The Destroyer Book 2 (10 page)

I faced the dark gray stone of the tower where my room was housed. To my left was a path that led to the center gardens. To my right, a steep set of slate stairs would take me down to the wall of the keep. I decided to go toward the garden. Father sometimes walked amongst the trees there.

My bare feet left light smudges in the thin layer of snow and I noticed outlines of my steps on the stone path behind me. I wasn't dressed in my normal pants. Instead I wore a delicate lavender dress that looked similar to the garments my mother exhibited in various paintings Father commissioned.

The garden lay only a hundred yards away from my room, but I seemed to walk through the grounds of the deserted keep for hours. The sun rose and fell half a dozen times while I lost my way or got distracted by a part of my home that diverged from pleasant memories.

Just as frustration began to worm into my chest, I rounded a gentle bend and came to the garden where I spent most of my childhood. The courtyard was the starting point of a natural brook and I heard it softly trickling against the rocks and stones on its path toward the south side of the citadel. During the spring and summer, the garden was home to birds, squirrels, and a score of different species of butterflies. My mother had planted thirty varieties of hardy fruit trees that were all in season; their rainbow-colored assortment of ripe ovals caught the snowflakes easily.

Several stone benches squatted along the path of the creek and I saw a dark figure sitting hunched upon one. The figure appeared to be staring intently into the swirling water at the foot of the bench. Though his form was concealed, I knew exactly who he was. I had studied his shape for what seemed like endless waking and sleeping hours.

"Kaiyer?" I walked across the wet snow toward him. At the sound of my voice he turned in his seat and gave me the carefree smile that made my stomach spin. "Why are you here?" My question put words to my confusion since I did not recall ever taking him to my home.

"Why are you here?" he repeated back to me with a shrug. He was still painfully thin, but his eyes seemed to glow a beautiful green. His body movement and the expression of his face made the spinning of my stomach increase in speed.

"I was born here. This is my home. Do you like it?"

"I wasn't born here," he said with another shrug. Before I could press him again to see if he liked the keep, he stood up and began to walk out of the garden.

"Wait, where are you going?" I asked, but he ignored me and walked down the path opposite the entrance. This one should have taken us to the barracks, but the pursuit of the strange man took me to the courtyard's wall.

This was one of my favorite places. Below the gray stonework lay five hundred feet of cliffs, and the pass that wound through the mountains and into the bowl valley of Nia.

I used to sit here for hours and watch the world stretch out for hundreds of miles. The view was especially beautiful when the sun set and painted the green valley in fire. The grassy moors became a rolling sea of gold and the lines of the city softened and smudged like the drawing of a child.

But instead of the empty valley I expected, I saw thousands of armored figures. Their screams rose to my ears, the chaotic roar of a hungry animal. The alien army attempted to storm the keep but there were only two ways up: the south road, composed of a dozen switchbacks that ascended the cliff face past the main city, and the west wall's hidden foot path. Both were easy to defend and I saw Nia soldiers bravely holding the lines against the avalanche of attackers.

Just as I leaned farther over the stone wall to get a better look, an arrow cut the air between Kaiyer and me. I gasped and felt the terror claw into my stomach. There were too many attackers. The fortifications would soon be overwhelmed.

"Who are they?" I stepped back to avoid another possible arrow. Kaiyer didn't move from the ledge.

"The O'Baarni," he said. His face pained and full of remorse.

"Aren't you one of his generals? Stop him from attacking!" I begged him. The roar below grew louder as if a hungry animal coiled below us. I needed to get away from them. I felt as if their hate was intended for me alone.

"There is nothing I can do. They are here for me. They won't stop until she has me." The air seemed to be on fire now and ash mixed with the snow that landed on his cloak and hood. "They have broken through. Run Nadea. Save yourself." He pointed below as he spoke and I carefully peeked over the edge to see darkly armored figures race up the switchbacks.

"We must hurry!" I screamed in fear and twisted to face him. He was gone in the split second that I turned my head away. "Kaiyer?" I looked for him, frantic that I had lost the strange man when danger lurked so close. The sound of an opening door creaked behind me and I spun to see the ends of his cloak disappear into the darkness of the nearest tower. I dashed after him and managed to catch the door before it closed.

"Kaiyer?" I was right behind the man, but now I couldn't see him. The inside of the tower's foyer was bare and dusty, with a circular stairwell that ran up being the only possible way he would have gone. Remembering the army outside, I pushed the door shut and lifted a heavy bar over the wooden portal before I began my sprint up the stairs.

Every ten steps, a well-placed arrow slit allowed gray light and tiny bits of snow into the stairwell. After I passed four of them, I pressed my body against the cold stone and risked a timorous peek out of the small slit. I expected to spot the army swarming the grounds of the keep, but instead I saw a gray, milky mist that swirled with the gentle snowfall. The opening was made thin to let arrows pass through, so I couldn't lean my head out to examine further, but I didn't hear the roar of the attacking warriors. Only the soft moan of the wind whipping down the stairs accompanied the frantic beat of my heart.

The light grew brighter as I continued to run up the stairwell. I could not judge how long I traveled, but it seemed as if my ascent would reach the sun. The light grew so bright I had to squint my eyes to protect them from a burning pain. I looked out the arrow slit again and gasped. I was so high that the window angled down on the tips of the Teeth Mountains. The peaks were like islands that were swimming in a milky cloud ocean. A giant white bird flew by my window and spun lazily in the air as it glided to meet its mate. They circled around each other a few times and let out cries like battle trumpets calling a charge. Then they soared away from me, toward the closest mountain.

"Find your father," the woman's voice called again. It sounded closer and I turned to continue up the stairs, but realized that I now stood in front of the familiar door to my father's study. I knocked twice and then entered.

The room had the recognizable smell of fire, books, and sage oil. The office looked as it always did; to my right were his large desk and the enclave of book shelves loaded almost to capacity with well-used tomes. To my left was the sitting area with several comfortable green sofas, coffee tables, and lamp stands. A small fire in the hearth cast most of the light into the room, but the flame burned weak and created deep shadows in the corners.

My father sat in his favorite leather chair with his back to me. Paug sat at my father's desk, scrawling in a massive book. Over his shoulder leaned a woman with long red hair that seemed more fire-like than the actual flame that burned in the hearth before my father. She whispered into Paug's ear while he frantically tried to transcribe her words on the paper.

I forgot about my father and stepped toward the desk to examine what the boy was writing. Neither of them noticed my presence and I leaned down to see Paug scribing ancient text in the book.

"What are you writing?" I asked Paug. He continued to scrawl without looking up at me.

"Paug? What are you writing?" I demanded. He stopped his hand and looked up at me. I gasped in horror, his eyes had been removed and only bloody black holes remained.

"What she tells me to write,” he said enthusiastically. The combination of his eyeless gaze and boyish smile scared me more than the attacking army.

"Did you do this to Paug?" I yelled at the woman. He had gone back to writing and she ignored my question. I noticed that her ears were long and pointed. They pierced the lustrous fall of her bloody copper hair like the mountain peaks rose out of the clouds.

"Ancient. Answer me!" I demanded as I slammed the flat of my hand down on the desk. She stopped whispering and glared up to my face.

"Did you wake Kaiyer?" Her voice was beautiful and husky, a purring mountain cat. Her skin shone flawless like bleached linen and her eyes glowed silver and blue as they reflected the heat from the fireplace. They burned as they looked into my eyes and I felt them spin me as a riptide would.

"Yes," I whispered. There was something I needed to tell her, but I couldn't remember. The frustration chiseled at my brain like a woodpecker. Paug's quill scratch on the parchment and the wood crackling in the fire were the only sounds for a few seconds.

"Then I have no more use for you, girl." Her full red lips twisted into a cruel smile.

"What do I do now?" I begged her. She seemed to consider my question again before answering.

"Find your father. Ask him where to take Kaiyer," she said coldly before she bent down to whisper in Paug's ear again. It was her voice that I had been following through my dream.

I walked to my father and cried out in dismay when I touched him and felt the brittle naked spines of shoulder blades instead of warm skin and muscle. A skull faced the fire, dark sockets staring into the blaze, oddly reflecting the twisting flames as if the empty holes held large black eyes. The bones were old, bleached white as the Ancient woman's skin. My father’s joining and insignia rings encircled the long bones of the skeleton’s fingers.

"Wait!" I called back to the woman. "My father is dead!" I heard sounds outside the study. The army had broken through the door at the base of the tower. Their screams raised in a horrific crescendo as they ascended the stairs. I looked around the room for an escape route, but there was no other way out save the door I had entered.

"Find your father!" the Ancient said angrily as she stood up from Paug's side and glared at me.

"He is dead! They are all dead!" I felt tears flowing down my eyes.

"Then you should die as well!" the Ancient screamed as the door to the study smashed opened. Warriors ran into the room with swords drawn. Their armor was etched with images of death and predatory animals. Their helmets were in the shapes of horrific dragons, rams, snakes, bears, and wolves. The first one through the entrance swung his sword and cleaved Paug's head from his shoulders. Blood sprayed over the books, desk, and the beautiful woman. The color stained her face and chest the same hue as her hair. She shrieked as another ran his blade through her breast in a savage movement.

I tried to run but hands grasped my arms and forced me to my knees. The room quickly filled with dozens of the warriors and I realized I wasn't in my father's study anymore. I lay in my cell deep beneath the Castle Nia.

"Are you okay Nadea?" a concerned whisper asked next to me in the darkness. Gentle hands kept me from falling out of my pallet. I recognized the voice as Gerald, the mousey medic who had been caring for me for the last two weeks.

"Water," I croaked out. Before I finished the thought, a leather skin pressed to my lips and I drank until nausea replaced thirst.

"Nightmare?" a girl asked. It was his daughter Inada's voice.

"Yes," I lay down again. The sheets that covered me were soaked in nightmare sweat and I wanted to kick them off my body. Then I remembered I was naked underneath, and although I knew they had seen me unclothed before, I didn't want to expose myself.

Boot steps echoed down the hall and I heard someone clear their throat at the entrance of my jail.

"Food," a guard said as he set down a tray on the table at the other side of the cell. They didn't bother to lock the small jail; the only way they thought we might escape was through the door up top. I recalled speaking to Runir in the darkness but guessed that was only a dream. I had experienced plenty of those as my body struggled to overcome the infection-induced fever.

Inada brought me a small plate of cheese, carrots, bread, and broth. I nibbled on the cheese and slowly sipped the soup. It was hard to drink and eat when I had to use my other hand to wrap the sheet around me, but I managed the effort.

"Looks like your appetite has increased!" Gerald said enthusiastically. He walked over and put his hand on my forehead. "Still slightly feverish though."

"I feel much better. Thank you." I took another careful bite of the meat and my stomach grumbled in surprise. "Also, thank you for not taking my leg."

"Don't thank me, Duchess. It was a risk that might have cost your life. The air by the Teeth must be exceptionally healthy. Most people wouldn't have recovered from such a wound." He frowned and turned back to his soup. The three of us ate in silence and it provided me a chance to piece together my dream.

The memories of it had already faded, but I remembered looking for Kaiyer and then my father. I recalled Paug's mutilated face and the beautiful Ancient woman. It wasn't the first time I had heard her voice and I doubted that it would be my last. She seemed insistent that I find my father. They were just dreams at any rate, not important to my life right now.

Even though a dream had led me to Kaiyer.

"What is wrong?" the girl asked me. I looked at her in surprise. "You look really mad. Father and I are happy that you are alive!" She smiled shyly. Inada was a cute girl, maybe eight or ten years younger than Jessmei. She had curly chestnut-colored hair and big brown eyes.

"Sorry, child. Thinking about something else that frustrated me." I smiled down at her and tried to forget about Kaiyer. I had spent most of my life engrossed in the search for him and now that the man was gone I didn't want to agonize about what could have been.

Gerald brought the tray up the hallway and around the corner once I finished the meal. I assumed the guards had a table and chairs there because I often heard dice, cards, and laughing. I needed to relieve myself, so I asked Inada to help me limp over to the wood toilet that Gerald asked the guards to bring down for me to use. It fit over the hole in the corner of the cell that led down to somewhere deep and dark in the bowels of the sewers under the city. Every other room in the castle had working plumbing, and even though the intricate pipes were only a few hundred yards away, no one had ever bothered to update the dungeon.