[Ashborn-B1] 46. The Hand of Darkness (Patreon)

XLVI

The Hand of Darkness

Jason wiped a cloth over both of his axes a final time, then glanced into the dark beyond their camp, where the frost peeled off and ended in a precarious drop. “She’s steadfast, I’ll giver her that.”

“She’s a monk,” Bertrand said. When Jason’s expressions didn’t meaningfully change, he added: “Their entire clan name is based on enduring.”

Kane scratched his drooling wolves underneath the chin. “Its only the level disparity that made the hunt easy.”

Jason snorted. “Really? Gaje killed that fake heir of theirs on the first day of the test.”

The firelight of the campfire casted the wolves’s fur in a warm hue.

“I told you to stop using his name so casually,” Kane said.

A chuckle. “Him showing up in your nightmares is a myth, Kane.”

Kane shook his head. He turned to Bertrand with a look that said ‘please help this guy.’

The burly boy only shrugged. “He’ll know he’s wrong when he starts crying for his mommy in his sleep.”

“Whatever.” Jason got to his feet. “I’ll be dipping underneath.” Then he added with a smirk: “Wake me up if our resident monk decides to surface. I’ll look forward to her ‘endurance’ when the pups get to work.”

“Will do.” Kane waved him away as the berserker retreated into the shadows.

That left Kane and Bertrand at the campfire. The two talked for about an hour before their frontliner also tucked in, at which point Kane was left sitting alone.

Fires snapped at the air and stray embers touched Kane’s cheek. The cold didn’t bother him—evident by his lacklustre clothing—yet the frost’s bite always sharpened when you tended to a fire by yourself.

Kane stared into the swaying flames. He could see shadows within. People burning and howling, their wails clawing their way across the night sky—

Sully and Iron nuzzled his legs.

The silhouettes vanished.

Lips curving, Kane scratched the heads of his partners. “Thanks.” He turned back to the fire. Despite his companions’s best effort, the figures reappeared all too quickly.

A hand went to the black prayer bead hanging from his neck. The remembrance of his little sister’s smile as she handed him the chain beat the screams back. Yet fingers dug into the beads. Kane knew karma was on her way. But that didn’t matter to him. He just had to be faster than Her. Fast enough to secure Shina a spot in the main clan—

Sully’s ear twitched. Iron rushed to his feet. Kane followed their snouts into the darkness beyond the treeline, his hand already on the axe strapped to his belt.

The shadows bubbled between the ice. Seconds passed with Kane’s heartbeat entering his throat.

‘I hate how damn silent this place is.’

It left him unable to differentiate between it and the silence left in the wake of a stalking predator.

He glanced towards the sleeping bags of his two mates. Should he wake them?

But Sully and Iron lied back down. Whatever it was, it had gone, evidently deciding they weren’t worth its time.

Kane rolled his shoulders but kept his axe in hand. Carefully, he picked up a stick and stoked the fire. Looking down made him notice the fraying at the edge of his sight. He turned to his wolves. Both had their heads between their paws and tails tightly wrapped around their middle.

“Sully, Iron, what’s wrong?”

They didn’t look up. Didn’t even whimper. Eyes going wide, Kane whipped back around towards the treeline—

The shadow towered at the edge of the ring of light from his campfire. Kane’s gaze moved up a white robe with sun motifs for what felt like an eternity before it reached the warm, lava-coloured strands gently swaying in the dark, which poked from underneath a white shawl. His chest stopped its rise and fall when he reached the eyes. Flames whirled within like a raging sea. Sprinkled along the water’s surface like spices were half submerged souls, their hands outstretched in a desperate attempt to reach any handhold.

[?]

The lack of identification confirmed who this was. He’d been at the briefing.

Long was the moment that stretched between him and the girl. Not even when Kane broke out in a dead sweat did she say anything. Neither did she move, except for her hair. Her orbs read the open book that was his existence, gears turned in her head to dole out a silent judgement on his fate. The worst part was that her face was mask, leaving him unable to guess at what she’d dole out.

“Do you mind if I join you?” The girl’s voice broke the quiet.

He should’ve retreated to the others. At the very least, he should’ve sounded the alarm.

“…N—no,” he croaked.

Instead he watched as she stepped fully into the firelight and sat opposite him. Though she resumed her silence, the quiet didn’t return. They were closer now, so the sight in her eyes was clearer. The figures were no mirage. Kane could hear them, wails a thousand times louder than the ones in his own head.

At his side, his wolves shrunk so heavily they were better off digging themselves into the ground.

The girl tilted her head. “You hear them too.”

Kane swallowed and nodded.

A moment.

Fiery eyes turned to the hill behind them. “The girl. Why did you hunt her?”

His mouth opened and closed. ‘She’d seen that?’ How long had she been following them for?

“Were you close to her? If so, I’m sorry—”

“Answer my question.”

Kane bit his lips. He glanced away to buy himself time to think.

“The curse—”

A twitch in her neck stilled his tongue.

“I need the essence,” he got out through gritted teeth.

“Essence?“ she hummed. “Her level’s not that high…you wouldn’t gain much from feeding her to those two.”

“People like me need everything they can get their hands on.”

“People like you?”

“You wouldn’t understand even if I explained it.”

But she waited for him to expand.

His shoulders sagged. “You’re a Dawnflame, aren’t you? You lot grow up in your pompous castles surrounded by greenery and peaceful wildlife.”

“It’s different where you’re from?”

Kane snorted. “Nothing grows in the Redmaw Wastes.”

“I find ‘nothing’ hard to believe.”

“Feel free to visit anytime you like. If you want, I can take you there once the Tomb ends.”

Far off to the side, a shadow clinging to the ground crawled towards the treeline. Kane kept it in the corner of his vision even as he watched the girl stare at the ground.

“So that’s how you live with hunting so brutally?” she whispered. “Your home is too savage?”

“Where I come from, those who show mercy are the first to dry up. Every drop counts.”

“That mentality will build a lot of bad karma.”

Kane’s hand went to his necklace. “I’ll drown in it if I have to.”

The shadow was almost behind her.

She blinked. “What would be the use of your actions if you die in the process?”

“Others will benefit from my death.” He looked at her then, at the grooves in her otherwise beautiful face which pooled underneath her eyes. He recognised them, for he had them too. “You must not have anyone to chase them away.” A glass of pity filled the hole in his stomach. “The voices.”

From the way a well of darkness deepened the light in her eyes, he was right.

“You’re better off leaving when you still can,” he said. “They’ll eat you alive.”

Did he say that so save her or to keep her occupied? He couldn’t tell.

“I know,” she said.

Kane didn’t look up at Jason’s figure looming behind her, his two axes in hand. His weapons descended—

A squelch like overripe fruit bursting. Kane blinked until his mind accepted what he was seeing. Jason’s arms went limp and his blood dripped down the edge of the golden talon carving straight through the top of his head. It was big enough to exit his from his jaw, curved down, and touch his upper chest.

Only after following the talon to its base did Kane spot the flaming gate behind his friend. The talon snatched Jason into the portal, which left the entrance clear for an instant. Now the raging sea was no longer a concept of the mind but physical. Waves of heat slapped against Kane’s cheeks, among them the screams of those trapped for eternity. Standing tall amongst the poor souls was a tree whose visage burnt Kane to the core.

Unbiddenly, his gaze pulled back to the girl, who was staring into his campfire. She remained motionless as another portal carved through the air and chased away the dark.

“I know,” she whispered.

When the branch of the cindertree crawled into the world, the wolves finally managed to get their muscles working and made a break for it. None of my trees were related to them, so they were free to escape into the dark.

The branch wrapped around the tattooed boy’s ankle, whose listless eyes were staring at the icy ceiling far over our heads. Bare clothes ripped over the rocky, icy floor, which melt under the warm light coming from the other side.

“Stop.”

Wood froze like a hare whose instinct flared.

I breathed in, focused on the expansion of my lungs against my rib cage.

“Let him go,” I said.

The wood unfurled, albeit slowly.

I let the moment stretch, until that familiar sting rose in my stomach. A flash sped through my mind. Warmth seeped out of my skin. The pain was like a pimple swelling with pus, growing more rancid and despicable with each passing second. Then it became a ravenous pit that sunk its hooks in your flesh from the inside and refused to let go. I refrained from bending over and kept my gaze on the corpse.

‘You must not have anyone to chase away the voices.’

Whatever greater purpose his life had, it was moot now. Not because of some coincidence but because I’d made it so.

I let my head sag and breathed in through my stomach.

‘Feel it. The weight. The decision of taking a life.’

It settled on my shoulders and pressed my boots into the ground.

I didn’t know what was right or wrong. But taking a life shouldn’t be glossed over. Even if I was in pain or some outside influence tried to steer me down a path, they could not and should never be the deciding force behind my actions. No longer was I the uninitiated girl stuck in her mother’s estate. Killing was a choice. Just like how people decided to eat animals despite being capable of surviving on a vegetarian diet. That decision had consequences—beneficial or not.

So as my hand raised and I allowed the branch of the cindertree to wrap around the boy, I stared into his lifeless eyes and refused to look away until he vanished completely.

Then the clearing was silent. Silent, except for the cries of dead souls.

Ashwing stepped up beside me, her great wings unfolding as if to shield me from the worst of the rolling wails.

I scratched her feathers. “Thanks, girl.“ Despite the comfort, though, my mind refused to turn brighter topics.

One of my chicks roamed overhead. The darkness blocked most of her sight but faint cries and flashes of light from techniques still reached her.

How many had died during this first day in the Tomb? How many more would meet their end before all of this was over?

Emperor Menethil lounging on his chair as he watched the starfall came back to mind.

‘Such is the price,’ he had said.

The price for our dreams and ambitions.

If the universe truly had a reason for steering us down certain paths, one of them must surely be to answer how far we were willing to go to reach those goals.

It was easy to draw a line in the sand and say: ‘I won’t do anything illegal or immoral.’

But what if that was the only way to head where you wanted to go? What if a quest to all but kill others hid the potential key to your origins?

‘Then you just find another way.’

I chuckled to myself. Maybe it was that easy. But the existence of that ‘other way’ would be very fortunate. There was no point to a hard choice if a third, hidden option existed.

Still, that was no excuse. But I also wasn’t looking for one. I wanted to be sure of the result, which was why I was willing to push ahead despite what was being asked. Did that make me a bad person?

Maybe…probably.

The pill would’ve been easier to swallow if my reasons weren’t wholly selfish. But reason didn’t make an action less heinous. Neither that boy nor his friend cared one bit for why I killed them. It didn’t make then any less dead.

And what did one’s reasoning being selfish matter in the first place? The Emperor’s dream was to be King Under the Heavens and his Flower Wars had killed hundreds of thousands. A goal couldn’t be more egocentric and sinful. Yet centuries later, we heralded him as a strategic mastermind and proclaimed him a hero.

Cold night air entered my lungs. I let it out a shuddering breath. Somehow, my mind felt both clearer and more muddy that before I started this hunt.

I parked my thoughts but didn’t shove them to the side. Even if I didn’t want to, the Tomb would guide me towards an answer. Until I reached that…

I sauntered towards the crevice and peeked over the edge. Bloodied. Covered in sweat. Face down, staring the abyss in the eyes, the monk girl had held on against all odds. Her chin turned up the barest fraction at the rays of warm light straying from Ashwing.

“Need a hand?” I said.

Her breathing paused as pupils settled on my face and adjusted. She didn’t respond, making me scratch my head.

“I’ll just grab you, okay—”

My sentence barely finished when, of course, the girl’s arms finally gave out, and she tumbled into the depths.