Cassandra Pendragon
Another trickle of energy made her light up like a Christmas tree while the dazzling auras around her, laid bare before my changed perception, faded away. A single glance told me all I had to know. She was gone and there wasn’t much I could do about it. The heinous atrocities her soul and mind had been subjected to had been healed by the Broken Wheel but the echoes of her torture were still circling around her presence, like a strangling shadow. She was broken, the strain had been too much for her. With time, plenty of it, she might yet heal, but for now she was an empty doll, animated by her own anguish and whatever remnant Amon had left behind. And I just couldn’t imagine how we could give her the time she’d need, considering she had whipped up a mob in a single night, despite everything we had done for the slaves.
I closed my eyes and sighed deeply while I allowed my vision to return to the mundane spectrum. “Damn it, I hope the others aren’t as badly maimed,” I whispered while I tried to extinguish the smouldering flame of guilt I felt dancing in the pit of my stomach. If I hadn’t left her on the street back then, she might have had a chance but now… I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that enough of her was left. Even though Amon was gone, she was still clinging to what little she remembered of him, the only real thing in a suffocating sea of pain and fear.
“Oh my,” Ahri mumbled at my side, her eyes ablaze with crimson sparks. “Why is it always the crazy ones who turn out to be this talented?” I couldn’t fault her logic, I didn’t yet know what she had done but the result sure was impressive. “Should I kill her?” I shook my head hesitantly, even though I was pretty convinced it’d turn out that way, whatever we were going to do.
“Not without knowing what’s going on. Look at the slaves… it’s not only fear I see but also hatred. Hatred and… pain. Snuffing her outright might be the straw to break the camel’s back. Let’s first figure out what gift she’s prepared for us.”
Sweating under a merciless sun around 500 people were staring at us as if we were the devil incarnate, a comparison I could draw with full confidence, seeing as it wasn’t the first time I had ever been scrutinised like that. Fear, awe, envy, maybe a touch of defiance, but I hadn’t expected the mutinous, veiled and guarded glances that seemed to convey some kind of… disappointment, as if we, or rather I, considering most of them were cast my way, had broken a promise.
Since we had emerged from the darkness, the heated swears and suppressed threats had died down. The dwarfs and pirates still remained facing the crowd, protected behind the barrier the elves had erected, but Aspera, Astra, Lyra and Liz were heading our way, their eyes scrunched up with worry, their postures tense with indecisiveness. I breathed in deeply, trying to ignore the acidic smell of fear and anger, the sweet, almost sickly stench of longing, I had come to associate with us getting near mortals for the first time, and the usual fragrances of an unwashed, agitated throng of people, searching for something hidden, something deeper and while Lyra finally climbed onto the patch of roots, I found it.
Blood and terror and pain, a bitter, yet almost imperceivable poison I would never have been able to smell if I hadn’t still been cycling my energies. I narrowed my eyes, silvery sparks ignited in my hair and fur and a flash of light, lost under the sun’s glare, raced through the Garden. My focus snapped past the restless crowd, circled the cherry trees and surged against the ruined mansions, only to return and flicker through the trampled grass, the deserted fireplaces and improvised camp beds. And then… there, close to where the girl was leering at us, two half veiled shapes laid on the ground, wrapped in coarse, dark cloth. Bodies, my nose told me, and they hadn’t died peacefully. Judging from their size they were adolescents, a boy and a girl, probably siblings, who had been bled dry, the coppery scent of blood as faint as the touch of an angel’s feather. To make matters worse, I also smelled burned flesh mixed with a minuscule trace of ozone and… fox hair.
An ugly picture formed in my mind, one where predators had feasted on the helpless in an uncontrolled, unjustified frenzy. To prevent rumours from spreading the ruthless kitsune, who had been talking about right, wrong, honour and pride, had helped their friends to cover it up, so the 500 human pigs, who had been led to the slaughter, wouldn’t realise how tight the noose was already strung around their necks. Out of the frying pan and into the fire… A convincing story, especially if you had no scruples to produce the evidence needed. It would also explain the guarded expressions of the boy and his father. He had probably dragged his son here to make sure we wouldn’t hold what had happened with Reia against them and now he was wondering if he had made a life threatening mistake and even pulled his son into it.
There was only one tiny problem: it was a lie and I had a pretty good idea of how to prove it. Being able to command mortals to tell the truth surely was a boon. So was the deterring effect of ordering someone to kill themselves. With a spoon. Provided I hadn’t gotten the wrong end of it and it wasn’t something else all together. I didn’t think so, though. It lacked his fitness but the basic idea was so similar to something I’d have expected from Amon that I was prepared to bet, well maybe not my pants but at least my shoes, that his unwilling puppet had arranged something along those lines. Which probably also meant that there was more in store, since she had to know how unlikely it was for her to succeed. I mean, even an apprentice mage could probably have proven how ridiculous her claims actually were.
Ahri and Viyara had been privy to my thoughts and two suggestions immediately popped into my mind. “Another diversion,” the angel commented, while the dragoness stated: “she doesn’t have to succeed now. Sow first, harvest later.” Shit. Both options weren’t exactly a cause for celebration. A diversion would mean more trouble now, while Viyara’s explanation made me wonder if the girl or Amon had something else planned for the slaves, something that would require them to be wary of us. Weary and afraid, even though we had managed the latter well enough on our own.
“Reia,” I hissed, just before Lyra reached us, “you will go back, you will stay with Greta and you will not argue. Not a word. Go. Now.” I even gave her a push, the mutinous gleam in her eyes withering away when she met mine. She nodded curtly and whirled around. A moment later I saw the tips of her two tails vanish around the bend in the tunnel and felt Lyra’s hand close around my arm.
“You’re finally here. Thank the gods,” she spoke in a tense rush, “what took you so long? Doesn’t matter, listen, they’re going mad! They think you’ve killed two of them last night, when everybody was still in a stupor from your magic. We’ve seen the bodies, it looks like you pierced them with your wings. They’re this close to taking up torches, despite the threats from the dwarfs! If they’re going to be killed by you, they’d prefer dying on their feet.”
“Now they find their courage,” I groaned. “Two weeks earlier and most of this mess wouldn’t even have happened! Fine. Who’s the culprit,” I asked, even though I already knew. The elf shrugged.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“We can’t say for sure, but…”
“Several,” Liz interjected out of breath while she granted us a forced, tired smile. “It’s always another one who speaks up. Astra tried to keep track of them with a spell but they always vanished too quickly. I know a few of the girls over there, though. If I could just talk to them…”
“Don’t bother,” Ahri said darkly. “Look…” the walking psychosis was moving, slowly approaching the massive wall of bodies that surrounded the barrier.
I couldn’t remember much from the last time we had met, I had been the tiniest bit preoccupied after all, but I was quite sure she hadn’t looked this… brutish. Dark skinned, broad shouldered and clad in a sturdy, brown robe, she walked with an almost intimidating purpose, a predatory grace, back straight and head held high. Her dark eyes sparkled with a maniacal intensity above high cheekbones, disfigured by a maze of coloured tribal scars. The scent of blood clung to her like an evil shadow. Surprised, I searched for the source and realised she kept her right arm hidden in her robe. The smell was flowing from underneath like water, dripping down her sides and pooling at her feet. I focused another bit of power around my nose and the faint fragrance of ozone and burned flesh made me shudder. Another one of our imaginary crimes?
“What’s the meaning of this,” I hissed, my voice thundering through the green square. It was probably better not to hesitate. If we were about to face trumped up allegations and meant to prevent unnecessary bloodshed, we’d have to be in control and talking was, at least in my experience, as good a way to get there as any other, provided there even was chance to do so in the first place.
An uncomfortable murmur rose but no one spoke up, even the father and son couple stared at the ground and took an inadvertent step away from me. “That’s what we’d like to know,” a firm but subtle voice suddenly answered. The broken creature had picked up the bodies and made her way to the barrier, shoving her comrades aside with more than a little force. With a flourishing gesture she removed the wrappings and dropped the two corpses. Like a wave parting around a rock the crowd shied back and revealed the meticulously prepared puppets.
With burned out eyes, a circle of tiny, black holes above their hearts, two children stared at us accusingly. Before I could take in much detail, she continued: “why do they look like they’ve been the victim of divine retribution? And while you’re at it, care to explain where these come from?” With a flick of her wrist she tossed a bundle of glittering silvery hair on the ground. I sniffed inconspicuously. Sera’s fur. Not mine. Maybe she had lost it when she had transformed.
The baited murmurs swelled like a creek in spring and the deep, gravelly voice of the dwarfs rose to keep the peace, but I was too focused on the two dead kids to pay much attention. Terror and pain had distorted their features, not to mention the arcane fire they had been blinded with, but what truly got to me was the way they were wrapped around each other, as if they had wanted to shield their friend with everything they had had. For a moment their faces blurred before my eyes, turning into Archy and Estrella, then Viyara and Aurelia. The wavering flame of guilt in my chest flickered and was instantly consumed by a raging, ravenous bonfire of fury. Tormented victim or not, there would be no turning back. She’d pay.
“No,” I growled, the single syllable evoked complete and utter silence. The light breeze died down, the barrier disappeared and the sun seemed to darken. “But I’ll show you,” I added quietly, the anger in my voice a crushing pressure that drove even the dwarfs to their knees and made the gargantuan tree behind me tremble and groan. “Rise,” I thundered into the deceptive quiet while my wings manifested. And so they did, all of them.
Like puppets they jerked, the dead and the living, and scrambled to their feet, facing me, mouths clamped shut and eyes wide. “The court is in session,” Ahri commented dryly, even though the palpable waves of anger, rolling off of her, contradicted her jovial tone. The roots closest to her became charred as her flames grew, her mane turning into a sea of dancing sparks. Our minds merged, streams of ideas flowed freely between us, blocking out Viyara, as we tried to figure out how we could possibly refute the accusations sustainably before we silenced the messenger. Our most recent outburst had actually been the first mistake, cementing our imagine as tyrannous, cold hearted invaders who didn’t care one bit for the people we had pretended to protect.
“The allegations are clear,” I took over, “but we didn’t touch a single hair on their heads. We could make you believe us easily enough, but…,” my gaze travelled over the petrified, terrified crowd and landed on a handful of faces I recognised from the day before. They had witnessed Asra’s death and the ensuing confrontation between me and the bloodthirsty onlookers. “We’re not going to. If we want to live together peacefully we have to abide by the same rules, which means someone else has to decide if we’re the cruel, corrupt monsters we’re made out to be.” I released my hold and retracted my wings. The fire in my eyes petered out and I took a step back. “Any volunteers,” I asked quietly, my eyes never leaving the unfortunate, quivering lot from before.
As soon as my power wasn’t crushing them anymore, whispers rose and quickly enough turned into murmurs and hissed exclamations. Like a single creature they shied back from the mute, deathly pale corpses I had commanded to rise despite the shackles of death. A few exclamations like “monsters,” or “blasphemy,” reached my ears, while the pirate girl was grinning at us with a mixture of hatred, satisfaction and… anxiety. At least we had managed to surprise her, but she wasn’t bad at thinking on her feet and the deck was still stacked in her favour. The first words out of her mouth were: “I’ll do it,” hardly perceivable through the swelling ruckus but when the dwarfs slammed their axes into their shields and bellowed for order she spoke up again, her voice loud and clear this time around.
To my surprise I didn’t have to intervene since an elderly, well dressed man, probably a slave who had been used for more elevated tasks, beat me to the punch. “No,” he stated, his voice calm but loud, his eyes filled with weary curiosity, even though his gaze flickered to the eerily stiff but upright bodies from time to time. “You’re involved as well. You claim to have seen everything which means you cannot be the one to pass judgement. This much even I know.” He turned to me and added: “if what you said is true, we will be the ones to decide, all of us. Are you honestly going to abide by our will? You have the power to make the dead rise, to challenge gods and demons. Why does it even matter to you? You could simply take what you want.”
“Because I, because we don’t want to retake the bloody thrones the Captains have left behind. If this town wants to see its futures there can only be one law for all. It’s your home, as much, if not more, than it is ours. Make no mistake, I’m not going to let you lynch us, but if you want us gone, if you trust us so little to fear what we might do to you, it would be best, for all of us, if we left. If you think us capable of committing crimes I’ve accused you of before, then, by all means, we will find another place to live. Somewhere where we can just… be, where we’re trusted even though we’re more powerful than our neighbours. You fear us because we’re wielding more strength than the devils you know. It’s up to you to decide if this makes us the same as them or if you believe that we are different, that we are… also living, breathing beings who long for a place to call home, to belong. Let me be very clear, this is the last time I’m going to entertain your reservations. You, all of you, know what we have done, what we can do. You can’t have it both ways… either we’re a part of the place we’ve bled for or we aren’t. Should you come to believe that we didn’t, that we would never, raise our hands against children, I also expect you to treat us with the same courtesy you’d extend to your neighbours and should you condemn us without proper reason, without hearing us out, the next time around,” my wings flickered back into existence and my eyes burned brightly, “I’ll respond accordingly.” With quite an effort I bowed my head and forced my power to dissipate. “Now then, what would you like to know? I won’t lie. I promise.”