The Chosen Soul (3 page)

pinning her to his chest. She struggled uselessly in his grasp and cringed when he

callously laughed in her ear.

A few yards away, Cael stood still, watching the ordeal, as Brayden faced off with

her brother.

“She’ll never agree to marry you if you molest her, Brayden! Are you mad?” Loki

tried to reason with the large man as the two circled each other like wild animals.

Brayden was taller, but Loki’s form was stout and solid. They were not exactly evenly

matched, but Loki was known to have the constitution of a rock.

“She never would have agreed and you know it as well as I. Your sister is nothing

but a tease.” Brayden stopped, and his expression turned dark. Loki tensed, watching him

carefully. “We heard you both by the river. There’s no point in pretending any longer.”

Brayden and Loki lunged at one another. Raven closed her eyes, but the darkness of

her lids did nothing to stop the sound of their scuffling feet and grunts. She forced her

eyes open again and watched as Loki ducked beneath Brayden’s large fist, but did not

quite manage to side-step his other swing and the blacksmith’s knuckles dug deep into

her brother’s mid-section, knocking the wind out of him.

“No! Brayden, leave him alone!”

Selby shook her hard, jarring the joints in her shoulders and causing her teeth to

clamp down onto her tongue, drawing blood. Her eyes watered from the pain. His fingers

dug into the flesh of her arms. “Keep quiet, lovely. We’ll let you know when we want to

hear you scream.”

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The Chosen Soul

Loki glanced up from where he had doubled over, trying to catch his breath, and

managed to drop and roll just in time to avoid Brayden’s work boot as the large man tried

to kick him in the head. Loki rolled back to a standing position and rushed forward,

ramming his shoulder into Brayden’s waist and driving him backward, where they both

went crashing to the dusty ground.

Raven pulled her blurry gaze away from their twisting forms to look at Cael, who yet

stood with his hands in his pockets, an undecided expression on his youthful face.

“Cael, help us! Please, you don’t want -” Selby slapped a hand over her mouth

before she could say anything further, and, without thinking, she took the opportunity to

bite down.

He bellowed in pain and then growled, spinning her around once again and then

roughly shoving her to the ground. She landed hard on her back, the impact forcing the

air from her lungs and momentarily stunning her.

“You’ll pay for that, bitch!” Raven did not possess the breath to cry out as he was

then on top of her, ripping viciously at her clothes one second, slapping her across the

face, the next.

Again and again, he hit her, and with each blow, Raven saw stars swim before her

eyes and tasted more blood in her mouth. Somewhere in the periphery of her

consciousness, a struggle continued, but she could no longer tell who had the upper hand,

and a part of her no longer cared. A numbness was setting in. She was aware of what was

happening to her, could hear, more than feel, the contact of his fists and palms with her

flesh but even that awareness was fading. As she felt her clothes being ruthlessly

separated from her beaten body, she began to desire nothing more than blackness, a sweet

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Heather Killough-Walden

and forgiving darkness that would come and whisk her away from reality before her

rapist defiled her body in that final, unforgivable manner.

And then, quite suddenly, she was no longer being beaten, and a weight had been

lifted from across her stomach. She moaned, rolled over onto her side, and opened her

swelling eyes.

Cael held a very surprised Selby by the collar of his shirt and was shaking him

roughly. Raven did not waste time pondering what might have brought about the change

in Cael; she could barely bring herself to care. She pushed herself up onto arms that felt

detached from her body, and looked down at the ground. Blood welled from her nose and

dropped to the dirt, splash after tiny splash. Her body begged her to curl up and cover her head and fall asleep.

But her mind would not allow her to forget about her brother. She turned her head,

searching for Loki through eyes that could no longer properly filter out light.

Brayden stood over her fallen brother a few yards away. As she watched, unable to

stop him, the large man kicked Loki in the stomach. As her brother tried to roll away and

lift himself up, Brayden kicked him again. This happened several more times, until Loki

lay facing his sister, and she saw blood spill from his open mouth.

Raven stared at the blood.

Her brother’s life liquid, staining an unworthy ground.

She looked up at Brayden, who now towered over Loki, his breath ragged, his

expression insane.

Raven’s vision swam, but it now swam as red as the blood pouring from her

brother’s lips. “I damn you to Hell, Brayden Smith. You and Selby both,” she hissed,

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The Chosen Soul

drawing breath through split lips and expelling it through a raw throat. “May Abaddon’s

devils devour you alive, and may you feel every last torment they inflict upon your flesh

for the rest of eternity.”

Brayden glanced at her from where he stood, and his eyes widened. The ground

began to tremble beneath them.

Raven glanced down. Cael and Selby stopped fighting.

A faint rumbling sound filled the air. The quaking grew in strength and Raven found

the will to crawl over to her brother. Brayden stepped away from them, nearly stumbling

as he retreated. Cael and Selby separated, their attention now entirely focused on the

dancing pebbles around their boots.

“What…” Selby backpedaled as a tremor split the street open in front of him and

steam rose from the crevasse’s depths. He looked up at Raven, who was now kneeling

beside her fallen brother, a safe distance away. “What have you done?”

Raven did not answer.

She was as shocked as he.

A second chasm split open between them, further separating Raven and Loki from

their attackers. Brayden shook his head. “No… You did this!” he yelled at Raven as he

tried to move away from the yawning holes that were being carved into the street.

However, anywhere he moved, another chasm opened up in front of him, until, finally, he

and Selby were surrounded by steaming, sweltering rifts.

Cael stood to the side, once again immobilized by indecision, his expression one of

abject horror.

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Heather Killough-Walden

And then a clawed hand appeared at the lip of one of the deep openings. And

another. And another. Raven froze in fear and Brayden bellowed in terror as the chasms

surrounding he and Selby were suddenly spilling over with red-eyed, black-clawed

creatures. They crawled from the depths of the rifts, hissing steam making their scaled

skin shine grotesquely. Flames licked at their monstrous feet, egging them further on,

until they stood, a dozen or more, a grotesque circle of evil around Brayden and Selby,

who were now screaming without pause.

Raven watched as the creatures attacked.

She could not look away. She sat there, paralyzed, her eyes glued to the scene as the

beasts pulled her and her brother’s attackers to the lip of one of the giant gashes in the

ground. The flames in the rifts leapt higher, as if hungry for the human prize that awaited them.

Raven’s hand rested protectively on Loki’s head, and she finally glanced down when

she felt him stir beneath her touch. He moaned and retched into the dirt, more blood

finding its way into the puddle beneath him. She put her arms gently around him,

attempting to lift him into a sitting position.

He opened his eyes and looked from his sister to the hellish sight thirty feet away.

His eyes widened. He straightened, astoundingly finding the strength to stand. Raven

pulled herself up beside him, fear making her strong. Her attention once again locked on

the same nightmarish scene.

“You
witch
!” Selby screamed as the creatures brought him to the ground and began

to drag his legs over the edge of the abyss. “Call them off!” He twisted and turned,

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The Chosen Soul

fighting frantically, his manicured hands unable to find purchase in the smooth dirt.

“Help us, Raven! Call them off!”

Raven stared, her eyes as wide as his, as the would-be rapist was finally pulled

completely over the edge. His final scream pierced the twilight air and grew fainter as he

descended further and further into the pit.

Raven began to tremble. Loki pulled her against him and back a few paces as

Brayden was then dragged to the edge of the rift. His cries of desperation were nearly

drowned out by the now roaring flames leaping from the chasm’s depths. At the last

moment, Raven squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears.

She could feel Loki’s grip on her arm tighten and was vaguely aware of his fingers

cutting into the bruises she already possessed.

Raven listened to the roaring of blood through her ears and the pounding of her heart.

Moments passed. Then the ground began to shake once more. Her eyes flew open in time

to see the rifts closing. Steam coiled backwards, flames died down, sinking into the

depths of the chasms from where they had come. There was no sign of Brayden, or the

hellish creatures. Cael had fallen to his knees, his hands over his head, which he was

shaking vigorously from side to side, as if he could make what he’d just witnessed

disappear from his memory if he tried hard enough.

Within another few seconds, the chasms were gone. The ground stopped trembling.

What steam remained dissipated into the atmosphere. The only sounds were those of

Cael’s whimpering.

The young man slowly withdrew his hands from his hair and opened his eyes. He

scrambled to his feet, his gaze once again searching the ground. Then he peered at Raven

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Heather Killough-Walden

and pointed. “You…You did this! What are you – some kind of sorceress? You let

those… those… they took them…” His gaze slipped from hers to the path around him

and he began to move. His steps were cautious at first, as if he was certain the dirt would split from beneath him at any moment. Then, when nothing happened, his steps became

quicker, broader, until finally he was running down the path away from them.

Loki stood silently beside his shivering sister.

“Loki…” she swallowed and tasted blood. “Did I do that?” she asked softly, her

voice barely more than a whisper.

Loki did not answer right away. When she turned to look up at him, his expression

was very grim.

He looked down at her. “Whether you did it or not, you’ll be blamed. The village

council…”

If Raven could have blanched further, she would have. Brayden and Selby were

dead. Vanished. Swallowed up by the devils of Hell. The village council would believe

her to be a witch.

She would be executed.

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The Chosen Soul

The Chosen Soul – Chapter Three

The wet warmth of the mid-summer’s night stuck to Raven and dewed on her skin

like tiny droplets of honey. She itched. Her clothes felt constricting, and the ropes, where they dug into the flesh of her wrists, left her raw with hundreds of miniature scratches.

The bruises that had formed across her cheekbones were tender, but only to the touch. It

was the inside of her mouth, where her teeth had sliced into her cheeks and tongue, that

was sore.

She sighed and, despite the soreness in her muscles, the deep bruised tenderness of

her bones, she rose from the small straw bed in the cell she’d been placed in. She moved

to the barred window, her only connection to the world outside. She wondered about her

brother.

Her wrists were tied in front of her, so she was able to grasp the bars in her hands

and pull herself up onto her toes to peek out into the dark forest beyond. She shivered,

suddenly chilled, despite the seasonal heat.

She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the bars, the day’s events flashing

before her mind’s eye.

Loki had known Cael would run to the village council. Her brother had been injured

badly, though, and needed to get to Haledon’s temple as soon as possible. The Sun God’s

acolytes would be able to heal whatever internal damage he’d sustained. Raven helped

him down the trail to the temple, and Haledon’s healers met them at the door and tended

to his wounds without question.

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Heather Killough-Walden

Loki never let up, begging his sister to run home, pack, and then head into the forest.

As he had lain there, the acolytes casting healing spells over his injured body, he had

pressed her to leave him, telling her that he would catch up later, once he was healed.

She refused.

When Haledon’s acolytes had completed Loki’s restorations, they’d turned to her.

They had only managed to right her broken nose and swelling eyes before the council’s

leaders arrived at the temple, guards at their sides, enchanted weapons in their hands.

Loki rose from the table and stood in front of her.

The council regnant approached her. He was a middle-aged man with a gentle stature