The lance thrower, p.13
The Nine Births of Carnage (Cross Academy Book 3), page 13
That was the one thing he did have in common with Zuri. They were both alone. But KI hadn’t lost his parents to a random raid the way Zuri had. He remembered the day his parents were killed, remembered his village being on fire, and remembered the tall man with a face calm as still water and hair red like wildfire.
Seganamé had killed his parents.
KI hadn’t forgotten. That was one memory that hadn’t been suppressed by Zuriel’s overwhelming presence inside him. But the rage and the pain he felt from the memories had been suppressed—smothered by Zuri’s own crushing emotions. All the unyielding love he still had for Seganamé, mixed with the confusing anger over whatever had happened between them in his past. There was no room for KI’s own anger. For his own pain.
All he felt was a dull ache inside.
Stupidly, KI thought that ache would go away if he knew Seganamé cared for him. That he was remorseful for killing his parents, that he was making up for turning him into an orphan by taking him in now and caring for him the way he’d done for Zuri. But he’d been wrong.
He wasn’t Zuriel’s replacement, he was Zuri.
Very soon, he would lose himself and become the boy Seganamé had adopted. The one he truly cared for. Soon, the journey would be over.
12
Evelyn
The wind bit into Lieutenant Diaz as he rode on his winter horse. He could barely see more than a foot in front of himself, it was a wonder the great beast could navigate at all. Baptist had been right; the Northern horses did know the way to the Fortress. Even in the worst conditions, they marched on without guidance or direction from the lieutenant. They were big enough to keep their footing in the deepest of snows, and they were hefty enough to stay warm even when Diaz felt he might freeze to death—which seemed to be every other day.
Beneath the sound of the wind, Diaz could make out the trudging footfalls of the other horses following behind. They walked single file, stepping into each other’s footprints to make their travel easier. Being out in front meant Diaz’s winter horse had to work the hardest, but he didn’t mind. The beast was as stubborn as him, doggedly determined to complete the task no matter the cost.
Ice had gathered on the lieutenant’s left leg where the wind seemed to always hit him, he could feel his knee stiffening, freezing his leg in a bent position. His fingers were too numb to uncurl, leaving him gripping the reins of his horse like his life depended on it. Streaks of ice were frozen to his cheeks where he’d cried warm tears that’d turned cold and solid before they could even reach his chin. Diaz’s winter coat was heavy with snow that gathered on his shoulders, weighing him down. Each time he shook it away, it was replaced by more in the next ten minutes.
The weather was brutal. Their worst enemy—frightening enough to scare off even the demons of the North. But they walked on.
The team had left Baptist’s cabin nearly two weeks prior, camping out in caves to avoid windstorms and blizzards. The winter horses seemed to know the best spots for them to rest, which had set the lieutenant’s mind at ease. But once they reached the threshold of Baptist’s power and the winds returned to the haunting bitter howl Diaz remembered so well, that ease—that gentle sense of peace—seemed to slip away.
They were constantly cold. Constantly on the move. Constantly stuck in some sort of storm. Blizzards, snow flurries, ice storms, thunderstorms, raging lightning, even a Northern tornado which featured a swirling funnel of freezing air and shards of ice ripping up the frozen woods around them.
They had lost two Hunters in that storm, even their giant moose had been picked up, spun around, and spat out some miles away.
That night they’d mourned. And then they set out again the next morning.
There was no time for anything except the journey. No time to cry. No time to ask God why. No time to lament over their failures. Survival was the most important thing. Until they reached the Fortress, nothing else mattered.
But Diaz could feel even that dire resolve whittling away. Could feel the cold sinking its fangs into his heart—into his soul—despair hot on its heels.
He felt hollow inside, filled with a bitterness that stung worse than the icy winds that split his frostbitten cheeks. It wasn’t just that he’d failed in Avanté. It wasn’t just that he’d lost KI or even Talon. It was that he had failed before their journey had even begun.
All those years ago when he’d looked into Seganamé’s kind eyes and had decided to believe the lies he told. Had decided to trust him. That had been the moment he’d sealed his fate.
In this dark world, where the difference between life and death was sometimes as black and white as a blessing or a curse, Diaz had never had a chance at success. It was always going to come to this, he told himself. And how could it not? He had been orphaned by demons, cursed by witches and, somehow, he still foolishly convinced himself there was a happy ending somewhere for him.
Why would there be… when there hadn’t been a happy ending for anyone else?
Talon had been nothing but kind and good and Christian to her core. But she’d still been taken—snatched away by the same monster that had taken him. And to twist the knife in the wound, she was joined by a boy with the same face as the darkling who’d killed Diaz’s father.
How cruel that his memories had been suppressed for so long. The nightmares of his past so clear until he reached the part of his dream where Zuriel and Seganamé appeared. Diaz had dreamt of his mother’s death out in those lonely woods so many times it seemed an expected nightly ritual. But he had never remembered his father’s death. Had never been able to recall details about how Pappy died or what’d happened after he left his village.
The demons who took him in. The witches who’d cursed him after. All that had been foggy, like his vision would blur and he’d suddenly wake up, memories receding to the dark, unreachable parts of his mind.
And then, all at once, the veil had been torn and the truth of his traumatic past had come storming back to the forefront of his mind. It was all he could think about now. All he could focus on. The sound of his father’s screams. The gentle, comforting smile on Seganamé’s face. The look of pure hatred on Zuriel’s.
How was Lieutenant Diaz supposed to rescue KI now? All he wanted was to kill him. And he couldn’t even share his woes. The moment anyone from the Academy caught wind of his long history with Zuriel and Seganamé, he would be taken off the mission. Without question.
The job was too personal now. Far too painful.
No one would trust that Diaz would make the Godly decision, that he would rescue KI and bring him home so they could figure out how to extract Zuriel’s demonic presence from him. They would all jump to the immediate conclusion that Diaz’s heart held no forgiveness, only vengeance. They would convince themselves that the lieutenant would hunt down KI—no thoughts of rescue present in his mind. They would tell themselves that he would find the boy and kill him. Send his soul screaming into hell the same way he’d sent his father.
And they would be right.
So he kept his dark past to himself, hidden in the shadows of his mind and memories. All he could do was wait and pray. Hope and trust that one day the chance would present itself for Diaz to strike back. To have the vengeance he’d been denied for so long.
Not vengeance, he told himself, justice. Because it wasn’t right for Seganamé to get away with so much. And it wasn’t right for Zuriel to be awakened without consequence. Who cared that KI was his vessel? Sometimes sacrifices had to be made. The life of one little orphan boy wasn’t worth all the lives Zuriel would take once the Nine revived him.
KI had to die.
Diaz clutched the reins to his winter horse, tucking his chin to avoid the wind that wailed through the open plain. The land around them was flat, an expanse of ice covered by snow and hidden in the shrieking blizzard. There were no signs of trees or frozen shrubbery nearby, no animals, no demons. We must be close, the lieutenant told himself, shivering. They had to be, or else he feared he wouldn’t live to exact his vengeance.
As his winter horse marched on Diaz glanced back at the team behind him. Their numbers had dwindled to a fraction of the soldiers he’d first set out with. What’d once been a strong band of thirty Hunters, Priests, and Academy students was now less than fourteen tired people this close to falling over in the snow and staying there.
Lieutenant Raven rode just behind him with all the students between her and Lord Izzy who held up the rear with Lady Vehenort and Sergeant Mung. Fox Fire, Dart, Kohlannis, Syren in the skies with Vy and her cousins trudging one behind the other. There were more students than soldiers left, but none of them ever complained, none of them had allowed their inexperience to get in the way of the mission. Not even Fox and her misery over KI and Talon being kidnapped.
If anything, Lieutenant Diaz returned his gaze to the front, Kohl is the one letting his feelings get in the way. He hadn’t been the same since his classmate, Kressa Lion, had revealed herself to be a traitor from the Nine. Diaz was familiar enough with Kohl to know that he was more sensitive than he let on, but his reaction to Kressa’s true identity seemed so much more personal than the lieutenant had expected. Maybe he had a crush on her, he surmised with a shrug. Snow rolled off his shoulders with the movement and he peeled his icy knuckles from his horse’s reins to brush the rest of the cold dust from his coat.
His fingers ached as he moved his hands, fat mittens slapping at the snow. The wind howled around him, screaming in his cold ears. It was always loud in the North despite it being so barren. Either the wind shrieking or the snow blasting into you, the ice cracking like a clap of thunder. Every now and then, Diaz would swear he could hear an animal’s call. A lone dire wolf howling through the night, the growl of an elusive yeti too far to spot but close enough to send shivers down the lieutenant’s spine. One night he thought he heard the cursed laughter of the legendary ice demon he’d been warned about.
“Listen to the nature around you!” Baptist had told him in his dramatic way of speaking. “It will always warn you of danger.”
“How?” Diaz had asked.
“Because the wind cries, the animals howl, but the ice demon laughs.”
A demon that only stalked the freezing lands of the North, with blue skin, hair frozen to its back, and a wicked laugh that’d given it its name—Mahaha.
Baptist’s cryptic warning had sent shockwaves of paranoia through the small team. Diaz had appreciated the information, but he hated all the fear that came with it.
As the wind cried around him, the lieutenant took a quick look around, squinting through the snow. It sounded like the wind, but there was something else beneath it. Something low and ominous.
He shook his head. I’m being paranoid.
But as the wind cried again, whipping hard into his chest, Diaz knew he picked up the low tremble of another wail. Something animalistic. Inhuman.
The lieutenant lifted his stiff fingers to his mouth to whistle, a cue for the others to beware of enemies. But with his hands so cold and his lips so numb, he couldn’t produce a sound loud enough for the others to hear.
Frustrated, Diaz turned in his saddle to simply shout at Lieutenant Raven. “Keep your eyes open!”
Lieutenant Raven was only a few feet behind him, but she looked like nothing more than a brown shadow in the white storm. Even her moose had been covered in snow, piling up on its antlers with crystals of ice hanging from its fur. They jingled like chimes in the winter wind.
“What?” Lieutenant Raven yelled back.
“Keep your eyes—”
SNAP!
Something in the distance cracked like a whip, so loud, both lieutenants turned backwards to look. The noise was quickly followed by the horrific crunch of bone and a cry so piercing Diaz was happy he couldn’t see what’d happened. But duty tugged at his heart, and he instinctively turned his horse in the direction of the noise.
As he bounded through the packed snow, he saw chaos unfolding in the rear. There were students screaming, trying hard to stay on their winter horses as the panicked animals rose on their hind legs and bucked wildly. Kohl had a hard time keeping his moose in check, yanking on the reins and gritting his teeth as the animal fought him like a mad bull. Beside the boy was Fox, the only one whose winter horse hadn’t tried to throw her off—because it was actually Dart. But neither of them were calm by any means.
Lieutenant Diaz quickly understood why.
Beside the frantic students was Sergeant Mung … what was left of her. Both the Hunter and her winter horse had stepped into a trap of some sort—a large metal claw that’d snapped shut on them, folding the two in half as its massive spikes skewered whatever parts hadn’t been crushed. Blood sprayed onto the snow, staining the area in a mist of red. It was a gruesome sight, so bad, Diaz was not surprised when Lieutenant Raven doubled over and vomited beside him.
Kohl’s winter horse still cried out in panic, standing on its hind legs. The teenager tried his best to calm the large animal, but his effort was fruitless. Diaz could see the wild panic in its eye, could hear the fretful insanity in the braying that filled the air.
“Calm your horse!” Diaz shouted, eyes darting over the snow around them. If there was one trap, then there could possibly be—
SNAP!
Another trap jutted up from the snow, clamping shut on Kohl’s moose. Fortunately, the boy wasn’t caught in the metal spikes himself. Instead, he’d been thrown from his winter horse’s back just in time. But the second trap sent another wave of fear through the group, making all the moose panic as they tried to run away.
No. Diaz watched in horror as Toad’s moose reared and stepped backwards to trigger another hidden trap. The snow that kicked up made it hard to see, but the lieutenant let out a slow breath when it cleared and he found Toad encased in a box of ice. The claws of the trap stabbed into the frozen snow around the boy, like a mouth of spikes biting down on glass that wouldn’t crack.
Toad had managed to use his blessing to save himself just in time, but the trap going off only caused more panic.
“Dismount your horses!” Diaz shouted. “Dismount your horses!”
No one moved to obey his order, though he understood why. The students risked landing in a trap just as much as the winter horses risked stepping in one.
He pressed his lips together, spotting Fox who’d bravely climbed down from Dart’s back to help Kohl to his feet. Then it clicked.
“Fox!” Diaz called. “Use your fire! Melt the snow!”
She immediately understood and struck her bracelets together to follow orders, but the flames she produced were weak. It could have been a result of exhaustion or even emotional turmoil, considering all they’d been through. But Diaz suspected it was much simpler.
The North was cold.
Colder than any place on earth—cold enough to weaken a sundancer’s internal furnace. This place was Fox’s natural enemy. A hindrance to her blessing.
Still, the girl fought on, panting as she blasted away at the piles of snow around them. Vyanna joined to help, melting the snow into water, and then turning it into steam while Ren tended to her brother. But even the future Ice Queen grew tired. There was just so much. And the blizzard around them still raged, replacing the snow almost as quickly as it was melted away.
Somehow, the two managed to clear a small area, melting away enough snow to reveal a dozen traps set all around them.
One by one, the soldiers and students dismounted their panicked moose and stood waiting for orders.
“What are these?” Lieutenant Raven asked beside Diaz.
He climbed from his winter horse, slightly shaken by the fact that he’d been less than a foot from one of the metal traps. “It looks like a bear trap,” Diaz answered. He flicked his gaze over to Sergeant Mung’s folded body. She had been bent backwards, her head pressed against the backsides of her knees. There was a metal spike going through her midsection, pinning her to the saddle of her dead moose. Diaz could barely make out the animal, if it weren’t for its antlers, he wouldn’t have known it’d once been a moose.
“That’s not a bear trap,” Raven said.
“It’s built exactly like one.”
“Large enough to kill an entire winter horse and it’s rider?”
She had a point. Traps were only as large as their prey. Either bears in the North were the size of small cabins or that trap had been set for something else.
“But what?” Diaz muttered.
In the distance, below the cry of the wind, he heard that low call again. Like a deep song, it pealed through the air, rolling on the back of the breeze. This time, it was unmistakable, and it even caught Lieutenant Raven’s attention.
“Did you hear that?” she asked, clutching the reins of her winter horse.
Diaz nodded.
“What was it?”
He opened his mouth to answer, but the sound of the call cut him off. The noise wasn’t as surprising this time—but only because it was accompanied by a ground-shaking rumble. Even the traps trembled, some of them snapping shut from the jolting friction.
One of the moose panicked and got away from Ren, running right into a trap. The students all screamed, getting sprayed with hot blood that froze on their fur coats. Diaz stared at the dead animal, but it was the massive shadow behind it that stole his attention.
A giant creature that stepped into the clearing with a head so large, it looked big enough to eat their winter horses in one bite. Its fur was so thick, the lieutenant could grab one strand like a thin rope and hold on as it walked. Its feet were so massive, it shook the ground with each step, setting off more traps as the snowy earth trembled. Husks jutted from its face, twisted and sharpened into points, between the husks was a long nose which it lifted to let out another dark song. This time, the song was returned by the herd of beasts that walked behind it.
