15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

T here was no more merrymaking or song. Those who had been eating and drinking before the brides bewitched them stared at hunks of bread and full glasses of ale with disdain.

Except Dante, who downed the rest of his homebrew in a gulp.

"That's impossible," Khel said, after Zen had finished confessing. " We invited you on this journey. The chances—"

"Make perfect sense if Gaian was luring Zen here, and if he always knew where his book was." Morty held the black-leather tome Zen had retrieved from beside the tree. "The chances are plenty good if he set this in motion."

"And you knew ?" Dante bellowed, throwing his empty bottle into the grass at Zen's feet. It didn't break, but it might as well have for how broken Zen felt in its wake.

He didn't only remember the flashes he'd seen when Gaian fed from him. He remembered his childhood—his first childhood. He remembered his mother and father. They were both darklings. In this life, Zen had been taught that his kind were made from the union of a human and a dark elf, but certainly darklings mated with each other and other races as well.

In essence, Zenos had been a pure darkling, but that didn't change how outsiders to Crestfall had always treated him like trash.

He remembered a lonely, wandering life, seeking adventure outside of Crestfall, but discovering disappointment again and again outside its borders. It was only when he returned home, with his parents long dead, that he met a handsome young human named Enki, who changed everything.

But as much as Zen remembered, it wasn't everything, and what he could recall felt like the remnants of a dream, not truly connected to him. He had loved Gaian once, he truly believed he could again, but he also remembered, as Zenos, fearing what Gaian could become if pushed too far.

"We can't stay here," Xari said, when the silence after Dante's outburst stretched too long. "Gaian and his brides know where we are. Leave the book, and they won't be able to track us." She stood, while Morty clung stubbornly to his tome.

"Leaving the book won't be enough," Zen said. "He can still track me."

"He shouldn't be able to." Xari stared at Zen, but then, one by one, she and the others each darkened with a look of recognition. "Unless… you've fed from him."

"You're a spawn ?" Dante snarled, hands twisting along the handle of his axe.

" No ," Zen swore.

"A bride then?" Morty asked more neutrally.

"Not yet, but I've fed from him twice."

All those gathered gave a collective lean away from Zen.

"You idiot!" Dante leapt to his feet. "Do you want your blood to stain our blades?"

"Dante!" Khel leapt after him, hands outstretched to prevent the axe from swinging, though Dante hadn't truly raised it. "We can't possibly understand what Zen is going through. He has a whole past he didn't know, a complicated history."

"And what about what almost became of us?" With an angry swat at his own neck, Dante indicated the bite marks left from the dwarven bride, Shael, who he never would have allowed touch him so intimately, let alone feed from him, if he'd been in his right mind.

" Almost ," Morty reminded him, rising slower and leaving the book in the grass. "Zen saved us, you'll recall."

"No." Zen shook his head, finally rising as well. Most of Xari's brethren had already started to get up, gathering their things, but they backed away that much farther when he rose. Zen couldn't blame them. "I'm a liability. You should move on without me."

"And leave you for Gaian?" Khel said. "Never. If he turns you, these people are doomed forever."

"Everyone would be doomed," Morty reiterated. "The barrier would fall, and Gaian's horde would wash over the lands."

"It would be better to kill you where you stand," Xari said coolly, hands moving for her mace and dagger.

Guardian growled, close at Zen's side—more Zen's side than Khel's.

"No," Zen said again, this time to Guardian. He didn't want to fight. He didn't want anyone hurt for his sake. "Stand down, please." Zen dropped beside the wolf, but Guardian kept baring his teeth. "She is right to wish my end."

" No ," Khel cried, dropping into the grass with them and spreading his arms like a shield.

The others froze, but Zen could see the intent in Xari's eyes and swirling in Dante's too.

"Zen isn't our enemy. He doesn't have to be." Cautiously digging one hand into Guardian's fur, who allowed the act with a grateful nudge, Khel raised his other hand to clasp Zen's shoulder. "I hoped to save Gaian. Perhaps we still can. Together."

"I don't know…"

"You said you're starting to remember who you were," Morty spoke, more analytical than accusing. "Was he the good man the stories say?"

The first thought that came to Zen was how Gaian had a nature that pulled people in. He'd told Zen that he still visited the villages, not only as part of that initial ruse to seduce Zen, but because he wanted to be with them. And, whether Enki from the past or only days ago, he was always so good with children.

He was also good at felling his enemies.

"Yes," Zen said honestly, "but he had darkness in him then too."

"Who doesn't?" Morty shrugged.

That seemed to please Khel, who squeezed Zen's shoulder.

Dante huffed, still tense, while slowly, Xari dropped her hands from her weapon hilts, seeming honestly sympathetic, however wary.

"Do you think he can be saved?" Xari asked.

If the good in Gaian was real, and Zen believed it was, then the real question was whether it could outweigh the added darkness he'd drowned himself in since he lost Zenos. "I want him to be."

"Then that's what we'll do," Khel said, standing to block Zen from the others should he still need to shield him. "No one is going to harm our friend."

Morty smiled.

Guardian sat back on his haunches, tail wagging.

Dante sheathed his axe—but didn't look very happy about it.

Xari's troupe said nothing, merely returned to gathering their things for the journey ahead, while Xari herself stayed planted.

"You told us Gaian can see through the wolf. We should leave the beast with the book."

"What?" Khel looked around in distress. "But he's… he's loyal."

"To Gaian," Dante growled.

"To me . He's my companion!" Khel insisted.

Morty shook his head, but while Zen would have accepted Guardian's loss, Khel was adamant.

"Guardian comes with us."

"Fine," Xari said, and again, Dante huffed. "If Zen has truly taken Gaian's blood twice, then the vampire lord is already amongst us more than any wolf's eyes would allow. If you trust Guardian, he might be of use.

"Regardless, we need to move. It's not safe here any longer, and if we hurry, we might reach another shrine before morning."

"What about using the mountains?" Morty pulled out his map. "It's far more direct to the castle."

"Too risky. There are settlements inside, and we could be trapped. Best to take the long way. Let's get moving." At last, Xari joined her people in striking the camp. She'd always had a reserve about her, but still some kindness, a smile.

Now, she was a pillar of ice, keeping one eye on Zen.

It hurt worse to think that if Xari had used her holy symbol to test the brides instead of Zen's that no longer held sway over them, all this might have been avoided.

The truth would have come out eventually though, and Dante would still be looking at Zen as he was now—like an enemy.

Khel and Morty tried to comfort him. Morty was even intrigued enough to start not so subtly asking Zen about his past, anything he remembered. There was much Zen could recount, but he still felt detached from it.

In short order, they were ready to move, the last act being to gather the protection rods, which were no longer imbued with Zen's prayer but still held a faint blue light to indicate they were working.

Which was why it was so startling when the last of the rods went out, the darkness thick around them, yet in the shadows, Zen could see eyes —innumerable eyes deep-set in the brows of beasts with rows and rows of teeth.

"Run!" Xari cried before Zen could shout in kind, and the whole of the troupe took off, looking for openings in the swarm that was quickly closing in around them.

The only path that opened was due to one of the creatures launching itself at Xari's fellows and mauling one of them into the ground—but it was an opening, and others ran for it. Some tried to fight and save their friend; others recognized the futility and kept on, like Zen, who sprinted toward safety, though there seemed to be more beasts than trees.

"Guardian, clear the way!" Khel directed the wolf, who listened without question, bounding ahead to snap at any beasts in his way and leading those who fled.

"Behind us!" Dante urged those vying for escape, waiting for enough to get past him, even as he too ran, so that he had a clear shot to hurl one of his alchemy bottles.

This wasn't fire but exploded with a crack of ice that spread for an instant like water before freezing, trapping the feet of a few creatures and making several others slip and tumble.

" Control Water !" Morty shot out a hand, as if it was second nature to respond to one of Dante's ice bombs that way, and the ice jutted up like spikes that impaled the creatures that had been caught, and even some still slipping and trying to move forward.

But there were so many, and Xari's people who had stopped to save their downed friend were being torn apart…

Zen skidded to a stop, staring back at the carnage in horror. Gaian was angry, and he was going to kill them all for what Zen did.

"Please," Zen whispered. "Don't…"

"Zen!"

Khel appeared, seizing Zen's arm and dragging him onward. Zen was lighter without his pack.

He'd forgotten his pack! Zen had his crossbow, his dagger, his belt with the powder and extra bolts, but everything else was lost, though that seemed so meaningless when people were dying.

"There's a cave!" Morty called over the screams and chaos. "An entrance into the mountains!"

"No!" Xari cried back, close at his side as they ran.

"Do you have a better idea?!" Morty rebuffed.

Xari had no answer, and as Dante caught up to them, and Zen and Khel soon caught up as well, Zen nodded for Khel to release him. He could run.

They had to run.

"Someone cover me," Morty went on, running blindly, as he swung his bag forward to start looking through books—without looking at the trees in his path, yet he seemed to always know when one was there and dodged effortlessly.

"We don't have time—" Dante tried.

"We do if it's a spell that matters!"

Some of Xari's people were gone, but enough still fled ahead of them that Xari drew her weapons and turned from Morty's side to take up his rear and defend. She whirled like a dancer, ne'er a hesitation in her motion, dual-wielding mace and dagger like the most angelic of holy warriors.

Zen almost halted yet again, watching the way she cut through beasts as they leapt at her.

When Xari had a moment's pause, she closed her eyes only long enough to center herself and crossed her arms outward to unleash a wave of fire as if from her very essence.

Dark magic, from the Lady of Chaos, for a wizard might summon fire that exploded like a bomb, but someone of the Dark Goddess could control it in a wave that spared the few of Xari's people who might have been caught in it. So, too, were the trees spared where Dante's alchemy wouldn't have been as kind.

Funny how the Lady was called Chaos while actively avoiding it.

"Zen! Focus!" Khel tugged Zen's arm again, and then had to spin and slash out with his sword, using his shield to deflect one of the beasts that might have snapped at Zen's head.

Zen felt useless. More than useless.

Culpable.

This was all his fault…

"Sleep!" Xari cried at the encroaching masses, and instantly, a swath of them crumbled.

That spell Zen knew, a common one among wizards who followed the Twilight God, but it could only affect so many at once.

Dante, too, was hindered, for swinging his axe slowed him while running, so it remained on his back, his feet swift with the occasional pause to throw a bottle—usually one that exploded in a flash of green and made the creatures sizzle when it touched them.

Some of Xari's people were firing bows or slashing out with other weapons to assist, but mostly, they ran. They knew they would share the same fate of the first who'd fallen if they didn't.

"That spell better be worth it!" Khel cried at a still searching Morty, slashing again and again with his sword, but the beasts seemed to be manifesting out of the darkness itself.

"Remember what I told those villagers the night of the festival?" Morty said as calmly as any other time he'd been dedicated to finding the right magic.

" Holy Fire !"

No, Zen didn't think that was—wait!

Zen jerked his head toward Xari, who had spoken, and she was magnificent, a true avatar of Trinity gods, taking power from all three, as her mace lit up with holy light that made the beasts sizzle on impact far faster than Dante's acid.

If Zen was the cause of all this, he couldn't stand idly by.

" Holy Fire !" he prayed in kind, funneling the power into his crossbow as he grabbed it over his shoulder and swung it around to fire. The bolt soared like a shooting star through the night, cutting across the real stars that glittered above, and when it landed, it erupted in an explosion that burned many of the beasts where they ran and threw several others off their course.

Zen never remembered his prayers being that powerful before.

"Bless mine as well!" Khel threw down his sword and shield to pull his bow.

"Caves ahead!" one of Xari's people shouted.

Still running, despite their furious battle, Zen was having trouble catching his breath, winded and weak, likely from more than just the fight. Gaian had drank from him, and with that loss and no time to eat, Zen's vision swam as he prayed once more, " Holy Fire! "

Khel's arrow became a torch, and he pulled it taut to release—

"Ah!"

A beast tackled him.

No, two.

Three.

The arrow loosed into the sky regardless, but it came back only a few yards from me being straight up and down, taking but a handful of creatures with it.

"Khel!" Zen dove for him, dropping his crossbow and pulling his dagger that he once again prayed into, " Holy Fire! " which caused him to see spots. He didn't care, slashing furiously with the holy blade at any part of the beasts on Khel that he could find.

They howled and whined and eventually scampered away, leaving a bloody and unconscious Khel, who barely looked like he was breathing.

" H-Heal …" Zen stuttered, dagger falling from trembling hands as he pressed them to Khel's chest.

For the first time, using a prayer hurt .

"Yes!" Morty cried like a distant echo, even though Zen could have sworn he was close, and a spattering of Magic Tongue spilled from the wizard's lips, ending in a shouted, " Swarm! "

Zen turned just in time to watch a horde of rats form up out of the ground and unleash upon the beasts like locusts.

Zen had to keep healing Khel, but the light from his prayer was dim and didn't seem to be doing anything. He'd felt so powerful unleashing that first infusion of Holy Fire , but with that power came an extra cost, and he'd used it three times, after already healing Morty earlier.

He needed to eat.

He needed to… sleep.

"Quickly!" someone called, but Zen didn't recognize the voice. A woman, maybe?

"More are coming!" Xari warned.

"Our barrier is stronger than rods! Hurry!" urged the unfamiliar voice.

Zen's prayer darkened completely, and he fell forward onto Khel's still chest.

It wasn't enough.

He thought he heard Guardian howl, thought he felt hands lift him, but the next thing he knew was oblivion.