Velli
It’s time for the final step. Tonight, I must meet Prometheus or die. I could grab more legends, and I know just the place—the Heirs’ prison. Now, I have the power to snatch them. All I need is the layout of the prison. I will meet Trail, the mapmaker, to do so.
My small army marches through the sewer. In the ankle-deep water, Carreon trails behind us as a python swishing through the filth. Wulf’s wolves surround me, sniffing for something to bite and scanning the air for a potential threat to their new master. They despise the stench. Their hackles stay high and bristly. Growls, snaps, and splashes echo off the fungus-filled walls. Wulf, the ex-richest man in Division’s Hand, and the Old Soul, an urban legend in the flesh, lead us. Wulf strolls proudly, chest out, despite our present condition, and the Old Soul wobbles forward, furious, fists clenched. Hot sewer water sinks past my boots and into my socks, while my body grows sticky with sweat. I’ve never felt more powerful. The only task I give myself is to hold the flashlight.
And yet I am not comfortable. They are under my command, but I am well aware that Carreon wants to wrap his reptilian flesh around my neck like a scarf and bring me to my knees. As I gasped for air, he would squeeze until I fell into the filth I make him swim in. The wolves owe no true loyalty to me. They want flesh, and I am flesh. My mind cannot process all the Old Soul would do to me if she could. Yet when I was surrounded by my best friends in the past, I wasn’t really safe then, was I? A motivational depression creeps up my spine. My friends are gone. All that’s left are my enemies. I’ll accept what I have. I am what I am. It is what it is. I get it how I live it.
Our loud plops through the sewer announce our presence and keep the creeping things away from us. The creeping things only scurry on the walls. They could be bugs, or maybe they’re people. For a time, there were rumors of little people with Weaknesses who lived down here, people the size of beetles. They found life simpler here. Yes, a place with rats in the walls and the smell of everything gross that people flush—this is more comfortable than being above ground for them.
Something scurries above us and makes a creaking sound. I push my flashlight in the air to reveal a white fungus with tiny red dots and big black spots on it.
“Swear I heard a rat,” Carreon whines as he turns back into a human. “They got rats down here? They carry diseases. You’re poisoning me, Velli. I don’t wanna die, man.”
“I don’t care. Keep watching my back,” I command.
He does so. I imagine he’s fearful of what else I could command him to do. That reminds me, when I get home, I need to research Cognomen Oaths. I believe I can learn more information about them.
“It’s evil, what you’re doing to me,” Carreon says.
“You’ve done worse to others.”
“Maybe, man, but I’ve just been trying to survive. I have a Weakness, you know.”
To hide my frustration at his lies, I roll my eyes instead of getting angry. “Uh-huh.”
“It’s true,” he says. “I can’t change back to my normal body. I’m always some kind of animal.”
“I don’t believe you.” I don’t hide my apathy. He’s a liar.
“Care to weigh in, Granny?” Carreon yells at the Old Soul. “Surely, looking like that, I know you have a Weakness. No offense. But it’s not fair, is it? Not fair what he does to us.”
“I should have killed myself,” the Old Soul groans.
“Now, ain’t that tragic?” Carreon asks. “An elder in her golden years, and look how you’re making her feel. You should be nicer to us. It’s a crime against nature to hurt someone with a Weakness, and you know something? He or she or whatever they are won’t be happy with you for this. Y’know they protect us because we can’t protect ourselves.”
The ironic weight of his words is almost physical. “I’ll deal with the consequences.”
“They’re always worse than you think, Velli, young man. Always worse than you think.”
“Hey!” Wulf yells.
I shine my light on a figure in front of us wearing a big yellow raincoat. He’s a pudgy mess of a person. It’s hard to get a definite shape for him. Beneath the coat itself, there are at least four noticeably thick layers of clothing. A sleeve to two different sweaters pokes out of his sleeves. I raise the light to his eyes. Three sets of thin, colorful scarves cover his neck. And finally, covering his eyes is a ski mask.
“It’s not that cold down here!” I yell at the figure.
“No, it’s to keep my identity secret.” The voice is raspy, old, and tired. “I have something very expensive in my possession.”
“State your name!” Wulf takes his role as a servant well.
“I go by Trail, the mapmaker.” Trail doesn’t work to make his voice clearer.
That’s fine. He shouldn’t. I, too, hide in the darkness, wear a mask, and intend to stay invisible to whoever this person may be.
Wulf looks back at me for the first time. I nod, and he nods back.
“Mapmaker,” I call, disguising my voice a bit. “Do you have the map we want?”
“Yes, I carry the map of the Heirs’ prison,” he says. “Do you have my money?”
“We have your forty thousand,” I say back. This is it, everything I own. It’s all or nothing.
The mapmaker steps closer.
I step back. “Do not come closer. Wulf, prepare to retrieve the map. Present it, mapmaker.”
Wolf squats, ready to pounce.
The mapmaker raises his hands in surrender. “Apologies, apologies, I meant no disrespect, but it would ease my heart to know when this attack will take place. I do business with the Heirs as well as those who hate them. I would like to know when to avoid the palace.”
I let his words sway in the sewer water. Dumb request. He should know I won’t answer. Details on the mapmaker’s mental state are rare. All I know is that he does deliver, so he wouldn’t rat me out.
You don’t know how the mapmaker does business, Velli. He’s used to dealing with the powerful, not you.
That’s surprisingly accurate advice. However, I can’t trust it. “Don’t visit the Heirs for the next month.”
That should satisfy his requirements. He knows enough to live but not enough to stop me.
“No, no, I’ll need more than that or no map.”
“Present the map first before you get anything else,” I command.
He does not speak but takes two steps closer, straight in my direction.
“Battle formation, now.”
Wulf brings out a long sword, flatter than a run-over coin, but it can cut through steel. Carreon draws a gun, and he releases something between a cat’s and a lizard’s hiss. Each wolf croons a throaty bark. The Old Soul raises her cane.
The mapmaker steps forward with a defiant plop. I take another step backward. The scarves under his face stretch. They cage his smile. He’s in striking range now of the Old Soul and Wulf.
“Protect,” I command, and Wulf and the Old Soul stand side by side, covering me. The wolves form a single line before me, and Carreon stands behind to guard my rear.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
In the small gap between Old Soul and Wulf, the mapmaker raises his hands in slow motion. I open my mouth to give the order.
“What did you say?” Trail cups his hand to his ear.
“I said present the map before anything else.”
Trail nods twice.
“Right, right. Look, no tricks.” Trail strips.
It causes the wolves to pause. They no longer bark and bite at the air around them. The albino one and I exchange a look. Layer after layer plops into the dirty sewer water. Finally, Trail only wears two more layers, and on top is a large scroll strapped across his chest. The map. “I have to keep it hidden until it’s time to do real business.”
This is getting too odd for my liking, so I honor the deal and tell him a random day that the attack might happen. “The third Friday of this month.”
“Well, you don’t have to lie about it,” he says with a changed voice. This one’s more natural. “If you’re going to lie, we can just do the deal. Toss the money to one of your companions… What did you say your name was?”
“Mogvaz,” I lie and reach into the back of my pants to pull out my money.
This man is way too chatty to work in the underworld. Something is wrong. Is this a setup? Doesn’t matter. I’m protected.
“Mogvaz, huh?” Trail says. “You lost weight. I get it. I get it. Everything’s got to be super secretive because now’s the time to catch the Heirs when they’re so weak. Their time is coming to an end, and you shall rise in their place.”
I don’t respond to his rants that have a clear enunciation to them. The grumbling in his voice is gone. I call Wulf and toss him the money rolled up in rubber bands.
“But,” the mapmaker says, “that’s not how they arrived. That’s not how they took power. Everyone knew who they were. They didn’t stick to the shadows.” The deal approaches its climax. Even as Trail speaks, he unstraps the map from himself.
Wulf holds out the bundles of money to the mapmaker.
“They wanted everyone to know who they were. They wanted everyone to see them. You could never be like them. You could never be an Heir because you want to stay in the shadows. The Heirs love the moment. The Heirs love the light.”
The mapmaker’s bountiful layers fly off in a literal white flash, revealing a black woman in a white outfit that glows like silver kissed by the sun. She grabs Wulf’s arm before her clothes flop to the ground. His wrist crunches under her grip. The walls shake. The money plops into the water, and Wulf howls like his namesake, not used to broken bones.
Carreon fires two shots to the woman’s head, and they do nothing, as if they got lost in her mass of hair. Her smile, for some reason, comforts me, then it scares me. It’s sweet, courteous, and similar to Dream’s. Two layers of fear bury me.
Fear for my life and fear that she’ll find out who I am and not just torture me but tell Dream. Because the hair, the light, that’s Rose, Dream’s sister and an Heiress of Division.
“Kill her!” I scream and regret the words. That’s Dream’s sister, her idol, her role model. The world slows down. For the first time since I’ve controlled her, the Old Soul looks at me with her signature malicious and prodding grin, her perfect tiny teeth on unfortunate display.
It’s like she knows. Maybe she’s made the connection to the girl I loved—
Loved?
That’s the sister of the girl I loved, and the Old Soul is going to enjoy this. I can stop her. I can tell her to retreat. I do not open my mouth as she slams her cane into the sewer water. I stay silent as she appears behind Rose, who looks at me, trying to discover who I am behind the mask. I keep my mouth sealed and do not even let a breath escape as the Old Soul swings her cane back and smashes it into Rose’s skull.
Rose still stands. My mouth gapes. The sewer shakes from the power of the Old Soul’s cane. Walls crack, making sickening spirals from the impact. The Old Soul lands and attacks again. She swings her cane into Rose like an ax to a tree. The tree does not fall. Rose grabs the Old Soul by her head and pulls her off the ground.
White light pours from Rose’s body, and the world runs from her. Across all of evolution, across all space and time, every sane animal knows there is safety in light. They all run from it now. As clear as day, thanks to the power exuding from Rose, rats, flying pests, and every creeping, crawling thing runs across the walls and over our feet or smacks into us, trying to escape her. Carreon’s face becomes a bloody mess of mosquito massacres. The energy Rose puts out makes it look like water itself fears her. The water that should surround her leaps against the walls in a futile attempt to escape. And the water’s clear. The water surrounding her is as clear as glass. She’s expunged every filthy thing in there.
Rose’s bare feet touch the floor beneath her. It’s silver now, dust and grime gone. The Old Soul whacks Rose to no avail. The force itself knocks all of us back, including Wulf. Tumbling from the power, I plunge into the dirty water and take in a disgusting mouthful of the stuff. I’m quick to get my head out of the water but have trouble finding my balance. My eyes find Rose and the Old Soul. Rose palms the Old Soul by her tiny head and looks at me. I struggle in the water, heart racing, clothes soaked, and filth up to my chest. Is she waiting for me to get back up?
“There are levels to legends,” she says in her real voice, the royal aesthetic, which unnerved me when Dream used it. The Old Soul—cane, sweater, body, all of her—turns to dust that cannot even make it into the ground. The residual energy from Rose evaporates before it damages the pristine floor she stands above.
“Wulf, save me!” I cry out.
Wulf leaps and strikes at her wrist with his sword. She jumps back in another silver flash, and he only hits the air. Rose lands, and before she even touches the ground, the energy exuding from her cleans the floor for her bare feet, and the water—now purified—leaps back.
“Wulf, get your wolves to attack! All of them!”
The beasts’ savagery returns. They snarl and leap on her. It’s fireworks. The gray and white balls of fur leap into the air and are struck down by her glowing fist. Each strike ends in a jaw-breaking crack, and the wolves die on the floor, Just like that, all six of the beasts are gone.
“Wulf, whatever it takes!” I yell to him. He’s red and full of rage, and yet he doesn’t strike first.
In another flash of light, Rose is in front of him and hits him with a right and left cross. The smacks reverberate through the tunnel in echoes, and I realize no more bugs and rats skitter past. They’ve all left. Wulf does not fall, though. With one powerful hand, he pushes her back, and a wave of water rises behind her.
I jog backward, careful to stay out of the light Rose makes. I didn’t even notice my body was carrying me away at first.
Rose’s eyes lock onto me.
“Carreon, Wulf, your orders are to defend me with everything you have left.” I regret saying it. It has a finality to it—that they could really be gone, and all of this would be for nothing. Slowly, I attempt to sneak away.
Your body knows how this ends.
A claw made of white energy extends from Rose’s hand and goes for my throat. I can only watch it latch on and burn me. I scream. The pain flourishes. I bury my head in the water, begging the feces-filled mess to take the pain away.
She killed the Old Soul. She took a strike to the head like it didn’t matter. I don’t want to stick my head up. I don’t want to come out. I do anyway. My skin still smokes, and it’s soft. At least one layer is gone. Every movement is like one hundred fire ant stings. I find myself on the dirty sewer floor, pushing my neck into the water but keeping my head up to keep an eye on my assailant.
Rose and Wulf trade blows, neither bothering to dodge or weave, just two titans waiting for something on the other to break. Carreon leaps into the air, and bat wings sprout from his back. He swipes down on Rose’s back. The tear in her fabric sings through the tunnel. Rose continues to fight. Carreon runs toward the far wall of the sewer and leaps against it. Bouncing off the wall, he turns into a giant rat. Rose, too busy with Wulf, is struck perfectly in her kidney and bends over.
Wulf takes the opportunity to deliver a quick, professional, and powerful uppercut. Rose falters, taking two quick steps back. Carreon leaps again as a giant rat. Rose catches him by his head and squeezes his mouth closed. Ever elusive, Carreon changes his body into a python and wraps himself around Rose’s wrist.
Wulf delivers another kidney shot in the same spot. She groans this time, and her knees tremble.
Carreon transforms into a man again, and screaming, he puts her in a headlock. “Die! Die! Die!”
And this man said he had a Weakness. To do that, to put the closest thing we have on Earth to a god in a headlock, while I have to bury myself in sewer water just to make the pain go away—the disrespect. If I didn’t need him, I might order him to kill himself.
Carreon tightens his hold, and Wulf wails on her. He combines elbow strikes, punches, and knee drives to her stomach and face.
Rose speaks, as stoic as a philosopher. “I just want you to see.” She pauses to let the blood spill from her mouth. “I just want you to see.”
The pain subsides from my neck, and I can think again. Wulf goes faster. His body movements are a blur. Perfect combos. I imagine he’s trained his whole life.
“Nothing you do matters when fighting an Heir,” Rose says.
She sends a swift punch to Carreon’s head. He drops, flat, stonelike, and doesn’t move again.
I understand now. “Wulf, you have new orders. Sacrifice your life to make sure I escape. Carreon, get me out of here as quickly as possible.”
Wulf’s white smile is accentuated by Rose’s light. He slams his head into hers and roars like a grizzly. She headbutts him back and hums a small hymn.
Carreon’s body rises out of the sewer, still unconscious. Large bat wings sprout from it again, and he flies toward me. He yanks me up by my elbows, and we whoosh away, fast enough to create ripples over the water. Not fast enough to avoid seeing Wulf die.
Rose holds Wulf’s head, his body absent. Blood is absent from Rose’s hand despite the gruesomeness, despite the horror, despite Wulf’s bloody body below her. She’s too perfect to be stained by blood.
She cocks her elbow and tosses his head at us. It spins in the air several times, showing his open, bulging-shocked eyes and hanging mouth or his proud, flowing black hair. It flies perfectly straight despite the spinning, and it’s getting too close.
For an instant, I make eye contact with the bodiless head. Then we whoosh up, returning above ground. The head keeps going in the tunnel. The night air does not do enough to ease my nerves. I command Carreon to keep going.
Hello Author Here
As I mentioned before this ties into a graphic novel. I thought I'd give you guys a preview since you guys just met Rose. Here is a battle between her and my main character of the graphic novel tie-in the story is called Fear the Family First. Check the Author's Notes for the link.