BloodFire
Disclaimer: Anything referring to the land of Valdemar or the heralds is the creation of Mercedes Lackey, and I can take no credit for it.
This story is based in the land of Valdemar, during the reign of the co- consorts Arden and Leesa. The Monarch's Own was recently killed in a battle against Karse, and his companion, Deilan, has not chosen a replacement.
Chapter 1
*
The breezes fluttered around her skirts as Liara walked slowly down the track to the village. The tame winds that curled around her made the heavy dress almost as cool as her leggings would have done, but soon she would have to dismiss them and surrender to the dry summer heat. Having her clothes flutter in a localized wind would cause great suspicion among the villagers. She stopped at the tiny inn and brought the bread she had been sent for, supplying the innkeeper in exchange with the two fat pigeons that she had caught that morning in the forest.
"Your father's a good shot with the bird-arrows, girl." Brad told her, hefting the neatly speared fowl. Liara hid a grimace. The villagers would not be pleased if they discovered that she was hunting all the game.
She swung the canvas sack onto her back, and blotted perspiration from her forehead with one hand, sweeping her black hair out of her eyes. She walked out again into the dust and heat looking forward to changing into her much more comfortable leggings when she reached the stone house that was her home.
She walked past the inn's only guest on the way out, and shuddered as the man gazed at her. She felt a tendril of thought, like befouled, mouldy water brush her as she hurried away.
That man gave her the creeps. He always seemed to be watching her, for some sign that she was not being a properly demure Karsite girl. The decided expression on his face today made her heart quail, but she pulled herself together. She was just being paranoid. She had no reason to think that anyone had found out that she and her family all practiced magic.
She had reached the large stone house. It was built on a hill, far away from the villagers and their prying eyes. The thought of what would happen if people found out about her family chilled her to the bone.
Her parents had originally been mercenaries in Rethwellan, but had gotten separated from their company during an unsuccessful fight. The two had decided that rather than to risk death at the hands of border guards, that they would settle down in Karse and make a life for themselves.
And so they had, using their mage gift and elemental gifts to build the comfortable home. But for all their complacence with their Karsite life, they were determined that they're daughter would not have to live in secrecy. So every day since she was five years old, she had been drilled in languages, weapons, her elemental magics, and the mind magics that she had. Her parents always seemed vaguely disappointed, but she had never shown even the potential of mage-gift.
She stepped into the kitchen, mercifully cool, and placed the bread in the pantry. Her mother had a vegetable garden, and hunting supplied their meat, but they brought most of their other food from the village inn. Liara could hear the clash of steel from behind the house, and she smiled to herself. Her parents always trained daily, to keep in fighting trim, just like she was trained by her parents.
Liara hurried swiftly upstairs and changed into the black leather leggings and matching tunic that she used for fighting practice. The clothes fitted her exactly, having been created out of carefully woven elemental magics, and were perfect for the movement that the heavy skirts prohibited. She also belted on the perfectly matched daggers that she herself had made, strapping one over each hip. She re-plaited her hair in a long black braid before trotting downstairs and out into the yard.
Her parents were attired in clothing similar to her own, and each held a sword. Her mother wielded a thin, delicate rapier, while her father swung a heavier broadsword. Liara watched in admiration. While she herself had no aptitude for the sword, and no longer used the weapon, she could easily appreciate the dance that was being performed in front of her.
It looked as though the battle would last a while yet, so she began to stretch as she waited. When she finished, she leaned against one cool stone wall and slapped one of her daggers into her hand as she waited.
They were not really daggers. The matching weapons each had a blade easily two handspans long, and both were sharp enough to cut through stone. They were beautiful, Liara thought, as she watched the summer sunlight play on the silvery knives. The hilts of each were inlaid with gold wire, and a huge blue crystal was set through the precise centre of the hand guard. A prize for any thief, Liara thought, but any thief would get a surprise. She had made these knives from nothing, and each contained a wealth of elemental energies, energies which answered only to her. A thief who tried to take them would end up with a severely burned hand.
Liara ran her fingers over the edge of the blade, reveling in the song of the sun warmed metal, and in the invigorating murmur of the magic in the knife. She sheathed the weapon reluctantly, and stared at her hand, marred now by a shallow, bloody cut stretching over her fingertips. She touched it gently with her healing gift and the cut closed, leaving only a streak of blood that she quickly wiped away.
Her mother, Rianna, left the training area, shaking ungreyed blonde hair out of its plait. "Michel!" She called to her husband. "You can train Liara today. I'll make lunch for you two fighters."
Michel grinned in reply, and led his daughter onto the yard. Liara smiled as well, and the battle began in earnest. Finally her father called a halt.
"Enough!" He pushed sweaty black hair from his brown eyes as he resheathed his sword. "I can't let you beat me, so today's training is declared over."
Liara smiled as she followed him back into the house. She looked like both her parents, with Rianna's sapphire blue eyes and her father's black hair. It gave her a striking appearance, and one she greatly enjoyed. Unfortunately, it also attracted notice - notice that she really did not want pushed in her direction. Her thoughts return uneasily to the polluted mindtouch she had felt earlier, but she pushed the memory away. Now was not the time.
After Liara had finished eating her lunch, she took her hunting bow, and went into the nearby forest to search for game. They used up most of what they caught bartering with the village, so she hunted often.
It was cooler underneath the tall trees, and she stopped to appreciate the shade, before proceeding deeper into the forest.
She had picked up the prints of a rabbit, and was stealthily following with an arrow on the bow string when she began to feel uneasy. She stopped as the feeling grew, and she lowered her shields carefully. What she picked up with her empathy was enough to drop her bow and slam her shields back up.
She had picked up fear, and a searing pain, which made her feel physically sick. And worse - it was coming from her house - and her family. She set off at a sprint, determined to find out what was wrong.
She burst through the door, into the kitchen, and beheld a nightmare. Lying on the floor in front of her, still holding a sword in one flaccid fist, was the body of Michel, her father, open eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling, a sword wound through his heart. Beyond him Rianna was lying in a pool of blood with her throat cut.
There were signs that they had put up a fight, bloody marks on the floor, and disarranged furniture, but Liara didn't notice as she knelt, grief blinding her with tears, on the bloodstained floor of the kitchen.
But as she knelt there, a glassy wall seemed to surround her, taking control away from her. As Liara watched stupidly, her body stood, crying no longer, and walked out of the open door. She could see tracks on the dusty lane, of many people leaving her house. Some limped, and several bodies were being pulled, and Liara felt a feral grin stretching her lips. She started after the retreating murderers, ready to get her revenge.
The group of witch hunters was below her, and she pulled all her rage and pain into a weapon, flinging it over the men below. They were people she knew, people she'd seen all her life, and she had to watch herself killing them, and feel their dying in her Empathy.
All five elements raged supreme. Fire, lightening, earth, air, and water harried the men below as she smiled and screamed. The remaining witch hunters dropped their weapons, and ran to the village, the odious inn guest, who she now knew as an agent of the priests, among them. She followed, sending her maelstrom of hatred and rage to precede her.
She entered the village, surrounded by screams. One villager frantically swung an improvised club at her, screaming a prayer to the Sunlord, and she casually stabbed him. Inside her head, Liara screamed, throwing herself against the barriers that surrounded her mind.
Nothing she could do freed her from the prison of rage and grief that surrounded her, and she could only watch with horrified eyes as she killed and destroyed with her magic, and with her mind. She wept impotently as she killed babes in arms, and screamed as she slaughtered their families, but the killing went on.
*
Behind the inn, the witch hunter priest desperately saddled his horse, spurring it into a gallop that took him to the nearest temple of Vkandis, the Sunlord. This foul sorceress was surely aided by all the demons of hell itself, and he could not face her alone.
*
Liara wept inside her head, as she strolled into the village square, a grim smile stretching her face. Then the barriers that had kept her locked inside her mind vanished, and she fell to the ground, weeping until she could not see.
All around her were people she had known - and she had murdered them! She had listened to their screams and done nothing. She could still feel the emotional echoes with her empathic gift - fifty people, hurting, dying. She could feel their screams, ripping her soul to shreds, killing her heart.
She pushed the screams away, into a dark corner of her damaged soul, and with them pushed all the memories, and all the grief and pain, and locked them there. They left nothing behind, just an emptiness. No emotion touched her now, no feelings moved her. There was nothing in her except purpose.
She drew one of her knives, noticing dully that it was smeared with blood, and she plunged it deep into the flesh above her elbow. She ripped it forward through her forearm and up to her wrist before drawing out the knife. She felt nothing but the purpose that had infected her as she clumsily gutted her right arm in the same manner. She resheathed the knife carefully, and stared at her ripped and bloodstained sleeve.
She wondered vaguely whether she would be allowed into the Havens, but decided that it didn't matter. She had done what she had to do, clearing the world of a murderer by orchestrating her own death.
Strange - at first there had been no feeling in her arms, but now there was a dull, persistent throb. Liara pulled back one torn sleeve to stare despairing at her forearm. No gaping wound met her eyes, but a livid, new healed scar.
The knife she had used had been made from her own power, and would never end the life of its creator. She was a creature of elements, and the elements loved her. They would never kill her.
It was a greater punishment than any of the Hells could have given her - to live on with a soul that was ripped and a heart that was dead.
She knelt on the bloodstained earth, and called to all the gods for a surcease from pain, but there was no relief. She cursed all the gods into oblivion, but there was no retaliation. And to her dead heart and soul came the truth; that there were no gods, and there was no mercy.
And there would never be forgiveness.
Disclaimer: Anything referring to the land of Valdemar or the heralds is the creation of Mercedes Lackey, and I can take no credit for it.
This story is based in the land of Valdemar, during the reign of the co- consorts Arden and Leesa. The Monarch's Own was recently killed in a battle against Karse, and his companion, Deilan, has not chosen a replacement.
Chapter 1
*
The breezes fluttered around her skirts as Liara walked slowly down the track to the village. The tame winds that curled around her made the heavy dress almost as cool as her leggings would have done, but soon she would have to dismiss them and surrender to the dry summer heat. Having her clothes flutter in a localized wind would cause great suspicion among the villagers. She stopped at the tiny inn and brought the bread she had been sent for, supplying the innkeeper in exchange with the two fat pigeons that she had caught that morning in the forest.
"Your father's a good shot with the bird-arrows, girl." Brad told her, hefting the neatly speared fowl. Liara hid a grimace. The villagers would not be pleased if they discovered that she was hunting all the game.
She swung the canvas sack onto her back, and blotted perspiration from her forehead with one hand, sweeping her black hair out of her eyes. She walked out again into the dust and heat looking forward to changing into her much more comfortable leggings when she reached the stone house that was her home.
She walked past the inn's only guest on the way out, and shuddered as the man gazed at her. She felt a tendril of thought, like befouled, mouldy water brush her as she hurried away.
That man gave her the creeps. He always seemed to be watching her, for some sign that she was not being a properly demure Karsite girl. The decided expression on his face today made her heart quail, but she pulled herself together. She was just being paranoid. She had no reason to think that anyone had found out that she and her family all practiced magic.
She had reached the large stone house. It was built on a hill, far away from the villagers and their prying eyes. The thought of what would happen if people found out about her family chilled her to the bone.
Her parents had originally been mercenaries in Rethwellan, but had gotten separated from their company during an unsuccessful fight. The two had decided that rather than to risk death at the hands of border guards, that they would settle down in Karse and make a life for themselves.
And so they had, using their mage gift and elemental gifts to build the comfortable home. But for all their complacence with their Karsite life, they were determined that they're daughter would not have to live in secrecy. So every day since she was five years old, she had been drilled in languages, weapons, her elemental magics, and the mind magics that she had. Her parents always seemed vaguely disappointed, but she had never shown even the potential of mage-gift.
She stepped into the kitchen, mercifully cool, and placed the bread in the pantry. Her mother had a vegetable garden, and hunting supplied their meat, but they brought most of their other food from the village inn. Liara could hear the clash of steel from behind the house, and she smiled to herself. Her parents always trained daily, to keep in fighting trim, just like she was trained by her parents.
Liara hurried swiftly upstairs and changed into the black leather leggings and matching tunic that she used for fighting practice. The clothes fitted her exactly, having been created out of carefully woven elemental magics, and were perfect for the movement that the heavy skirts prohibited. She also belted on the perfectly matched daggers that she herself had made, strapping one over each hip. She re-plaited her hair in a long black braid before trotting downstairs and out into the yard.
Her parents were attired in clothing similar to her own, and each held a sword. Her mother wielded a thin, delicate rapier, while her father swung a heavier broadsword. Liara watched in admiration. While she herself had no aptitude for the sword, and no longer used the weapon, she could easily appreciate the dance that was being performed in front of her.
It looked as though the battle would last a while yet, so she began to stretch as she waited. When she finished, she leaned against one cool stone wall and slapped one of her daggers into her hand as she waited.
They were not really daggers. The matching weapons each had a blade easily two handspans long, and both were sharp enough to cut through stone. They were beautiful, Liara thought, as she watched the summer sunlight play on the silvery knives. The hilts of each were inlaid with gold wire, and a huge blue crystal was set through the precise centre of the hand guard. A prize for any thief, Liara thought, but any thief would get a surprise. She had made these knives from nothing, and each contained a wealth of elemental energies, energies which answered only to her. A thief who tried to take them would end up with a severely burned hand.
Liara ran her fingers over the edge of the blade, reveling in the song of the sun warmed metal, and in the invigorating murmur of the magic in the knife. She sheathed the weapon reluctantly, and stared at her hand, marred now by a shallow, bloody cut stretching over her fingertips. She touched it gently with her healing gift and the cut closed, leaving only a streak of blood that she quickly wiped away.
Her mother, Rianna, left the training area, shaking ungreyed blonde hair out of its plait. "Michel!" She called to her husband. "You can train Liara today. I'll make lunch for you two fighters."
Michel grinned in reply, and led his daughter onto the yard. Liara smiled as well, and the battle began in earnest. Finally her father called a halt.
"Enough!" He pushed sweaty black hair from his brown eyes as he resheathed his sword. "I can't let you beat me, so today's training is declared over."
Liara smiled as she followed him back into the house. She looked like both her parents, with Rianna's sapphire blue eyes and her father's black hair. It gave her a striking appearance, and one she greatly enjoyed. Unfortunately, it also attracted notice - notice that she really did not want pushed in her direction. Her thoughts return uneasily to the polluted mindtouch she had felt earlier, but she pushed the memory away. Now was not the time.
After Liara had finished eating her lunch, she took her hunting bow, and went into the nearby forest to search for game. They used up most of what they caught bartering with the village, so she hunted often.
It was cooler underneath the tall trees, and she stopped to appreciate the shade, before proceeding deeper into the forest.
She had picked up the prints of a rabbit, and was stealthily following with an arrow on the bow string when she began to feel uneasy. She stopped as the feeling grew, and she lowered her shields carefully. What she picked up with her empathy was enough to drop her bow and slam her shields back up.
She had picked up fear, and a searing pain, which made her feel physically sick. And worse - it was coming from her house - and her family. She set off at a sprint, determined to find out what was wrong.
She burst through the door, into the kitchen, and beheld a nightmare. Lying on the floor in front of her, still holding a sword in one flaccid fist, was the body of Michel, her father, open eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling, a sword wound through his heart. Beyond him Rianna was lying in a pool of blood with her throat cut.
There were signs that they had put up a fight, bloody marks on the floor, and disarranged furniture, but Liara didn't notice as she knelt, grief blinding her with tears, on the bloodstained floor of the kitchen.
But as she knelt there, a glassy wall seemed to surround her, taking control away from her. As Liara watched stupidly, her body stood, crying no longer, and walked out of the open door. She could see tracks on the dusty lane, of many people leaving her house. Some limped, and several bodies were being pulled, and Liara felt a feral grin stretching her lips. She started after the retreating murderers, ready to get her revenge.
The group of witch hunters was below her, and she pulled all her rage and pain into a weapon, flinging it over the men below. They were people she knew, people she'd seen all her life, and she had to watch herself killing them, and feel their dying in her Empathy.
All five elements raged supreme. Fire, lightening, earth, air, and water harried the men below as she smiled and screamed. The remaining witch hunters dropped their weapons, and ran to the village, the odious inn guest, who she now knew as an agent of the priests, among them. She followed, sending her maelstrom of hatred and rage to precede her.
She entered the village, surrounded by screams. One villager frantically swung an improvised club at her, screaming a prayer to the Sunlord, and she casually stabbed him. Inside her head, Liara screamed, throwing herself against the barriers that surrounded her mind.
Nothing she could do freed her from the prison of rage and grief that surrounded her, and she could only watch with horrified eyes as she killed and destroyed with her magic, and with her mind. She wept impotently as she killed babes in arms, and screamed as she slaughtered their families, but the killing went on.
*
Behind the inn, the witch hunter priest desperately saddled his horse, spurring it into a gallop that took him to the nearest temple of Vkandis, the Sunlord. This foul sorceress was surely aided by all the demons of hell itself, and he could not face her alone.
*
Liara wept inside her head, as she strolled into the village square, a grim smile stretching her face. Then the barriers that had kept her locked inside her mind vanished, and she fell to the ground, weeping until she could not see.
All around her were people she had known - and she had murdered them! She had listened to their screams and done nothing. She could still feel the emotional echoes with her empathic gift - fifty people, hurting, dying. She could feel their screams, ripping her soul to shreds, killing her heart.
She pushed the screams away, into a dark corner of her damaged soul, and with them pushed all the memories, and all the grief and pain, and locked them there. They left nothing behind, just an emptiness. No emotion touched her now, no feelings moved her. There was nothing in her except purpose.
She drew one of her knives, noticing dully that it was smeared with blood, and she plunged it deep into the flesh above her elbow. She ripped it forward through her forearm and up to her wrist before drawing out the knife. She felt nothing but the purpose that had infected her as she clumsily gutted her right arm in the same manner. She resheathed the knife carefully, and stared at her ripped and bloodstained sleeve.
She wondered vaguely whether she would be allowed into the Havens, but decided that it didn't matter. She had done what she had to do, clearing the world of a murderer by orchestrating her own death.
Strange - at first there had been no feeling in her arms, but now there was a dull, persistent throb. Liara pulled back one torn sleeve to stare despairing at her forearm. No gaping wound met her eyes, but a livid, new healed scar.
The knife she had used had been made from her own power, and would never end the life of its creator. She was a creature of elements, and the elements loved her. They would never kill her.
It was a greater punishment than any of the Hells could have given her - to live on with a soul that was ripped and a heart that was dead.
She knelt on the bloodstained earth, and called to all the gods for a surcease from pain, but there was no relief. She cursed all the gods into oblivion, but there was no retaliation. And to her dead heart and soul came the truth; that there were no gods, and there was no mercy.
And there would never be forgiveness.