Dawn of Ash (10 page)

Screams echoed through the frigid air as I made a beeline toward my father. The haunted sounds carried on the back of the wind as though they were nothing more than remnants of lives long gone.

In a way, it was true.

The sounds were the ghosts of people who had been pulled out of the once vibrant city, their bodies mutilated and destroyed by my father’s beautiful creations. Fragments of souls battling through a powerful poison, battling against a magic that would either devour them or become them.

The weak ones would let it destroy them.

A worthwhile sacrifice.

It was the strong ones we wanted. Those were the ones whose screams resonated day in and day out. The sound of their suffering turned into power, turned into something we could use.

The agonizing bellows increased as the large field of burlap tents drifted into view, wavering in the cold like a mirage. Broken and stained canvas, surrounded by a sea of brown and red snow, slowly came into focus. The dirty city was nestled between the wall and the forest, the forgotten farmland the perfect hiding place. A hidden army, shielded from the mortals who flew overhead, from Ilyan who couldn’t see beyond the barrier even if he tried.

The crisp snow crunched under foot as I continued on, the guards who had surrounded Sain and me dropping their shields as we approached the first tent, a large, broken mess of fabric housing the weakest of the filth the Vilỳs had infected. If they survived the first few weeks there, then they would be moved to another tent, one with marginally better conditions. First, they had to get through week one on their own. Sympathy was not a treasured trait. No one was going to help them. If they couldn’t make it, we didn’t want them, and having the tent on the outskirts made for easier clean up in those cases.

“Someone needs to take a hose to that,” I growled as we passed, the smell of blood and human excrement overwhelming as the tent walls rippled in the violent wind.

One of the guards laughed from behind me, the sound deep and callous as the men planned a spectacle of much-needed entertainment.

The vile smell grew heavier the farther into the camp we moved, but this time, it did not come from the tents. It came from the people who had begun to flow out of them. Their dirty faces were eager as they sped through the broken city toward me, their eyes wide, bright, desperate.

“My lady,” an old woman—or rather, what looked like an old woman—mumbled as she bowed beside me, the tattered sheets she used as a coat slipping off her bare and bloodied shoulders.

I looked away in disgust, fully aware they were coming faster now, drawn to me like a moth to a flame. Mumbled greetings, pleas, and tears of desperation were repeated as the guards closed ranks, their massive, burly figures serving as a protective barrier as they kicked and shoved the slowly intruding garbage.

I kept my eyes diverted ahead as I glowered, my heart thundering proudly at the beautiful mass of serfs my father had created.

“Please, my lady. I have fought twice. Food … It’s all I ask.” One voice rose above the rest as a muscular man attempted to break through the guards, only to be shoved backward into an already collapsing tent, the burlap folding around him like paper.

I watched him fall, laughing at his foolery, at them all. It was always the same: food, safety, loyalty. All those things must be earned, and they knew it. It was why they bowed, why they cowered. It was why they threw tattered coats down for me to walk on, muttering long forgotten Czech prayers.

“My lady,” a blonde girl mumbled as she pressed against a guard, her hand stretched toward me in a frantic need to touch me, worship me.

Lips snarling in disgust, I pressed one finger against her palm before she backed away, tears streaming down her face in a revered look that smothered me.

I had trained them well, it seemed. Ingrained in them a love of who I was and what I meant to them. Fear of what I could easily do to them.

My usual wicked grin broke over my face in a toothy smile that made them cower more.

Voices called and begged in one final plea as I reached the tent my father would be holed up in. The massive structure loomed over us, screams emanating from somewhere inside so loudly I could barely hear the pleas of the refuse I was surrounded by.

“My lady,” my guards echoed in unison as they flanked the doors, lifting the tent flaps and allowing me to duck into the wide open warmth of the reception room, the wails of the masses muted by the heavy canvas I was now enclosed in.

“Ovailia,” a short, darkly colored man greeted me the moment the flaps had closed, his voice a hollow reverberation as he moved toward me.

He was obviously happy to see me, and judging by his body language, he expected some sort of embrace or handshake. Staring at him, I raised my eyebrows in a questioning disgust as I checked my designer heels for any unwanted filth that might have followed me in here, silently wishing to find some to throw at him.

“Damek,” I practically growled, my distaste from seeing him leaking through, not that I tried to conceal it.

Damek was a Trpaslík older than myself, his face battle worn and full of scars, some of which I was sure he had given himself with the reputation he had earned. He had served on my father’s forward guard for centuries, and I had never really cared for him, something that had increased since he had taken over Cail’s role after his death.

He seemed to think such a simple advancement awarded him the same stature of my father and myself. It was something I was getting very tired of reminding him otherwise.

“We did not expect you back so soon,” he tittered, his authoritative voice far too happy.

“We?”

“Edmund and myself.”

Good to know he was speaking for both of them now
.

“I didn’t know you were expecting me. Was there something you needed, some information vital to our cause that you require, Damek?” I straightened as I looked at him, eyes full of warning as the tiniest of smiles played around the corner of my lips.

He smiled at first, misreading my meaning, until it hit him full in the chest, his over-exuberant confidence waning a bit.

“Well … I … that is to say…”

I smiled fully, and his spine became rigid as a flare of my magic wrapped around him. Judging by the way he shivered, I was sure he could feel it, even if he didn’t know what it was.

“I suppose my father sent you to wait for me, to escort me if there was any problem?” I was snide, bored even, my irritation toward him bared.

Silence.

“No, then?”

He looked at me.

“Good.” I smiled as his pride bristled a bit.

I stood before him, our two bodies seeming comical in the massive space that had been used as Edmund’s ornate reception hall. All the gold inlaid furniture was swapped for barrels of bright purple fire, all the tapestries removed except one. The ancient thing was still full of the vibrant colors it had possessed centuries before as it hung high above our heads, the scene a depiction of the ritual I was sure my father was surveying.

Removing my coat with a wide grin toward the now addled man, I handed it to the awakened filth who stood cowering in the corner, waiting for my instruction.

The Chosen who had cowered before me outside the tent had bowed before me for a reason. And that was it. They wanted a place. They wanted to serve. This girl was one of the lucky few who had braved the pits, who had won, and who had received the right to live.

Even beyond the pits, it was Edmund and I who made those decisions. They were right to worship me as they did. I held their lives in my hands.

“My lady.” Her words were barely above a mumble, something I would normally punish her for. I had punished her for it in the past. She obviously remembered the large gash I had left in her flesh with the way her shoulders tightened, the way her back curled.

Good.

She was learning.

“Try again,” I soothed, careful to keep my voice soft, kind, while also making it very clear she was moments away from the same beating.

She heard the warning.

Her back curled farther as she took a step closer, her filthy hands wrapping around the pure white of the fur. I couldn’t help cringing.

“My lady.” Her voice shook, but it was louder, calmer. Her place known. Her role in this new world already declared, as it was with the man before me. I made sure Damek was watching my servant serve me the same way I was going to have him do.

He observed the exchange as my eyes burned into him and the woman bowed to me before scuttling away, broken and controlled.

He swallowed, the temper I had fixed him with seeping into him, filling him with a seething discomfort.

“Good.”

I said nothing more, merely stepped toward the now broken man, not willing to let him think he could be anything other than a servant.

“You can finish your task now,” I soothed, my voice calm, sweet even, the acid behind it seeping through in warning.

Head bowed, Damek turned from me, opening the next flap wide and welcoming me into the large, open underbelly of the stadium.

The heavy canvas of the receiving room had dulled the sounds of the pits, but now that I was on this side, they were crippling roars of excitement and catcalling, hundreds of Trpaslíks screaming in joy and frustration. The sound was beautiful, unlike the begging of the ones outside. This was joyous and soothing. The sounds of death always were.

“How many have fought today?” I asked as the now cowering guard caught up with me, his heels clacking loudly against the stones that had been used to cover the ground. The underside of the risers stretched above us like an ancient wood and steel bridge.

I was glad I had chosen to leave my fur. It was warmer in here, the heat mixing with the smell of blood and feces that reminded me of what I had been raised in, what my father had taught me to love.

What I had learned to love.

“There have been over twenty, Ovailia…” he began, and I stopped, fixing him with a hard look that, considering the way his shoulders pulled into his chin, hit him hard in the gut. “My lady, he is in his usual box.”

A cheer went up from the stadium I walked below, a loud and riotous scream thundering behind it along with a few moans of defeat.

“I hope the take was good.”

I didn’t even have to ask if my father had won or if he had bet. He always did, and he was always right. For the centuries that the Trpaslíks had been fighting in the pits, he had been right. It was how he had kept his guard so well trained. He only picked the winners.

If I remembered correctly, even Cail had killed ten men without the use of Edmund’s Štít in the pits.

Everyone had to prove themselves. The more you proved yourself, the higher you were in the ranks of the Trpaslíks’ magic.

“Earlier, he won over twenty thousand Euros,” Damek answered, his voice eager again.

Without so much as a glance toward the man, I continued toward one of my father’s other guards, a handsome man who stood outside of one of the many entrances, his body shrouded in a heavy, black cloak.

“Ovailia,” he greeted me as we approached, his voice heavy against the shouts of betting, taunts, and hollers that were leaking from the arena just beyond him.

The exhilaration for the coming match was mounting, infecting me with an eagerness I awarded to Damek’s masked insubordination.

“Sir,” I greeted him, knowing I should have corrected him yet choosing to leave the overly familiar greeting hanging, the single word bristling poor Damek’s insecurities further. “Is he expecting me?”

The man nodded with a smile, moving to the side to let me through before moving back, blocking Damek from entrance. “His majesty does not wish you further entry,” the younger man growled.

Damek’s instantaneous rebuttal was lost amongst the crowd I was moving toward.

Joy swelled at the exchange I was leaving behind. I was glad I wasn’t the only one who was getting fed up with the boundaries Damek had been pushing. After hundreds of years of service, he should know better. No matter. From what I had witnessed, he would be gone in a matter of days, anyway.

As I walked through one of the small hallways that led to the main space, the bones of the structure fell away to reveal rows and rows of metal bleachers, the smell of sweat and blood mixing with the joy and exuberance of the crowd.

I smiled broadly as I moved into the stadium, the wide space open to a white sky. Snow fell gracefully above the heads of the thousands who sat around the pits yet never reached them, as it evaporated in the heat of the inside.

The sound of raucous bidding was deafening as I stood at the highest point in the stadium, rows stretched below me before dropping into a large, open pit where dirt and blood mixed together so seamlessly that, unless you knew what you were looking at, it would be easily mistaken for mud.

“Ovailia!” my father bellowed from below me, his voice an excited boom over the noise I was already inundated by.

Already in good spirits thanks to the entertainment, Edmund smiled with a dangerous grin that, to anyone else, would insight fear. And, while I did feel the shiver of warning, it was the eagerness of danger, of reward, that pulled me forward.

He sat alone, surrounded by pillows and platters of food, his guards flanking him in such a wide berth that he was an island amongst the shiny, silver bleachers. An island that was draped in an ornate cloak I hadn’t seen since before we had been banished from Imdalind the first time.

I recognized the fur-trimmed relic as what he used to wear to council when I was a child. It had been given to him by some king when he had saved their country, or so the history books said. In reality, it was him taking over, a coup he would run from behind the scenes.

Another kingdom we had claimed for our own.

Just like this one.

All he needed was the crown, and he would get it before all this was over.

“Father,” I began, his eyes lighting up at the greeting. “You seem quite comfortable.”

His nefarious smile grew, hand waving to the bare bleacher beside him in an invitation to sit.