Citadel of Fire (The Ronin Saga Book 2) (34 page)

“What in the seven hells of remwar are you doing here?”

“Saving you, it seems. Twice now,” she replied.

“I—”
he began angrily.

Faye cleared her throat. “Behind you,” she said coolly with a nod.

Just then, a thief barreled towards Darius with a long sword in hand. The big man swung the huge blade. Darius parried, barely in time. But instead of metal clashing, his sword sliced the thief’s blade in two, as if melting the steel. The man faltered in surprise, eyeing his stump of a sword. Darius, equally shocked, shook his head and smashed the hilt of his blade into the man’s skull, knocking him out. At the same time, something fell upon his foot. Two more daggers and two more thieves, he realized.

“Three, and four,” Faye said, counting her tally upon her hand. “You really are beginning to owe me. Also, I noticed you don’t kill. It’s admirable, but foolish. These are murderers and cutthroats, Darius. They would not be so valiant in the same position.” As she spoke, he noticed her eyes linger on his green blade.

Darius growled. He didn’t have time to argue morality with her. He twisted, looking for Gray and Ayva through the din. He spotted them on the other side of the inn pitted in battle against a group of thieves, one of which was Bones. Gray was working curious forms, parrying and attacking with Morrowil, mostly keeping them at a distance, but they were closing in. Darius realized it was only a matter of time before that noose cinched.

“Mind debating this later and helping me now?” he asked.

“This isn’t my fight,” she answered, turning back to her drink. In her other hand she puffed on a familiar-looking pipe. And he realized it was
his
pipe! It was the one he had lost.
How in the…

From across the inn, he heard Ayva cry out.

“Faye!” Darius shouted furiously. “They are going to die!”

She sniffed and leaned back as a dagger soared through the air, barely skimming by and crashing into the wall behind the bar, shattering bottles. “As I seem to remember, you three abandoned me. This seems a fitting retribution.”

Darius snarled in anger, turning. She was useless. He charged forward, looking to cut a path through the men, but there were too many. As he kicked one down, three more replaced him. It was a losing fight. Between the mesh of two men’s swords against his green blade, he saw Gray was tiring and Ayva was surrounded. Only four men remained, but it was just too many.

Gray took a cut to his hand and Morrowil fell. The men swarmed around him.

Through the tangle of men and swords, something caught Darius’ eye. A presence, strong and powerful. The Leaf in his mind pulsed. A man. He sat in a far stall, the only one not participating in the fighting. Darius sidestepped a dagger’s thrust that would have taken his arm, watching as the man rose and moved through the storm of battle, avoiding swords somehow as if made of smoke. He stopped in the center of the battle.

Calmly, the man unsheathed his sword. The ring of steel and a roar of fire echoed off the walls. Eyes fell to him and his fiery sword, and ruffians dropped their weapons with a look of terror.

“What in the…” Darius whispered.

Suddenly, the two men before him threw their blades as if the fools were gripping snakes. Confused, Darius rubbed his head, eyeing the now defenseless thieves. He was tempted to attack, but reluctantly, he straightened and stepped back. Still, he sure as dicing hell wasn’t going to drop his sword! In a matter of seconds, all fighting in the inn had ceased. Silence reigned. The copper-eyed man even looked surprised, but he still held his sword. His other fist gripped Adorry’s hair.

Holding his burning sword, the man spun in a full circle, eyeing all in the room. His hood was still up, so Darius couldn’t see his features, but he took in that blade. It was a curious looking sword. Thin flames coated its surface, hissing. Fearsome surely, but Darius didn’t see what was so intimidating about it when—

As the man rotated, he spotted his cloak. Two large crossed swords. It was just like Gray’s cloak, if less dirty and threadbare. A Devari. The Devari spoke in a low, dark grate. “If you value your skin, run.”

None moved.

“Leave or find the might of the Citadel crashing down upon your heads.” Each dark thief stiffened at his words, but still none moved.

“Now!”
the Devari bellowed at last, and they sprang into action, bolting for the door, many ignoring their weapons as they fled into the night. The last one left was Adorry—he still cowered in the stranger’s grip. “Him too,” the Devari said, raising his blade to the stranger’s throat.

The stranger’s hand gripped his blade tighter. “I
need
this man.”

The Devari’s burning sword hovered closer. “I won’t ask again.”

The stranger looked conflicted. He lifted his sword, but at last he angrily shoved Adorry to the ground. The thief-leader, cradling his broken arm, rose with a satisfied grin.

“Run,” the Devari breathed.

Adorry spat at their feet and skittered away. As he reached the door he spoke. “Count your breaths, Shade, for they will be your last. Darkeye has great plans for you. You won’t live to see the morrow!” he said with a cackle and slammed the door.

Shade? Who was he talking to?
Darius wondered.
The stranger?

With the last thief gone, a strange
silence settled over the inn.

A Battle of Wind and Fire

D
ARIUS RUSHED TO
G
RAY’S SIDE, HELPING
him to his feet. Ayva stood as well. They were both beaten up—Ayva had a bruise upon her cheek, and cuts and scrapes marred Gray’s arm as if he’d just been tossed down a rocky hillside, but all in all, it was nothing serious.
How did we survive that?

Faye,
Darius remembered, turning. She still sat at the bar, sipping her drink and puffing smoke from his pipe as if nothing had happened. She had turned around now and was sizing up the room.

Both the Devari and the stranger had engaged in some sort of epic angry staring contest, and both seemed to be winning
and
losing. Darius looked towards the backdoor, wanting more than anything to not be involved in that. Quietly, he tugged on Gray’s arm. “Let’s get out of here before…”

“No one else leaves,” the Devari declared.

“I wasn’t planning on going anywhere,” Faye replied coolly. “But I am curious as to why a Devari is in this cursed place. The Citadel’s presence, sadly, does not extend to Shadow’s Corner. You are a far away from your home. Perhaps even more so than those three,” she said, nodding in their direction. “And they at least are fools who don’t know any better.”

Darius wanted to be angry, but a part of him agreed with her. They were over their heads. Far over their heads, and he was the one who had got them into it.
Great, now
I’m
playing the dicing hero.
Darius saw Gray. He looked as if in a trance, gazing at the Devari.

“You let them all get away…” the copper-eyed young man seethed. “I needed that fool, Adorry, and you released him without even a care.”

“He was not yours to keep,” the Devari said.

“Nor yours to send away!”

“I see your pain, but your anger is blinding you. Or do you really think that man would have aided you? He would have led you to The Lair of the Beast and then fed you to the beast itself. If you think otherwise, then you are a fool.”

The stranger still shook with anger, but he seemed to see reason. At last he gave a thin, hard sigh. “It was my only chance…”

“Your only chance for what?” Gray asked suddenly.

All turned to him.

The stranger eyed him curiously, his copper eyes narrowing. “To save a life.”

“Whose life?” Ayva asked gently.

“What’s it to you?” he replied, without turning.

“Please, perhaps we can help,” Ayva insisted.

Raising a dubious brow, Darius tugged on her sleeve, but she didn’t flinch.
Ayva! What are you thinking?
he growled inwardly.
Isn’t one impossible mission enough?

The stranger looked to Ayva, and some of his fire seemed to visibly dissipate, but his voice was still cold. “My sister’s.” Darius dropped his hand and swallowed. The others looked uncertain as well.
That explains his anger.

“We can still save your sister, Zane,” the Devari answered.

“How… How do you know my name?”

Slowly, the Devari pulled back his hood. Darius winced, repressing the urge to look away. Sharp blue eyes were the only true feature on the Devari’s face. The rest of it was hideously scarred. It shone in the inn’s pitiful light, bone-white. Some parts were smooth and taut, looking almost unharmed, while others were twisted and overlapping like tight strands of rope.

Zane gasped. “You…”

“Victasys,” he said, nodding his scarred head in introduction.

The fiery young man looked rattled by the Devari before him. “How did you survive?”

“It’s a long story,” Victasys replied.

“I’d be willing to hear it,” Faye called casually from the bar, puffing smoke.

Darius’ head swiveled in confusion. “Wait, you two know each other?”

“He saved my life,” Zane stated.

“At nearly the cost of my own,” the Devari replied.

“I…” Zane hesitated, the fury in his eyes faltering. He held the man’s gaze with difficulty. “I’m sorry for whatever you had to endure, but I never asked for it.”

Victasys’ eyes hardened. “I didn’t do it for you.”

“Then why?”

“I saved your life because Sithel was wrong. You just happened to be in the center of it,” the man answered matter-of-factly. “And I did not say it to garner sympathy or to guilt you. But if I had to choose again, I would do the same. That it nearly cost me my life was simply the truth.”

“And they just let you go after all of that?” Zane asked.

“No, I’m no longer a part of the Citadel, nor truly a Devari.”

Faye laughed, amused. “Then that was a grand bluff indeed,
‘might of the Citadel!
’ I never knew Devari had a sense of humor.”

“We don’t.”

Darius almost laughed, but his mirth perished at the look in the man’s eyes. His scarred face hadn’t shifted. His laughter died in his throat. No one in the room moved. He looked around, confused, as Victasys eyed Faye like a viper. She merely sat upon her stool, legs crossed, puffing quietly.
“You still have yet to answer me,” she pressed. “Why did you enter Maris’ Luck,
Devari? Do you have a death wish?”

He snorted. “No one would kill a Devari.”

“They might try.”

“Not if they value their lives.”

She sniffed. “Ah, but many don’t.”

Zane stepped forward, gripping the Devari’s arm, interrupting the two. “Enough bickering. Victasys, you said you know a way to save Hannah… to save my sister. Please, what is it?”

The Devari sheathed his blade, the fire winking out as he slammed it home. “The Lair of the Beast is a breeding ground for evil. It is the home of Darkeye’s Clan. That you attempt to venture there is tantamount to suicide.”

“Then you’re of no use and I go alone.” Zane moved to the door.

Victasys moved, seizing Zane’s shoulder, stopping him. “I did not say I would not go. But walking into the The Lair of the Beast without a plan
will
be certain death. I’ve already been brought back from the brink once—I do not wish it again.”

“How
did
you survive?” Zane asked.

Victasys’ eyes seemed to glaze in memory. “I owe my life to one man, a wielder of the spark the likes I’ve never seen before. He saved me when I was but a breath from the grave. His name was Ezrah.”

Gray choked, stepping forward. “Ezrah? Are you sure?”

“Why do you ask? And who are you?” the Devari questioned gruffly.

“My name is Gray, and please,” he insisted.

“I’m certain,” Victasys said. “I would never forget a man like that.”

“Isn’t that…?” Ayva whispered, casting a subtle look to Darius.

Darius nodded mutely.
Gray’s grandfather,
he thought in astonishment.

“Where is he?” Gray asked, having crossed the distance between the two.

“How do you know him?”

“He is my grandfather.”

Victasys looked astounded, though it was difficult to tell on his face.

“He’s your grandfather?” Zane repeated.

Gray nodded.

“He saved me too,” the blond-haired man confessed, “I got myself into a bit of trouble after stealing gold from Darkeye’s men. To avoid them, I jumped into a procession of Devari and Reavers. Looking back, it was a fool’s move, but my hide was saved when a man came forward claiming to be my father. It was your grandfather. He makes a strong impression.” The heat in his voice went from anger to admiration.