It was a thought that ran through Lojen’s mind for the better part of an hour as the survivors of the scourge attack tried to bring order back into semblance. It destroyed him, seeing his father lying there upon the safehouse floor. Didn’t want to admit to himself what lay before him, rent apart by the Fallen’s soldiers. Didn’t want to believe that things were so blatantly wrong for years were in fact now come to roost. Didn’t want to comprehend that no matter how hard it had been before, nothing could have prepared him for the sight of it.
Ever since word had reached Merj of Drenth’s conquest and the murder of the Regents Benld, Lojen had built a vault to house his emotions. A vault in the far corners of his mind and heart, a place where he could put his father’s memory. Never forgotten, but a spot where he could hide his despair and sorrow. Life had to go on, for him, but especially for Ruane. He had to force one talon in front of the other and keep moving. The way of the wardkeeper.
But now, his soul—and his everlasting anguish—was laid completely bare.
Drakken rarely cried—it was said that the Arbiter had given His favored draconem the gift of silent mourning. An emotional armor in the face of protecting their wards. And yet, Lojen still had tears in his eyes, his mind in a fog as he helped cover the bodies of the dead.
There was no time to grieve, he knew he had to shove that grating sorrow deep down into the void and use it as the spark upon which his fire was to ignite. It’s what Tevun would’ve done and expected of him. What Justice would expect of a worthy heir to the wardkeeper’s horns.
When the Fallen and his cursed pets atop Gargantua crashed down to the earth, and when the Imperium was destroyed, then, and only then, would he be able to properly grieve.
“What now?” asked the lapin named Wick. The furry creature held a compress against the tall Kanjan elfir’s shoulder. The elfir, named Finnus, had been hit by the scourge’s gunfire, pierced through one side and out the other. Finn groaned noisily. “Cut it out, needle dick, ain’t nothin’ more than a scratch.”
A numbness had settled over the safehouse, their apprehension taut like a stretched hide in the sun. A subdued silence had accompanied the lot of them as they picked up the pieces of the attack in their own ways.
“Em?” Wick was speaking to the scion of Drenth, who was crouched over the bodies of rebels, Tevun amongst them. Emre had pulled the bloody tarp back and was caressing the pallid face of the drakken wardkeeper smeared with blood. “Em?”
“I say bugger the Fallen and hit Gargantua with everything you’ve got,” Ruane said. She was huddled in a corner, her drakken longknife shoved tip down into the floor. His sister simmered with barely contained rage. “You’ve got to have more explosives than what you did this morning at the factories. Hit them hard and fast.”
“They can’t do that, Ru,” Lojen said as he extricated himself from his spot across the room. “It’s directly over the city. They’d kill thousands.”
Emre glanced at him, a sadness painted across his features, appearing to have aged considerably in the last few hours. The man idly scratched at his forearms, which Lojen noticed were covered in scars. “He’s right. Can’t risk the fallout over Drenth. Not yet at least.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, humir?”
“It’s truly begun, eh, Em?” Finn questioned through a series of grunts and groans, really playing up his injury. It was almost comical. “I’m fine, by the way, thanks for loving me enough to ask. But Tevun?”
Both drakken stared at the scion of Drenth, who nodded solemnly. “He knew.”
“Knew what?” Ruane asked…
…just as Finn exclaimed, “He knew? By the Pentax, Em. How?” Then the elfir glanced toward the bikrome sitting cross-legged beside him. Suspicious. “No doubt Val knew. She bloody knows everything!”
“It’s not important, Finn,” Emre said carefully, and Lojen realized the elfir was treading on ground Emre wasn’t prepared yet to walk. “The plan was the plan. Regardless of what happened. All of this was expected. Not wanted but expected. I had hoped to avoid this bloodshed but apparently hope no longer follows by my side.”
Lojen picked at a thread of his furred trousers, thinking, reminiscing. “My father knew this was going to happen? His own death?”
Emre sighed as he looked down upon the deceased wardkeeper. “Not exactly. There was a spy within our camp. Me and Finn nearly got nicked weeks ago. We needed to know who it was.” A stray glance toward the bikrome. “And if there is more to be found.”
“Imperium waiting for us at the mines,” Finn added, cursing as Wick tied off the bandage at his shoulder. The elfir stifled another as he slowly rotated his arm in its socket. Instantly the bandage turned red, causing the lapin beside him to curse, untie it, and staunch it anew. “Buggers knew when we’d hit it.”
“Tevun had been under the assumption for years that the Imperium would seek to infiltrate us,” Emre continued. “It was slow at first, jobs and hits gone wrong. Soldiers beefing security, that type of thing. But recently, it’s gotten more specific. Every job thwarted. The only thing left to us were the gangs. All our parch reserves were going stale. If we didn’t start working with the gangs, we’d be ground to dust in a matter of weeks. So, Tevun, Finn, a man named Kephren, and me came up with a plan to oust the spy.”
“At the cost of my father’s life!” Ruane spat.
“We understood the danger, your father included. We took an oath, a blood oath. Not to give up the fight until death takes us. It was only until recently did we realize Keph was the spy, selling secrets to the Imperium. Solanine has been after the gangs for years. This was the chance to appease the Fallen.” He looked toward the bikrome once more. What did she know that only Emre did? “But scourges? That means Kephren might have been the sacrificial lamb to get the rest of us, the gangs included.”
“Then what went wrong?” Lojen asked.
“I wish I knew.” A tenseness in the response. A wrongness, Lojen observed. A half-truth. What game do you play, Emre Benld? Is this the bikrome speaking? “We missed something.”
“Broken shells, humir,” Ruane cursed. “Of course, something went wrong. My father’s dead for real this time and Lojen’s horns by right are still missing. That bitch Solanine will pay. Then I’ll gut the Fallen where he stands.” Ruane pulled free the longknife and made toward the safehouse hatch.
“There’s more to it than you know,” Emre said softly, Ruane stopping and looking back at their father’s ward. “Finn and Val are Kalderim-born. Of the Dunleith line.”
“Broken shells!” Ruane cursed again. “Heirs to Kalderim’s Golden Throne. Just great.” She threw up her claws in angst and stalked from the room, brushing past the pale elfirish seer.
Lojen stared at Emre, but the man was still like steel. His face was hard, his eyes harder. There were secrets wrapped around him. What secrets, what truths, Lojen had no idea. There was a calm calculation, Lojen just needed to find out what it was.
“My father tried to tell me something before he died,” Lojen started, looking toward the bikrome. “Protect something. I know some about bikromi seers.” There was hesitation in his voice. “Can you recover it? Recover what he meant, that is?”
“I’m bikromi, not a willow wraith.”
“Aren’t those the flame-haired witches who shimmer in the mist and turn you to mushrooms?”
“You’re an idiot, needle dick,” Wick said as he pressed the bandage hard enough to elicit a squawk from the Kalderim elfir. “No wonder your parents wanted you far away from the Golden Throne.”
“They didn’t toss me aside, rabbit. I left that gutter-fire just for the opportunity to bug you.”
“And I thank He Who Fathered the World every single day for that blessing.” The lapin scrunched his nose, making his elongated teeth protrude in a frown.
“For your information, brother-friend,” Val started, then paused and added ‘moron’ under her breath, “Willow wraiths are the evil Lords of the Shimmer Isles and specialize in all things Void Form.”
“But they also possess the ability to breach the veil of the void,” Emre finished. “Just like the bikromi with their Vision Form. The voice of the Pentax.”
“I’m not sure I can do anything of such nature,” Val said quietly. “I’ve never tried. I don’t know if Bliss will listen.”
“You did it once, Val.”