Girl of Myth and Legend (29 page)

‘Huh, I won,’ he says.

‘I repeat: what the hell?’

‘What’s your problem?’

‘You cheated!’

‘You’re a sore loser,’ he comments.

‘You
must
have been cheating. There’s no way you could’ve scooped up another snowball in time after throwing that other one.’

‘I didn’t throw the last one; you just thought I did.’

‘What?’

‘I didn’t throw it. I just aimed it at you.’

‘That’s… that’s brilliant! But so unfair! There’s no way you got me with that! I’m not a bloody dog!’

He shrugs his shoulders.

‘I demand a rematch!’ I shout.

‘All right then.’

‘…Damn.’

‘What?’

‘Damn it!’

‘
What
?’

‘I have to go meet O’Sah now.’ I poke my finger into his stomach. ‘Next time, I want a rematch. Got it?’

‘All right.’

‘Oh, hang on.’ I take my camera out of my backpack. ‘I always carry this with me in case I see something cool.’

‘It looks old,’ he says.

‘It kind of is, but it prints instant photos.’ I hold the camera up so it’s facing towards me and Korren. ‘Smile!’ There’s a flash and a moment later a picture slides out.

‘You’re not exactly photogenic, are you?’ I comment, looking at the picture. ‘Seriously. Look at you. Could you at least have faked a smile?’

In the picture, I’m sticking out my tongue and doing a peace sign, whereas Korren is staring at the camera, frowning. I stuff the picture into my trouser pocket, muttering to myself about how useless he is.

The clouds seem to darken as we walk beneath them towards the temple.

‘Did you have fun today?’ I ask.

‘…It wasn’t boring,’ he says.

I grin. ‘I knew the moment I saw you that you were capable of having fun. Actually, no. I thought I was going to be crushed by those talons of yours. Still, I knew I’d be able to convert you into a fun guy. You’re just like me.’

‘An excitable fool?’

I put my thumb up.

‘You are an idiot,’ but there’s lightness in the way he says it.

I laugh, then frown. ‘Crap! I left my backpack behind.’

He sighs. ‘You’re hopeless. Wait here.’ He turns back.

I wait. I can’t help but feel pleased with myself. Not only did I get to have fun with Korren, but I also got to see the guy laugh! Korren,
laughing
—who’d have thought?

The wind blusters my hair around. I glare at the sky, a storm cloud looming over the Temples, and I notice the strangest thing. Surely it’s my imagination. No, it must be my imagination, because the wind can’t possibly be moving
towards
the storm.

‘I have it,’ I hear Korren say as he approaches me. ‘You should—what’s wrong?’

‘Something’s going on over there,’ I reply.

He follows my gaze. ‘That doesn’t look good,’ he says. ‘And where are the Thrones?’

‘Thrones?’

‘The ones following you.’

‘What?’

‘You’ve never noticed? You’re always being watched.’

‘Um, again with the
what
?’

‘They must have gone back to the temple,’ he says. ‘We should go see what’s happening.’

‘Yeah, let’s head towards the eerie storm clouds—that sounds like a great idea.’

‘Just—Come on.’

We walk across the field and towards the temple on the hill. The closer we get, the darker it becomes, and wisps of silver-grey smoke curl towards us, the smell of it choking. Going through the lower grounds of the temple, we see statues lying broken on the floor, and Magen push past us, some with a crazed, desperate look in their eyes, others crying or screaming. I try to stop one of them to ask what happened, but they shove by me. I notice there’s blood on some Magens’ robes, and that they all have the same focus: to distance themselves from something.

‘What’s going on?’ I say.

‘I don’t know,’ says Korren, glancing around.

We walk further into the grounds of the temple, the wind pushing up towards the cloud formation. We round a corner and—

And then I understand. I understand the broken statues and the frightened looks and the blood-drenched robes. I understand, and I am terrified.

‘We need to turn back,’ Korren says urgently. ‘Now.’

‘I-I…’ I stutter.

Soldiers and Magen are on the ground, dozens of them…
dead
. Their blood soaks into the snow, red on white. Parts of the temple are ablaze, flames blossoming out into a smoky cloud. I don’t know how to breathe, how to react, how to think. My mind becomes a swirling mess of disbelief as I stare at the bodies.

Korren grabs my arm and pulls me away, rounding a corner, and he stops.

Ahead of us several soldiers circle around a man dressed in an outfit made up of grey and black and silver, his face concealed by a demon-like mask. In his hand he holds an axe with black wisps of magic blazing from it, and he swings it in his hand nonchalantly, as if he isn’t about to die. Soldiers pounce on him, their powers igniting in union, but the man swipes his axe, spinning his body around, and strikes each soldier. One by one their magic disperses and they fall to the ground, blood pouring from them. It happens so fast I don’t even have time to blink. I retreat, bumping into Korren. I look up at him, and his eyes are scouring around.

From the shadows and from between the pillars of the temple emerge at least twenty masked people dressed like the man with the axe and with demon-looking masks covering their faces. The ones who don’t wear the masks have coloured stripes under their faces, painted on.

‘Ah, there you are!’

I turn to see one of them, hair doused with blood, mask fitted on, and he’s standing on top of a Magen, a blade dug into her.

‘The lady of the hour has arrived.’ He mock-bows to me.

I clutch onto Korren’s sleeve, hands trembling.

‘Who are you?’ Korren asks.

‘Me? I don’t really matter. You met my friends, though. Good people. Alive people. Until, well, until they weren’t alive people anymore. You might know of them. They were a little bit massacred by your keeper’s protectors and thrown into a pit. I saw what was left of my girl’s body all tangled up with my friends’ like cattle thrown into a heap. That’s all we are to the Imperium: cattle to be rounded up. Ah, well, that’s going to change now.’

I glance at the bodies around me. No, not bodies—corpses.

This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.

‘Rebels,’ Korren growls. ‘You’re rebels.’

‘Indeed we are, kytaen!’ the rebel says. ‘Well done for your observation.’

‘Why have you done this?’ Korren gestures to the Magen. ‘These are innocents.’

‘Why?’ He stretches his hand towards me, blood flicking from his fingers, staining the snow. ‘This is all for you, little puppet! We’re here to cut your strings.’

In my head, I hear the voice of the dead rebel who had wrapped her hands around my neck.
‘We know of you now, Crato’s doll, and we won’t stop until your strings are cut.’

I shrink away from the man, hiding half of myself away behind Korren.

This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.

‘Oh, I think backup is on its way, and we sure need it!’ says the masked man. ‘The Thrones that are alive will be done with us weaklings soon, but we’re just the distraction.’ He puts his hand behind his ear. ‘And I’m right. It is here, ladies and gentleman! The finale!’

A shadow is stretching across the snow, too fast, too dark to be a mere cloud. I look back up and see that the sun is still up there, spreading its warm colours, but across the sky dark vapour is igniting like wildfire, beginning to block out the sun as if snuffing a flame, casting an impossibly black and terrible shadow across the Temples. What I see causes an unfathomable terror to rise from within me, one that I know from pure instinct I should be afraid of, just like mammals are afraid of the dark. Then we hear the shrieking. It comes shrill and furious. It sounds far away, but certainly there: a scream that’s known throughout the Chosen history.

‘Maiden,’ Korren says.

I back away. ‘…For me.’

KORREN

THE HAZE

This is wrong.

Terribly wrong.

Maidens are powerful, yes, but this is too much. To cover the entire Temples of Elswyr within its haze is impossible, it can’t be done, and yet it is being done.
This can’t be happening,
I think.
A haze can only have a handful of victims at most.

The darkness continues to spread across the sky. I watch as the dark vapour submerges the Temples, like a dome being placed over us. Terror builds in me. This haze is too wide, too impenetrable to get in or out of.

Fortunately, the light of the sun is bright enough to be a dim beacon above the darkness we find ourselves in, so I can just see around us. I turn to my keeper. She is staring up, listening to the crackling howls, screams and laughter that are issuing from the skies.

And then the wind stills and it is silent.

A veil of mist slithers from the darkness, coiling its wispy tendrils around the temples, thickening as it comes towards us. Screams erupt from the distance, and even I have lost my nerve.

‘I-it wouldn’t come here,’ my keeper says, loud enough for me to hear. ‘You said it wouldn’t come f-for me here.’

‘We have to move,’ I say, trying to control my voice.

‘There’s no escaping this, my friends!’ says the rebel.

‘How is this possible?’ I say, turning to him with narrowed eyes. ‘How did you know it would come?’

‘Simple: we brought it here.’

My eyes widen. ‘You…’

‘Through the portal and straight to your doorstep.’

‘That’s not even… you
can’t
control a maiden.’

He holds his arms up to the sky. ‘I beg to differ.’

‘Korren—’ begins my keeper.

‘Ah, she speaks at last! Don’t be afraid, dear, dear Pulsar. The maiden is merely here to distract the Thrones so we can…
acquire
you without significant hassle.’

‘Stay back,’ I tell her, and turn my attention back to the rebel. ‘I’m just going to kill this lunatic.’

He laughs and removes his blade from the corpse he stands on. ‘My, my, what an outspoken kytaen. I wasn’t always a lunatic, you know. I was quite normal until the Imperium decided to take everything from me.’

‘So you’re rebelling for revenge.’

‘Vengeance does tend to send you a liiittle bit over the edge.’

‘Let me send you further over it then and save you from your misery.’

I transform into my kytaen form effortlessly, my clothes ripping into small tatters that cover the snow. I don’t hesitate. From my large body comes a black pulse I call an echo, and it smashes into the rebel. I turn my attention to his comrades, anticipating their attack, but they don’t move. They remain staring, some through their masks, watching, waiting.

I hear a laugh from behind me.

‘Korren!’ my keeper shouts.

But it’s too late. Just as I turn, a blade strikes my leg, slicing through the flesh and to the bone. Heat and fire—it burns and twists every nerve. I cry out in pain, my back leg buckling, my vision becoming hazy, my mind clouding.

The rebel who I thought I’d killed stands before me, blade hung over his shoulder. Smoke rises from his body, his clothes scorched with holes. ‘That’s why they sent
me
here,’ he says, and strokes his skin. ‘Fire resistant, you see. Comes in handy against the only fire kytaen left.’

‘Oh God, Korren,’ my keeper says, kneeling beside me. ‘Oh God, your leg.’

I feel the blood leaking from my wound, but I don’t let it discourage me; I’ve suffered worse.

‘Now, now, what to do,’ the rebel says. ‘I don’t remember if I was meant to kill the kytaen. I suppose it doesn’t matter, though, does it?’

I bear my teeth. I’m not going to be able to kill this Chosen. My most effective attack is my echoes, and without them I have to rely on brute force. In my experience, force can only take down weak or unprepared Chosen, and these rebels, though solitary may not be strong, are undefeatable to me as a unit. With my leg as it is, attacking them will only be prolonging my life by a few seconds.

I feel a disturbance in the ground. A black hand extends from the earth without breaking through it, as if reaching out from a portal, and a figure climbs out. It has no features; it is made up entirely of magic. Other figures rise from the ground, forming a line in front of me, a wall of defence.

‘Look!’ my keeper says, and I follow her gaze to the side of the temple where Harriad stands. Next to him is another Throne, eyes narrowed and face twisted into a grimace. His face has been cut into by what looks like scratch marks. His hands are extended, controlling the shadow men in front of us.

‘Oh lookie,’ says the rebel. ‘The fun has come to us. I was getting sort of bored killing helpless Magen.’

‘Fools,’ the Throne spits. ‘By coming here you’ve only killed yourselves.’

‘Is that so?’ says the rebel, steam still rising from his body.

‘You might want to go to the back of the temple,’ says Harriad. ‘You’ll realise just how irrational you were to take us on.’

‘I gather by your
swaggering
manner that you’re implying you’ve killed a lot of my companions.’