After spending a large part of the day within the market, we walked back home together, reaching the tiny cottage up the hill. It was a twenty-minute walk from the bustling place in Kendara and was sufficiently secluded, passengers couldn’t just run into it while wandering in the vicinity. It was big enough to contain a kitchen, a living-room, where my father slept, two small bathrooms and a bedroom, where I slept. It was organized in a smart way, everything seemed at its place, not taking too much or too little space, the areas well furnished with goods from the previous houses Hidram had, years before he took me in. It was not fit for two people, but my father and I were hardly at the house together, leaving each other plenty of time to enjoy it freely.
He gave me little details about the buyer, the stone and the location, and I listened silently, his words of our possible escape from this dying planet replayed endlessly in my mind. If this was my only chance to be free from being a mercenary, I had to grab it with both hands. For twenty years I had to obey, I had been on auto-pilot, waiting for orders and applying them stupidly. Today, I had been granted with a new prospect. Although Hidram hadn’t been reliable once in his life, the way he had looked at me earlier was the first time I was almost coerced into believing him.
Unlocking the door, he stepped inside first and let me enter second. His attention already drifting from one place to the other, I noticed the scattered papers over the small table of the living room and sighed at the mess.
I almost didn’t catch the fact that he had already started speaking to me. The same usual monolog that I had to hear before each and every single mission, cryptic and mysterious and which he was keen on repeating thoroughly. Fear was looming in his eyes each time, but it was not the fear of losing me. It was something dangerous, something far more important than me or anyone else. He avoided questions about it every time I asked, and I just stopped caring at some point. “Remember, don’t turn your back on anyone, don’t show your back. Keep it covered. Do you understand?” he rambled.
“Yes, yes, I know.”
“This is even more crucial there. You will be hunted down. And they won’t stop until you are dead.”
“The Jalyons? They already have put a target on my back.” I watched him curiously. He huffed and shook his head, as if weighing the importance of revealing more. “What is going on?”
“You don’t have to worry. Just, be careful.”
“Why is it more crucial this time?” I asked, putting myself in front of him so he wouldn’t be able to evade.
He opened his mouth a few times, searching the words, before answering. “Because monsters wouldn’t understand the meaning. Jalyons could.”
“But you said the house had been cleaned, right? So, no Jalyons will see my back.”
He paused for a few seconds before nodding frantically. “Yes. Absolutely.”
“What are you not telling me? If I’m in such great danger, why can’t I just know what this is all about?”
Silence. “If we succeed and manage to flee together, don’t you think it’s only fair I know the truth? Please, just… explain it to me.” It was painful enough for me to beg him and the words were hard to say. It had been a while since I demanded explanations for all the warnings, and usually, I used a tone far angrier than pleading. And I had hoped that imploring him would lead to an honest response.
“There’s no need, son. Soon enough you won’t have to bother with that anymore. You’ll be free.” He tapped my shoulder and went into the second-floor bathroom, leaving me with my own reflection on the mirror next to the front door. Underneath my white shirt, the black drawn Y in my back was slightly visible, as a reminder of what I was.
A Yon, a child born from magic. There was a time, on Zelian, where people could create their offspring through magic. Everyone possessing the ability summoned progeny and increased the population drastically. Since males didn’t require females to bear their children, they decided to erase them from the planet. Out of pure madness. They considered them weak and useless. Especially the Jalyons, who always showed their interests for the male gender. That was the Great Suppression. My father explained people were traumatized by the massacre and they chose not to use that magic anymore. Some widows and widowers started slaughtering the Yons for it, having no other enemies to blame for their loss.
And for that specific reason, I needed to hide my back and the tattoo that would prove my birth, to avoid retaliation. With the years passing, the vengeance became more and more noticeable. I could be lynched in the main street, along with my father, for the cover up of my very existence. Since I didn’t have further explanations, I stuck to it. But this story had always resonated weirdly with me. Hidram was hiding a large part that he decided wasn’t important to share, despite countless tries. And why would the Jalyons attack me for that reason, since they were the ones chasing away the women and had lived among men for a lot of years? I had been asking questions my whole life and I remembered now, why I had felt defeated.
That evening, after Hidram described the manor and the path I’d have to take to reach it, I put on my gear: my belt on which my weapons were strapped; my larger jacket with a hood to cover a bit of my face; and a scarf I always tied up around my mouth, since hallucination gas was frequently used in these areas.
He rapidly described the stone to me, supposedly blue but maybe black, not bigger than a cherry, possibly attached to a necklace or a bracelet. And that was all I knew when I opened the door, and started marching through the forest.
It didn’t look like a forest anymore. The trees had no leaves, only their thin branches remained like slick bones trying desperately to stay in place. Crooked and twisted. A light twist of two fingers could permanently dismember them. Even the silence was dead, no wind to jostle the shafts, no animals squeaking, no birds singing, the sound of nothingness surrounded me.
I continued between the trunks, locating the different spots Hidram talked about, corroborating his explanations. I was never truly sure of his honesty and stayed alert, a hand carefully placed on one of my daggers, in case a monster or an assassin would appear.
Already thirty minutes had passed and after a left turn between a little abandoned hut and a dry river, I fell upon a clearing, intact from all decay. The pond was almost glowing, as if it had its very own luminary reflecting in it. The grass around it retained enough green to contrast with its bleak surroundings. My father didn’t mention a halt so distinct and noteworthy, and I began to wonder if I was on the right track. But behind the water, more trees were miraculously standing, and farther was the manor, its splendid and high tower with red and gold tiles just like Hidram specified. I circled the pool, my gaze inexplicably drawn to it, before I managed to leave the place and arrived a few steps later in front of the enormous front door.
It was covered in silver carvings, thorny vines and roses joining at the center where a huge eye watched the newcomers. If my attention was too focused on it, it felt like it was moving, truly assessing me, judging if I deserved to enter. I didn’t want to know what it did to the unworthy ones.
Above was a round window that might have been used as a peephole, giving a small hint on the species that were inhabiting the house. A Maor family, probably. Taller than the rest of us, they were originally not from this planet but they were sent here for some reason I knew nothing about. A lot of them suffered from the stifling heat of Zelian and few of them survived. They managed, for the remaining ones, to hide in wet caves and to find the last regions with water, cooling the temperature slightly. The clearing right beside the house was now pretty coherent. The fact that it had been ousted from any destruction was another proof the planet was getting slowly killed in an unnatural way.
I secured the entire perimeter, checking every corner, and looked in every possible hiding spot all around the house. And then, I was back in front of the gate, my hand flat on the wood. With a light push, it opened. “Welcomed, then.” I murmured.
The interior was dark, the curtains drawn, the shutters closed. Only the aperture from where I entered was a source of light. Not convenient for stone searching. Fortunately, the power was still on, and some lamps brightened the rooms. When I could finally see something, I scanned the space again.
The manor was higher than large, multiple floors over a surface around broadly seven hundred square feet. The stairs were at the very center of the house, leading to the different levels with a wide corridor on each of them. Equal numbers of doors leading to various chambers stood in rows on either side. Everything was richly furnished. Sofas and carpets, golden or silver decorations, thick curtains and large mirrors, were in matching white or gray tones. Pink or red dried flowers here and there added colour, but overall the interior emitted a bright and pure aura. The dust and spider webs, though, clearly indicated the owner's departure.
It took me three hours to clear the first two levels. And I didn’t find anything. It was like asking a blind to read. Pointless. Why did I hesitate buying the Seeking Magnet? Maybe it was too expensive, but I wouldn’t be looking like an ass right now, opening every drawer, every door, lifting carpets, cushions, what was I thinking? This is going to take ages.
A migraine was already poking its nose when I heard a thud. Something or someone fell. Above. From where I was standing, they couldn’t leave without my notice. I was glued to the stairs as that was the only way down, at least if they didn’t want to break their bones jumping through one of the windows.
I stayed near the front door and hid behind an old and dusty rag hanging low between two closets. My breathing slowed, concentrating on the sounds around me, even if the dead silence returned, towering its strength as if a real weight pressed on my shoulders.
For several minutes, nothing happened. I was about to come out when a force, a bond, shot me directly in the heart. No pain, but a vivid attraction pulled me out and led me somewhere in the house. I experienced a succession of images, mere recollections of what my eyes were not capable of processing. A diorama of my surroundings. I knew I went up and up and up, until I was at the very end of the house, just before the attic. Compelled, I moved towards the door at the end of the corridor, just in front of the staircase. The other levels didn’t have that room.
Some part of me recalled I was not alone and panic ran through my veins as I tried to regain control of myself. Impossible. My limbs were not responding to whatever messages my brain sent, I wasn’t the one in charge. My hand pushed down the handle and the bond drove me inside, again, not being able to see what was there exactly, my vision blurred and covered.
But when my body stopped abruptly, I knew what was in front of me. The bond was shouting the answer to me and I didn’t need to see when I lifted the stone, blue and black, no bigger than a cherry, resting on a silky pillow, displayed as a work of art.
It murmured something to me, not words but a feeling. Home.
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And then pain. Sharp pain.
My eyes went back in their position, as if they were inside my head the whole time and I breathed hard and fast. As I turned, where the blow sliced my back, leaving my jacket and my t-shirt in shreds, movements caught my attention.
I was feeling the blood gushing, dripping down on the floor, sensing the long and diagonal incision, from my shoulder to my opposite hip. Darkness around me, not a sound again, only my ragged breath and my whimpers.
Wind disturbed the hair on the back of my neck; I knew where the second blow was coming from. With a swift rotation, I shot my foot into the air, and it landed perfectly on the intruder’s nose, the sound of breaking bones filling the silence.
He stumbled back, caught in a slender ray of dim light coming from a ceiling window. When his hands went to his nose and put it back in place, I winced and saw a flash of dark drawings on his arms, besides leather accouterments specific to a certain kind. “Are you living here? Is this your house?” I asked, even if talking seemed the last thing the guy wanted to do.
As a confirmation of my thought, he pulled out another knife and rushed to me again. I dodged and parried most of his attacks, some of them cutting my hands and arms. Not the first time, not the last. “You were not supposed to be here.” I shouted after he kicked my left knee, almost putting me on all fours in front of him.
I tried to push him back near the stairs, unable to see a thing in the weird room I found the stone in. But he froze. Just like that. His eyes went wide, moving between mine and something behind me. His weapon clattered on the floor and he was the one backing up. He took small and careful steps, his full attention on me.
I blinked, and he fled.
It only took me one second to turn around and see the mirror. My tattoo was completely exposed.
And it took me another second to start running.
My father’s words were spinning like a record. My mind narrowed my thoughts into one. My mission wasn’t the stone, nor was it stealing gold or sneaking in the shadows. I needed to catch that man, and I needed to catch him right now, before it was too late.
I overhauled and nearly jumped all the stairs to shorten the distance he set. We slalomed between the rooms, him, desperately searching for an open way out. In his path, he knocked down some of the furniture, making me stumble and lose my balance. We turned and turned until he was in front of the large door again, that shut itself, as if it wanted him to stay imprisoned inside.
One look at me catching up dangerously to him, he lifted up his foot and he destroyed the front door with a powerful kick. It went flying several meters away, and he resumed his frantic run. Incredible strength. A Jalyon. Why was he running away from me like I was an epidemic, rather than fighting me like he had before, like the arrogant fools they were? If this was about my tattoo then he should have killed me right on the spot, just like my father warned me.
‘No Jalyons should be around,’ he said. I specifically told him that this was a risky mission, that the chaotic order Zelian was settling on could be compromised severely from all of this. And he answered, looking directly in my eyes, that it was going to be fine. That no Jalyons should be around.
My lips thinned and uncovered my teeth as I felt the rage building inside of me. But I didn’t have time to think about it further. The man rushed towards the woods and I continued, without hesitation. Our heavy footsteps cracked the dead leaves on the ground, like the necks of the monsters I had broken, the bones I had crushed.
He glanced back and I saw the dread in his eyes again. The force of it ran shivers down my spine. He was scared of me and I was scared of what he had seen, of what he had understood.
For miles we ran, and I could feel my legs give away. His strength would allow him to last much longer than I could have ever handled. I had to find another solution. A growl escaped me and I screamed, more to myself than to him. “Damn it, stop!”
And he obeyed. His feet planted themselves in the ground, scraped the dry, rough earth, threw dust up to our eyes with the force of his halt. I almost bumped into him, so brutal in his interruption. My fingers came to rest on his neck and his knees buckled under my pressure. “Please, please, please.” he whined.
My breathing was still fast and jerky, my eyes struggled to see who was in front of me. It was like I was hypnotized and brain-washed with the sermons Hidram kept repeating. I wasn’t the one thinking anymore, I was the Weapon. I had to protect myself, protect Hidram, I had to kill him, end his life. He had seen my back. No one could see my back. “I beg you…” he added.
His words were not reaching their destination, they sounded like a low bristle around the branches’ trees. I couldn’t hear anything but my own heart beating dangerously fast in my chest, everything else was muffled, as if I had been near an explosion, the long and sharp high pitch noise overlapping the rest.
I was unaffected by the unfounded fear in his eyes. His kind was known for its brutal strength, silly and wicked, and yet this one knelt before me, begging to pardon him. I grabbed my dagger and slit his throat with a precise blow.
The dead stillness resumed. My breathing filled the space, my chest moving up and down at a terrifying pace. Hands gored, cuts all over my arms, back burning from the blood dripping out. I closed my eyes, looked at the empty sky. Dark. Black. The sun ricocheting on nothing but one star that we never could recognize, centuries in blissful ignorance. My throat bobbed and I swallowed the pain, the sadness, the disaster.
The sound of my blade ripping the flesh out kept ringing in my ears the whole way back to the cottage. My feet moved by themselves, one after the other, mechanically, my mind wandering in the void of my guilt shouting atrocious words in the back of my head.
I walked slowly, my hands touching every single tree trunk on the way, feeling the need to ground myself so my whole body didn’t succumb. My energy was so low that if I collapsed to the ground, I wouldn't have be able to stand back up. Maybe being found by Jalyons was all I deserved after the crime I committed.
I was entering the next phase of grief: denial. I tried to convince myself I did the right thing. Surely, he would have made my life even more complicated than it already was, that he was running away to reveal my identity. I acted out of self-defense. But nothing could be further from the truth. I wasn’t thinking, I was blinded by the fear and fury and I killed him. I just killed him.
I marched for thirty minutes more; my hands caked with his blood. My eyes were down, my head was low and my legs were barely functioning. In my entire body, I could feel that I wasn’t the same person anymore. I felt a change. It wasn't like killing monsters, it was far worse. Devastating.
It always had been my hard limit. Every single mission had to be far from population, no one could be close, and I would refuse categorically anything too dangerous for the people near my destinations. The only reason I accepted this one was because Hidram assured me no Jalyons would be in the premises. Which was already suspicious since he sent me into their territory. Border or not.
The little lamp emanating a calming orange glow appeared in my vision and I sighed in relief. My arms weak and wiggly, I continued toward the door with great difficulty. But Hidram opened it wide after seeing me through the kitchen window.
I automatically plastered a neutral face, determined in keeping my emotions and feelings hidden. But his own were easily readable. Even if he was the last person I wanted to see, he was the only one there, he always had been. As hard as it could be to believe, he knew me better than I knew myself. Mere seconds were all it took for him to understand something went really wrong.
He gasped and waited for me to explain but I couldn’t. All of the words were stuck in my throat, as if my own had been cut when my knife sliced the man. And when he came close, his arms opened, oddly welcoming. My mouth dry, my eyes shallow and empty, I collapsed into his embrace. “Nolis! What happened?”
I heard the surprise in his tone. I was as shocked as he was. Witnessing my vulnerability probably made him uncomfortable, but I wasn’t the one in control at that moment. My body and mind were shutting down, desperately trying to sort everything out before I would lose it. “I killed… he’s dead…” I stammered.
“Who’s dead Nolis, what are you saying?”
My lips were sealed and I fell on my knees, feeling the weight of the little stone in my pocket. Hidram’s hands tried to support me, but all they did was spread the blood of my wound all over my back, igniting the pain like a fire resurrected from embers. I couldn’t feel it anymore. “You are wounded… Please, son, talk to me.”
I breathed loudly, all in and all out, before answering: “I went to the manor. Someone was there. A Jalyon. He… saw my back.”
Hidram’s eyes went wide at the revealing. But all I could think of was the blood gushing out of his mouth, the gargles of his last words destroying me little by little. “You did what you had to do, alright? It was too risky to let him go, you did well…,” His response was so far away, I had to take what felt like minutes to grasp their meaning. “You did well, you had no other choice, believe me.”
“All I could hear… was your voice… in my head. Telling me to protect myself. From something I don’t even understand.”
“I’ve explained it to you, this is dangerous, Yon’s are being hunted—”
“And what do you think will happen now? Now that I’ve killed an innocent Jalyon, on their grounds, do you think I won’t be hunted? Are you sure I’m no longer in danger, Hidram? You promised nobody would be around.” I almost screamed, anger slowly creeping out of denial’s shadow.
My question might have sounded rhetorical but I was hoping he would have thought of that possibility. I was hoping he had a plan in case something terrible arrived. For as long as I can recall, he asked for me to be careful, prudent, in hiding my tattoo. Had he never imagined I could get caught? “I can’t believe this.” I whispered.
“I’ll figure it out. We need to tend to your wounds.” He tried pulling me back up but I didn’t budge. I was way too heavy for him. This man had never lifted a single thing in his pathetic life.
“This doesn’t make any sense…” I was so lost. The Jalyon’s reaction, mine, Hidram’s secrets. I couldn’t begin to process anything that happened. And I was convinced he wouldn’t explain whatever portion of information I needed to put the last piece of the puzzle into place, the last piece I craved for all to become crystal clear. Why would he accept this errand when I had been explicit about my limits? Who did he ask to eliminate the threats inside that Maor’s house when I was the Weapon? Did his client really promise him gold? Did they directly assure a way out?
He stayed silent. Worse, worries crossed his features. And a question rose up in my mind. “Who’s your buyer?” I demanded. My face still buried behind my fingers, I only felt his shaky hands while he stood up and left me on the floor. “Hidram.”
He took an atrociously long second to answer. “Do you have the stone?”
The tears resting dangerously behind my lids disappeared instantly, infuriating rage filling me whole more and more after each second. “I’m going to rip you apart, who is your buyer?” I growled. He backed away towards the house, his hands in front of him.
“Nolis, breathe, please.”
“You better explain yourself right away, because it feels like I’ve been played again.” I saw a weird light reflecting in his eyes, bright red, and I looked back, afraid that some Jalyons had followed me here after all. But nothing was there. I turned toward him, my fists itching. Silence again. “You know what? Don’t bother. Don’t you think for a second that I owe you. You used me all my life. And today, you lied. I’m done.”
He opened his mouth but I didn’t give him the chance. “You said it was the last time, right?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then it’s over. Good luck getting out of this mess, you’re on your own.” He kept opening his mouth again and again, looking like a mindless fish. I added, “Go back to the house and lock yourself tight.” He didn’t hesitate one second and obeyed.
“Hidram.” He halted. “Who is your buyer,” I repeated, ordering it this time.
He looked over his shoulder, unable to cross my stare, before responding, “You know who it is.”
Yes. I knew. And my guilt was about to be the least of my problems.