The Blaze Ignites (17 page)

I sighed and ran my hand gingerly over the
paper. These were from the time when my father was well loved and
respected as a great warrior and hero. For all I knew, he could
have touched these very maps. My eyes flooded with tears. I kissed
the top page and clutched the pile to my chest, holding them
tightly as if I were holding my father. My throat burned and
emotions choked me as I cried silently.

I felt so alone and inferior to the man my
father had been—inferior to the White Warrior he had been.
Casdanarus would never love me like they had once loved him. They
hated me without even knowing me. They would never take a knee in
unison before me. They’d never chant my name as we rode into
battle. I was in no shape to be commanding battalions of soldiers.
I couldn’t even take care of myself.

I knew I was going to be long dead before I
even
met
Hathum.

Deep agony filled my soul. “I miss you,
Daddy,” I whispered. I didn’t want to be the White Warrior. My
father was the deserving one. I was nothing but a lost, abused
orphan, trying on her daddy’s enormous boots and watching them
swallow her whole.

I must have fallen asleep again. I didn’t
understand why I was sleeping so much here! It was really getting
on my nerves. I opened my eyes…or so I thought. It was still black.
What was this? I suddenly felt an itch on my neck and tried to get
my arm up there to scratch it…my arm wouldn’t move. Panic seized my
heart! Was I paralyzed somehow? Was I tied up? What could be wrong?
I suddenly heard whispers. People were inside my room.

“I’m telling you, she ate all of the food. I
took the empty plate out of here myself.”

“You’d better be right. Go gather the
others—it’s happy hour.”

The second one chuckled. “Aw, we’re only
going to have her for an hour?”

“No. We’ll have her as long as we like. She’s
no White Warrior. She’s scared of everything.”

It was quiet a moment. “But Sepp,” the second
voice said nervously.

“Nothing but luck. A boulder probably fell on
his head.”

“Okay, maybe you’re right.”

“Go round up the others.”

One of them walked away. I tried to move my
hand to my sword, but it was no use. Why couldn’t I move? Suddenly
it dawned on me—the White Warrior had taken over. Did she know
something I didn’t? She must. These men were obviously not friendly
and she had known it somehow.

I felt someone move closer to me bed. “Sit
up,” he commanded.

Before I could comprehend what to do, my body
sat up in bed and my eyes opened. The room was pitch black. Only
the open doorway let in light from the hall. I felt someone move
closer to me. “The potion worked? Wow.” he said, impressed.
“Stand.”  My body rose from the bed. I thought I recognized
the voice, but it was magically distorted.

“You killed my brother,” the voice said, “
and now you’re going to pay dearly for it. My only regret is
disappointing my companions who were
so
looking forward to
having a good time with you.” I could barely see an outline of him.
As he stood in front of me with his arm raised, I could just make
out the shape of a knife in his grip. “That’s okay, though. I’ll
have a good time watching you slowly bleed to death.”

Just then I heard someone come running into
the room at full speed. The person holding the knife was tackled to
the ground. I heard a thud as both of them fell, and then grunts as
they fought each other. Amazingly, when I wanted my head to turn to
see, it turned. “The window is open a crack,” Rabryn had said. I
guessed that entitled me to some privileges, though she was in
control.

I watched as the two shadows rolled over and
over each other. Why wasn’t she helping the one that saved us?
Suddenly, one shadow stood and slashed a knife across the other’s
chest. The injured one screamed. It was Fali!

I suddenly willed control back. I demanded
it. Fali, the only friend I had here, needed me! Thankfully it
didn’t take long for me to come back into myself. I ran to Fali’s
aid just as my head exploded with such intense pain that colors
momentarily flashed in my vision. After they cleared, I was left
with a bonfire raging in my skull like I’d had when I willed
control back from the White Warrior in Oaksher.

I looked over my shoulder at the doorway as
Fali’s attacker fled to the hall. It was
Reese!
I nearly
threw up as he looked back at me for a moment and then ran down the
hall with blood dripping from his knife.

“Reese,” Fali squeaked through the pain. “He
tried to kill you. I knew he would. He put a control potion in your
food. It didn’t work. I’m so glad.”

“I didn’t eat the food. That’s why it didn’t
work.”

“Thank the Light Gods.”

“You hold on. I’m going to get you some
help.”

“Okay,” he squeaked. I felt blood bubble up
from his chest.

I clenched my teeth with worry. “Just hold
on.” I gave his hand a squeeze, then ran towards the door. Who
could I get? Addredoc? Yes, Addredoc could save him.

I charged out of the door at full speed,
nearly crashing into the opposite wall of the hall. I froze in my
tracks and stared in horror when I saw Reese standing there. He was
lazily resting his back against the wall and as I emerged from my
room. He narrowed his eyes at me, as if challenging me to do
something about what he’d just done. I clenched my teeth again as I
thought about crushing his windpipe with my bare hands. He smiled a
wide toothy grin at me and brought his hand up, waving at me, with
just a wiggle of his fingertips. I clenched my fists so hard my
nails cut into my palm. The shadows did that!

He ran.

Without thinking, I was after him. I forgot
about Fali dying. I forgot about getting Addredoc. All I wanted was
for him to die. I would kill him! I would kill him myself! My heart
was pounding as I sped up. My entire body tingled with such a
vicious rage that I felt like my insides might explode. He would
pay for what he did.

We entered the round sitting area where I’d
seen the shadow people. I sped up, then jumped and tackled him to
the marble floor. Rolling away, I got to my feet first and I was at
him before he could even get up from his knees. In the same motion,
I grabbed a fistful of his hair at the back of his head, pulled it
forward, and drove my knee up into his face as hard as I could.
Blood exploded from his nose and he went flying onto his back,
cracking his head on the marble. I gathered his shirt in one fist,
then drove my other fist down into his face over and over
again.

When my fist became numb, I switched hands,
pounding his face in with that one until I physically couldn’t move
anymore and both my hands were numb and badly swollen. I shook with
rage and exhaustion as I looked down at his once pretty face that
was now just a mass of broken bones, hanging skin, and blood.

A large chorus of laughter rose up all around
me then. I looked up, hearing it coming at me from every possible
direction. I stood. Beings completely surrounded me, coming out of
every open door on the lower level of that common. I spun around
frantically.

“See boys,” a familiar voice said, “I told
you she was scared of everything. Look at her.”

I spun around to see Fali coming out of the
hallway where my bedroom was. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
“Fali, thank goodness. What—” I froze when I realized that he
wasn’t injured. He was walking tall and proud, without even a blood
stain on him. What happened to the fatal gash? I placed a hand on
my throbbing forehead, trying to make sense of this.

Something caught my eye on the floor in that
moment. Reese’s mass of dark brown hair faded to
blonde
hair! I felt my heart sink to my toes as I stared down at the being
I’d killed; it
wasn’t
Reese! His hair was such a pale blonde
it was almost white. What was happening? I stumbled backwards, my
knees threatening to collapse. My reaction only caused the
surrounding beings to laugh more.

“Poor Laxford,” Fali said with mock sympathy.
“He was a good Salynn. Since you killed his best friend, he chose
to take the role of the bait voluntarily—so I don’t feel
too
bad for him.”

My eyes frantically searched the room for
Reese. Had he planned this? Was this his doing?

“He’s not here,” Fali said. “He’s up in the
History Room, drawing up the maps he’s been working on since before
you even arrived. He wanted to get you out of here as fast as he
could.” He shrugged, then grinned evilly. “He probably knew we were
planning something special for you.”

My hands gripped the sides of my head. I was
afraid it might spin right off my shoulders. Reese was…was on my
side? He was trying to help me? But…but that didn’t make sense.

“It’s a shame you didn’t eat your food,” Fali
said. “I wanted to see if my concoction worked. It doesn’t matter,
though. Watching you try to put up a fight might be more fun
anyway.” A chorus of chuckles rang out from the crowd.

I was panting now with fear and confusion.
“What…is going on?” I managed to say, my eyes darting in every
direction as I waited for one of them to jump me.

“It’s really simple if you take a moment to
think about it. I wasn’t sure if my potion would work, and I knew
you were suspicious of Reese, so I set up a little test to see if
it did. I had Laxford take on Reese’s image and pretend to attack
me.” He smiled sickeningly. “Me, your only friend here.” I
swallowed back the bile that rose up into my throat. “If you went
after him or aided me, I’d know my potion hadn’t worked. Laxford
was instructed in that instance to run down here so we could all
greet you for the party.” His grin was ugly and thick. “I believe
you mentioned earlier that if one of us wanted to succeed where
Sepp failed”—he looked up at the ceiling pretending to be in
thought—“How did you put it? ‘You better make damn sure you have
enough people.’” His sly smile terrified me into a state where I
began to tremble. “Is this enough people for you?”

I looked around and estimated that more than
half the people of Rocksheloc were in that room, and I was
completely at their mercy. I didn’t understand! How could Fali be
my enemy and Reese my friend?

My bodily functions nearly shut down
completely as memories of my stay here so far came back to me in a
flood. The first—and most frustrating—clue I’d missed that should
have alerted me to Fali’s untrustworthiness was his asking me if
Cairikson was my son. Beldorn had said the potentially harmful
beings were banned by his magic from hearing about our journey and
from knowing that I was the White Warrior. Because he was a threat,
Fali had not been entitled to hearing how we came across
Cairikson.

Then it suddenly occurred to me that Reese
had referred to the maps as being “from your father’s time.” He
knew
my father was the White Warrior! He knew
I
was
the White Warrior! He
had
been entitled to hearing our
tale!

My knees buckled and I had to grip the arm of
a nearby chair to catch myself. I slowly lowered myself to sit
down.

Some little things started adding up too,
things that I
should
have realized if I wasn’t such an
idiot! Fali had been around the place where Cairikson saw the group
talking in the dark room, probably on his way to a meeting to plan
this. Fali also hadn’t formally bowed to Cairikson when he found
him, though Cairikson largely outranked Fali. Reese had bowed.

But Reese had watched Fali prepare my food in
the kitchen. Wouldn’t he have seen Fali poison it? I brought my
hand to my forehead when I remembered that when both Fali and Reese
came to my room, I’d been busy greeting Cairikson and Reese had
been staring intently at me while Fali had moved to put my food on
the nightstand. He must have put the poison in then.

Fali was my enemy and he’d been planning this
ambush. That’s what the White Warrior had known. She had taken over
so I wouldn’t run out here, but I’d pushed her away. My lingering
headache seemed to violently pound in my temples once, as if the
White Warrior was hitting a wall and screaming “Idiot!” I vowed
that next time I wouldn’t push her away. If there even
was
a
next time.

“See?” Fali laughed. “She’s terrified!” He
shook his head at me. “You are definitely no White Warrior like we
suspected. But you are such a fine specimen of a female and a
warrior from another land to boot. I thought it would be fun to
have a good time with you, to see what a warrior across the sea
could do in the face of all of us, if anything.” He laughed. “You
nearly wet yourself at the sight of our shadow effects! Now what
kind of warrior does that?”

My shoulders relaxed a little as realization
dawned on me. “So
that’s
what this is about? You’ve been
testing me to see if I was the White Warrior?”

“We were looking for the White Warrior’s
magic, or fighting style—some proof to allow us to believe he, or
she, was back for certain.”

That sounded like the subtle work of Hathum,
sending otherwise decent beings to try and find me. I sighed and
rested my hand on my forehead again for a moment. I realized I had
to save these people if I could. Hathum had entered and corrupted
their minds to obtain the proof he wanted of who I was. This entire
mountain could be as loyal to Goodness as Galad Kas was for all I
knew. But Hathum had gotten to them easily because they were much
weaker than Galad Kas. I sighed as I stood up from the chair,
finding new strength in a mission to try to save them. I
had
to save them. It was my job. It’s what my father did when he came
into existence. And I had an idea how.

“You want proof I’m the White Warrior? Come
and get it.”

Fali looked at me, confused for a moment.
Then he smiled at the surrounding group and they all chuckled.