Blood for Honor

I bolt upright in a cold sweat. Disoriented, I look through the darkness around me. A mass of trees surrounds me, but nothing is familiar. I do not recognize the forest, and I do not know how I got here.

These are not my woods.

The waxing moon shines down on me, dimly illuminating the expansive and unknown pine forest. Still, I can make out every twig and leaf as if it were daylight. The area was cleared recently by fire, and sparse new growth has already sprung up with the absence of the pine straw floor of the forest.

Ash coats my backside from being on the ground, staining the tattered leather of my pants black as I attempt to brush it off. My hands go still, and I stare down at my torn shirt and pants, trying fitfully to remember something.

What happened? These clothes were in good condition when I put them on. And where is my coat?

Confused, I run my hand over my loose hair. It is dreadfully knotted and greasy, hanging loose from my usual braid.

What the hell happened?

The forest sounds grow louder around me as if the volume of the world is slowly being turned up. With it comes the sound of purposeful footsteps striding toward me, growing ever closer. I reach for my blades, but my belt is missing, along with my sword and dagger. No rucksack in sight either.

The bare forest floor offers me no concealment other than the pine trees. I scamper behind a relatively large tree, trying to determine from which direction the sound comes. The noise bounces off of and around the trees, melding together with seemingly no particular point of origin.

What am I doing here?

I do not expect an answer and jump involuntarily as that same voice from before speaks again.

For your piece of the puzzle—the key.

Well, that is not comforting, only confusing. Not to mention crazy. Puzzle? Key? I cannot help but question this seemingly free-thinking voice in my head.

The key to your progression.

What progression? I get no answer in response.

The footsteps approach, and I have no place to run. I lean up against the tree I try to hide behind, fear bubbling in the pit of my stomach. I grasp desperately at the hope that maybe it is dark enough for me to be overlooked, but it is a feeble hope—the growing light of the moon is bright enough tonight to illuminate my face, even filtering through the tree canopy as it does.

I pause as the realization hits me. That moon was beginning to wane the last time I looked up at the sky. Now it looks to be only a few days away from being full again. It takes around three weeks for that.

Three weeks.

What the hell?

Carnegie Lysander steps through the trees, nearly dragging me screaming from my mind. His vibrant eyes bore into my own as he pockets a black box. I feint right, making a break for it, but Carnegie is fast—impossibly fast. His leather-clad fingers close around my arm before I can even get ten steps away. He yanks me backward, slinging me to the ground.

I grunt on impact more out of frustration and fear than pain. The soft ground pads my fall, and I quickly push myself up. My fingers grope for anything I can use as a weapon on the charred forest floor. They close around a blackened but pointed pine branch. I hold it out in front of me defensively, as if it could do that much damage.

Desperation makes fools.

Drop it, the voice in my head says softly.

No. I can kill him now and be done with all of this. I am talking to a voice in my head. This is crazy.

I am crazy.

“You won’t need that,” Carnegie says, motioning at the stick.

I glare at Carnegie, ready to shove the stick in his eye. “Why are you here?” I demand, matching his smug demeanor with malice.

Carnegie feigns hurt at my words. “What, I can’t check in on you? See how you are doing after everything?” He speaks as though we are old friends.

“No,” I growl, actively searching for the opportune time to strike with the meager stick in my hand. The charred thing will surely snap after the first strike. I have to make it count.

Carnegie ignores my hostility. “It’s time to go home.”

“Really?” I ask with a sneer, trying to keep my emotions under control. “Why?” If looks could kill, my revenge would be made so much easier.

Carnegie holds out a large silver signet ring in the palm of his hand. He speaks three simple words, freezing me in place and rendering me unable to process the thought of trying to kill him.

“Damian is dead.”

My eyes lock on Damian’s ring in Carnegie’s palm, engraved with the Blackthorn crest. The metal shines dully in the moonlight against the backdrop of Carnegie’s black glove, entrancing me.

I have never seen my brother without it, not once since he passed the initiation into manhood and received it as his prize at the age of twelve. The coyote is engraved with such precision as not to miss a detail, including the snarling teeth.

Unshed tears pool in my eyes as Carnegie reaches over to grab my hand, ignoring the stick still in the other. I do not strike out, but I weakly attempt to jerk away from his touch unconsciously, captivated by the ring as I am.

Carnegie holds fast until I stop resisting him and places the ring in my palm. He closes my fingers over the cold metal, and I stare wide-eyed at him. His ice-blue eyes keep me frozen in place, like a mouse mesmerized by the cat cornering it.

“This is merely a piece of the puzzle—the key to your progression. It’s all a part of the bigger plan,” Carnegie says innocently.

My heart skips a beat. “What?” I ask, astounded at his word choice. I must have heard him wrong.

Carnegie’s grin widens, but he ignores my question. “Drop the stick, Iylara,” he says, a strange quirk to his voice.

My hand moves of its own volition, and I drop the stick without hesitation at his command.

“Good girl,” he says with a genuine smile.

I jerk as if prodded with red-hot metal, coming back to myself. The same sensation that led me out here in the first place fades, and tears well up in my eyes.

“Why did I—” I ask, looking at the stick lying at my feet, then back at Carnegie with wonder—and complete terror.

“Because in the end, you will always do what I want,” he says, leaning close to me as if it is our little secret.

Something clicks in my brain almost audibly, and words once forgotten come rushing back to me. Sooner or later, you will do exactly what I want you to do, whether you want to or not.

I choke back a frantic sob as the visage of Damian, beaten bloody and dragged off to his death, flashes before my eyes. I sink to my knees with a moan, clasping my hands in front of me with my brother’s ring between them. Carnegie stands back, watching me patiently as forgotten memories play in my mind, paralyzing me. Agonizing seconds pass before there is a finality with the feeling of cold water covering my face. I jerk with a gasp, the familiar sensation of suffocation taking my breath away.

Despite how horrible they are, I should be glad to have my memories back. But knowing the truth is worse than living in blissful ignorance because it solidifies Carnegie’s claim.

My brother is dead.

My grief once again clouds my mind, but the burden of forgetting something eases. And yet it does not disappear completely, and I now have more questions than answers.

“It will all make sense soon, but until then, know that if you ever need me, just holler,” Carnegie says with a devilish grin. The quirk in his voice comes back as he adds, “Go home.”

I am incapable of speaking, as if I have lost the ability to form words completely. I nod my head, unable to control myself. I will do exactly as he says, and I have no idea why.

What is happening?

That single question is the only one I can form in my tormented mind.

Carnegie turns to walk away but stops mid-step to glance at me over his shoulder as if stopping to answer my unspoken question. “Tu seras mia, mi amor,” he says in a velvety voice with a sideways smirk.

He turns on his heel, disappearing into the woods with a swirling of black coat-tails, leaving me in shock.

“Oh my God.” My voice comes out in a whisper as that now familiar voice floods my mind. The voice that called out to me from the dark in a language I did not understand.

I have been listening to the same voice since I ran off without question. Uneasily, yes, but that is beside the point.

Now, uncannily, I understand what the words mean before he speaks them in my mind, his voice now all too familiar. How I never recognized him before is beyond me.

You will be mine, my love.

It takes the rest of the night and half the morning, but I step foot through the newly repaired South Gate at around ten o’clock. There is barely any recollection of the journey home, and I have no idea how long it has been since I ran off into the woods.

Three weeks. No, that can’t be right.

I stop mid-step, looking back at the progression of the repairs in the South Gate Courtyard. Nearly complete buildings have been erected in the place of what was lost in the fire.

That isn’t something that can be done in a few days. But, if possible, more pressing matters distract me from that troubling thought. For one, Damian’s ring bounces against my leg in my pocket, never letting me forget Carnegie’s words.

"Damian is dead.”

With those words, my grief has resurfaced, becoming a constant companion trailing after me. But it cannot hold a candle to the torment raging inside me over the voice in my mind. Not to mention my inability to do anything other than drop the stick and walk home after Carnegie told me to do so.

I never stopped walking—merely continued like it was the very thing I wanted, but I did not want to return. I also did not personally know the way home, but my feet sure did.

Damian’s ring triggered something inside of me. I can remember all too clearly what happened when I was taken, but the pain of Danny’s death is somehow muted inside of me now. The loss of Damian is fresh. I do not want to face my father and tell him his son is dead, but I must because he deserves to know.

Remembering what happened is much more than seeing Damian to solidify Carnegie’s claim. It is also the realization that he did something to me, and I have no idea what. All I know is that the one person I want to kill is also the same person invading my mind—who can control me. None of it makes sense.

Whispers and pointed looks follow me as I walk the path toward my father’s home, and I am all too aware of how I must appear. I pick up the pace, nearly running for my father’s cabin.

“Ma’am?” the gate guard asks, surprised to see me as I skid to a halt outside the closed gate. “Where have you been?”

“Around,” I say with a wave of my hand. The guard raises an eyebrow but does not question me further. “I must speak with my father,” I say, pushing through the gate without waiting for him to open it.

“Chief Vance is in the War Room, ma’am.”

I slowly turn at his words. “Why?” I ask, dread flitting around like butterflies in my stomach.

“Some men showed up before dinner last night asking for a meeting with him. He has been entertaining them all night,” he says.

My brow furrows. “Charon?” I ask.

I am afraid of meeting Carnegie again, but I know it will not be him. This is something else.

“No, ma’am. They go by Vesper,” he says.

“Thank you,” I say. Turning around, I head for the War Room on the northwest side of the village, near the creek, trying my hardest to ignore every confused look that comes my way.

I hurry down the carved dirt steps overlaid with wooden planks but stop at the bunker door, my hand outstretched to touch it, but only just. With a deep breath to prepare me for the inevitable, I place my hand upon the stone door, much like the one leading into the safe house. The stone pricks my fingertips, and the heavy door swings open on silent hinges after absorbing the droplets of blood.

The narrow hallway opens up to a domed room. Roots hang from the ceiling, and the walls are lined with hardwood bookshelves. The smell of damp earth permeates the air in a thick haze, and a slight water leak trickles down the back wall. The water collects in the sunken dirt floor that restrains the muddy puddle on the floor underneath.

Large leather-bound volumes fill the shelves, with even more stacked on top. Most books were destroyed during the Great War, making my father’s collection one of the largest in the region, or the world for all we know. But nobody is keeping tabs on that sort of thing these days.

Charts and maps cover a large oak table in the middle of the room, and the space glows in the yellow light of wall sconces made from goat horns. My father stands huddled around the table with three men, deep in conversation.

My father looks up at the sound of my echoing footsteps. His eyes widen as they land on my silhouette in the mouth of the hallway. “Iylara, where the hell have you been?” he asks, disregarding the other men.

“That doesn’t matter right now,” I say, causing him to raise an eyebrow questioningly. “Can we speak in private?” I glance between the men, and the oldest stands straight with pursed lips as if aggravated that I interrupted.

My father grits his teeth, failing to restrain the frustration in his voice as he speaks. “Gentlemen, will you please wait outside for a moment?”

“Sure,” the oldest says. “Don’t be too long,” he adds coldly.

I openly glare at the men as they walk by. The disrespect in the older man’s voice sparks a disdain in me for him immediately. His is peculiar in more ways than one, including his choice of dress.

The man’s attire matches what I imagine a suit to look like from before the Great War. I have only ever seen such a thing in picture books my mother once read to me as a child. Seeing one in person solidifies my impression that they are stiff and uncomfortable.

The dark gray of his suit brings out the silver in his gray-blue eyes and perfectly styled chocolate hair. As he walks by, my glare fades into a frown as his eyes land on me. Something is familiar about them, and that nagging pull to recall something I have forgotten scratches at the edges of my mind again.

Once the door shuts, my father looks hard at me, and the feeling vanishes. Amid the disappointment and frustration, there is relief in his eyes. “Then what does?” he asks, voice softer than before but still rough and hardened with exhaustion.

I cannot find the words to speak and reach silently into my pocket instead. I pull out Damian’s ring and lay it on the table.

“Oh God, no!” His voice is barely audible, but I can hear the pain he cannot contain at the sight of his son’s ring. He knows the chunk of silver well, having been the one to put it on Damian’s finger.

Tears spring up in my eyes at the torment in his voice. My father carefully takes the ring, holding it in his palm as he gazes mournfully at it. “I knew it,” he says, shaking his head, “but I didn’t want to believe it.”

“I’m sorry, father.” It is hard to speak through the lump in my throat.

I never believed Damian was dead until I did, but somehow my father already knew. I merely brought the evidence. I feel wretched inside. If I had stayed in the safe house when he told me to, my brother would still be alive.

My father stares at the ring for a few silent moments before speaking. “We will grieve properly in due time.” He swallows hard and takes a shaky breath, forcefully replacing the sorrow on his face with determination.

I do not understand how he does it. Maybe he has already cried all the tears he will shed for his only son in private. It is the only reasonable answer.

“We have to look at what lay in front of us, and those men are from a group called Vesper. They are not part of any war clan like we are. They prefer diplomacy over fighting and want to speak with us, Blackthorn and Charon alike, on neutral ground.”

Through the sadness threatening to overwhelm me, fury rises at the thought of diplomacy with Charon. The world would be much better off without the lot of them. “You mean to say you will just sit down and talk peace with those bastards? Like nothing has happened? Like no one has died? Like—” I close my mouth before I say something I cannot explain. Something I cannot tell my father.

Carnegie needs to die, and now for more reasons than mere revenge. If he is dead, he cannot invade my mind. There is no way in hell that we could live peaceably together now. But my father can never learn about this. I don’t know what he would do if he found out I have been compromised.

If I were not the only surviving child of my father with a duty to uphold, I would disappear into the woods again and off myself—save everyone the trouble that may come upon us because of me. Since I cannot do that, I must not let Carnegie get the chance to use me against my people—while keeping the truth of our strange connection to myself.

Under normal circumstances, my tone would anger my father. But now, his voice is softer, almost pleading. “If Charon agrees, we need to go and listen to what they have to say.” The lack of backlash stuns me. He steps around the large table, hugging me before I can protest. “We will need to talk about where you have been later. When the cabin first caught fire, I thought you were in it.”

I stiffen under his touch but relent to wrap my arms around his broad back. I will try to avoid that conversation, but it won’t be easy.

“How long was I gone?” I ask into his shoulder, barely audible.

He pushes me away to study my face. “Three weeks,” he says after a moment. His eyes have a questioning look, but I watch it fade as he replaces his concern with the business before him. “I need to talk to these men some more. Vesper wants to end the fighting before it begins, bring us all together.” My father heads for the chair next to the table, sitting down with a grunt.

“What did they offer you?” I ask, knowing there must be something in it for him. He has never been eager to drop arms against anyone before, especially Charon.

My father looks at me thoughtfully, mulling over his words. He averts his gaze, taking a deep breath. “Peace of mind,” he says after a moment.

Something about how he refuses to look at me now sends a nervous tremor down my spine. It is a pretty evasive answer, and I cannot help questioning him.

“Don’t you think the people should have a say in whether we fight or not?” I ask. “You can’t decide this without presenting it to them first.”

My father nods, still avoiding my gaze. “Yes, but first, I need to talk to Luther and his advisers some more. What the people want may not be what is best for them.” The tone in his voice all but screams, ‘No more questions.’

There is no point in arguing with him over this at the moment, but he is crazy if he thinks I will drop the subject entirely.

“I will see you later then,” I say, saving my argument for later.

“Alright, sweetheart,” he says gruffly. My father’s eyes meet mine once more, but it is like he is looking through me rather than at me. “Send the men back in, please.” He smirks at me, but his grin doesn’t meet his eyes. “And go take a bath. You stink,” he adds with a wrinkle of his nose.

I sniff my armpit with a huff. “Sure thing.” He isn’t lying.

I hesitate, realizing something. I turn back to face my father. “Where is Jai?” He should be here for peace talks—or any kind of talks.

My father falters, and my heart starts to beat faster. “Luther didn’t want him here.”

My eyebrows nearly disappear into my disheveled hairline. Jai has never been absent for something as important as this.

“It’s okay,” my father assures me—or tries to. I am not assured in the slightest. This all feels very wrong. Jai is a voice of reason—the voice of reason—against my father’s own very unreasonable voice.

I withhold my question under the heavy dismissal in my father’s stern eyes. He will not give me a straight answer. Not yet.

Stepping outside, I turn to the formal-looking man waiting on the left side of the door, assuming he is Luther.

“You can go back in now,” I say snidely.

“Finally,” he says, disappearing inside once again. The other two men remain silent as they follow him.

Jerk.

The door shuts behind the men, and I shuffle off with a swirling storm of anxiety in my belly.

I hope my father knows what he is doing.