The Broken Pieces (9 page)

“Take it,” Valessa whispered as she put her hands on the bars of the gate. “Take it, all of it, and let me die if that will grant me peace.”

“You’ll know only pain.”

Valessa laughed at the lioness.

“That’s all I know now.”

Daniel’s army was close, so close, and already she could hear panic rising as they realized the gate was shut. Arrows had started to rain upon them, and they’d grow thicker as the army gathered together in defense. Refusing to look, not wanting to see them dying, Valessa instead pressed closer, almost daring Lilah to strike.

“Greet me when I enter the Abyss,” she told the lioness. “Because you’ll be there before me.”

She was strong, stronger than ever. Her body was not tied to concepts of muscles anymore. Everything was fluid, changeable, becoming the form she imagined. And what she imaged was a woman with the power of a god, and her hands pulled. The gate groaned, twisted, then broke in half with a sound that shook the wall. The mercenaries stood stunned, but Lilah never hesitated, leaping through the permanently opened portcullis. Valessa’s sight filled with stark white teeth. She thought to fall through the world, as she had when Cyric attempted to kill her, but Lilah seemed aware of her strategy, and her teeth closed around an arm.

It held firm, and Valessa could not pull free. She struggled, and the teeth sank in deeper. A strange black fluid poured from her body, and she felt herself becoming loose. Maintaining her shape grew increasingly difficult as Lilah shook her side to side, tearing deeper, jarring Valessa’s body. The pain increased tenfold. A scream exited her mouth, though it sounded like it belonged to another. And then her scream was overwhelmed by the sound of more than a hundred men howling at the top of their lungs.

Darius’s glowing blade sliced through her Lilah’s jaw, and with a yelp from the great best, Valessa was free.

I am anyone, she thought. I am anything.

It was madness, but she had to try. The lioness roared with heightened fury. Mercenaries were rushing out of the gate, seeking to protect Lilah, for she was the only real hope they had left. They were met by Daniel’s men, and the blood quickly flowed. Only Darius faced Lilah, as if the rest instinctively knew it would be the paladin who must deal with the creature, and if he failed, there was little any of them could do. Darius stood between Valessa and the lioness, and though the light from his sword hurt, there was still comfort in its sight.

“Fly away,” Valessa whispered.

Darius swung, and Lilah reacted with the speed and reflexes of the cat she resembled, dodging aside. Instead of lunging at the hated paladin, she remained focused on Valessa, who stood there, a smile on her face. Lilah would risk everything, even defeat, to kill her now. But she wouldn’t. Lilah was just a giant cat. Giant cats couldn’t fly.

Lilah’s jaws snapped at her, and should have closed around her neck. But Valessa had crouched down, the force of her will reshaping her, making her something new, something small. Her vision shifted, her senses overcome by the strangeness of her being. Only desperation kept her moving, kept her arms rising and falling, which were now soft white wings no bigger than a single claw on Lilah’s paw. She felt herself condensed, yet lighter. Her body lifted higher, higher, and when Lilah swung at her, she banked away. The wind blew across her eyes, face, and through the nostrils of her beak. Once more Lilah swung, but she was too high now, soaring over the battlefield.

Down below, Darius’s sword gleamed with light, and with a single chop, it beheaded Lilah as she roared up to the heavens. Valessa soared on. Her back felt exposed, feathers missing from where she’d been clawed. Even now the wound would not heal. From her left eye she saw her wing blackened and mangled from where Lilah had held her. One by one, soft feathers fluttered away with each beating of the wing. Whatever strength kept her going, she felt it waning, already pressed to its limits.

But oh, how it felt to fly…

She circled, just a night dove, watching as Darius leapt into the center of the mercenaries’ line. Already outnumbered, they could not hold against his skill and strength. They broke, and with a cheer Daniel’s army surged forward, overwhelming them. Bodies fell, and Valessa fell with them, circling lower and lower, unable to beat her wings. Floating in that downward spiral, she felt free for the first time since she’d thrust her neck against the tip of Darius’s sword. A shame it couldn’t last.

She hit the ground amid the corpses outside the gate, human once more. Her flesh was pale, and she wore no clothes. The scars on her back still bled shadow. Glancing only once, she saw her left hand had regrown from where Darius had cut it off, but everything below the elbow was rotting flesh. No matter how she tried, she could not make it look pristine.

“Darius?” she whispered, knowing she could not be heard over the cheerful celebration but asking for him anyway. She tried crawling to her knees, but her hands were shaking, and her body was more like fluid, resisting any attempt to stand. She just wanted to lie there. She just wanted to pass away.

Valessa?

She opened her eyes. Darkness encroached upon the edges of her vision. Amid her pain, she heard her name cried once more.

“Valessa!”

Darius was suddenly above her, his armor blackened by fire, much of it covered with blood. Somehow she knew none of it was his. He lay his sword beside her so it would not glow. Valessa stared at his face, at his worry, and tried to hate him.

“You did this,” she whispered.

“Shush now,” Darius said, and if he heard her, he did not react. He pulled off a gauntlet, then put a hand on her forehead. She almost laughed. Was he searching for a fever? She was ice. No heat. No life.

“Help me,” she said more forcefully.

“I...” Darius pulled her shoulder, saw the marks of the lion clawed across her back. “Shit.”

“Please, help. I don’t want to die like this.”

Darius gently laid her back down.

“I can’t,” he said. “I don’t even know what you are, Valessa. I don’t know what I can do.”

“Not that.”

She reached with her good arm to the blade that lay dark beside her, lifting it up an inch before dropping it. A shadow passed over Darius’s face.

“No,” he said. “We’ve won. We’ve crushed them and retaken the tower. We’ll beat Cyric next, and it’ll be you who cuts his head off, I promise. And after that, you can spend the rest of your unnatural life trying to kill me.” He laughed. “We’ll make a game of it, right Valessa? You’ll keep trying, I’ll keep living, until we both get bored and I get old…”

A shiver ran through her. This was not how she wanted to die. The Abyss was waiting for her, and she would not be safe from its cleansing fire.

“Do it,” Valessa said. “I won’t be a coward, and I won’t let that damn lion be the one who kills me.”

Darius reached for the blade, and his fingers touched the hilt. It shone a soft white. For an instant she felt the light bathe over her, burning away the pale color of her flesh and exposing the shadow swirling beneath. And then Darius released it.

“No.”

He turned her over, and she did not resist. His bare hands pressed against Lilah’s cuts. The pain of it was intense, and her fingernails clawed against the dirt, periodically sinking through to fall into the earth itself. And then she heard him pray.

“I’ve never healed anyone before,” Darius whispered. “And forgive me if I’m insane to do so now.”

Valessa had felt the light from Darius’s blade burn her. She’d felt Cyric reach into the core of her being and try to rip it to shreds. This was beyond any of that pain, so strong her body felt paralyzed. Darius’s hands dipped into her, and amid her delirium she heard his gasp. The paralysis suddenly stopped, and with strength born of pain she flung herself onto her knees.

Screaming, screaming, always screaming.

The light on her back wasn’t leaving, even though Darius’s hands no longer touched her. It was growing, burning away everything. She beat against the dirt, and from her eyes fell tears that shimmered red like the blood of the sun.

“Stop fighting it!” she heard Darius shout, as if from a different world.

Fighting what? She didn’t know. Didn’t understand. Fight against the pain? It was killing her, consuming whatever darkness that was her. And he wanted her to let it? So be it. She fell onto her haunches, arms out at the sides, and shrieked out every shred of her misery and torment and anguish and abandonment that had consumed her since that terrible moment her god had demanded she take the life of a simple wayward paladin named Darius.

And then, after what felt like an eternity, it was over. She collapsed onto her back. Afraid, she lifted shaking hands before her eyes. Her skin was pale as it always was, but she knew something was different. Something had changed. Sitting up, she forced away the false flesh, the afterimage of herself she superimposed across her vessel.

Her hands were made of shadow like always before, but not quite. Swirling amid it was an equal tendril of white, shining like the light of Darius’s sword. All across her shadowed body snaked the tendrils, like two opposed serpents hopelessly entwined. And then it faded, and her hand was flesh once more. The pain she’d felt every moment of her existence was gone. Curling her knees to her chin, arms wrapped around them, she looked at Darius and wept. The tears ran down her face, and when they landed atop her knees, they alternated silver and blood.

“What am I?” she asked, voice trembling. “Gods help me, what am I?”

8

J
erico was just sitting down to eat his dinner when they came requesting his presence. The warmth of the fire before him was tempting, but the hard bread he held in hand was not, so he tossed it aside and stood.

“Lead on,” he told the soldiers who’d summoned him. “Though I’d like to know why.”

“We were not told.”

Jerico shrugged his shoulders and followed as they wound through the increasingly large camp. They stayed on the road now, for the Castle of the Yellow Rose was growing steadily closer, and there seemed little point in hiding. What had been a small force now resembled an army, with bannermen slowly arriving with each day to pledge their men to Lord Arthur. Today had seen the largest group so far, three hundred or so, flying a yellow and black checkered flag. Jerico had a hunch that Lord Arthur wanted to introduce him, as he had when others joined. He was their mascot, their good luck charm. Everyone wanted to kiss his feet and touch his shield.

The skies were dark, but a fire glowed within the great tent in the center of the camp. The guards let him pass without inspection, so in Jerico stepped, and was immediately welcomed.

“Ah, now he shows,” said Arthur. Despite the gray in his hair, he looked more lively than when Jerico had first met him, trapped in his castle by his brother’s besieging army. Grabbing the paladin by the shoulder, he pulled him closer into the light of the fire. “Jerico, I’d like you to meet Kevin Maryll, one of my youngest and finest bannermen. Kevin, this is Jerico of the Citadel.”

Kevin was indeed young, though still older than Jerico. He looked to be in his early thirties, his hair dark, his short beard darker. He had a soft face, but his eyes were hard when he bowed low and offered his hand in greeting.

“It seems all the North echoes with stories of your greatness,” Kevin said.

“Are they still getting the name wrong?” Jerico asked.

“At times,” Kevin said, smiling. “Though at least they agree on the redness of your hair. I’d have known who you were without ever hearing your name.”

It was flattery, all of it, and for some reason it annoyed Jerico tremendously. His dinner might not have been the most appetizing, but at least it was better than parading about like a particularly magnificent horse. How long until Arthur had him performing tricks for carrots? The thought was unfair, of course, but he couldn’t stop it.

“While I’m here, anything to eat?” Jerico asked. “Maybe some carrots?”

Sure enough, Lord Arthur feasted far better than his men, and offered Jerico whatever he wished from a table set beside the fire. Tired from the days of march, and more so the nights spent greeting soldiers, bannermen, children, and hundreds of common folk wishing to fight alongside Kaide the Cannibal and his blessed paladin pet, Jerico didn’t bother with any particular manners and just ate where he stood. His thoughts still surprised him. By Ashhur, he was getting cranky. More than ever he missed his little services at Durham.

Arthur and Kevin talked while Jerico ate, and trying to pull his mind out from his own childish grumblings, he listened in on their conversation.

“Sebastian’s put a call out for any able bodied man that remains loyal,” Kevin said, settling into one of the chairs brought in and set before the fire. “I’m sure you can imagine how much of a hurry such an order has inspired. Everyone expects you to win now. No matter what Sebastian’s done, he can’t seem to crush you. Defeated you in the field, put siege to your castle, yet still here you are, on your way to his very doorstep.”