You know I’m alive, don’t you? Ardwin stood at the end of a long pier, staring at a lump of shadows bobbing in the black water. You can sense me. The Imperial vessel, anchored a few hundred yards offshore, hadn’t moved in five days.
Why would Keya make a move? She controls every variable and has every advantage. Worse yet, she knows it. Ardwin turned and walked away, retreating into the shipyard, then finding the thoroughfare. Buildings rose on either side of the cobbles. The frigid air of winter’s night pierced his cloak and clothes but heightened his dull senses. He stepped with long and sure strides, cutting down back alleys, making for a four-story hospitium. He entered through the back door and went to the top floor, where Murph waited in his room.
Murph stood next to the window, looking out. He turned as Ardwin entered. “Well? Glean any valuable insights?”
“None,” Ardwin said. He shut the door behind him.
“I met with my contacts.” Murph leaned his back against the wall. “They won’t help us. It’s too risky.”
“Did you tell them they’d get to kill Burgundian spies?” Ardwin unfastened his dirty brown cloak and threw it on the bed. “Attacking a ship in the harbor is about as stupid a thing as one can do. We will not find allies in this fight. And—”
“If you had contacted the dwarves, we wouldn’t be in this dilemma!” Murph marched across the room. Standing tall, at arm’s length from Ardwin: “They’re still in Eirgo, are they not?”
“I’m not dragging them into this,” Ardwin said. He turned away.
“We need help,” Murph said.
“We’re trained for this type of mission.” Ardwin sat on his bed and tugged his right boot from his foot. “They’re not.”
“No. They’re not.” Murph crossed his arms. “But we weren’t trained on how to kill elf witches, either, and they’re the best chance we’ve got. The only chance. Honestly, if you want to kill yourself, then go jump in the sea and get it over with!” He dropped his hands and walked back to the window. “May the Great Creator and all the kings of old forgive me, but I wish they had sent anyone else but you.”
Ardwin lay down, toes wiggling free of their stiffness. “There wasn’t a Great Creator beyond Alexander and his acolytes. It was all invented to control people. You know this!” He rolled onto his side. “You were a librarian’s disciple.”
“We learned many things from the Temple’s library,” Murph said. His eyes searched the darkness beyond their window. “But religion is a lived experience.”
“And we’ve lived as murderers,” Ardwin said. “I suppose we truly worship death and deceit, huh?”
Murph shook his bald head. “I worship only God.”
“You worship lies.” Ardwin turned over onto his back and stared at the shadows dancing on the ceiling with the flickering light of a nearby candle. “If there is a God, then he’s evil or indifferent. How many tens of thousands have died because of us? Not to mention the countless previous wars and all future wars. No. The only difference is that I accept the truth, and you can’t.”
“That’s not the only difference,” Murph said. “If I were you, I’d have swallowed my pride and written to your dwarven friends.”
Ardwin sat up. “And I wouldn’t trade my friends’ lives to accomplish my goals.”
“Are you forgetting Ottoburg?” Murph side-eyed him.
Ardwin felt a pinprick of guilt tingling in his stomach. Checkmate. He lay back down and closed his eyes. “Not anymore.”
Murph chuckled. “Convenient.”
Ardwin ignored him.
A gentle breeze of salt-tinged air and the steady rhythm of the sea’s tide lulled Ardwin to sleep. He awoke to a room full of sunlight and a growling belly. Murph still slept. Ardwin pulled on his boots, threw his cloak over his shoulders, and headed for the door. As he opened it, a piece of parchment, no bigger than his palm, drifted side to side as it plummeted to the floor. Ardwin picked up the note and read: “Tonight.”
Ardwin slammed their door shut and marched over to Murph, who roused at the commotion. Murph rubbed his eyes. “What are you doing?” Ardwin handed over the parchment. Murph studied it. “Tonight?”
“I’m just as perplexed,” Ardwin said. “Which is what Keya wants.”
Murph nodded. “Are you going back to the pier tonight?”
Dark clouds stretched over the city and the sea. By evening, scattered sprinkles turned into showers, which hardened into sleet. Ardwin and Murph left their apartment after dark, traveling to the shipyard under the slushy downpour, slipping on ice-covered cobbles. Lumber lay in stacks next to the skeletons of ships to-be, yet to be freed of the scaffolding climbing their sides. Hammers and nails stayed in their buckets. A patrol of four guardsmen marched past them in the dark, never the wiser. As they approached the wharf, Murph grabbed Ardwin’s sleeve and beckoned him to stop. “I’ll be right behind you—in the shadows. If you suspect a trap, give me the signal.” Ardwin nodded. He pulled his sleeve free of Murph’s grasp. “And, no matter what they offer, don’t agree to anything.”
Ardwin grinned. “Worried I’ll double-cross you?”
“Yes.” Murph narrowed his eyes. “But I’m more worried that you’ll ruin everything by trying to be a hero. Don’t agree to anything. Understood?”
“Sure.” Ardwin stepped toward the wharf with its five long fingers reaching into the water.
“Don’t do anything stupid!” Murph called in a hoarse whisper.
Ardwin didn’t acknowledge his former brother. He stepped onto the weathered wharf. Waves rattled its planks. Spray leaped over them, washing across the walkway, then disappearing into their cracks. Gusts of wind carried the spray and the slush in a sideward arc. Is this where Gregory cuts my throat? He marched to the last pier on the left, casting glances over his shoulder despite the impenetrable darkness, striding over the abyssal black of the raging sea. A shadow stood at the end. Ardwin approached. The shadow grew tall and wide. “You’ve recovered from the poison,” a thick voice broke through the sea’s storming symphony.
“You can sense as much,” Ardwin said—an elf.
“I can,” the shadow said. “I have only this to say: Keya will trade your life for the woman. Tonight. Come tomorrow morning, your friend’s life will expire.”
Sorry, Murph. Ice wind whipped Ardwin’s skin. “It doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice, does it?”
“No,” the shadow said. “You don’t.”
Ardwin swallowed. “Take me to Keya.”
Footsteps thumped against the peer as the shadow shrunk away. Ardwin followed him off the front of the peer, climbing down a ladder and into a tiny boat that teetered on the troubled waters. Nestled on a bench with his cloak wrapped around him, Ardwin held to the edges of the boat as the shadow plunged his oars in the frigid chop and paddled. “Keya has been looking forward to this!” the shadow shouted.
Ardwin looked back at the pier’s silhouette and its criss-crossed supports. A small form crouched at the edge—possibly Murph—possibly a barrel. Good luck to you, old friend.
Unpredictable waves and strong winds preoccupied the man, so they shared a silent journey. Finally, Keya’s caravel took shape: a smoothly curved hull rising several feet from the water, its lanterns burning like light bugs in a bush. Three tall masts pierced the sky. “You go first.” Ardwin stood up and grabbed a hold of a net draped over the caravel’s edge. He climbed. Stepping onto the deck, a wall of elves and men with dull, glossy eyes, dressed in fur coats and armed with staves and spears, advanced on him. The boatman clambered over the hull. Even the light of many lanterns could not unveil the shadows beneath a gray hood. “Here is your prize, my Elder!”
The crew stopped their advance. They split at the center to create a lane between two presses of bodies. A tall, elvish woman with long silver hair and delicate features, wearing a red robe and a silver circlet on her head, walked down the lane. The milky white stone on her forehead glistened. Ancient eyes pierced Ardwin’s, digging through his mind. His body remembered the pain of her tortures. “We meet again, brother.”
“You should be dead.” Ardwin lifted his chin and matched her gaze.
Keya grinned. “That makes two of us. The poison I gave your friend was enough to kill ten men. She diluted it. By all rights, you should be dead, but look where her mercy led you—back to me.” She stood within arm’s reach. Ardwin fought the urge to wrap his hands around the elf’s throat and throttle her. Her smile melted away. She stepped forward. The flesh on her face folded into grotesque lumps and a lidless left eye. Her hair vanished, revealing a seared skull. The white moonstone sank into her forehead, and the silver circlet constricted the burns. “I will live an eternity as this…” her eyes pooled with tears. “Monster! Not you, though.” She shook her head. “No. You will die. Slowly! But in due time.” She cackled.
“Bind him!” Keya commanded. She turned and walked away. The ship’s crew raised their weapons and marched forward.
“We had a deal!” Ardwin cried.
“Dead men can’t make deals!” Keya laughed. “Make it quick! We need to move before Admiral Carlozzi and his armada return from Pyrgos! Move!” Her crew cornered Ardwin against the hull’s railing. He turned to leap over its edge, but a hand snatched his cloak and tugged him backward, falling into the gang of sailors who tugged at his clothes and grabbed his limbs.
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Ardwin scrambled and lashed out in every direction, scratching at eyes and sweeping their legs from beneath them. Gleaming pearls caught his eye. Thin arms wrapped around his midsection while two men grabbed his legs. Ardwin wriggled free of the elf’s grasp and delivered a swift elbow to a fragile sternum. He twisted. Spotting the Retaliating Rapier on the elf’s waist, he snatched its pearl-studded handle and dislodged it from its sheath. “On guard!” Ardwin cried.
The Retaliating Rapier sprung to life, streaking through the air, swooping down at the sailors, slicing and jabbing. Ardwin stood toe to toe with an elf. The elf struck out with his dagger in a broad sweep, but Ardwin stepped out of its path and delivered a sidekick to the elf’s ribs. The elf slammed against the hull. Hot pain erupted from his right shoulder, and Ardwin stumbled forward, nearly losing his balance, then turned to watch a tall and muscular man with a bald head and a quarterstaff close the distance between them. Ardwin rolled away. The elf charged Ardwin and jabbed at him with his dagger. Ardwin blocked the blow and latched onto the elf’s weapon hand, twisting his wrist and freeing the dagger. Ardwin dodged a staff blow, then crouched and picked up the dagger. He stood.
“Enough!” Keya shouted. The Retaliating Rapier ignored her command, continuing its flurry of acrobatic attacks. Ardwin charged his enemy and delivered a swift knee to the elf’s narrow head, knocking the immortal unconscious. He turned on the staff-wielder but faced Keya instead. She held up her hand. “Enough.” Her voice ran over Ardwin’s flesh like cool water. His arms grew heavy. “Rest, brother.”
The world turned black.
Ardwin sprinted across the little square tiles leading toward the gardens. Alcoves on either side of the hallway contained wash basins, candles, and prayer stones. “Where are you running, bird brains?” Bulge chased him through the corridors. Ardwin’s heart pounded.
He turned a corner. The world turned black again as pain shot through his skull. Ardwin lay flat on his back. “What are you doing?” a familiar voice cried.
Murph? Ardwin scrambled to his feet.
Murphrey, the little scarecrow, stood up and dusted off his robes. “What’s after you?”
“Bird—brains?” Bulge called with a singsong voice.
Murph’s eyes grew wide. “Oh!”
“Come on!” Ardwin grabbed Murph’s sleeve and tugged him along. They sprinted down the hallway and burst into the garden through a set of double doors. Only the grass became hard stones, and the fences became high walls. The sky turned into a dark ceiling. Ardwin looked at Murph, but his friend had vanished. Ardwin stood alone in a stone room.
Laughter echoed off the walls. “Where will you run? Nowhere is safe.”
Where am I? The walls scraped against the floor and ceiling, closing around him, threatening to crush him flat. Ardwin threw himself against the wall, leaning his shoulder and wedging his entire body against the absurd force of the collapsing room. What’s happening? Closer and closer, the stones pressed against him, pinching his flesh and biting his bones. His body trembled. Pain seeped from every pore—the sound of a snapping tree limb and a flash of light.
Ardwin sat in a blood-stained chair. Keya loomed over him, her head unharmed, thin fingers interlocked in front of her waist. “You thought you could escape me?” She cackled, throwing her head back. Lowering her chin, the disfigured elf revealed her proper form. “Look at me!” Ardwin flinched. “I am an Eldari! A child of the First Blood. You damned me to an eternity of torment.” A pale, lidless eye strained in its socket.
“I guess you didn’t learn your lesson the first time,” Ardwin said. “What shall I burn off next? There’s hardly anything left.” A sharp slap on his right cheek twisted his head.
“That’s the last insult I will suffer from you.” Keya tried to hide her frustration, but her voice grew shrill. “You’re an insect! A worm! Born of a lesser race of bastard kings! Arrogant, selfish, foolish, weak!” Her chest rose and fell with great huffs of breath. “You are weak!” She reached out with her right hand and placed it on Ardwin’s forehead. “Insignificant!”
His chair toppled backward. Keya shrunk, smaller and smaller, until swallowed by a black haze that cleared away as soon as it came. Ardwin stood at the center of the Temple’s garden on a patch of grass. Green hedges spotted with red roses formed a ring around him. Their sweet scent permeated. “Bird-brains!” Bulge shouted. Ardwin spun. The big bully planted a fist on Ardwin’s nose, sending the much smaller boy into a downward spiral, sprawling upon the ground. Thorn-covered vines slithered through the grass and wrapped around Ardwin’s wrists and ankles. His side erupted with pain as Bulge sunk thick shins into his ribs. “Bird-brains!” Despite Ardwin’s pleas, the stable boy stomped his back and pummeled his ribs until they spasmed and cracked. “Bird-brains!”
“Stop!” The void swallowed him.
Ardwin’s eyes blinked rapidly as the world shifted around him, melding into a torturer’s chamber. His midsection and back struggled to keep him erect in his chair.
“So soon?” Keya lifted his chin with her left forefinger. “I think not. We’re just getting started!”
Blackness enveloped.
Ardwin sped through an alleyway, pressed between plastered walls decorated with graffiti. Colonia. At the alley’s end, Ardwin peered over a sandy slope ending at the seawall, where a gang of children gathered at the meeting of two sections and a tower. Three robed children played amongst them—young brothers of the Holy Order. Is that?
Yes, a whisper in the wind whisked his ears. Stop them. You can stop them.
I can stop the slaughter, Ardwin realized. Duke Augustine hasn’t marched on the city yet! He watched Gregory and Murph chase two other boys into the smuggler’s run. His younger self followed. Now! Ardwin trudged down the sandy slope and approached the joining of tower and wall, where a sinkhole had loosed the bricks, which collapsed and formed a hollow slot. His hands trembled. Can I do this? He paused at the entryway. Why am I doing this?
Kill them!
Where am I? His mind seared. What is happening to me?
Kill them before it’s too late!
Keya!
The world turned black. He blinked as pain flooded his senses. “Fool!” Broken nails raked his face. “Weak!” Ardwin slumped in the chair—numb. “Look at me!” Two delicate hands pressed his cheeks and lifted his eyes to see the tormented face of the disfigured elf. “You are nothing!”
Color drained from the walls, the ceiling, and even the elf. Ardwin flew out of the chair. Everything blurred. Images passed him by—or he passed through them—memories. Father Calum and his beady, black eyes watched Ardwin pick up a wooden knight and move him across the board. Gregory, Murph, and the gang gathered in the cellar. They grew together, traveled half a continent, and faced death. They drifted apart. Caterina Cartier and her bushy gray hair, her regal bearing, sat beside him at her table. She’d welcomed him into her home and her trust. Alatar, the Court Mage, his first ‘friend’ outside of the Order, who’d encouraged him to seek freedom. Rose, Skiggi, Dori, Padair, and everyone he’d encountered on his journeys. The only one missing was himself.
A white wave crashed against him, washing everything away.
Ardwin’s eyes struggled to adjust. Blue sky stretched overhead—green grass below. Gentle hills rolled onto every horizon. A road-weary man in a gray cloak stood a few paces away, his hood cast down to reveal shaggy brown hair and a short, untrimmed beard. Ardwin stepped forward. The man mirrored his movements. Ardwin stopped. The man did, too.
Ardwin recognized the man. It’s me! Well, what I must have looked like months ago, traveling with the Mysterium. Is this a dream?
Movement in his peripheral stole his attention, and Ardwin’s head snapped to the left. A gray-robed man—or boy—stood at an equal distance as his mirror image. The youth wore his hood around his shoulders, revealing hair shorn to the skull. I was still a boy. He turned to the right and confirmed his suspicion: a small child wearing a gray robe. Ardwin stepped back. The teenager moved forward, withdrawing a curved blade from the folds of his cloak.
“Stop!” Ardwin took up a defensive stance, but his teenage clone crouched, then shot through the air, spinning, becoming invisible. A gust of wind swept past Ardwin. Red splattered the ground below, spilling from his belly. Ardwin knelt. A sharp pain piercing shoulder and spine. “Ah!” Ardwin gasped. He fell face-first into the grass.
Rolling onto his side, Ardwin saw the face of his child self peering back at him with dull, glossy eyes. The eldest clone hovered over Ardwin, pointing Animiki’s Talon at his face.
“Weak.” A flash of light washed the twisted dream away.
Keya cackled. Ardwin’s bones ached, and his skin crawled with the agony of invisible lacerations. “Again and again. Until your vanity shatters and your pride breaks.” The elf circled Ardwin’s chair, and the red robe swept the floor. “How about a strange vision?”
Keya snapped her fingers. The world lurched, and Ardwin soared through a rainbow of colors. It dematerialized into a sandy beach, spotted with palms and long, slender grass. Waves lapped against the shore. A sapphire sea stretched into the north, thousands of miles from the nearest coast. “Ardwin!” a familiar voice called. He turned. Rose stood in the doorway of a large circular hovel with a boy of three or four years clutching her thigh. “The stew is ready!”
Ardwin turned his gaze back to the waters and flared his nostrils as a strong wind stirred the sea salt. I wouldn’t trade this for anything.
“Why didn’t you run away with her? Why didn’t you run?” Keya whispered. Everything turned to dust, blending into a gray mist, then folding in on itself to form a rigid reality. Stone walls. Cold floors. He sat strapped to a blood-stained chair. “You could have lived longer, but I would have eventually found you. As an immortal, I doubt any human can fathom an elf’s ability to hold a grudge. Your kind is impermanent, after all.”
“Unless I’m mistaken, your kind stole immortality from the blood of countless tortured souls,” a small voice echoed in the chamber. Hooves clapped against the cold gray stones.
Keya spun around, allowing Ardwin to glimpse past her and see the satyr approaching from a shadowy alcove at the back of the torture chamber. “Ah!” Keya unfolded her hands and lifted them to assume a magic-wielding stance. “His pet! What a pleasant surprise! Thank you for providing my prisoner with vitality. It makes my work easier.” She chuckled. “Have you come to rescue him again? Your kind break easily!” The elf pushed two open palms toward the satyr, but Padair evaporated mid-stride.
Coldness receded beneath a small hand resting on his arm.
The world faded to black.
“Ribbit!” a frog croaked in his ear. Warmth settled in his skin, soothing his bones. He lay in a field, on his back, gazing up at the leaf-covered boughs of a tall oak. Ardwin sat up, heart pounding in his chest. Four fat green frogs scattered, disappearing into the grass. A bright red fox lay curled up beneath a bush, sleeping. Birds fluttered from one tree to another as rabbits pranced about in the clearing without care.
Padair stood beside him. “It’s always sunny here,” the satyr said.
Ardwin rubbed his eyes. “Where—”
“Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Padair placed a hand on Ardwin’s shoulder, and the warmth intensified. It tickled. “You’ve taken worse beatings.”
Ardwin rubbed his shoulder. No pain. I’ve felt that warmth before. The elf, Morganna! I felt the same warmth when she healed my wounds. He stood up and offered the satyr his hand. Padair took it. They shook. “Thank you. I never thought I’d see you again. And I’m sorry about how I treated you, my friend. You never deserved it. You were always loyal and kind—”
“Okay, okay!” Padair waved his hands in the air. “Look, we’re safe for now—I think—but—”
“You think?” Ardwin asked.
“Well…” Padair scratched his chin. “If we can get here, then she can too, right? I mean, she’d have to know the name of this place and understand how to get here, but theoretically, it’s possible. Not to mention, your body is still back in the other world.”
“The other world?” Ardwin scanned the surrounding woodlands. He breathed in two big lungfuls of warm air, savoring the sweet scent of spring flowers. “What is this place?”
“Somewhere you should not be,” Padair said. “So, be on your best behavior while you're here.”
A husky chuckle startled them both; Padair and Ardwin spun. Keya stood at the edge of the tree line, gripping Ninathril in her right hand and smiling. “Found you!” She stepped into the clearing. “Run as far as you can, little rabbits! Pan will not save you! Not even here!” A swift gust of wind rustled every leaf in every tree and bush, bending the limbs they clung to. The forest crackled and popped. Frogs, foxes, birds, and rabbits skittered deeper into the forest. “Your god fears me!”
Keya gasped and fell to a knee, sinking Ninathril's black tip into the ground. Her free hand grasped at the ground, digging into the dirt, ripping up grass.
Thick veins protruded from the elf’s forehead and neck, accompanied by sweat. Keya closed her eyes and muttered under her ragged breath. Black tendrils of smoke lept from Ninathril’s silver-steel blade and curled down its length, disappearing into the sleeves of Key’s robe.
Ardwin looked at Padair. “What’s happening?”