Shadow Assassins (The Second Realm Trilogy) (18 page)

Kaydee returned to the land of the living on a scream that ripped the night apart.

There was a flurry of activity around her. The man and woman who had been sitting calmly around a campfire were suddenly up, as if they had been shot, instantly alert. The man instantly drew a sword but the woman's eyes lit on Kaydee instead.

She saw the two before her and fixated on the weapon. Her mind flashed back to that awful coliseum and how she had killed that fire mage. All she could see, hear and smell was that horrendous place filled with death and suffering. Another scream bubbled from her lips but this time the woman dove at her, her hands covering Kaydee's mouth.

“Are you stupid? Stop screaming, unless you want to attract every bandit this side of the Isle Dark!” she hissed.

Once the screaming had died down to a confused whimpering, the woman removed her hands and asked if she was okay. Like Kaydee could really answer that. Was she okay? She had just been forced to participate in one of the most barbaric things imaginable!

“Better?” the woman
asked, voice low.

Kaydee drew in a shaky breath and nodded slowly. Her voice sounded weak when she spoke. “I'm sorry.”

“You're fine. Just don't scream like that again,” the woman said. “Damn near gave me a heart attack. My name is Leta, by the way. Leta Gerard. We rescued you from the Death Games earlier.”

She remembered. Kaydee remembered the commotion the two of them had caused.
The woman, Leta, the ice mage who had frozen the guards where they stood. She glanced over at the man she had witnessed killing effortlessly, demanding to know where some woman was. Was she the woman? It was an absurd thought but the glimmer of hope blossomed in her for the first time in days.

“Thank you,” she said, belatedly. “Where are we?”

“Outside of Govoya, thank God. My companion Atrimalous, here, caused a city-wide riot when he interrupted their precious death games. We've been on the run for a while. Most of the people stopped chasing us outside the city walls but there are always those stubborn people.” Leta's eyes glimmered in the firelight. “Apparently, you're the one Atri has been looking for.”

The man beside her, Atrimalous, instantly snapped at her for use of that disgusting nickname, as he put it. When he turned to Kaydee, all he said was, “I was supposed to rescue you,
that's all.”

“Well, thank you for it,” she said, meaning every word of it. She tried sitting up slowly and realized that there was a thin knit blanket over her. Under her was a horse-hair blanket protecting her from the hard dirt
ground. “Er, where did you say we were, exactly?”

After remembering that the ancient seer had said that this girl was from the First Realm and not the Second, Leta said, “We're in the Second Realm, on the Isle Dark.
Currently between that barbaric city Govoya and our hometown, Siiati. We've been traveling by horseback for a good portion of the day. You've been recovering through all that time. Personally, I wish I could sleep through all the racket, but then again, you did have a trying day.”

It was a day she didn't want to think about. It wasn't the way she had imagined her trip to the Second Realm going, either. Dirk had never mentioned anyone kidnapping and selling her to a barbaric sort of game.

“I need to find my friends,” she said suddenly. “But I don't know where they could be.”

“Are they from the First Realm, too?”

She was surprised that this strange woman knew, but nodded and described her friends to them. When neither Leta or Atrimalous could recall seeing anyone who looked like that, her shoulders slumped in disappointment.

“Don't worry,” Leta said. “The Second Realm is big. If you found us, I'm sure your friends are in good company, too. Now, why don't we get some food in you?”

Kaydee glanced towards the campfire, where a small rig had been set up to hold a pot. The faint smell of vegetables wafted over to her and she realized that she was starving, having had so little to eat on that trader ship.

Leta was kind to her, offering her a bowl of food and an invitation to join them at the fireside. She couldn't have been that much older than Kaydee but she was motherly, or at least sisterly, to someone who was a total stranger. The kindness was a vast change from what she had been exposed to in the past few days. When she asked if everyone was like the men she had encountered, Leta shook her head, explaining that the Gypsa would sell their first born child for the right price. The Gypsa fed into a lot of the so-called prisoners at the Blood Coliseum, as it was called. The announcer was correct in a way, the Coliseum was used to put prisoners to death, but lately, with under-the-table types of sales like what Kaydee had been roped into, there were a lot more innocent people being put to death for crimes they didn't commit. The citizens of Govoya didn't care who was innocent or not, as long as they got their daily bloodshed.

“Thank you for rescuing me,” Kaydee said once more.

“Thank Atrimalous. He's been on a hunt for you for the past few days.”

She turned to him. “Why were you looking for me?”

The man looked surprised at being addressed, but his amethyst eyes narrowed. “If I hadn't, you would have died,” was his only answer.

Kaydee looked like she was expecting more of an answer, but Leta told her not to mind his behavior.

“He's a man of few words, you see. I'm lucky if I even get an insult out of him.”

Kaydee saw Leta's smirk, but there was also a truth to those words that she could see. She ate her vegetable soup silently, thinking that the two in front of her had a long history that she was intruding on. Either way, she was grateful that they had found her. If they hadn't, she would have joined that fire mage soon after in death. If she had collapsed while still fighting, she would have been dead in three seconds...

“Don't think about today,” Leta said, seeing the expression on Kaydee's face. “You've had enough to worry about. You're safe now and that's what matters. Eat up.”

After their meal had been consumed, Leta cleaned up around the campfire, then turned to Kaydee. “Get some sleep soon. We're riding to Siiati first thing in the morning.”

Kaydee nodded faintly, watching as Leta pulled a small sleeping pack from her horse. The pack consisted of no more than a similar horse hide blanket, wool cover and pillow but it was enough for her to get comfortable on the dirt ground. Soon the ice mage was asleep beside the fire.

Kaydee tried to follow suit but sleep wouldn't come to her. Try as she might, when she closed her eyes, all she could see was that awful tournament. She saw people with fear in their eyes and death on their hands running in all directions – to the next opponent or away from the others. Worse than that, she saw the fight with that fire mage in horrible slow-motion, from every conceivable angle. Over and over again she saw his angry, scared face in her mind, saw the way he stepped forward, meaning to kill her. No matter which way her mind played the scenario, there had been no way to escape without killing her attacker; and although she knew that, she couldn't help but feel as though she had done something horrible, by taking his life.

Eventually, replaying the day's events in her mind grew old and she sat up in her blanket. Night had fallen, darker than she had ever
seen it before. In Moonlight Hills, city lights fought the darkness. Even at the darkest time of night, there was always a faint glow of the city on the horizon. Here, there was nothing to fight the darkness around her but the good-sized campfire. Overhead, stars shone brightly and proud next to the large moon. Kaydee couldn't remember seeing the moon with such clarity and detail, with how obscured it seemed back home.

Chilled by the thought of her separation from home, she glanced around, trying to dispel the thoughts. Atrimalous still sat by the campfire, his back turned to the warm orange glow. He wore his cloak for warmth but the hood was down, so she could see his face. She had never seen someone with his eyes, the bright amethyst color unknown back on the First Realm. There was such familiarity to his face but she couldn't place it, didn't even know where to start. She was certain that she had never seen him before, had never met him before today, but he seemed like an old presence to her, like a long-forgotten friend or lost family member. The familiarity was confusing.

It was as if he had felt her staring at him. He turned, startled to see her staring at him. “What is it?”

She didn't know how to answer him at first. “
Er, I couldn't sleep.”

“Couldn't be worse than me,” he said, his voice reaching her even though he spoke quietly, almost to himself. “I almost never sleep.”

She stood up, drawing the blanket around her as she did. With the heat of the sun gone, the desert around her cooled rapidly, bringing a surprising bite of frost to the night. She made her way to him, still curious as to why he had bothered to save her as he did.

“Not that I'm ungrateful,” she added after she asked him about it again. “I just don't know why.”

He knew something. That much was clear as his expression lit up, like he was going to say something. Instead, he bit the answer back and shook his head. The answer that followed was just as vague as his previous answers.

It was a clear hint that it wasn't up for discussion, so she let the issue drop. Her thoughts returned to that odd familiarity he struck
her with. His face seemed so familiar but she couldn't think of how. Why was that?

After a moment of awkward silence, she spoke up again. “What if I can't sleep for the rest of the night? Can I stay up with you?”

He shook his head. “You need to regain your energy.”

With that, he stood up and headed to where the two horses were tethered. After a moment's search, he pulled a small glass vial from one of the bags strapped to his horse. “Here, take just a sip of this. It will help you sleep.”

She glanced at the liquid inside of the vial, her mind flashing back to her first terrifying day in the Second Realm, of how she had been forced to drink the potion that forced her to sleep. Was this the same drink? Did he mean to sedate her for the whole trip?

The distrust must have shown on her face because he spoke up, “It's just a mild sedative, only dangerous if the whole vial is consumed. One sip will help ease you into sleep, not force you into the land of the unconscious.”

It seemed like he meant well. She was going out on a limb to trust him, but she took the small vial from him and downed a sip. The difference between this potion and the last one was made instantly just in the taste alone. This one didn't reek of threats and greed. She followed his advice to go lay back down and soon found herself able to relax better than she was able to before. When she closed her eyes this time, there were no flash backs of death and chaos.

Atrimalous watched her for a moment, settling back to his spot after she had closed her eyes. He began to hum softly, the melody so soft that it could have been the wind instead of a song from his lips. The sound carried to where Kaydee slept and gradually she relaxed more, until she was deep into the land of sleep.

On the other side of the camp ground, Leta stirred. She had woken up when Atrimalous had gone to the horses and had stayed silent, observing from a distance. She smiled to herself from under her wool blanket. Atrimalous might be death incarnate at times, but here was a side to him that he would never let anyone else see – something that could almost qualify as caring. It was something he should have let show more.

With that thought in her head, Leta closed her eyes again, listening to the quiet humming as the woman some distance away was doing. She gradually fell back to sleep.



Kaydee woke up as the sun rose over the horizon. Leta and Atrimalous were already taking down their camping equipment and re-packing it onto the horses. They spoke in hushed tones about their travel route that day, as if trying not to wake her up.

Breakfast had been left out for Kaydee, a simple rehash of the previous night's vegetable soup and some bread and cheese. Leta didn't have time for her to finish eating and instead insisted that she ride a horse and eat. Because of the lack of extra animals, Leta and Kaydee shared a horse while most of the bags the horse had been carrying had been shuffled to the horse Atrimalous rode. Both animals protested under their new weight but they still diligently carried their loads.

Leta expressed the need to hurry, as they wanted to exit the desert before the hottest part of the day hit. Once they were close to Siiati, they would cross into mountain territory, then their seaside city.

“I think it would be a good idea to visit the seer we were at,” she added once their horses started off at a nice trot. “She helped us find you; maybe she'll help us find your friends.”

Kaydee nodded, not really understanding what kind of help she would receive. It was still better than refusing any kind of help and not knowing where to start searching for the others.

With the agreement made and the horses moving at a steady pace over the cracked, dry ground, they headed for the edge of the desert, where they would finally be away from the threat of the people in Govoya and that awful coliseum. Kaydee wouldn't want to go back.