1 State of Grace (29 page)

Chapter 37: Asking for Death

(Forty-one Minutes before Revelation Day)

Mustique Starfellow watched his martyrs file into the Temple of Frey from a distance. Each wore a brown cloak over his white robe to conceal his purpose. None had their hoods up yet. While it was not unheard of for an elf to wear white when not attending a funeral, twelve somber elves filing into the Temple of Frey in white robes and hoods would surely have attracted extra scrutiny from the Elite Guard.

Instead, the green-clad soldiers merely inspected the papers of each person approaching the giant wooden doors. They gave the physical appearance of that individual only a cursory inspection. If the papers checked out, there was little reason to search further.

It was, perhaps a gross breach of security, but who could blame the guards? The Sons of Frey may have been inflicting terror on Al-Adan, but who would even consider what they were about to attempt? Destroying a temple – any temple, let alone the most glorious temple in all of Alfar – on Revelation Day was inconceivable.

And that was why it was going to work. No one saw it coming.

Mustique felt a little guilty about what was about to happen. He stared up at the grand spires of the temple as they reached towards Heaven. It would be a shame to see them come crashing down.

It was necessary, though. So long as Alfar was permitted to exist, the land would die. Tonight, the Temple of Frey itself would act as a martyr towards Alfheim’s survival and rebirth.

Presently, the last of his martyrs cleared security and filed into the temple. Mustique smiled. Ravager had done well. He’d gotten them the things they needed. Whatever the Phrygian was really after, he had assured victory for Jifan. Mustique was grateful. It wouldn’t be long now.

***

Wolf was a bloody mess. Ravager had been torturing him for the better part of an hour. Wolf had wounds all over his body, and his blood oozed slowly from them. Ravager knew what he was doing. He never set one of his monstrosities where it could do enough harm to kill. He made sure to carve off fat and muscle, but never strike vital arteries or organs.

Several times during the experience Wolf had passed out from the pain. Ravager woke him up. He slapped him or poured water on him or pinched him – whatever he had to do to return Wolf to consciousness.

Wolf could barely think of anything but the pain. He just wanted it to stop. Ravager had left him hobbled. He suspected his wounds were severe enough his career in the Shadow Service was over. Even his desire for revenge – the lust to make the fiend pay for killing Sara – had drained away from him. He just wanted his release.

...
death
...

Wolf was startled. He hadn’t heard the whispers of The Rift since he’d arrived in Alfar. But now it came to him clearly. The darkness hadn’t abandoned him. It had just been lurking, waiting for the right thing to say.

And its suggestion was so perfect. If he could just die, the pain would stop. Ravager wouldn’t be able to hurt him anymore.

“I am disappointed,” Ravager was saying. “I expected you to be much tougher. You’ve outwitted Silverleaf so many times; you survived my first attack on you. I expected you’d have better mettle, Dasher. But you scream so easily, so readily.”

Wolf raised his head and spit at the Phrygian. He had little spittle to work with. A few droplets flew harmlessly in Ravager’s direction but fell short.

“You’re sick,” Wolf rasped.

“How so?” Ravager said, smiling.

“You’re enjoying this,” Wolf answered nodding in the direction of the pronounced bulge in the front of his tormentor’s pants. “You’re aroused.”

Ravager suddenly looked embarrassed. He actually blushed. Wolf recognized the wound and tried to pour salt in it.

“Tell me, Viktor,” he said. “What is it? Can you just not get a good girl in Mother Phrygia? Do you get tongue-tied when you try to talk to them? Or do they just not take to a psychopath who can make flesh-ravening monsters?”

Ravager smiled again. Wolf’s barb appeared to have missed its mark.

“I don’t care for girls,” he said. “Boys either. None of them please. At least not the same.”

Through all the pain and confusion, clarity burst into Wolf’s mind. Ravager’s words knocked open a door of understanding. Wolf remembered a young Shadow he met early in his career. He couldn’t remember his name, only his rank: Shadow Ninety-Three. The young man had been tortured by his mother and his sister. He killed them both when his Shadow powers first manifested themselves at the age of thirteen.

The Shadow Service tried to overlook that, tried to believe it was a justified killing. Maybe it was. But before he’d been given his first field assignment, Shadow Ninety-Three had injured three female colleagues during training and permanently scarred his female opponent in a mock extraction exercise. The Shadow Service was forced to admit he had a problem with women that probably was due to his upbringing. He was put down.

Was Ravager the same way? Wolf decided to find out.

“Of course,” Wolf said. “You started killing early, and you found you liked it.”

“Very much,” Ravager admitted.

“It’s so satisfying to watch another thing die.”

“Yes.”

“Each thing you kill pays the price for the way she treated you.”

“What?” Ravager said. He looked confused.

“Your mother,” Wolf said. “She hurt you. She was cruel. Probably kicked you around.”

“Shut up,” Ravager growled in Phrygian.

It looked like Wolf was right. He pressed.

“All you wanted to do was please her, but Mommy couldn’t be pleased. Mommy was always mad, wasn’t she, Viktor? She was supposed to love you, and she didn’t.”

“I said, shut up,” Ravager shouted, stepping forward.

“And then your Shadow powers manifested, and she really hated you. She called you a freak, and she threw you out.”

“Shut your mouth, Urlander, or I’ll kill you.”

“So you left ... but not before you killed her. And that was the least satisfying kill of all, wasn’t it Viktor? That one never felt right. It was so justified, but you loved your mommy, and you still hate yourself for killing her.”

Ravager belted Wolf so hard, it left him senseless. His head was spinning.

“Now you are going to pay, Dasher,” Ravager said. “I’m going to send one into your stomach. I’m going to watch while it chews your guts out! You’ll die slowly and painfully.”

Wolf watched helplessly as he summoned Shadow to his finger. This wasn’t how he wanted Ravager to kill him.

The Phrygian psychopath grinned like a maniac as the Shadow ball reached the appropriate size. Involuntarily, his other hand went to his crotch.

“You should have shut your mouth when I told you to,” he said. “I might have killed you quickly then. Now, you are going to suffer.”

He stood next to Wolf and waited for a moment. His grin was unbearable.

Then his chest exploded. The head of an arrow burst through it. The Shadow on his finger dissipated. Ravager looked surprised for a second. Then he collapsed to the floor, dead.

Wolf looked up confused. Honeyflower stood in the doorway with her crossbow still aimed at the spot where Ravager had been standing.

“Wolf!” she cried.

She dropped her weapon and ran to him. When she reached him, she fell to her knees and held him. He groaned in pain.

“Are you
all right?” she said.

“Not really,” he replied.

“Oh, my god, what are we going to do with you?”

“Let’s start by untying me,” he answered.

She immediately grabbed a knife from her belt and cut his bonds. He fell out of the chair, unable to help himself. Honeyflower caught him before he hit the floor and lowered him to the ground.

“My god,” she said. “What did he do to you?” She looked him over. “Wolf, your wounds are so extensive, I don’t know what to do for you. I don’t have any healing powers.”

Healing powers,
Wolf thought.
Yes! That was it
.

“Honeyflower,” he said, “they took my things. They must be around here somewhere. There’s a salve. It’s supposed to protect my skin from the sun, but Quincy mentioned it was potent and to use it sparingly. It might help. See if you can find it.”

She obeyed him without another word. She searched for his clothes, found them nearby, and dug through them until she found a flask.

“Is this it?” she said, holding it up.

“Yes,” he replied. “Put it on my wounds.”

Again, she acted without speaking. She knelt by him, opened the flask, and started spreading it liberally wherever one of Ravager’s beasts had attacked him. It felt like she was pouring fire into his blood. He gritted his teeth and tried not to moan, but he couldn’t help but wince.

“I think it’s working,” she said after a minute.

Wolf didn’t need her to tell him. Every one of the wounds stopped hurting. The ones he could see were closing. He felt a little drunk but otherwise refreshed.

He pushed himself up and nearly fell over. His head was spinning. Quincy was right about the potency of the salve.

“I think I’m going to need you to help me get dressed,” he said. “Then we need to get out of here and find Silverleaf.”

“That won’t be easy,” she said. “He’s got the entire Elite Guard in on his
coup
. We’ll have to avoid their patrols.”

“Then that’s what we’ll have to do,” Wolf said. “But we’ve got to move fast. Silverleaf’s plan is in motion, and it involves not only killing the entire government but attacking the Urlish Army base too. We have to stop him before it’s too late.”

Honeyflower helped him stand. He was wobbly on his feet. He felt drunker than he’d ever been in his life. Thinking was hard. But she got him dressed despite her misgivings.

“Are you sure you can move,” she asked.

“No,” he said. “But I don’t have a choice. Come on. Help me out of here, so we can take that son of a bitch down.”

He put his arm around her shoulder, and they moved awkwardly out of the chamber and into the hall. Wolf had no idea how he was going to fight or otherwise help Honeyflower. There was no time to worry about it, though. They were all Alfar had.

Chapter 38: Alfar Does not Have a King

(Twenty-two Minutes before Revelation Day)

Aurora Spellbinder couldn’t understand how it came to this. She’d accepted the presidency of Alfar with great hope and a sense that she could make a real difference. Six months later, sectarian violence was still rampant, the Urlanders were still in-country, the conservatives were angry about the Urlanders, and nothing was better. The land was dying around them, and no one wanted to admit truly that elves had lost their way. There was nothing but partisan sniping in the government, violence in the streets, and poverty throughout the city that once had served as the jewel of Alfheim. The Jifanis were no weaker, and she’d led her people to no conclusions on any of the pressing problems that afflicted them.

Now it was nearly Revelation Day, and she was in a position where, to show any kind of unity whatsoever, she would have to issue a condemnation of their Urlish allies. To be sure, Wolf Dasher’s identity definitely looked bad. But, regardless of whether he was a Shadow and Her Majesty the Queen was dealing unfairly, he had moved the negotiations forward for the first time since the coalition government was formed, and he’d done so in the space of a day. Even Minister Lumendrake looked as though he might support Dasher’s plan.

Were the Urlanders really their allies, as they claimed, or were they the manipulative occupiers their critics accused them of being? Wolf Dasher made it impossible to tell. On the one hand, he had offered the most practical solution she’d seen. On the other hand, he had completely misrepresented who he was.

So here she was, trying to unify her people, trying to give them hope, and she had to use the occasion to condemn Urland. Frankly, she didn’t really care that Wolf Dasher was a Shadow, and it didn’t matter a damn to her that he seemed to be jockeying to get more Shadows into the country. If it brought peace to her people, was it a bad thing?

She didn’t know. What she did know was this was the holiest time of the year. This was when the message of Frey was renewed. This was the time when the opportunity to heal a nation was at its greatest. She had to act. She had to do what was necessary to bring her people together.

The entourage approached the Temple of Frey. People were cheering. The holiday spirit had got hold of everyone. Even the destitute seemed happy today.

Aurora smiled. Elves could live together in peace, regardless of their religious beliefs. The Feast of the Revelation proved this every year. On this day, the violence stopped, the religious debates ceased, and elves celebrated the sheer pleasure of being elves. She was not done with the Urlanders. They could be helpful. But she would say what she had to say to unite her people. If Alfar was a united nation, neither Jifan nor Urland could crush her.

It was time to lead. Aurora had been waiting for this moment her whole life. It was time to bring elves together and cease this partisan violence. She looked forward to addressing the congregation during the ceremony. This year, Revelation Day was going to bring about real change, and she was determined to be the person who started it.

***

Yevgeni Tupelov smiled. The stone on the ring Silverleaf gave him was orange. The
coup
was underway in Alfar.
Operation: Hammerfall
was in motion. He opened the door to his office and called out.

“Peter!” he shouted to his adjutant.

His blonde assistant came forward. He’d only been assigned to Yevgeni for the past six months, but his loyalty to and understanding of his general’s ideas were beyond question.

“
Da
, Comrade General,” Peter said, snapping a severe salute.

“Give the order it is time to attack,” Yevgeni said. “Inform the troops I will join them within the hour.”

“
Da
, Comrade General,” Peter said again. He turned on his heel and strode away.

Yevgeni was so excited he could hardly contain himself. The world was about to be completely rebuilt, and he was going to be the architect.

***

Wolf’s head was spinning. Quincy’s salve had healed most of his wounds, but it had a very strong, intoxicating effect. He didn’t feel quite attached to his body. It wasn’t the pleasant sensation of being drunk. He felt odd, and he was having trouble focusing.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Honeyflower said for about the fourth time since they’d left Silverleaf’s chambers. “You don’t look well.”

“You just keep us from getting caught,” he replied. “I’ll focus on walking.”

She looked him over doubtfully, but they continued their progress through the palace. It hadn’t been easy. They’d dodged three patrols so far, ducking behind columns and into passageways until Honeyflower’s former charges passed. It was impeding their ability to get to the throne room. They’d had to double-back twice, and Honeyflower was now trying to get them there via an alternative but more circuitous path. They turned a corner, which Honeyflower explained would get them to an auxiliary passageway that ran right by the back of the throne room.

“Back when Alfheim had a king,” she said, “he would use this path to get to his chambers if he didn’t want to go through the main hall. It was envisioned as an escape route if the palace ever came under attack.”

“Ironic that we’re using it to get in instead of out under those very circumstances,” Wolf commented.

“Very,” she said.

They moved as swiftly as Wolf’s shaky body would allow them down the passage. Honeyflower got ahead of him and had to stop to wait while he stumbled to her. She was about to move on, when they heard boots coming down the hall. She grabbed Wolf by the arm and ran, nearly pulling him off his feet. She ducked into a small chamber to wait for the soldiers to pass. When she entered the room, though, they came face to face with a pair of Elite Guardsmen.

No one moved for a second. They all just stared at each other.

“Captain Honeyflower?” one of them said.

“Yes, Eagleflight,” she said. “It is I.”

“Thank God,” Eagleflight replied. “What’s happening?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she answered.

“Everyone’s gone mad,” the other soldier said. “They’re saying Silverleaf’s in charge now, and we’d better do what he says if we know what’s good for us.”

“Is it true?” Eagleflight said. “Is Ambassador Silverleaf in charge now? What happened to President Spellbinder?”

“It’s true, and it’s not,” Honeyflower answered. “The ambassador is attempting a
coup
. He’s arranged for the Sons of Frey to assassinate the president and the rest of the government at the Temple of Frey tonight.” Both elves displayed shock. “He’s recruited most of the Elite Guard to his cause. Are you telling me you weren’t recruited?”

“We don’t know anything,” the second elf said. Honeyflower said nothing for a moment.

“No, of course you don’t,” she said after thinking. “Your loyalty is ironclad, Eagleflight, and you just joined the Guard a few weeks ago, Meadowbrook. I’m sure neither of you was recruited, because they didn’t think you could be trusted.”

Despite his condition, Wolf was able to intuit what was going on. Honeyflower wasn’t the only member of the Elite Guard who hadn’t been in on Silverleaf’s plot. These two elves weren’t part of it either. He began to have a little hope. If these two were loyalists, there were certainly others out there.

“Listen to me,” Honeyflower said, “What Ambassador Silverleaf is trying to do is wrong. If you love Alfar and are true to the oaths you took, you’ll do as I tell you.”

The other two elves exchanged a worried glance. Eagleflight looked her dead in the eyes.

“What do you want us to do,” he asked.

“I want you to help me stop Silverleaf’s
coup
,” she said. “He’s a traitor, and we need to make sure he doesn’t succeed. Can you do that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Eagleflight said and saluted. Meadowbrook followed suit.

“Who’s the human?” Eagleflight inquired.

“This is Ambassador Dasher from Urland,” she said. “He’s on our side. He’s trying to stop Silverleaf too.”

“He looks like shit,” Eagleflight said.

“He was tortured by Silverleaf,” she said.

Both elves looked Wolf over. They seemed skeptical.

“Why?” Meadowbrook asked.

“Because I knew what he was doing, and I tried to stop him,” Wolf answered. Both soldiers nodded their understanding.

“What is the situation here?” Honeyflower said.

“There are regular patrols moving through this area,” Eagleflight said. “We’ve been hiding here to stay out of sight and try to figure out what to do.”

“Is the auxiliary entrance to the throne room guarded,” Honeyflower asked.

“Yes, Captain,” Eagleflight replied. “If you’re thinking of breaking in, you’re going to have to fight.”

Honeyflower looked at Wolf. He shrugged.

“You were going to have to fight either way,” he said. “You may as well move forward.”

She nodded. Then she took a moment to load her crossbow.

“Arm yourselves,” she said. “We’re going to break into the throne room, and we’re going to bring Silverleaf to justice.”

Both of her compatriots nodded, although they had worried looks on their faces. Honeyflower went to the door and chanced a look out. After a moment, she turned back to the group.

“Okay, let’s move,” she said.

Wolf let the two elves go first. Ordinarily, he’d have been by Honeyflower’s side, perhaps even leading. But he still felt wobbly, and he didn’t want to impede their progress or miss something important that could get them caught. He felt like a fool, but he didn’t know what else to do.

The four of them stole down the auxiliary passage until they came upon a door guarded by two more of the Elite Guard. Honeyflower stopped short of them and drew herself up to her full height.

“Eveningstar, Windrider,” she said. “I am your captain. I order you to stand down and let us pass.”

The two looked at each other for a moment. Then the one Wolf thought was Windrider spoke.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” he said. “We have direct orders from the king not to let anyone pass.”

“The king?” Honeyflower said.

“Yes, Captain,” Windrider replied. “King Silverleaf.”

She turned to Wolf and then to the other elves. A hard and angry look was on her face.

“Listen, Windrider,” she said. “Alfar does not have a king. It has a properly elected coalition government. Silverleaf is acting illegally. I order you to stand down. If you don’t, I’ll be forced to treat you as a traitor.”

Windrider looked sad. Wolf winced. He wasn’t going to balk. He fully intended to stand his ground.

“Captain,” he said. “I have my orders. Please desist, or I’ll have you arrested.”

“Arrest this,” she said and raised her crossbow to fire. The shot was off the mark, though. Eveningstar tackled her as she fired, and her arrow went astray. A second later, everyone had drawn a sword and was fighting. Windrider sounded an alarm. The door opened, and three more soldiers poured into the hall.

The cloud over Wolf’s mind vanished. As soon as there was a fight, his instincts kicked in. He had his sword in his hand in seconds and drove it into Eveningstar’s back. He cried out and died as the blade pierced his heart. Wolf removed his sword and helped Honeyflower to her feet.

“Thanks,” she said.

Then she dove into the battle to help her comrades. She whacked one of the new soldiers in the thigh with her sword. He collapsed when the blade cut his hamstring. Honeyflower finished him off ruthlessly. Then she moved to even the odds for Eagleflight, who was trying to hold off two attackers.

...
go now
...

Wolf had learned not to ignore the voice of The Rift. When it came through clearly as it did just then, he needed to listen.

The door was still open. He slipped past the fight and put himself through it. Then he closed it behind him.

The throne room was enormous – exactly what Wolf would have pictured. Images of elves were carved into the walls just as they were in other parts of the palace. Large windows tens of feet high rose above his head and showed the twilight through them. A fire roared in a fireplace large enough to throw an entire person into. The throne itself appeared to be a transplanted tree that grew in the middle of the room into the shape of a chair.

Silverleaf stood near the throne consulting with several elves – advisors Wolf presumed. They all turned to look at Wolf when the door shut. Silverleaf’s jaw didn’t quite drop, but he definitely showed surprise to see Wolf.

“Mr. Dasher,” he said. “Why can’t I seem to kill you?”

“Because you keep sending amateurs to do the job,” Wolf retorted.

“Perhaps I should attend to matters myself,” he said coming forward.

“Are you sure you want to?” Wolf taunted. “Cowards like you don’t usually want to get too near the action.”

Silverleaf smirked. He drew his sword.