A powerful thump from within sent the transport rocking. Rasher pulled the reins sharply and brought them to a stop. With his fist, he struck the warm metal behind him twice.

"Trig? Oi, Trig?"

There was no response.

Why'd Eris saddle me with such a useless oaf of a brother? With a drawn-out groan, Rasher disembarked and crossed over to the back.

The carriage door swung open with a mild squeal, and the remains of the dwindling daylight flooded the interior.

"Trig, you'd better not be--"

His weary tone burst into a full-throated scream, the first--and last--of his adult life.

*

The burning pit of helplessness and humiliation in her belly had now filled her limbs and chest with a hot, hungry power. The ugly sack of bone and meat standing before her was already dead… it just did not know it yet.

She thrust her arms upward, and the chains broke away.

The meat sack lunged toward her, slow and clumsy with shock. She ducked his outstretched hands and fastened her own fingers around his fleshy throat. She threw herself forward, and the momentum brought them both crashing down onto the filthy floor.

She kneeled over him, his struggles as inconsequential as a butterfly's wing flaps. Her body was pure iron, both cold with purpose and hot with raw, immovable power. His tiny eyes were bulging out, dribble was running down the corner of his mouth, his patchy complexion was deepening...

She let go. He gasped and coughed, making the whole carriage ring with his choked gulps for air.

He stared up at her with a look of true, naked fear. Perhaps even he, dim as he was, knew that begging for mercy would be futile.

She smiled, grabbed one of his hands, and bent the thumb backwards until she heard a thick, wet crack.

His shriek was immediately muffled by her other palm. He writhed, but her thighs' iron grip held fast.

"Trig? Oi, Trig?"

The call had come from outside, muffled and thin. There wasn't much time.

The meat sack's gaze was wet, anguished, helpless. She allowed herself one last second to savor the sight, then plunged her fist into his chest.

She withdrew a convulsing heart from the torn flesh, ruptured organs, and splintered bone. It was still beating when she hungrily sank her teeth into it.

*

Cedric was hallucinating. He had to be. His illness reaching its last stage was the sanest explanation for what he was witnessing.

But Adrian's horrified eyes spoke to the worse alternative.

They watched in enraptured silence, hardly daring to breathe, as Kaia the Bloodclaw punched through Trig's chest as easily as through parchment, tore out his heart, and began to tear at it greedily. Small, bestial grunts of pleasure escaped her as she ate, sending scuttles of primal terror down Cedric's spine.

They also watched as Rasher opened the carriage door, screamed in horror at the grisly sight, and was promptly cut off by Kaia's lightning-quick teeth. Another spray of scarlet coated the carriage interior.

She then turned her attention to Adrian. Her eyes were as flat and opaque as a predator's in the throes of bloodlust. She stepped toward him.

"Stop!" Cedric tried to scream, though it came out as little more than a whisper. His strength was utterly spent.

She crouched down and loomed over Adrian, her dripping, blood-smeared face mere inches from his. Despite his obvious terror, he met her eyes and set his jaw.

They were locked in a wordless battle of wills for several unbearable seconds. Then, Kaia rocked back into a sitting position and rested her forehead against her knees, breathing slowly and deeply. When she raised her head, her eyes had regained some semblance of humanity, or as much as she was capable of.

She found her waterskin among the mess of supplies and rinsed her face clean. She took a large gulp, swished, and spat out a deep pink jet.

Kaia considered the carnage she'd wrought with mild intrigue. "I may have been harsher than was strictly necessary."

Harsher. Despite everything, Cedric felt a momentary, manic urge to laugh. His vision doubled, and he was wracked with a sudden, dizzying urge to vomit. He curled forward and retched.

A small vial of amber liquid, encased in bloody fingers, hovered blurrily before his eyes. He blinked hard to restore focus.

"We've all had more than our fill of hardship for today," Kaia said. Her voice was mild, almost soft.

Cedric stared at her in disbelief.

"I still have Adrian," she added exasperatedly, and pulled the cork. "Come, Rava, a long life awaits you."

And despite his former resolve to die rather than accept capture, his fury at Adrian's deceptions, and every insidious memory of his first imprisonment, Cedric drank down the antidote greedily and without hesitation.

It was bracingly bitter. He felt its downward journey from his throat to his belly like a tiny flame. Almost immediately, his fever and pounding head began to ebb.

"You'll be recovered by morning," Kaia said. "But Adrian will sit with me at the head of the carriage. I suggest you behave."

She rummaged through Rasher's pockets for the keys and freed Adrian from his restraints. He rose to his feet, wincing from the fresh welts on his back.

Cedric watched them haul away the slavers formerly known as Trig and Rasher and leave their mangled bodies sprawled out in the open, no more than dead meat for scavengers. Cap, their mangy steed, was set free.

They soon began to move again, now with Nightwind and Kaia's unnamed mare at the head.

To distract himself from the thick stench of blood that still lingered in the carriage, Cedric clenched his fist as hard as he could, and was pleased by its strength. Undeniably, the poison was slowly but surely retreating from his body.

Against all odds, and his own former convictions, he was going to live.

*

Adrian's back still burned with crossed lines of searing pain, but he refused to let it show on his face, at least until the darkness fully set in.

Kaia wore an impassive expression. Even having witnessed the haunting sight himself, Adrian could hardly believe that she'd torn two men apart bare-handed and feasted on their innards a mere hour ago. But it was no longer fear that primarily colored his perception of her; a perverse fascination had inexplicably replaced it.

"You have the Sense, don't you?" she said.

"The what?"

"What do you northerners call it? The… affinity?"

"The Touch. Aye, I do."

The Bloodclaw's mouth quirked. "You sensed what the fat oaf had given me." She turned to him, dark eyes glittering. "I knew you were worth making note of."

Adrian found that he far preferred Kaia when she was attacking them.

"What are you waiting for?" she said, faintly amused. "Just ask."

"Ask what?"

"Very well, don't."

Adrian chewed his cheek, deliberated, and gave in. "What was in that potion?"

Kaia nodded approvingly and even eagerly, as if finally given permission to share a particularly juicy secret. "You've no doubt already surmised that it involved a living sacrifice. The fresh blood and heart of a sand cat played a part, though you'll need to divine the rest on your own."

"But it didn't merely grant you strength. It… changed you."

"Temporarily, yes. Such side effects may be suppressed through concentration and force of will, but with pure filth, I don't bother."

So she'd chosen to kill Rasher and Trig in the most brutal, visceral way imaginable. Recklessly, perhaps, Adrian probed further.

"Have you encountered slavers before?"

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Her jaw clenched briefly, and her tranquil smile faded.

"What you're doing to Cedric is worse," he said, heart thumping. "He'll be chained in darkness for the rest of his life, at the complete mercy of his captors."

"If you'd rather I spare him the ordeal with a quick slit of the throat..."

"No, not that. Just let us go."

Kaia laughed, a single peal that echoed brightly in the still night. "You're a bold one."

"You've not only won, you caught us through cleverness rather than brute strength. You've already had your hunt and your well-deserved victory. To what end are you turning Cedric in?" Adrian licked his dry lips and watched her attentively.

Kaia was silent for a long moment. "Whatever you do now will never be enough," she said. "He'll never feel the same. After all your betrayals, how could he?"

The bottom dropped out of his stomach, though he didn't know why. He didn't want to know.

"A tragedy, especially for one so young. But your twisted little entanglement is quite endearing to observe from afar."

Stop. Stop it…

"What about you?" Adrian blurted out, face burning. "You gave Cedric the antidote."

"And?"

"'We've all had more than our fill of hardship today'. Those were your words." His voice rose as it gained bravado. "You're pathetic, playacting as some cold, heartless warrior while--"

The world exploded into blinding pain, and Adrian was launched from the carriage onto the hard, merciless ground. His lashed back roared in reawakened agony, now joined by his blazing right cheek.

For several stunned seconds, he forgot how to breathe. By the time he remembered, Kaia's malevolent silhouette had planted a hard foot on his chest, driving the air back out of his lungs.

"Adrian? What's happening?" Cedric called from within the carriage. "Adrian!"

His hands grasped desperately at Kaia's ankle, though he may as well have been trying to uproot a tree. Her body still coursed with that unnatural strength.

"You really are… exquisitely irritating," she hissed, and pressed down harder. Adrian felt his ribs creak.

He choked out a laugh. "Then… kill me. Cedric will… be free."

The weight on his chest doubled. Bone was cracking, he was sure of it. His vision swam, then contracted into a pinhole. Even his body was growing cold...

Good luck, Cedric, was his last coherent thought.

But either a few seconds or an eternity later, the crushing pressure lifted. Adrian stuttered back to life with hacking coughs and desperate breaths that burned like fire.

He rolled to his side, gratefully gulping air despite the searing pain. But even as his faculties realigned, one element did not change: the inexplicable coldness that set his skin pimpling with gooseflesh. Adrian forced himself upright.

Kaia had lifted her foot from his chest, but she hadn't moved otherwise. She was motionless as marble, staring at a point beyond his shoulder. He turned to follow her gaze.

Something barely tangible hovered nearby, human-shaped in the broadest terms. It was wraithlike, air made solid, glowing gently with bluish light.

And then, in the span of an eyeblink, the specter became a woman. Above the pulsing, luminescent diamond at her throat were crystalline blue eyes on an ageless face, framed by thick tresses of raven hair. While she was exceptionally beautiful, the cold light from below turned her copper skin and exquisite features eerie.

She spoke in a low, even voice. "I've come for my brother. Take me to him."

*

As Kaia continued to wreak some unthinkable atrocity upon Adrian outside, Cedric forced down his rising panic and took hold of his chain at the base, where it was bolted to the iron strip along the floor. He breathed deeply, gathered what strength had returned to him, and pulled. A few seconds later, it ripped free with a metallic clang.

Cedric shot to his feet, staggered from the brief surge of vertigo, then stood on his toes to peek through the slit running along the top of the carriage wall.

His breath caught at the sight of the phantom creature not ten paces away, which then solidified into the form of a tall, graceful woman wearing a blue diamond at her throat.

His heart lurched in his chest. Another of his own kind. His kin.

"I've come for my brother. Take me to him."

No doubt she was here to throw him back into prison. Perhaps she'd grown so weary of the Blade's slow progress that she'd come for him herself.

If it came to that, he'd be grievously outmatched. Not only was he still recovering from the poison, she possessed a diamond and he did not. She was trained in its use, with perhaps centuries of experience behind her, and he most certainly was not.

Cedric nearly thumped his forehead against the metal. With every pathetic victory they eked out, another bigger, more dangerous opponent seemed to materialize just to spite them. If he didn't know better, he might have assumed that the Goddess was having them on.

But if he told her of what he'd seen in the stone circle, of what was happening to the kingdom as claimed by Eris Herself, it'd surely give pause to the divinely-appointed ruler of Iridesca. There were far larger concerns at play than his recapture.

"You appear awfully certain of that, Your Grace," Kaia said in a mocking lilt.

"Speak plainly, Bloodclaw. Is the Heir of Darkness in that carriage?"

Cedric closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had no choice but to attempt an appeal; she was mere seconds from splitting apart the door herself and finding him anyway.

Then came a silvery, metallic sound. Kaia had drawn her sword.

"I'd wager that at this moment, my strength matches yours. What say you to a friendly contest, with your brother as the prize?"

"What is this nonsense? Need I remind you, Siress, of your sworn duty to the Divine Heirs? We command, and you obey."

Kaia shrugged, a comically flippant gesture for the situation and the company. "I'd always planned to cross swords with at least one of you. And as you've so conveniently delivered yourself to me..."

Rhea sighed. "I did warn Asha against inducting you into the Order. Volatile, irascible, no temperament for true loyalty."

Cedric would have gladly let them proceed had Adrian not been out there as well, caught helplessly between two lethal forces. If he wished to join the proceedings, now was the time.

Goddess help me, he thought wildly as he kicked out the carriage door with a ringing crash.

*

An explosive screech of metal tore harshly through the night air as Rhea watched the transport door launched violently from its hinges. It bounced once before landing with a heavy, reverberating clang.

A young, fair-haired boy stepped down from the carriage, well-built beneath his tattered garments. To Rhea, his dark eyes betrayed his nature as clear as day.

Rava stepped forward. "There's no need to fight," he said. "Here I am, Rhea. What do you want with me?"

She couldn't respond right away. In some ways, he looked nothing like his predecessor--golden hair, tanned skin, wide, rounded eyes. In other ways, he seemed so achingly familiar that it twisted Rhea's heart.

"It's really you," she whispered. They were still a good distance apart, but her hand lifted as if to reach for him. The boy's guarded eyes didn't soften. This Rava, this Heir of Darkness, was not her lost brother. She would do well to remember that.

"Rava," she said. "I've come to deliver something to you. And to… talk. If you'd do me the honor."

His brow furrowed in mistrust. Why would he feel otherwise, after what his kin had put him through? What I, too, put him through. Eleven years in darkness that would have been centuries, if we'd had our way.

"My name is Cedric," he said coldly.

"Very well, Cedric. Please, could we talk?"

Cedric studied the scruffy youth still sprawled on the ground before her. Rhea had entirely forgotten about him.

"Adrian, are you hurt?" he said.

The one named Adrian slowly rose to his feet with a deep grimace of pain. He clutched his chest where the Bloodclaw had been planting her foot. "I'll survive," he said with a half-hearted smile, then winced.

Cedric looked at the Bloodclaw, then back to Rhea. "Dismiss her first."

Rhea nodded. "Of course."

The Bloodclaw raised her sword. Maddened fire blazed in her eyes. "By all means, Your Grace--"

"I'll grant you the privilege of a last warning, Bloodclaw. Leave us. Return to your posting in Laetera, and I'll consider forgetting your monstrous impropriety tonight."

Unsurprisingly, the Bloodclaw's anger rose by another degree. To retreat, even from an unwinnable fight, would have required humility.

She charged. Rhea shifted to the side, and the Bloodclaw surged past her. As she whipped back to prepare another strike, Rhea placed an index finger to her forehead and sent in a single spark of cold energy.

The Bloodclaw froze, still crouched in a fighting stance. Her lovely skin turned ashen while small, choked sounds struggled out of her paralyzed throat. Even her eyes, wide and furious, had been locked in place.

"I've turned your blood to ice, Bloodclaw," Rhea said. "You're already dead."

With a dry, muted thunk, she toppled backwards like a marble statue.

Rhea turned to Cedric and Adrian, who were staring at the former Blade wearing identical gaping expressions. "Shall we leave this unpleasantness behind?" she offered.

*

Cedric and Adrian galloped behind Queen Rhea, who rode the Bloodclaw's former steed and let the glowing blue corona of her diamond illuminate the way. They kept a decent pace, for which Cedric was grateful; the more distance they gained from Kaia and the blood-spattered slave transport, the better.

They'd abandoned the Bloodclaw's body just as she'd abandoned Trig's and Rasher's. Had she held even an inkling that her own death would so swiftly follow theirs? For all her contempt, her final fate had been essentially identical to that which she'd regarded as filth.

Adrian was pressed firmly against Cedric's back, arms cinched around his waist. Cedric could feel his shallow, cautious breaths and the feathery beat of his heart.

"Should we make a run for it?" Adrian murmured.

"She'd catch us."

"Even if she couldn't, would you?"

He paused. "No."

Adrian laughed weakly, then winced.

They eventually came upon a small cave formed by two overlapping crags of dark rock. She pulled the reins and turned back to them. "Will this do?"

"Aye," Cedric said hesitantly. "Adrian and I don't usually seek out shelter. It's quite rare in these parts."

"Come, let's enjoy a roof over our heads."

They picketted Nightwind and the unnamed steed at the threshold of the cave.

The space inside was musty, but dry and cool. A few rough drawings had been scratched on the walls, mementos of previous travelers who'd sheltered there.

Rhea sat cross-legged and unclasped the collar at her throat. She laid it on the ground, where it blazed and pulsed like a tiny blue campfire. "Please sit," she said to them both.

They did so, and an uncertain silence then followed.

"This commoner," Rhea finally said with a nod to Adrian. "What is his relation to you?"

Cedric bristled. "Adrian can speak for himself."

Adrian swallowed and cleared his throat. "Cedric and I met in Laetera. We fled the Bloodclaw together. Er… Your Grace."

"She managed to track you all this way?"

Cedric and Adrian avoided each other's eyes. "Aye," Cedric said simply. "But how did you find me?"

Rhea frowned. "I'm… not quite sure myself. I dreamt of a hill, crowned by a tall circle of stones."

He blinked in surprise.

"I cast my mind into my diamond, and this strange voice emerged from the ether to guide me. After I found no one at the crowned hill, I again sought revelation and was led to you and the Bloodclaw."

"A voice, you said?"

Rhea tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "An… inhuman one. Ageless, neither male nor female. But it spoke true."

"You'd never heard them before? Ever?"

"No." Her delicate brow furrowed. "But you have?"

"I… I would've thought you'd know everything. About Eris. About… the stone circle." Cedric shook his head slowly. "She clearly wished for us to meet. Even now, when…" His speech choked off as he recalled what She'd shown him. Despite the utter chaos of the past few hours, their potency remained fresh.

But Cedric wouldn't explain, not yet. "Why did you seek me out, if not to imprison me?"

"Regardless of how you've been treated..." her gaze lowered, "... you are still the Heir of Darkness, and this is rightfully yours."

She took an angular bundle of cloth from her long sleeve and laid it beside her own glowing collar. Even before she unwrapped it Cedric knew what it was, just as he'd known when Jana had given him a much smaller, cruder version.

The central diamond was enormous and beautifully cut, the delicate artistry of the golden collar almost as striking. Despite the gemstone's gentle, murmuring pull on Cedric's senses, his very core, he resisted the urge to take it.

"Why?" he asked instead. "Why now?"

"Our sister Ayo intends to unleash something terrible upon the kingdom, just as my brother once unleashed the Madness. You are the only one who can stand against her."

A stunned silence fell upon them. Cedric barked a disbelieving laugh. "What did you say?"

"On the Day of Ascension, she--"

"Wait, what is--? Why would Ayo--?" Cedric held up his hand. "No, Rhea, tell me everything. Starting with my predecessor."

Rhea twisted her hands in her lap. "Of course, you're right. That'd be the least I owed you..." Her shaky sigh was not borne of reluctance, but of apprehension. "Very well. Your predecessor, the Rava I knew, was born two hundred and seven years ago…"