Echoes of memory, p.47
Echoes of Memory, page 47
The twins were crying now. They had had a front seat to the terror. How must they have felt, not knowing whether they’d live or die at the hands of the monsters that killed servants they had known their whole lives, right in front of their eyes?
They were shaking when he wrapped his arms around them tightly, willing every last bit of comfort he could into his strong arms.
“They took her,” Kestrel said. “But not before she shouted to me to get the children to safety.”
Sephira nodded. Tears were streaming from her eyes. Kestrel wrapped his arm around her and tenderly kissed her forehead. Aris didn’t even think twice about the action. He only wished he could comfort her so.
“They almost took the girls from us too and would have, if it wasn’t for old Wallace here,” Kestrel gestured towards the grizzled old soldier who Aris finally realized was covered in a lattice-work of shallow gashes. “They would have been taken too but William and him grabbed the body of one of the fallen Inquisitors and used it as a shield. They fought like demons straight out of hell as they forced their way to where the kids were and their blades took the lives of everything they touched. I don’t know much of what happened next, but we found each other and decided to head for the mountains,” Kestrel told Aris.
He nodded. Aris’ eyes were intent. He was hungry for every bit of information he could gather.
“Did she suffer when they took her? Did it seem like, at their touch, she lost her memory?” Aris asked.
“It’s impossible to tell for sure,” Kestrel replied. “But I didn’t see any of the signs. I’ve seen the touch of the Forgotten enough to know what it looks like. I know the look in people’s eyes as the memories they were just clinging to are washed away and locked in some neglected area of the mind. Thankfully I didn’t see that.”
Aris’ shoulder relaxed a little bit. He hadn’t realized how tight he’d been holding them. They ached.
“And you’re sure you weren’t followed here?” Aris asked as he kissed his twins again and shot a look of love at his niece Sephira.
“Yes, we were,” Wallace answered gruffly. “But Kestrel and I broke from the pack. We waited until they converged to grab the girls and we killed them.”
They didn’t whitewash what they had done for the children. The twins had seen many die this night. They would never be the same after this evening. Aris hated that they had been forced to grow up so quickly by Evrain and Edrian Wolls.
He wished more than anything else that he could give them the childhood he’d been denied at the hands of his abusive father but Evrain’s slaughter of so many of his men had put a punctuation mark on their childhood. There would always be the one period where they watched servants they had known their whole lives and called friends killed along with almost the entirety of the barracks their estate housed.
A precious part of their childhood had been stolen from them.
“Kestrel desperately wanted to save Corrine. He almost went after them after she was taken, but I held him back,” Wallace informed Aris. “I don’t know where they’ve taken her. I assume that it’s the Keep.”
Aris nodded his head. He wanted to kill Wallace for stopping Kestrel but he held back. It had been the right thing to do.
Silence overtook the small group.
It was a long silence.
It felt almost sacred. Like talking would break the trance that had fallen over the small group. Even the twins recognized the gravity of the moment and they held their tongues. It was William who finally broke it when he asked, “so what are we going to do? Fight? You know I’m with you until the very end. Damn the Emperor to the darkest depths of Hell if he stands against us.”
Wallace, Kestrel, and Sephira all nodded.
“Bring Mommy back,” the twins' words were barely more than whispers, but even there, in the dead of night, halfway up a mountain, their words carried weight. They had commissioned their father to action. He would find Corrine. He would save her.
He would shred to pieces anyone foolish enough to step in the way of his rescue.
Aris nodded to them, a promise made in the movement.
He would return their mother to them even if it meant he had to tear the whole world down. There would be no escaping his wrath.
Blood spilled from Corrine’s mouth. She had cut it during the initial battle that had left so many of her maids and servants, to whom she referred to as her house friends, dead. She had been so focused on getting everyone out of the burning building that was consuming the life that she had built by piece by piece together with Aris. The man that had once been her brother in law, but had become a lover after their mutual memories of the other had been stolen at the hands of a Forgotten.
Her whole life had been taken from her by a few burning arrows and the absence of her husband by her side.
How could this have happened?
What sort of monster allowed these things?
“Where are you taking me?” She asked, her mouth finally slipping free from the poorly tied gag that had been wrapped around her mouth in an attempt to silence her.
Her question earned her a backhanded slap that rocked her jaw and made more blood well in her mouth. They pulled the gag up and tied it tighter around her mouth causing the fabric to dig into her skin, adding a burning pain to accompany the throbbing of her head.
Great.
Just great.
She’d gotten herself kidnapped and didn’t know whether or not her husband was alive, or had been murdered at the hands of Evrain like so many others.
She trod onwards towards the keep. The Inquisitors hadn’t even bothered to sneak their way back to the headquarters that Corrine expected to be connected to Evrain’s palace.
It was almost as if they wanted to be discovered. They wanted the attention they were getting.
Why?
Why now?
Why hide for years? Why be such a secret, so much so that even her husband Aris, who was in charge of the city guards had thought them to be little more than rumors for years, then suddenly stroll through the city so carelessly?
Why were they forcing their visions of torture on the few men who were brave enough to peek their heads out to see the strange procession?
Aris would know. She felt resentment at that thought.
Why hadn’t he been there? He should have been by her side!
She chastised herself the second that the thought entered her mind. Aris hadn’t been there. That meant, almost certainly, that he was still alive. That meant that he would be coming for her.
She was more certain of that than she had been of anything else in her life.
Corrine’s life had been manipulated and controlled from the shadows for years without her ever knowing it.
She had been the wife of Aris’ brother Van, a hero who had sacrificed himself to try and bring down Emperor Evrain and restore memory to the nation the madman had destroyed.
Even now she couldn’t recall him. Every time she thought of him, there was a black-hole-like void in her memory. It wasn’t that he was forgotten to her, it was that he’d been stolen from her. Completely cut out of her mind.
After that, she had been placed with Aris, most likely in a sick way of monitoring her. She loved him though. She loved him more than life itself. She would gladly give everything up if she could prolong his life just one second longer, and she knew that Aris would do the same for her.
Evrain had put them together to keep tabs on both of them, but in doing so, he’d brought together the forces that would be his undoing.
She swore that to herself.
Some city guards saw them. They saw her being led, bound, and gagged by the Inquisitors.
She heard their shouts.
The Inquisitors did nothing as the trio of guards who were patrolling together cautiously approached them. She recognized the one in the middle. He had lived and trained in their barracks only a year previous. His name was Collin. He was a handsome blond-haired young man.
He had left the barracks soon after marrying his sweetheart.
He was the first of the trio to die. The Inquisitors had waited until he was within striking range before they all focused their evil magic on the man and brought him to his knees with the horrendous visions of torture that one of the Inquisitors shared in a sick, twisted way of pleasuring himself.
She almost vomited as she watched the memories of torture dancing across her mind. It was like she was right there with him, experiencing every single torture that had been inflicted on him.
Collin had it much worse before the blade bit into his neck and killed him instantly.
The other two guards rushed the group of Inquisitors. Terrified, but desperate to avenge their fallen comrade.
The first one fell ten feet short of the group of Inquisitors. A series of throwing spikes stood out from his hemorrhaging chest.
The second felt the touch of a Forgotten and lost himself. Corrine knew that she would never forget the haunted look in his eyes as he suddenly found himself in the midst of the hooded, scarred men, only, the next second later, to have his jaw sheared off by a heavy bladed sword that took half of the man’s neck with it as well.
She screamed into her gag as blood spurted onto her, painting her already ash-stained clothes a dark shade of red to match the black soot that had smudged her stained dress.
They laughed at her terror.
A half a second later, the laughs had stopped and a fist slammed into Corrine’s gut, doubling her over and making bile rise in her stomach.
They yanked the rope that tied her hands together, and the rough material bit into the skin around her wrist, forcing her to stand up. She felt blood trickling at her wrists. It was then that she realized that they hadn’t blindfolded her.
Why hadn’t they done so? Her stomach twisted. She’d been married to a detective long enough to know. The fact that they were marching so openly through the streets, the fact that they had killed recklessly and had shared their visions of torture with any who dared to venture close to see what was happening, the fact that they led her, un-blindfolded, could only mean one thing.
They didn’t expect her to live through this.
The fact that they didn’t care what she saw was even more terrifying than the realization that they felt as if they were leading to her death.
Whether she lived or died mattered little to them. That meant something bad was coming. Something terrible. That meant that, if with the help of some miracle, she survived, they didn’t care that the wife of the only remaining noble in all of Fiell, and most likely the whole of Vealand, could indict them.
That meant the destruction of Vealand was coming soon.
She needed to stop it. Corrine needed to fight. There was nothing, not a thing that she could do, but she wouldn’t let that stop her.
She would still fight. She would finish what her first husband, Van had started. She would bring to completion what Aris, the man with whom she’d shared so much of her life and loved so deeply that it ached in her bones, had started when the memories from Dren had flowed into him.
The group marched right up to the keep. Had they stopped bothering to hide their presence even here?
Then it hit her. There was nobody for them to hide from. Only yesterday had every noble but her husband been slaughtered. Corrine wondered how many of the small band that surrounded her now had taken part in the massacres of the noble households. Had any of these been the hands that had torn the tongues from a whole family? Were any of these Inquisitors the men who’d raped a whole noble family before pincushioning them with knives and spikes?
These men marched straight into the keep, leading her behind them.
They turned at the first servants' corridor. A few twists and turns and one hidden door later, she found herself in a new passage. It was immaculately dark. The air was cool. It bit into her bones. They led her onwards. She wasn’t sure how long had passed before they reached their destination or how the Inquisitors knew to find it in such suffocating blackness, but soon they arrived.
It was only after stopping that her eyes began to grow accustomed to the dark these monsters called home.
She was in an underground prison. They shuffled her into a small cramped cell that seemed as if it had been built for children.
The group left without a word.
She looked over to her left. There, sitting in the cage next to hers, was a tiny redheaded child.
Her forward stare was constant and unblinking.
Chapter 71
CORRINE RECOGNIZED the girl immediately though she’d never laid eyes upon her. She could tell from the fiery red hair and the small swarth of freckles that dotted the young girl’s cheeks and nose. She had heard of Kestrel’s ward, it was one of the first things he had told her when she’d been brought into the fold.
This little girl was the lynchpin. She was the rut in history that had started everything and had weaved the basket that had brought Kestrel to them and brought them into the world of magic she hadn’t known she’d already been a part of.
A fit of sudden irrational anger rose in Corrine’s breast. If it wasn’t for this child, she wouldn’t be here now. She wouldn’t have seen so many of her friends and servants die. If it wasn’t for her...
But it wasn’t for her. It wasn’t her fault. The child had done nothing.
Corrine swallowed her anger. This child was a victim. She was a victim of more than just that bastard Evrain,. She was a victim of a cruel world that had abandoned her before she was old enough to even realize what had happened to her. Corrine had heard the child’s story, she knew of her belly swollen from hunger, crying on a heap of rubbish and she had barely been three years old. She knew that Cillia had been through more than any child deserved.
No, she didn’t deserve her hatred. She deserved Corrine’s love. She deserved protection. She deserved the family that had been torn from her when she had been taken from Kestrel. She deserved to live.
“Cillia?” Corrine’s voice was barely a whisper. Even that caused her jaw to ache.
The child stared forward.
“Cillia?” She said again.
The young red-headed girl sat motionless and emotionless, but Corrine saw something in her eyes.
“Cillia, is that you?”
Something flashed across her eyes. Corrine could see the struggle in them. It was as if she were fighting with everything inside her to find that part of her that had been stolen.
She lost the battle. Her little body slumped forward into the bars separating them. Corrine rushed to the side of the cell and cradled her limp form through the bars.
Anger rose in her chest again, but this time it was different. It was holy anger. It was the kind of anger that she was sure that God felt when he saw the pinnacle of his creation being profaned and violated. She felt a righteous fury boiling inside her. She would kill the monsters who had destroyed the child so profoundly that even the mention of her name would cause such stress that she would pass out.
Corrine swore to herself as she cradled Cillia, who couldn’t have been but a year or two younger than her own daughters, that she would protect this child with her life. She would do whatever it took to save this child. She would sacrifice anything to restore little Cillia to Kestrel. She swore that she would give Cillia the family that she’d never had. She would bring her into her family. Neither she nor Kestrel, her surrogate father would ever want for a family again. They were her children now.
She was but a little thing in the face of the changes that crashed around her like tsunamis battering the coastline, but just like the heavy granite that the old lighthouses she’d heard of as a child would stand on, she herself would stand strong against the tide of history that was crashing over her now.
She knew that she was going to be used as a lure to bring her husband into the middle of the trap they were surely setting for him, and she knew that, without a doubt in the world, he would come for her. She knew her husband. She knew him better than he knew himself. He would fight an army by himself with his hands tied behind his back if it meant that he had even the slightest chance of saving his family from danger.
The thought of it tore at her. He would put everything at risk, the rebellion, his fight against the Emperor to save Vealand, and his own life, to save her.
She needed to save him. She needed him to fight. Vealand needed him. He was the only one that could lead their nation. Without him, even if Vealand survived the destruction that Evrain lusted after, they would be lost and directionless. The best that they could hope for would be a brutal dictator to take Evrain’s place and bring the dying mess into something resembling a healthy nation once again.
No, Aris needed to live. He needed to kill Evrain and lead their people. He would chafe at the idea, but Corrine knew that he would be a just leader. He would hate having that power, he never lusted for power, and that was exactly why he would make a good Emperor.
She would protect Cillia, and she would live to see her husband take the thrown from that imposter Evrain. She swore to it.
Corrine ran her hands through Cillia’s bright hair and kissed her prone form through the bars separating them. She would protect her. She would protect Aris and her children.
After much deliberation, William was chosen to stay with Aris’ young daughters. He wanted to go with Aris, to fight by his side and avenge the loss of his brothers at the hands of Emperor Evrain’s men, but when he heard the tone of command in Aris’ voice, he’d saluted and gathered the two young girls to his side.
