trudged forward, feeling as if he were walking against a windstorm. He felt a stinging sensation throughout his whole body, as if a thousand bees had covered his skin and pricked him at once.

This was her changing her spell, he could feel it. This was her ultimate power being unleashed.

Cleve collapsed once more, unable to bear his own weight. He knew he was losing, his strength quickly fading.

Searching through past lessons with Rek, his mind was desperate to find something to fight this.
“Go someplace else,”
he remembered Rek telling him after hours of failing.
“If you can’t get me out, then bring yourself out. Imagine you’re somewhere else, move your mind and body with it, and replace your sense of pain with love. It’s far stronger.”

Cleve had never done it successfully before, but it was his only hope now. He tried to imagine Reela, being somewhere with her that was safe. He wanted to feel her in his arms, but he couldn’t do it. It wasn’t working.

With a chill of relief down his neck, his next thoughts were of him and Jessend in bed, cuddled close together, holding each other tight. Never had he felt safer than then, with her small body clutching him with such surprising strength.

He felt a wave of relaxation come over him, but it only lasted until he got back on his feet. The sting came again, shattering his thoughts like a hammer to glass.

He wanted to ask why Azaylee was doing this. Why kill them?

What did Jek say to make you this way?
But he barely could see straight from the pain.

He needed something else to escape the agony, to comfort him. Luckily, a thought came to him—Kasko. Cleve saw himself throwing a dagger at the evil little man, then slicing his head off. He was dead. Cleve had killed him, and Cleve could see himself there in the cabin, doing it over and over as he pushed himself a step forward and then another.

Burning came next to replace the stinging, as if he were walking into an oven.

He felt as if he should see his arms and legs on fire…if he looked down. But he chose not to.

Instead, he squinted to see his target—a now grunting Azaylee. He’d gotten farther than he thought. She was just a few more steps in front of him. Her teeth were clenched, her brow creased in worry.

Lysha was next in Cleve’s mind, her silly annoyance at his attempts to get more comfortable sleeping beside her. It wasn’t enough to distract him, to comfort him by bringing him out of this painful moment, and so it too was broken apart easily.

The closer he got to Azaylee, the more powerful her spell.

Cleve could feel himself about to fall again, his body giving out. His heart would be next.

Psyche really can kill,
he realized.

It was too much for his body to endure, too much at once, at least.

Pain
, he told himself. He knew pain well, had dealt with it nearly his whole life.
That’s all this is,
he told himself.
Pain.

Then Cleve saw his parents. Dizziness nearly overcame him with the image of them. He hadn’t pictured them in years, but there they were, bright and full of life. He felt unrestricted tears flowing from his eyes.

His father, Dex…they were in the forest together. Cleve was just a little boy. His mother, Lena, was there as well. It wasn’t even a memory, or it didn’t feel like one. He was
there
.

“This is for you,” Dex said, kneeling down to present a short sword to Cleve. His father’s blond hair was rustled by the wind, but his wide smile remained steady.

Lena gasped dramatically. “Look at what Father has gotten you for your birthday!”

Cleve was old enough to know that his mother wasn’t really as enthusiastic as she pretended to be, but he was too excited to care. Reaching out toward the weapon, he waited for his father’s permission to touch it.

“Go ahead,” Dex said. “It’s yours.”

But his mother knelt down and put her arm around Cleve’s shoulders before he could. “Remember what we talked about, Cleve. What is the point of the weapon?”

It was hard to take his gaze off of it, but he looked to his mother for a sign of the answer. The wind made her hair dance, brown like the trees around them. She didn’t have the same smile as his father, at least not in that moment. She looked intensely into his eyes, waiting for him to answer.

But he didn’t know what she wanted to hear. What was the point of the weapon to a child like him?

“I know you know,” Lena said. “Just think about it.”

Only wrong answers came to mind: to hurt, to kill, to defend myself, to learn to fight.

He could recall the respect his father made him learn later, when he gave Cleve his first bow. But Cleve couldn’t remember the point of a weapon in the first place. Was there one? Of course. But it was different for every person, so what did his mother have in mind?

“Tell me,” she said, pointing to it. “What does this sword mean to you?”

He remembered the answer then. It came back to him as she squeezed his shoulder and parted the hair that had fallen in front of his eyes.

“A weapon is nothing but a way for us to express ourselves,” he said. To his ears, his childlike voice was like the squeak of a mouse. But it didn’t stop him from remembering what he was taught. “It’s never a reason to do anything we wouldn’t normally do with our bare hands. It is
us
who make the decision of how and when to use it, not the weapon.”

She nodded, encouraging him to continue. “And?” She wiggled her wand in front of him. “When would I use this on another person?”

Cleve swallowed hard as the words came to him. “Never.”

“That’s right.” She smiled and stood.

“Never?” Dex blurted, standing to match her. “Why are you teaching him that? What if his life is in danger—can he use the weapon then?”

“His life won’t be in danger until he’s old enough to know that answer for himself. Isn’t that right?” Lena retorted.

Dex let out a defeated laugh. Kneeling back down, he said, “Your mother’s very wise. It’s best you listen to her.”

“I know,” Cleve muttered, grasping the sword carefully by the handle.

The moment he touched it, he was back in the tower with his own sword in hand. He could see the fear in Azaylee’s eyes, for he just needed one more step to reach her.

Sweat made her hair stick to her cheeks and forehead. She was against the wall, nowhere to go. Her psyche couldn’t stop him. It was clear to the both of them now.

Knowing his mother would approve of his choice to use his weapon, all his strength returned, and he drove his blade into Azaylee’s stomach.

She collapsed, gasping in pain.

He raised his sword to end her suffering, but Jek painfully grunted out, “Wait!” and knelt down in front of her. “Why kill me just because I found out who you are?” Jek asked her. “Why is it so important to you?”

“Because
she’s
a failure,” Azaylee muttered, sliding down against the wall and holding her stomach. “I’d rather die than be haunted by her mistakes as I have been for so many years.” A wave of coughing interrupted her. She wiped blood from her mouth. “I control this land, this village. This is who I really am. And I have plans for more. Golden Girl is dead. There will be a new song once Azaylee is known across the world.”

Jek looked up at Cleve from his knees, his expression perplexed. Cleve could tell they were thinking the same thing.
She doesn’t realize she’s going to die?

Was it right to tell her? Cleve didn’t know. Though, he felt even worse about the idea of leaving her like that—to die alone.

Well, she’s not completely alone if we leave.
Cleve looked at the legless man once more, still at the table with his knife. He was disinterested, somehow even then.
Yeah…alone,
Cleve concluded.

Then he thought of something she might want, perhaps a dying wish. “What would you like us to tell the villagers?” Cleve asked.

Azaylee lost her breath for a moment, swallowing a gulp of blood that had climbed to her mouth through her previous coughing. Her strength was gone, her eyes no longer seeing him or Jek.

Her breath did not come back. Her head sank to her chest.

“She’s dead,” Jek said, getting to his feet.

“Let’s get out of here,” Cleve said, feeling an urgency to flee.

“One moment.” Something about Azaylee seemed to draw Jek’s interest. He leaned down and removed her golden necklace. It matched her hair.

“Lisanda might like this,” Jek said.

Cleve reached out to stop him, grabbing his wrist. “Have you no respect for the dead?” Cleve glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one had come into the tower.

“Not when she tried to kill me just moments ago.”

Cleve sighed. He couldn’t argue with that. “Fine.”

“Since you’re so decisive about the rules of the dead, what do you want to do with her?” Jek didn’t take his eyes off Azaylee’s body as he spoke, as if waiting for her to come back to life. Leaving as soon as possible didn’t seem nearly as vital to the mage as it did to Cleve.

“I don’t know,” Cleve admitted, having an easier time looking away from her body than Jek. His eyes found the legless man seated at the table with a knife. It piqued Cleve’s curiosity.

“You have no words for what just happened?” Cleve asked him.

But the man’s gaze did not shift. It remained steady, fixed in their general direction.

Cleve waved. “Can you hear me?”

“Go put your finger on his table and see what happens,” Jek said jokingly.

Cleve didn’t find it humorous. “I think we should forget about her and leave as quickly as we can.”

“That’s good with me.” Jek knelt once more, this time to stick his hands in Azaylee’s pockets.

Cleve couldn’t help but sigh.

“Judge me all you want,” Jek said. “I’m curious what she has on her.” He pulled out a folded paper and opened it for a read.