Promise of Dusk (Endings #1)

Chapter 24

Mariana

Lightning glints off my blade a second before thunder hides the sound of it decapitating the Crow where he stands watch on the wall between turrets. The feeling of the heavy blade slicing through flesh and bone feels far more jarring than I ever imagined. The sound of it is slick and popping—the sounds of retribution.

The endless dark of night stretches out in all directions, the summer sun having set on the town of Comraich an hour ago. Ominous clouds obscure the moon. Bolts of lightning flash across the night sky.

As his body hits the stone at my feet, I lower back into a low crouch, running along at wall-height. The weight of the blade in my hand, taken from a Crow in the first tower—the first life I took—is heavier than any sword I’ve ever trained with. My left arm strains to keep it in position as I run. I should feel more about it, but all I can think about is bodies hanging, flesh pulled from bone, and eyes picked clean. I wish I could have given him that death .

My bones vibrate with the energy of battle. I’ve already cleared two turrets and this stretch of wall.

I run over my parents’ lessons in my mind. Never let them see you coming. These soldiers have been trained well. They are stronger, faster, more brutal than anyone raised in Comraich. There is no way to drive them out head-on. Not with the few trained fighters amongst us.

Thankfully, a storm is raging. The wind whips through the trees of the forest. The trees hide both foe and friend on either side of the wall, so I stay low. I make it to the other turret, the shadows swallowing me, but if I had to guess, I would say my flaming hair catches any flicker of light in the darkness. I should have covered it with a hood.

My mother fights to clear the other two walls that surround Comraich. Dad is in the town, gathering all who will join us. They can help us fight or they can part ways with our group on the other side of the wall.

Needless to say, he won’t be asking Aled to come.

The tap of metal on stone clinks through me. On instinct, I raise my sword to the noise, ready to volley, and come face-to-face with my mother. I sigh in relief as I lower my sword, not letting it drag on the ground.

“If I were a Crow, you would not have gotten the warning, and you would already be dead,” her voice is harsh but spoken quietly. She looks sleek and vicious in her black leathers, hair tied back in a tight plait. She advances on me with every statement. “Sharpen your mind, Mariana. I need you to be everything we’ve trained you to be. You do not soften. You do not show mercy. You do not let yourself be caught unawares. You are our daughter.” I look slightly down at her. Her voice loses the edge, warmth returning to her eyes, even as they tighten in worry. “I love you, Mar. Please.” She chokes on her words for a second, “Please, be careful. Like my life depends on it, alright? Not yours, mine.”

I nod, face warming.

There is no room for carelessness in a game played with lives.

“Is it clear?” I ask, driving out all whispers of consequence that haunt the edges of my thoughts.

Sharpen.

She nods, an emotionless mask slipping over her usually playful features.

“Onto the next?”

She nods again.

She begins securing a rope to the scuppers that are used for drainage on the outside of the turrets. She doesn’t even look at the ground as she gracefully hops over the wall, lands on the scupper, takes the rope and uses it to rappel down the side of the wall quickly, as though she has done it hundreds of times before. Hell, she probably has.

She hits the ground in a graceful leap. Thunder drowns out the sound of her blade being unsheathed as she slinks into Wynedd. As much as my ears strain, I cannot hear any sounds over the drone of the storm. No sounds of the flaming assassin of Ashvynd unleashing herself on the Crows that dwell in the darkness, awaiting anyone fleeing the persecution of the Crown.

I turn away, faith in her abilities the only thing that allows my eyes to turn away from the spot where she was swallowed by the gloom. I let the raging storm suffuse my bones with its essence, let it drive out fear. Sharpen your mind, Mariana . I do. I am the blade that cuts the air, severs the mind from body. I am the flame of this rebellion, and I will not falter or dim.

When the first of our members meet me at the turret, there is no fear left. There is no room for doubt, as I bring them to the rope hanging down the walls of our home. As I direct the last of the fifty or so rebels to my mother who awaits in the forest, I can feel the tides of the universe, shifting. Some scale in the universe, tipping. No amount of pleading can bring us back.

Not a single step wavers on the way down the stone steps. My father waits at the bottom. The flame of the sconce by the doorway illuminates the ruthless gleam in his eyes that I know is mirrored in my own.

Together we are twin pillars of righteous flame as we swiftly and silently make our way home. I thought it would be difficult, leaving. That saying goodbye to the only house I have ever lived in would drag up fond memories. But I’m bringing my home with me; it’s made of two heartbeats and more memories than the four walls of a house could ever hold. It gives me the strength to grab those few remaining wooden boxes of hard liquor, to slosh a few over the wooden bar, the wooden floors, the beams of polished strength that hold everything together.

The flames devour the thatched roof, roaring over the storm, snapping and consuming every bit of history that wooden house carries when we make the leap to the next rooftop over. The flames follow us as we pick our way from rooftop to rooftop, all the way to the entrance to town. It feeds on the liquor my father sprinkled all over the siding, the rooftops of almost every building in town as he gathered the people of Comraich.

We hear Crows flocking to the source of the fire, running from their posts, from their houses that they commandeered from families that had “turned from the Crown.” Commanding snarls pierce the buffeting noise of flame and storm: “Get to the wells! Fucking drag them from their beds to help. I don’t give a fuck! Where are the fucking humans?”

It’s a spur to our flanks. The entrance to town—a wooden lift-gate—is shut, guarded by two restlessly shifting Crows.

Dad takes a steadying breath, the only sign of nerves in his body.

“I engage. You finish, Mar. They’ll have most of their focus on me, but you take advantage of that,” his voice is a rumble, barely audible over the noise.

I can only nod. The part of me that speaks is somewhere far away, buried under hot vengeance.

Every move we make is tandem, silent, up until the point we drop from the rooftop beside the doorway.

My father is quick, his bulk no hindrance. His movements have always been beautiful, quick as an asp, brutal as a bear, sheer expertise and strength. I’ve always been in awe of him.

Even so, the Crows are faster, more savage, stronger. The clash of weapons rings out even in the massive cacophony made by the fire screaming its destructive mirth.

We have to end this quickly, or more will come. And we will not walk away from it.

I follow the plan.

As my father fights off two at once, his years of experience the only thing keeping him alive, I use their single-minded focus to take one off-guard.

I kick the back of the knee of the closest and duck out of the way as he lashes backwards, blade slicing the air where I once stood.

His focus switches to me, the fierce blows raining down on me harder than any storm.

The blows are so much harder than any I’ve encountered—any my parents have thrown at me, even in the most serious of sparring. They jar through my blade and up my arm, into my shoulder, even when I try to keep my movements sweeping, redirecting the momentum. I meet every one with singular focus and a blazing heart.

He has me on my back foot so quickly my parents would be ashamed.

And the anticipation that sparkles in the black chasm of his eyes says he knows it—is reveling in it.

I cannot spare a glance at my father.

Sharpen your mind, Mariana.

I try. I do.

The breath I heave into my lungs is stuttering and shattering in my chest.

His blade slices just under my cheekbone as I lean back to avoid it.

Better than going through my neck.

My warm blood is running down my cheek, my neck, burning in the cold wind.

I breathe in and sharpen.

Sharpen my mind. Sharpen my eyes, my perception, sharpen my movements. Sharpen everything that makes up my body.

The dead body in the corner of my vision gives me hope.

And the flurry of blows I give back are enough. Enough to give me a modicum of confidence.

Enough to give my father an opening.

His longsword pierces through the front obsidian armor just as the Crow has his blade up to block my own.

The battle ends with a choke and gurgle, shocked black eyes meeting my triumphant ones.

There is heat at our backs and rage-filled cries coming towards us from afar—the heat of flame driving Crows towards the exit—the only exit—slowly but surely.

There are no words said as we work in tandem to open the gate.

There is only years of sparring, laughter, and love to guide every mirrored movement. Four blue eyes that dance at a plan well-executed.

We slip through the slight opening and grab the flaming torch from the sconce beside the gate.

Liquor bottles are sitting there, awaiting us. We go back in and douse the inside with as much as we can before setting it alight from the other side.

The gate becomes a flaming pyre, a closed door to this room of desecrated lives and hope.

It will take a while for all of this to burn to the ground. I look back at the flames licking up the sides, moving to the top of the carved gate. I can feel the heat emanating from the town, even as my father and I run to our meet-up point.

I hope their blood boils in their veins.