Etchings of Power (Aegis of the Gods) (39 page)

Ancel shook his head. Their encounter and flight replayed through his head. “You don’t get it, do you? At first, I thought they were just merchant’s guards. But in all the running here, I realized they wore the same armor and emblems as the King’s men. The Silver Spear, the Charging Boar, the Mailed Fist, the Leaping Hound, the Hunter’s Bow, the Executioner’s Axe. All the King’s men.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Mirza said. “Why’d they think we had something to do with the killings?”

“They did not,” Kachien said. Her voice had its usual lilt, but she sounded much more in command, harder. Her gaze locked onto Ancel. “Those who seek you grew tired of me killing everyone they sent. So they chose to have the King’s guards do their work.”

“What?” Ancel couldn’t help his shocked expression.

“Who’s after him? Better yet, why?” Mirza asked.

“Neither is for me to say. I simply follow orders.”

“Listen, you whore!” Mirza snarled, utter disdain twisting his features. “When Teacher Calestis asked me—”

A slap rang out. Ancel hadn’t seen Kachien move. One moment, she stood on the opposite side of the stream of waste, and the next, she was in front of Mirza, backhanding him.

“You will learn to respect me.” Kachien kept her hand raised for a moment before lowering it.

Charra released a low growl and shifted position slightly. Without thinking, Ancel reached out and grabbed a handful of fur.

Sullen-faced, Mirza rubbed at his cheek. “I-I’m sorry,” he muttered.

Charra strained against Ancel’s grip, but he held firm. “What were your orders?”

“To protect you even if it should cost me my life.” Kachien remained neutral, almost bored, as if reciting an instruction to continue travelling in one direction over another.

Danvir was still blubbering in the background about killing a man. His eyes shifted constantly, and they were blank, lost.

“Slap your friend,” Kachien said with an annoyed glance in the broad-shouldered young man’s direction.

“Why would—” Ancel began.

Another slap rang out. Mirza shrugged in response to Ancel’s glare. The muttering stopped, and Danvir peered down at them as if he woke from a dream.

Kachien stared at him, her yellow-brown eyes glowing in the dim light. “Do you wish to see your home again?” Danvir nodded. “Good. Then act like a man. You saved your friends’ lives. If not for you and the pet, they would be dead. Killing is never easy, especially not your first. Weather the storm. Think of the good you have done to save them.”

“Why did we need to kill them?” Danvir whispered.

“Because they were bad men. Evil. Their kind needs killing. You will soon see.”

Ancel couldn’t believe this was the sweet girl he had taken to. “Who gave you orders to protect me?”

“Shin Galiana Calestis.”

Danvir and Ancel gaped. Mirza had no reaction.

“She’s a Teacher,” Ancel blurted. “She hasn’t been a Shin in over twenty years.”

“If you say so,” Kachien answered, but her face left no doubt as to what she thought. “I shall tell you as much as I am allowed. Some time ago, Amuni’s Children crossed from the Rotted Forest. They—”

“So now you’re trying to convince us with some peddler’s tall story?” Ancel made the contempt in his voice plain.

“No,” Kachien said, “With the truth. They destroyed several towns and clans. Mine included. Unfortunately for me, I was sent to protect a boy and watch a man at a village named Carnas in Ostania.” Kachien’s voice wavered. “Because of that, when my people were massacred I was not there to die with them in honor. They were the second family I have lost.”

“What happened to this boy and man?” Ancel asked, oblivious to the change in her state.

“I failed to protect the boy. They took him. So I was summoned here and instructed to protect you. I was told if I failed again to take my own life.”

Ancel snorted his disbelief. “As simple as that?”

“Yes. Still, if you do not believe me about your teacher,” her eyes shifted to Mirza, “You can ask him.”

Ancel’s eyes almost popped out of his head. Then he remembered Mirza’s earlier outburst. The meek expression on his friend’s face said the rest.

Danvir stared as much as Ancel did. “Is it true, Mirz?”

Mirza fidgeted for a bit, then he squeezed his eyes shut, inhaled deeply, and opened them again. “Yes. I mean, I’m not sure of the bits about Amuni’s Children, but what she said about Shin Galiana is true.” Mirza’s body deflated with the confession.

Seeing his friend’s face was one thing, but hearing Mirza actually confess brought a sudden anger coursing through Ancel. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He balled his hands into tight fists, fingernails digging painfully into his palms as he tried to focus on anything other than hitting his friend.

“I-I wanted to. But I couldn’t. She ordered me not to.” Mirza scrubbed at his face again. “What was I to do? You tell me. Someone who you knew as a Teacher reveals they’re still a full Ashishin following the Tribunal’s orders. What choice would you have?”

“What’d she tell you to do?” Ancel’s lip curled.

“She said she knew how concerned we all were for how you’ve been lately, since, you know…” Ancel nodded. Mirza continued, “Well, she told me to make sure you met her.” Mirza gestured with his head to Kachien.

Mirza’s story made sense.
He knows I love learning about Ostania. And
that
I can’t resist a challenge. No wonder he took the bet.
His anger still smoldering, Ancel turned to Kachien. “So it was all a lie then? Everything between us?”

Kachien looked away. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. “Yes. At first.”

Ancel’s world crumbled. The colors he experienced the last few days swirled across his vision. They roiled all around Kachien and the others. Even the filth within the drain glowed. He closed his eyes and shuddered. Remembering what Kachien told him, he sought the calm he used when he trained by forcing all his emotions into the deep pools within his mind until they became a light buzz. A sense of emptiness filled him, and he opened his eyes.

Kachien tilted her head. “Do you remember what happened when we…” Her voice trailed off, and she looked at the ground.

Ancel’s answer slipped out before he could think. “Y-Yes, I do.”

“Well, the power you have, Amuni’s Children want it. They desire you enough to have brought whatever shadelings escaped with them into the Broken Lands back across the Rotted Forest. And whatever they want, the shade wants.”

“How could you know this?”

“I did not. Not until you told me, and I felt what happened at the river. Whatever power came alive in you then, someone else here must have sensed it before. Remember what I told you about controlling your power. About what my people practiced. I am not supposed to be telling you this much, but…” Her gaze rose to meet his once more. “At first, you were a task, and like most men, a slave to your lust, to your weakness for female flesh. The best way for me to get close to you was in the bed. The other part of what I did was to help you grow. By bringing out your emotions I could help your power along.”

The words stung and added to the empty space in Ancel’s head and chest.

“But you became more than that.” Kachien’s face wrinkled in confusion. She heaved a sigh. “I have never had a man touch me the way you have. Make me feel the way you do. This is something new for me. All the others are just sex and me keeping up my disguise.” She closed her eyes as if it had taken everything for her to make such an admittance.

“Fuck. You,” Ancel growled. “No one is that hardened. Now, I’m supposed to believe someone may be after me from this side of the Vallum also? Why should I believe anything you’ve said. You’ve already proven how well you can lie. You all have.” He scowled at them.

“Not me,” Danvir protested.

Ancel spared him a glare that could have shattered glass.

“If I wanted you dead, you would be.” Tears flowed down Kachien’s cheeks as her impassive tone wilted. “If I wanted to take you, I could have done so outside the city, and no one would have known. Where I am from, you must be hard to survive or the land breaks you. If I did not feel as I feel, I could act if you were nothing. But I cannot.” She wiped at her face.

A part of Ancel wanted to doubt Kachien, but the look on her face touched him. He remembered all the time they spent together, the dinners, the music, their laughter, and lovemaking. That couldn’t all be a lie? Could it?

Outside, the storm raged, and the winds howled. Rain drummed harder and lightning rippled angrily.

“I believe her,” Mirza said, the sudden flashes illuminating his grim face. “I’ve kept it to myself all this time. But when Mother died my father would have nightmares for weeks after. He often talked in his sleep. He’d always say he was sorry to my mother over and over again. He blamed himself. One night, he mentioned how if he knew Pathfinders would’ve come for mother he would’ve ran away. When—”

“Pathfinders?” Danvir blurted. “Why would Pathfinders take your mother? She never used Mater to break the law.” He paused, a questioning expression on his face. “Or did she?”

“No,” Mirza said firmly, but his voice echoed his pain. “Mother never did any such thing. When I asked my father about it, he made me swear not to say a word. He said if I ever did, to anyone, they’d take me next. I still remember that night. How he cried.”

“What’d he say?” Ancel asked.

“That Mother lost control. He said at her age, it sometimes happens, so the Pathfinders came to take her where she wouldn’t be a danger to anyone. It’s the reason I’ve always pleaded with you to continue your training. I’d hate for the Pathfinders to come for you too.”

“Mirz, I…I…This can’t be real. Only criminals need fear the Pathfinders. Why would they—” Ancel remembered the conversation with Kachien then. How she asked about those who lacked emotional control, or those who failed the trials, or touched Mater on their own without training. His doubts withered and died.

“Besides she saved my life,” Ancel heard Mirza say as he regained his focus. “Ancel, I believe what we saw in the Greenleaf Forest
were
wraithwolves?”

Kachien’s attention snapped to Mirza. “Where? Here in Granadia?”

“Yes. Near our home.”

She shook her head. “No. I doubt they were. Shadelings cannot cross the Vallum of Light.”

Mirza gave a snort. “If you asked me several years ago, I would’ve said Pathfinders are good people, not some all powerful Ashishins who come and snatch your loved ones in the night. Until today, I believed Amuni’s Children wanting Ancel and the shade appearing again was impossible too. Not anymore.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Ancel implored. “If my father said they weren’t wraithwolves then we should believe him.”

“Like he told you the truth about yourself? About why they sent you here?”

Glowering, Ancel balled his hands into fists. The mere suggestion his father was somehow involved in this mess made his blood boil. Again, he subdued his emotions.

“You know, you’re my friend, Ancel. My best friend. But you can be naïve at times,” Mirza added.

“He’s right,” Danvir said.

“Listen, if
Shin
Galiana knew about her and asked her to come protect you, then it’s obvious your father knew.” Mirza turned his hands palm upward. “It makes me wonder what else they’re hiding.”

“Regardless,” Ancel said, his voice tight as he resisted the temptation to touch his mother’s pendant, “We need to head home. That’s the only place we’ll find answers. And the only place I’ll be safe. What do you suggest, Kachien?”

“There is a way out.” She pointed outside into the pouring rain. “We need to cross this canal to the tunnels on the other side. They lead to the river. I shall warn you now. You will need to swim and dive near the end.”

Ancel almost gagged at the prospect of swimming and being submerged in the canal’s filthy water.

“So what’re we waiting for?” Danvir took a step toward the tunnel’s entrance.

“If you leave, the soldiers waiting above on those banks will cut you down.”

“They know we’re here?” Danvir eased back from the opening.

“Maybe not, but they are covering this way,” Kachien said. “I have seen their helmets bob up and down too many times now.”

“So what do we do? You brought us here. I assume you have a plan?” Ancel raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Yes. I do.” Kachien closed her eyes. “Any moment now.”

Yells sounded toward the opposite end of the tunnel where the drains twisted and turned. Bells began ringing once more. Outside, orders rattled out above them. Sure enough, what seemed like several hundred helmets bobbed from along the canal’s walls and ran in the direction of the shouts and away from where they hid.

“Give them a few minutes,” Kachien said. “Then we run.”

“What did you do?”

Kachien smiled. “They think they see what they do not see. Once they realize they are chasing stone, it will be too late.”

Ancel’s face twisted in confusion, but he got no chance to ask.

“Go. Now,” Kachien ordered.

They ran for the entrance, Charra bounding ahead of them, cold rain and winds buffeting them as they left the tunnel’s shelter.

Ancel’s heart raced, each splashing footstep sounding as if the entire world could hear them.
Dear gods, please don’t let them hear us.
Rain soaked him within moments, but he didn’t care. He pushed his tired legs harder and harder through the filth around them. The muck sucked at his feet, conspiring to slow his progress, but he fought against it. Several times, he stumbled, but somehow managed to regain his balance. His breaths came in burning, ragged gasps. He thought he heard a shout, and he drove his legs even harder.

The safety of the drainage tunnel on the other side seemed miles away. In his mind, they were not getting any closer. He closed his eyes and prayed some more while pumping his legs. Then, in one sudden step, the rain no longer wet him.

Ancel opened his eyes. They had all crossed. He grinned, and so did the others. But Kachien was frowning with her head tilted to one side.

“What’s wrong?” As he asked the question, the noises reached Ancel. The squeals of thousands of rats and a distant roar.