Shadow Assassins (The Second Realm Trilogy) (8 page)

He dismounted his horse and helped her down, explaining that with all the streams, it would be better leading the horses around the water, rather than expecting them to run through it. With a small,
teasing smile, he brushed Silverstorm’s muzzle and explained that she was rather scared of water of any depth and was difficult to work with when trying to lead through even a puddle.

Evangeline admired how he treated his horses, as if they were more than just beasts, but children to be cared for. She had never felt that kind of relationship with anything, unless her care for her knives counted. The comparison didn’t feel right; the cold, specially designed silver-plated steel wasn’t exactly thriving in the same way that a horse was.

Before either of them could lead the horses into Kkyathi territory, there was a shout from behind them. A shout to halt, followed by the neigh of multiple horses. A chaotic rhythm of horse hooves followed, with the clanking of metal armor.

Prince Erik muttered an exotic-sounding curse and glanced at Evangeline. “Father’s knights. Guess they spotted us.”

“Your highness, halt!” the man in the lead of the others shouted. “Your hunting grounds do not expand this far out. Why are you heading out past Emeralde territory?”

“Rynda, a pleasure to see you, as always,” Prince Erik called out. He met the knight on horseback halfway through the distance between them.

“You will need to come back into our territory, your highness,” the knight, Rynda, said curtly. “I’m afraid werecat territory is not a safe one to cross over into without guard.”

“I am escorting this lady to Moonriver Academy,” the prince explained calmly. “It is not a job that requires fighting or death; just one that’s leading a lost lady back to where she needs to go.”

Rynda took one look at Evangeline and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “That is no lady there, your highness.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Evangeline glared at the knight and her hand twitched towards her pocket, where her trusty switch blade lay closed. Not that a switch blade would do much damage to a man wearing metal armor, but the angry impulse moved her.

“See how she glares at me! I think she may be a demon!”

At this, she flinched. If they were indeed working for a corrupt king, the knights would kill her if they found out about her true nature.

“A demon!” the prince exclaimed. “I think that armor is overheating your brain, dear Rynda. I have been in her presence long enough to determine that she is of no demonic influence. She is from the First Realm and merely curious about this world.”

“She may as well be a demon if she is from the First Realm,” the knight grumbled. “You have no obligation to help her, your highness. Come back into the kingdom, where it is safe.”

“I’m sorry, my dear friend, but I promised this lady that I would take her to Moonriver. Whether you decide to follow me or not is your choice.” with that, the prince headed back to his black stallion, not looking at all concerned about the trouble that was brewing.

“I will not follow you across savage werecat territory! But I will not permit you to leave, either, your highness.”

At this, Prince Erik’s emerald eyes blazed with anger. “You dare try to stop me?”

“Under your father’s orders to keep you safe!”

At this, Evangeline stepped up to the two men. “If it’s too much trouble, I’ll find my own way, Prince Erik. You don’t need to trouble yourself with–”

“How dare you address his royal highness with such familiarity!” the knight Rynda interrupted, drawing his sword. “Child of the First Realm, return from whence you came. Such a disrespectful person does not belong among the Emeralde Kingdom.”

She may not have belonged in this kingdom, but people did not address her like that wherever she was. Evangeline fixed the knight with a glare and with blatant rudeness, she
said, “I believe I was addressing the prince, not you.
Your
disrespect doesn’t belong among the kingdom, or at least not in front of the prince.”

The knight was apparently not used to being addressed with such defiance, especially not by a woman.
“Wench! I can have you hanged for the way you speak to me!”

His words lit a fire in her belly. She could feel that bad side of her itching to be set free. Her demonic half longed for a fight and the ill-tempered knight was egging her on. If the other Shadow Assassins had been around, they could have curbed her anger. Marco would have tried to crack a joke to break the tension and Kaydee would have pulled her back and tried to get her to calm down. Alone and left to fend for herself, she struggled inwardly with holding her inner demon back as it clawed at her belly, itching to be set free.

Rynda turned to the prince now as she fought an inner battle. “See how she glares at me still, your highness! Such company to travel in would surely prove fatal for the crown. I could never allow you to travel with someone so dangerous–”

“Shut the hell up,”
Evangeline growled, her voice distorted from the effort it took to hold back her transformation.

“Demon!
She is a demon!”

To hell with holding her demonic side back. Fed up with the knight with the big mouth, Evangeline let her anger
take hold of her, warping her into something less than human. The cluster of knights nearby cried out in their fear and Prince Erik jumped back out of surprise. Out of her back rippled two wings, one black feathery wing from her angelic heritage and one leathery, bat-like wing from her demonic heritage. She felt her hands curling into claws and she fixed a deadly glare at the annoying knight with red-tinged eyes.

The knight charged at her from his brilliant white war horse, sword out and shining in the afternoon sun. She waited,
then lashed out at him. Her mismatched wings helped her become airborne, even if it was only for a second. It was long enough for her clawed hand to catch him right across the metal helmet he wore. There was a horrible wrenching of claws tearing through metal and she ripped through the helmet effortlessly. The blow knocked the knight called Rynda right off of his horse and to the ground.

“Get out of here before I do some real damage,”
she growled in that same distorted voice.

“Prince Emeralde, hurry back to the kingdom!” Rynda cried.

The prince regarded Evangeline with wide eyes, but he didn’t move. “I will be fine, my friend. You take your men back to where you are safe.”

“I will do no such thing!”

“As your prince, I will have no arguing! Go now, dear Rynda, and stay safe.”

The knight was going to argue anyway but Evangeline let out an unholy roar. His men fled in sheer terror. His horse had already bolted far from here. Pride damaged, the knight had no choice but to retreat.

Once the armored men were out of range, Evangeline felt her demonic side curling back into her, satiated for the moment but not near satisfied. That didn’t even count as a fight, but her demonic side saw no threat in the prince and would not attack him.

The prince watched as Evangeline’s features transformed from her strange half-transformation back to her normal self. Unbalanced, she fell onto the flat ground, her bottom catching most of the impact.

“It is impossible,” he mused. “I have only heard of one other like you. How is it that there are two?”

“Two?” she gasped, unable to breathe properly.

Apparently not frightened by the show she had just put on, the prince knelt next to her. “My dear Lady Evangeline, I believe there are some things you forgot to tell me. Yes?”

The draught of sleep that Kaydee had been forced to drink worked its magic on her for some time, until she realized that she was no longer on flat ground, but traveling along bumpy road. Her eyes snapped open and she realized that she was in a large wooden carriage crammed with other people. The people were dirty and looked scared. Their wrists were shackled all in a row. When she looked down, she realized her wrists were also shackled with heavy iron, the dirty, rusted chain links keeping her tied to the person beside her.

What was this horrid place? This was not the strange band of nomads that she had been with. She searched her memory for anything that could have helped. The last thing that happened was her panicking over their threat of selling her.
After that? The fight, being forced into sleep...and then what? What had happened between that point and this point?

She glanced around again, at her dirty companions. Some of them were asleep still, and she was willing to bet they had been drugged like she had. There were ten people in this wooden carriage in all, in two rows of five. They were all sitting on crudely carved wooden benches. Her ankles were chained as well as her wrists, in the same kind of row of shackles. Above their heads, there was a crude window with rusted iron bars between them. Daylight streamed in through
the hole, along with the scent of salt water. Were they near an ocean? She couldn’t see out the makeshift window, but she had a feeling that they were indeed near an ocean. The carriage was quiet, except for someone on the opposite side of her crying, as quietly as possible. The soft, rhythmic sound of horse hooves came from the front of the carriage. Someone was driving this crudely carved and stuffed box.

She had no idea of how long they traveled, but by the time the carriage pulled to a stop, the strong daylight had faded into the tinges of a setting sun. The temperature was dropping with the sun. Night would fall soon.

The rear end of the carriage was pulled open. Kaydee recognized the driver as one of the men she had fought with. He stepped into the carriage, unlocking ankle shackles between the two rows before he pulled one row by a length of chain.

“Come,” he said.

The row across from her stood up and moved as a unit. Kaydee saw then that the ankle shackles were a part of the carriage, probably to keep everyone from moving. The people in front of her still wore wrist shackles. The heavy chain lengths allowed them to form a single-person line. Chains linked from each shackle to the person in front and behind the other. The prisoners, as Kaydee thought of them all as, only had enough room to move in a straight line. The heavy chain between each person dictated how much room they had to move, and if they did not function as a solid unit, the person who lagged behind the rest pulled at the people they were attached to.

“Shut up with your crying,” the man snapped at a girl who couldn
’t have been older than twelve.

             
When she didn’t stop fast enough to satisfy him, he took the riding crop he used on his horse and snapped it at her. She yelped, but her crying simpered down to a low whimpering.

“Second row, get out,” he said, without any concern for the girl.

The row Kaydee was sitting in stood up. She moved with them, her heart pounding unpleasantly. It was hard to keep up with the exact rhythm of the others’ steps at first and she heard the woman behind her protest quietly, too quietly for the man to hear.

Kaydee was right about being near an ocean. As they emerged from the crude carriage, she glanced around. They were at a port of some sort. A large ship that looked like a Spanish galleon was docked and people were running back and forth, from the wooden dock to the ship. Was she going to have to get on board this ship? Her stomach cramped unpleasantly. She had to find the other Shadow Assassins. She had no idea of who these people were or why they wanted to sell her, but she had to find a way to get out of this position.

Before she could think of any way, the man had the two rows of prisoners line up side by side. Anyone who talked out of turn or cried received a smack of his riding crop.

“Dalen,” called a man approaching from the ship. He was a heavyset man in a torn tunic. He had combed his hair in a horrid style that attempted to cover a growing bald spot. In the evening light, his red hair seemed to be on fire when the sun hit it.

“Thomas, there you are,” the man, Dalen, said as he looked up. When he met the gaze of the approaching man, he looked friendlier than he did when he faced the prisoners.

“Are these them?” the man called Thomas asked.

“Yes, ten in all.”

“Better be a good ten, for all the risk I’m taking for this shit,” Thomas spat on the ground to show his displeasure.
“Had to break away from the pod. If I’m lucky, I can catch back up with the other ships.”

“Seafarers are heading west now, aren’t they?”

Thomas grumbled his answer, adding something about losing time and traveling in the opposite direction. He glanced at the two rows. “Let’s see what they can do.”

The man called Dalen agreed and headed to the front of the cart. He pulled out heavy sets of longer chain links and two iron rings. The first person from each line was unchained and around their necks went the iron rings. Like dogs, the two people were collared and chained to the crude cart, given the ability to use their arms and legs, but still unable to run.

The heavyset Thomas spoke. “The two of you will fight. If you refuse, you will be punished. Go.”

The two would-be opponents glanced at each other. It was a mismatch. One was a girl who looked sixteen; the other was a woman in her mid-forties. They didn’t look like they had any fighting ability at all.

When they hesitated, Thomas pulled a long, thin whip from his belt and cracked it at the two. “
Fight
, I said!”

It took another crack of the whip to get either of them moving. The teenage girl had her back licked by impatient, snapping leather. She snapped forward mostly out of surprise, but tackled the woman in front of her.

It was a pathetic sight to see, Kaydee thought. The older woman looked like she was supposed to be a motherly figure. It pained her to take on the teenage girl, the pain obvious on her face. Unfortunately, if they refused to fight, they would receive another crack from the whip, if not worse. The teenage girl held out her hand and a beam of energy manifested. The energy glowed a light pink color, but it flickered in and out of view, as if the girl was greatly weakened. The energy formed into the vague form of a sword. She used this weapon against the woman she faced. The woman fought back with an energy sword of her own. Her energy was the color of the forest, but also weak and flickering like her opponent.

“Immortals without their familiars are weak creatures,” Thomas mused to Dalen. The two men observed the chained women as if they were watching some sports match.

“They would not comply until their familiars were killed. Over time, their Immortal powers will be so weakened that they will barely be more powerful than an ordinary mortal human.” Dalen spat on the ground, echoing his companion’s way of showing disgust. “This is about the only thing they’re good for now, with such a shortened lifespan and power limit.”

Kaydee could barely stand to watch the fight, but it was hard to ignore the grunts of pain and protests. Eventually, a winner had been
decided. The teenage girl had effectively knocked the older woman out. She lurched back, panting, looking horrified with herself.

At this, Dalen went back to the front of the crude carriage and took out another set of chain. This he needed Thomas’s help with. The two men unloaded another set of shackles and chain. The teenage girl was transferred to this new length of chain and the older woman was woken up and made to stand. She was chained back in her original spot, with the others.

On it went. The next two were selected and made to fight, then the next two after. Some of them looked ready to fight; some had to be coerced with violence. Kaydee could see that each person selected had some sort of power. Mages were more powerful than Immortals, for instance. A mage who could wield fire as a weapon easily overpowered an Immortal who could barely summon an energy weapon. Each victor was transferred to the new length of chain and shackles.

Kaydee’s turn was up next. She felt like
vomiting as she was forced into the iron collar. The ring of metal weighed her down, made her feel awkward and bulky. The person she had to fight was a boy who looked only a few years younger than she was. His fear had turned to anger when he saw that fighting was the only option he had. Once Thomas instructed them to start, the boy came at her, fast.

She gave a startled yell and reached into her powers. They were standing on a grassy field, so she used the grass to her advantage. It swelled and thickened with sudden growth and life, turning from something that was only ankle-deep to stand in to something taller than her head. Her opponent was lost in a sudden growth of grass before he swiped at it angrily with an energy sword that still shone strong, despite the Immortal’s lack of a familiar. The grass burned as pure magical energy swept through it.

Kaydee again reached into her earth-based powers, reaching for energy reserves she felt deep in the earth under her feet. Vines grew at her influence and wrapped around the boy, keeping him from advancing any further. He shouted in anger, struggling. She backed up from him, tripping over the chain that held her captive.

“She will not fight,” Dalen muttered. “She did something similar to us when we captured her.”

“Oh, I’ll make her fight.” Thomas cracked the whip at her. “Quit fucking around!”

The harsh language hit first, then the pain. She screamed when the leather bit into her flesh. It was enough to break her concentration and the Immortal she was fighting pitched forward. He charged at her again.

She figured it would be easiest to end this fast, without anyone getting hurt. She called upon the vines again. They shot up from the ground and again captured the boy. While he struggled, they tightened around him, weaving tightly around his chest and neck.

Tears formed in Kaydee’s eyes as she went against every instinct she had and forced the vines to choke her opponent. She hated the disgusting, gurgling sounds he made, but she only held him captive until he passed out. Once he had, she released his body to the ground.

Dalen said nothing as he dragged the boy back to the line of the losers. The boy didn’t wake up but more gurgling noises came from his mouth.

Thomas moved closer to move Kaydee to the chain of victors. When she was again shackled by the wrists, she began crying in earnest. She couldn’t help it.
Couldn’t stop it either, even after Dalen came back and smacked her with his crop.

“Let her cry, she’s already won,” Thomas snapped, impatient for the last fight to happen. Once the last fight was over and the last winner was declared and re-chained, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bag that jingled.

“Two hundred for the winners,” Dalen said instantly, eying the bag greedily.

“Two hundred is barely what I’d get in betting on them in the real thing!” was the incredulous reply.

The two haggled over prices and Kaydee paused in her sobbing, fear overriding the tears. Did he just say the
real thing?
Did that mean that this wasn’t even the start of what she had to face? She didn’t want to fight anyone; she just wanted to find her friends. Instead, she was being sold like a slave to a stranger who would pull her further away from her friends!

Dalen and Thomas finally agreed on their price and golden coins were exchanged. Dalen held the coins with obvious satisfaction before he pocketed them. They jingled in his pocket when he moved back to the five he was left with.

“Nice doing business with you,” he said, bowing to Thomas.

“You give the Gypsa a bad name, with the prices you deal in,” was the only reply he received. With that, Thomas turned back to the line Kaydee was in, instructing them to follow him. Stragglers received a crack of the whip he held.

Please help me,
Kaydee found herself pleading to no one in particular.
Someone, please help me. I’m going to die, here.



Far outside the continent of Aurialis, a man sat in his stone house. Outside his window, the sea crashed unpleasantly as it always did in Siiati territory. Siiati, the sea-witch colony, as it was called, always had a perpetual angry ocean outside. It was part of the magic of the Isle Dark, magic that kept the sea witches from escaping the continent and going back to Aurialis.

The man was inside his own home, yet he still wore the traveling cloak he had been out in. The hood was up, keeping his face in shadow. The only distinguishing thing about him that was visible was the large pewter dragon pendant on a long chain around his neck. The annoying ice mage Leta who always seemed to hang around him wanted him to have the dragon pendant. He took it mostly to get her to stop talking, but also because he liked anything to do with dragons. It appeased her enough to get her to stop talking to him.