Scarlet Seas

The road to Dail was lined with the corpses of those who had bedded Cassadans, as well as their mixed-breed offspring. I have never seen a grislier sight. It seems all Cassadan blood has been purged from the Chieftains and their loachs, but many have used this excuse for wanton violence to take vengeance against their neighbors and rivals, claiming Cassadan blood when plainly they are of pure Illian stock. Hunger has made the people of these lands desperate and mad, and there is nowhere else for them to direct their fury. I have been accosted many times and threatened with violence in every town we pass through. If not for your warriors, I would have been nailed beside the others. – Scribe Luka’s Report to High Chieftain Aile, year 438.

Amon realized the blows had stopped at some point, but he kept himself curled on the ground, as small as he could make himself, breathing in the stink of mud.

He could be waiting just a foot away, ready to strike again the second I open up.

It was the first coherent thought in what seemed a long while, though it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes because the sun hadn’t disappeared quite yet.

Shock and pain had narrowed his awareness, but it began to widen again. He heard birds chirping and flitting through the trees. No human noise out there but his own breathing. His whole body seemed to ache and throb with each heartbeat. Particularly his right leg, already swelling up just above the knee. When Kessen had realized he couldn’t get to the softer parts of him, he’d decided to keep hammering that one spot with one savage kick after another.

He didn’t move, though. His heart spiked in anticipation of another blow.

He might actually kill me. He could beat me to death right here in the road.

Rumors followed Kessen. Rumors of dead and tortured thralls. Amon had never been able to verify those, but he’d witnessed other acts of cruelty and didn’t doubt the stories in the slightest.

He waited more and nothing came.

His father’s words came to him as he lay in the mud, the ones voiced to him on that last journey from Cassada to Illia years ago, on the decks of a dragon ship.

You’re a wolf, his father had said. Don’t ever forget that. The moment you do, they’ll make a sheep out of you. Even if they beat you, you fight. With your last breath, you make sure they know you’re a wolf.

His father, the great Chieftain Kadoc, had said those words to him after learning Amon had let two older boys steal his prized knife. He didn’t think Kadoc had ever been so disappointed in him. He hadn’t been disappointed about the robbery. There was no way Amon could have beaten the older, larger boys. He was disappointed Amon hadn’t fought back.

When his father had said those words, Amon really had believed he was a wolf, that it was his birthright to be so. He’d sworn he’d always be a wolf from that day forward.

And here he was, badly beaten, lying in the mud, cowering in anticipating of more brutality, on the land he should have rightfully owned.

Some wolf.

Twigs snapped. Someone fumbling through the underbrush. Not Kessen, though. He opened his eyes at last.

Lucia stumbled out of the woods. A scratch etched a bright red line under one eye. The branches and thorns had ripped at her clothes, too, exposing patches of smooth, brown skin.

In an effort to restore some semblance of dignity, Amon pulled himself up to a sitting position and tried his best to look casual.

She paused for a moment to take the sight of him in, eyes widening. She ran to him. “Amon!”

“Nice seeing you here,” he said. He tasted blood when he spoke.

She knelt beside him, lightly tracing her hand over his blossoming bruises.

Almost worth the beating for that.

Lucia’s eyes grew wet. Her lips curled downward. Anger, frustration, sadness warred in her expression. “I’m so sorry, Amon. I should have kept my mouth closed.”

Amon groaned as he pulled himself a little more upright, his back feeling as if it been turned to pulp. “I should have killed him.”

As if you could.

Lucia’s eyes widened. “Don’t say that! He would have killed you if you tried to fight back.”

Amon looked away. He couldn’t meet her eyes in that moment. He was too ashamed. Fighting was probably what his father would have done, what he would have wanted Amon to do.

But the painful truth was that his father had been wrong. He was no wolf.

Lucia cupped one hand to his face, forced him to look at her. “You did the right thing, Amon. Fighting would have been foolish. Can you walk back?”

Amon met her eyes this time. He looked for signs of her true feelings there. She must have thought him a coward, but if she did, her eyes didn’t betray it. He forced himself up and found he could walk, though his leg threatened to buckle with every step.

Lucia eyed him with concern, as if he might topple. He wasn’t sure if he would or not, but he channeled his shame into an iron determination to walk into town on his own two feet.

“What will we do, Amon? I won’t spy on anyone for him. I think we need to tell Odrin somehow. He would never allow something like this.”

Amon had tried not to think about Kessen’s demand, but there was no dancing around it. They would have to discuss it before they reached home. “Kessen was right. Odrin won’t be with us for much longer. Then the Chiefdom goes to Slaine and the two of them will be able to do whatever the hell they want. I don’t think we can go to the old man.”

Lucia scoffed “That pig doesn’t deserve to be Chieftain. I don’t think Odrin will let him rule. How could he ever let an idiot like that take over?”

Cassadans never seemed to grasp Illian customs. Chieftains couldn’t simply pick their successors the way Cassadan lords and kings did. “If he doesn’t, it will probably start another war. One Beckhead can’t win. Not to mention he would be turning against his own daughter.”

“Something tells me Slaine and Kessen will bring war to this place anyway,” she said. “If we can’t go to Odrin, what do we do?”

She might have been right about that. “I don’t know, but we need to be careful, Lucia.”

She turned sharply to him. “You wouldn’t spy, would you?”

Amon didn’t think he could possibly feel any smaller after that humiliating beating, but he was wrong. She really thought he might do it. That burned, but worse was knowing she was right. Spying for Kessen might mean the difference between life and death for both of them. He had no doubt he’d live up to his promise and make their lives miserable. He couldn’t see any way out other than to play his games.

“No, of course not!” he lied.

Another sickening thought arose. It was vile, yet he couldn’t deny its merits.

I could spy for both of us. She doesn’t have to know. She can keep her honor and loyalty. I’ll sacrifice mine. Most of the thralls hate me anyway.

It could work. He was already an outsider among his own people, being half Illian. He didn’t have as much of a life to lose as she did. Besides, he would give Kessen only minor, useless details. A few small, inconsequential betrayals to save both their lives didn’t sound so bad.

But if it wasn’t so bad, why did the thought of it make him feel like he’d just swallowed poison?

The thrall village came into view just as the final minutes of sunlight were fading.

The cluster of dilapidated huts – some hardly more than lean-tos and animal-skin tents – was the closest he had to home these days. The village was set back among the woods at the very edge of Beckhead’s arable land. The cook fires were burning now, scenting the air with cabbage soup and woodsmoke. The stream that ran through the woods nearby was filled with thralls, washing off the day’s dust and grime by torchlight.

This place might have been his closest facsimile of home, but he still received a few nasty looks from a group of young teens as they made their way toward the huts. He couldn’t ignore it entirely – being unwelcome among his own people never sat well – but he pretended he hadn’t noticed their scorn anyway nonetheless.

That’s how it was here. He wasn’t the only mixed-blood thrall in Beckhead, but there were few enough around and none fully accepted by the community. Tolerated, maybe, but not accepted. They served as reminders of the trauma that had ruined Cassada and brought them all here. Both sides disliked mixing with the enemy’s blood. Amon was the byproduct of an abomination, as far as they were concerned.

And they didn’t even know who his real father was. They’d have torn him to pieces if they had.

They passed cookfires, where huddled thralls muttering in low voices, as if worried someone might overhear. He could almost smell the despair that hung over this place, and he could read it in some of their faces.

The news must have reached here already, then. In the distance, someone wailed with grief.

A scraggly, bearded Cassadan named Teo scowled at Amon as he walked past. He thought he saw the threat of violence in that look. People always became nastier toward him when bad fortune struck.

Something in Amon ached at being seen as one of the enemy. It was like prodding an old wound that had never healed properly. Still, he found he couldn’t blame them. They all hated what their lives had become, what the Illians had done to them, but for years they’d taken comfort in the knowledge that the Eternal Storm had ended the Long Reaving. At least their loved ones who survived the brutality would live in peace at the other end of the Scarlet Sea, assuming they had defeated the small Illian garrisons left behind.

That was over now. Their last bit of comfort, cold though it was, had been replaced with a new horror.

And I did it. I ended the Storm.

Maybe he was the enemy. He’d never meant to be, but maybe it didn’t matter what people meant. It only mattered what they did, and what rippled out from their actions.

What would they do to him if they knew?

Probably the same thing they’d do if they knew who he really was – nail him to the nearest tree.

What would Lucia do?

He didn’t want to think about that. She had never treated him differently for his Illian blood and his father’s looks. Maybe spying for Kessen to save her was the only way he could ever repay that kindness.

“Amara!” Lucia called out.

She was just stepping out of the small hut she shared with a group of other older women. She’d stopped to smooth out the wrinkles of her apron, as she always seemed to be doing. She’d tied her silver hair back, slung her bag of medical supplies across her shoulder. She was probably just stepping out to make her usual nightly rounds and tend to whoever might need her services. She looked up, saw Amon’s state, and rushed immediately. Her eyes fixed on him with concern, but she never lost her perpetual calm.

The sight of her nearly brought tears to Amon eyes. She had been looking particularly thin lately, but today she seemed like nothing but bones. She’d always had a bird-like appetite but had recently cut back even less so there would be a little more to go around for the children. It was painful enough to see her whittling herself away, but knowing he had just created a new world of suffering for her crushed him completely.

He couldn’t let it show, though. He needed to hold himself together until he could repair this. And he would repair this. At least seeing her gave him a boost of resolve.

She put a hand gingerly on his arm. “Amon, tell me what happened. Lucia, let’s get him inside.”

She didn’t give him much time to answer before unleashing a dozen other questions about his various injuries and pains.

No, he decided, even as he answered her. He couldn’t tell Amara what he’d done. He didn’t think she could help him anyways and the process of telling her would hurt more than he could bear. He would have to figure out how to recreate the storm on his own and he had an idea of how he could do so.

It wasn’t much of a hope, but it would have to do. He held onto it dearly.