Memory
The cloaked man with the curved dagger stood, just around the corner of a building on the opposite side of the street. The evening shadows were deep enough to hide him, but the other knew where to look. As the honey-skinned man slipped out the door of that inn, he made quickly for the cloaked man.
He stroked the hilt of that dagger at his belt. Yoshimo pushed past him without a second glance. After a moment more, the cloaked man followed.
"What did you find?" he demanded once they were deep back inside the alley. The other rounded back on him swiftly.
"She was here," he said. "The Gnome who owns the tavern said they found her face down in the street this morning."
The cloaked man cocked his head at that.
"She's already dead?"
But the other shook his head.
"No. She recovered inside by noon. Curious," he smirked there in the dark. "A squire of the Radiant Heart paid her fare."
He eyed the honey-skinned man beneath his hood. The man continued.
"She left this afternoon with another woman. An Elf," he said. "The squire went with them."
"Where did they go?" he pressed.
"The Promenade," the other told him, and started to turn away. "That is why we must hurry. We might catch her there, but the trail will disappear all too quickly with the crowds."
He had already been moving. But the cloaked man blindsided him. He shoved an arm into the man's throat and forced him back up against the wall.
The other grunted, but that was all the sound he could manage. He settled for grappling the cloaked man's arm desperately instead.
He let the other dangle there helplessly for a few moments, staring into his dark, almond-shaped eyes.
Then he leaned in close.
"When we find her," he snarled up at the other, baring his teeth, "she is mine and mine alone. Do you understand?"
The other had his hands full just trying to suck air in through his gaping mouth and clenched throat. Still, he managed to shake his head quickly enough.
The cloaked man let him go. Abruptly. The only reason he didn't gut the fool right there was because he had proved useful. And he didn't dare lose the girl now. Not when she was finally so close.
He spun away while the man gasped there on his knees, gagging loudly. He didn't bother to wait. He made straight for the promenade.
She had dreaded this.
The day before – she had spent all of it looking for some Shadow Thieves in broad daylight. Someone who could put her in contact with anyone powerful and well-connected enough to those back streets and gutters to help her find what she was looking for. She hadn't worried about the price. She was sure they would have found something they wanted from her. And nothing was too much now.
But it was for nothing. They had proved too dangerous. She had spent the rest of that day searching every stall, shop, and stand, looking for even a hint. Every step avoided that black crater. At first, it wasn't too difficult since she was hardly the only one. But as her search drew on and on, and she could still find nothing, her thoughts grew more and more black. Eventually, there was nowhere left to look.
But here.
That hole was all there was left. Her last hope. She could barely remember what had happened there. Vague memories of clawing her way away from it that night – broken, and beaten. She had lost everything in a single instant. And all she could see was his face.
His face.
She took a step down into that smoking ruin and it hounded her every step. A thousand cruel agonies. A million perverse, black indignities. They misted up from every blasted, blackened rock and swirled behind her eyes.
Night had come on. It was difficult to see, and she squinted, moving slowly. Carefully. The Elven girl lagged behind at first, as frightened of that place as she without knowing quite why. But she followed in the darker woman's footsteps eventually. She seemed even less eager to stay behind. Evelyn paid her no mind.
Evelyn had had the girl show her where she found her that night. She had managed to kill a man. The other bolted after his friend planted a knife beneath her ribs and she sucked the life right out of him. Her steps were easy enough to trace from there. They had all been washed away in the storm, but the ones in her memory lingered like blazing beacons on the walls inside her skull. Almost all the way back to that crater. Something had blown her a couple hundred yards right out of it. And she had hoped so desperately to end her search back there.
Her eyes flashed everywhere in the dim night. But everything was black. Burnt. Scorched to ash. Every step made her heart heavier. Each one brought her that much closer to despair. But she pressed on, desperate for even a glimmer of silver hope.
"What are you l-looking for?" the girl ventured anxiously after a time of nothing but useless black. It was a wonder that she had not asked sometime earlier when the raven-haired woman had been tearing through the shops.
But Evelyn didn't care. She just ignored her, murmuring frantically to herself as her oversized boots crunched through more and more of that open grave.
It was here. It had to be here.
Fingers clenched and unclenched at her sides. She leapt from mound to blasted, scorched mound, knuckles white. Her teeth were bared. And she looked almost feral.
Evelyn didn't even notice.
She couldn't have lost it. It couldn't be gone. It just … just …
It just couldn't be gone …!
But there was nothing. She threw her hands in blackness.
Nothing there but death. And ash. And everything she had ever cared about.
Tears blurred in her eyes. She twisted one way. Nothing. Then the other. Nothing again. She could barely see anymore. But she could feel. She could feel … nothing. Nothing at all.
She slowed to a halt. Her legs buckled. And then she was on her knees in the smoldering soot.
Her face scrunched up miserably. She sobbed. Her fingers buried themselves in ash. They swallowed up great handfuls and she pounded them back into the scorched earth like some stupid, weeping child. She didn't care. She just growled pitifully deep down in her throat.
"E-Evelyn …?"
The girl's voice nagged fearfully at her from behind. She couldn't hear it. She just shook her head slowly from side to side, slamming her fists into the ground.
It might have gone on forever. She might have stayed there, bawling into the ash. Manic. Desperate. Hollow. Broken, and lost. She would have, she thought. For a moment, it was all she wanted to do. Until she just wasted away like everything else around her.
But then one of those fists slammed into something hard.
Not a rock. Her hand sang out in pain. But it was not a rock.
That anguish died in her so fast it left her reeling. She froze, eyes wide, and silent. She didn't even bother to clear them.
She turned aside …
And started clawing at the black earth where she had felt it.
Something came out of the ground. She froze again when she felt it, bursting with hope. A startled laugh snapped out of her mouth.
Her hands were tearing anew in an instant.
Then she had it. She had found it again! She cradled it in her arms, as if afraid it would fade away or break in two. But no. She had found it. Again. And she was never going to let it get away again. Ever.
She laughed at the thought.
Evelyn turned back around, wiping the tears happily from her eyes. She was smiling. The first genuine smile in a long, long time.
She looked to the girl. But Aerie was not looking back. Instead she was turned the other way. Her eyes were on someone else.
Two someone else's.
Evelyn froze instantly, sobering. That overwhelming relief fled from her so quickly again that she nearly collapsed. But she didn't.
She swiped at her eyes instead. And as she did, one of those two figures standing at the edge of the crater abruptly pushed the other. That one tumbled in with a startled grunt.
Evelyn pushed the girl right out of the way, tossing her aside. That man tumbled over and over, limbs flailing as he crashed down into the blasted hole. He finally came to a rest, face up against a pile of smoldering rock.
A moment more, and he just managed to look up with a wince.
"Who are you?" she hissed at him instantly. The man started to pull himself up. But then he froze on his elbows. And Aerie gasped.
The other had drawn a bow up above. An arrow was already fitted to the string.
The fallen man watched as the other trained that arrow down on him. Then he glanced over at the raven-haired woman and the girl down in the black dirt. He gave them a rueful grin.
"Someone who must apologize for finding you," he offered in some strange accent. "Only to let you die."
Evelyn glanced back up to the other with the bow. He just pulled back, and loosed.
Something slammed into him from behind.
The arrow struck into ash just beside the fallen man's head. His eyes twisted that way, staring in surprise. Then the other came tumbling over him with a third man wrapped around his waist.
The man with the bow hit the center of the crater first. His attacker lost hold of him and rolled down and away. By the time he reached the bottom, the bowman had already stumbled back up to his feet. He leapt on the other and started pounding with his fists.
The two rolled around on the ground, snarling and grunting. Limbs and ashes flew viciously everywhere. A knife flashed. And just as quickly flew away.
The man with the accent stumbled down toward them. He snatched up that dagger, shaking himself back to his senses.
One of the other two was on top then, pounding away at the other's face. He saw the man staggering ahead with the dagger, and cried out.
"NO!"
He flung out a hand. But the man beneath him launched a fist into the side of his head and took him down.
The man with the dagger moved over toward the two women. The one on the ground who had thrown the last punch climbed haphazardly back to his feet. Evelyn eyed them both warily, edging back and tensing all over.
The man with the dagger opened his mouth. The other stumbled toward them. But then the third man still on the ground surged up and slammed two fists into the one's back. That one pitched into the burnt earth.
Before the man with the knife could do anything more, that other man had slammed into him too. He flew back off his feet.
There was only one left standing then. He gave the man with the knife a swift blow to the head for good measure, then plucked that knife back with a heavy breath. When he came staggering unsteadily back around–
Evelyn was waiting for him.
He didn't even get a chance to raise that knife. She kicked it right out of his hand and smashed her own into his neck. He toppled back over with a shrill, choked gasp into the black dirt.
She stood over him. Neither of the other two were in any condition to threaten her then. And that one just lay there, gagging against the ground.
"My lady!" one of the other two managed to gasp. She stalked over to that one, scowling as he pulled himself back up to his feet.
"Are you injured?" the squire coughed, doubled over and trying to steadying himself against her with a hand. She brushed him aside without a word. Knowing that he would follow her had still made it no loss annoying.
The other man, who had picked up and then lost the dagger, stumbled towards them. He stepped over to the last man on the ground, looking down.
"You are fortunate," he said, glancing back over his shoulder at Evelyn then. It was that man with the foreign accent.
"He was going to kill you."
Evelyn found the dagger half-buried into soot. The foreign man slipped a long, slender blade free from somewhere under his cloak. And Anomen now had a mace in hand. The stranger stood his ground almost protectively. The squire ignored him for the moment, stalking over toward the bowman on the ground. He hauled him roughly back up to his feet.
"A would-be murderer," the bearded man growled at the dazed man in his grasp. He spared the foreigner a dubious look as well. "There is always room for them in the Amnish dungeons."
Evelyn glared at all three of them. She almost threw a scorching look at the girl as well. All that mattered was clutched desperately like a lifeline in one claw of her hands. And all three of those stupid fools had done nothing but get in her way.
She stalked up toward them. Anomen had reached up and snatched back the bowman's hood.
And she abruptly stopped dead in her tracks.
For a moment, all Evelyn could do was stare. Wide-eyed. Horrified.
She couldn't move.
Then those beaten-bleary, brown eyes lifted up to hers. And she gagged on her own tongue.
For a moment.
Eventually, she did manage to find her voice again.
"Kivan."