Grief of the Undying (The Ichorian Epics Book 3) Read online

  There was no point in hiding now. Everyone knew and saw the blood snake back into her hand.

  The ground started to angle upwards, and she was finally able to see daylight. More people were calling behind her. She just had to get out and lose them.

  Suddenly, more people were blocking the exit. She knew civilians waited here to catch a glimpse of their favorite fighters, but she hadn’t expected any of that to be directed her way.

  “That’s her! The new Blood Warrior!”

  Hundreds of people surged forward to see her. She might have been trampled if the Kression guards weren’t there.

  Iron clad guards blocked the civilians from entering the amphitheater, but it also prevented her exit.

  “Now that was impressive,” the bald merchant caught up to her. “I can’t say I appreciate that, but that sort of maneuver in a good fight would be thrilling.”

  “What? No,” Pen stammered.

  “Blood Warrior?”

  Turning to the new voice back in the tunnel, her heart jumped to her throat. The entire tunnel was blocked by fighters, both free and slave alike.

  A man at the head of that crowd had a medallion of Maniodes around his neck. The god’s shield was depicted on the pendent.

  He knelt before Pen, and several behind him followed.

  “Would you bless us before the next bout of fights? To help us bring honor to the gods and our families?” he asked.

  Pen backed away, unable to speak. It felt like the tunnel was narrowing.

  “She still cheated!” another person called behind those kneeling. “We’ve trained our entire lives for this, and she walks in making a mockery of it, and you’re praising her?!”

  “No, I…” Pen tried to defend herself but the words died.

  “Pen!”

  She barely heard the name over the noise of half cheering half arguing, but it was definitely hers. No one knew her name here.

  Looking back to the civilian blocked exit, she was astonished to actually see a familiar face. Raisa had pushed her way to the front and was waving at her.

  “So, your name is Pen?” the merchant said smiling.

  “Warrior?”

  The fighters were still on their knees, and their apparent leader was starting to look uncomfortable.

  “Um … Have a good fight, may it end well,” Pen blurted out, not knowing how to give a blessing.

  “Out of the way.”

  A new solider clad in fine maroon armor shoved past the one who had accused her of cheating. The royal crest of Kression held his cape closed at the shoulders.

  Pen cursed.

  She rushed towards the civilians and guards blocking them, aiming for Raisa.

  “I need to get through, and she can come with me,” Pen told one of the guards, hoping he hadn’t noticed the royal messenger.

  His orange beard and eyes were prominent under the bronze helm. He glanced and noticed the messenger then. Her heart sank.

  “For the bloody love of Maniodes, let me through,” she demanded with vigor she didn’t feel.

  “Make a path!” he shouted.

  Several of the bystanders let up, but they kept shouting.

  “Do it again!”

  “Make your blood move!”

  “Where were you all this time?”

  The bearded man let Pen through, and she took Raisa’s outstretched hand.

  “Come with me. Run when you can,” Raisa said.

  Pen followed her lead as they surged through the crowd. Some of the guards helped them, but the royal soldier could be heard over the roar.

  Once there was an opening, Raisa took off towards the stone buildings that surrounded the amphitheater. Pen let go of her hand but followed close behind.

  Thankfully, none of the civilians followed, only the royal soldier did.

  “Halt in the name of the king!” he shouted after them.

  “Just keep going,” Raisa encouraged.

  “I know!” Pen replied annoyed.

  They ran for several minutes, down twisting streets and alleys. Raisa eventually stopped at a rather decrepit part of Kression, and they both looked back. The soldier didn’t appear around the last corner, but Pen wasn’t reassured.

  Raisa knocked rhythmically on a seemingly random door. After a moment, a small slit opened in the dark wood at eye level. Pen couldn’t see who was inside, but Raisa smiled.

  “Open the door, please, Palamedes,” she said.

  The window closed, and Pen heard a heavy lock slide back. The door opened, and Raisa held out an arm inviting Pen inside first.

  She hurried into the space and Raisa followed. The common room was simple but inviting. The fireplace wasn’t lit, but lanterns filled the room with a visible warmth over the wooden tables and benches.

  Two other men and a woman sat at one of the tables, the meals before them practically forgotten.

  Palamedes closed and latched the door again.

  Pen’s nerves prickled at the sound of the iron lock sliding shut.

  “Thank you for getting me out of that,” Pen said to Raisa. “Now, what were you doing there? Last I heard you were in Potamis.”

  “I was but that was some time ago now. If you wouldn’t mind speaking in private, we can use one of the rooms upstairs,” Raisa said.

  Pen just wanted to get out of the city, but it was nice to see Raisa again. It had to be at least a few years since they last talked. Those royal soldiers were still searching for her anyway. She decided to wait until nightfall.

  “We’re safe here?” she asked.

  “No one knows about this hideout,” Raisa agreed.

  “Raisa?” Palamedes spoke up.

  She turned to him.

  “I’d like to make sure we’re secure too. You came hurrying in here with a stranger. Needless to say, I’m a little concerned,” he said.

  “Everything is fine, I just had to get my friend somewhere safe quickly. Checking the perimeter would be a good idea, though, if you wouldn’t mind double checking. And Julae?”

  The woman at the table perked up.

  “Run along the roof tops and look for any royal guards. Report their position back to me,” Raisa said.

  “Royal guards?” Julae asked astonished. “What, in Nyx’s name, have you gotten involved in?”

  Raisa chuckled, apparently unbothered by her subordinates talking this way.

  “Pen here caused a bit of a show at the games today. I just want to keep her out of the king’s grasp,” Raisa explained.

  Julae stood nodding. She followed Palamedes through a side door without another protest.

  “Can we help with anything?” one of the others at the table asked.

  “Not right now, but thank you. We’ll be upstairs. Pen?”

  Pen followed Raisa through the door the others took. Part of the new corridor led off to other rooms while a stairway rose to her left. Raisa took to the stairs and led her to several bed chambers branching off another corridor.

  “How many of these hideouts do you have?” Pen asked. She knew the Ragged Wolves was an extensive operation, but had no idea the amount of locations they had.

  “We have places all over Ichorisis and every city,” Raisa replied.

  “Even the Eastern Islands?”

  “Of course.”

  Raisa held a door open to one of the bedrooms. Pen entered and practically collapsed on the bench by the window. She noted the bed in the corner and wondered how many people Raisa had working for her.

  Raisa took the wooden chair across from Pen.

  “So, where have you been all this time?” Raisa asked. There was a touch of something in her voice Pen couldn’t quite make out, but it sounded like annoyance.

  “Just traveling,” Pen shrugged, “never staying in one place for too long.”

  Raisa nodded then said, “I know that. I’ve been tracking you and your stories for months now. You cannot believe how relieved I was to see you in that arena. Of course, the moment I take a break fro
m looking for you, that’s when you show up. What were you doing in there anyway? They don’t let women fight.”

  “Cut your hair, wear ill-fitting clothing, and deepen your voice a bit, they hardly notice you. I thought the fight would be a good change of pace, though apparently I’m rusty in a fight.”

  Pen saw the shadow of her father back at the lake. That hallucination had been enough motivation to do something different. She had been alone for a long time. She hadn’t intended to join the Games, but she needed an outlet, even if it was extreme.

  “It was more than a few months since we last met,” Pen said changing the subject. “Wasn’t the last time when I wintered at your Potamis hideout a few years back?”

  Raisa’s eyebrows knit together. “That was more than a few years; it was five or six years at least.”

  Pen leaned back trying to let the idea sink it. It didn’t feel right, that much time just being gone, but she hadn’t been paying attention to it.

  “I thought it had only been a couple of years. Wait, how’s Drivas doing, then?”

  Confused thoughtfulness crossed Raisa’s eyes.

  “How long do you think it’s been since the Era of Undying?”

  Pen shrugged. “Six or seven years? I’m guessing longer now, though. And it wasn’t much of an era, it only lasted three months.”

  She didn’t appreciate how closely Raisa was watching her or the sympathy in her eyes.

  “It’s been fifteen years, Pen.”

  “What?! No, it hasn’t,” she denied.

  “Then you haven’t heard of young King Aegeus’s fifteenth birthday. It was quite the celebration. There was also the rise of a new king in the north, and the Rebellions on the Islands.”

  Pen’s heart pounded at the thought. Fifteen years are just gone. Arch and Alard had been dead for that long? Tellus as well, now that she let herself think about it.

  She looked to Raisa again and noticed the thin lines around her mouth and eyes. There wasn’t any gray in her hair yet, but the change was still significant.

  “Fifteen years,” Pen said to herself.

  Alard would have been eighteen years old. Pen couldn’t imagine her little boy grown up, probably with stubble even.

  “So, what then?” Pen said pushing away the painful idea of a grown up Alard. “Why have you been tracking me for a few months?”

  “Straight to business, then,” Raisa sighed. “Queen Aethra sent me to find you. She needs your help.”

  “Why?” Pen asked dubiously.

  With Pen causing the Era of Undying, she had made the late King Aegeus’s natural death of cancer even more slow and painful. She didn’t think his wife would ever want to meet.

  “Stymphalia is being attacked. At least that’s what the queen told me. She wanted to keep it quiet, but it’s been happening for years. There have been attacks and rumors going around that random people are getting their throats slit. She wants your help to find this person and bring peace, just like the original Blood Warriors did.”

  “I’m not like them,” Pen protested, “or like the most recent who went mad. That’s all people remember anyway. You heard them at the amphitheater, they were pissed.”

  “Not all of them,” Raisa said. “Several were excited, and I saw the other warriors kneeling before you. You can change the impressions the recent Warriors left behind. Several of them were glad to see you. The king certainly was.”

  “He just wanted to use me for some political power,” Pen snapped. “Queen Aethra’s motivations are probably the same.”

  “No, they’re not. She’s worried about the people in her city,” Raisa stressed.

  “Regardless, I’m not even good with people, let alone royalty. You saw me in the arena. I can’t handle that.”

  “But you did handle it, and you went there willingly in the first place.”

  “To fight anonymously,” Pen defended.

  “But you could do real good here,” Raisa pressed. “Stymphalia is falling apart at the seams from this paranoia that they’ll just end up dead in the streets. It’s starting to get to people.”

  “That’s not my problem,” Pen stood and started to pace. Frustration was starting to build up, keeping her from sitting still.

  “Maybe, but it did start when Tellus died.”

  Pen froze and stared at Raisa now. The frustration was peaking into anger.

  Raisa clearly saw that too.

  “His death wasn’t your fault,” Raisa said, standing as well. “I know how upset you were about that.”

  “Why would you bring it up like that, then?” Pen shouted.

  “Because it’s true. Tellus was the best man to keep that city together. When he left, and died on that journey, Aegeus the First passed shortly after. Aethra has been doing everything in her power to keep Stymphalia stable. Now, though, there’s a criminal network getting out of hand and is practically threatening civil war.”

  Pen dug her nails into her arm to keep the sympathy down. She felt for Aethra and for Tellus’s home, but she couldn’t help them.

  “I would make things worse,” she said.

  “I don’t think you will,” Raisa said, “and neither does Aethra. Tellus would appreciate it too, I’m sure.”

  “He can’t appreciate or feel anything!”

  Pen saw him back in Skiachora. She had gone back to find him. She hated that cold, dead place, with its huge field of wandering ghosts. It had taken her days to find him. Tellus’s gray form was forever walking between the cave entrance to the decrepit castle, as if constantly trekking along his journey with her.

  She visited her family there too, though it was just as painful.

  The image of her father by the lake crept up on her again. She thought about going back to find him among the dead. If only to reassure herself that he was there.

  “Okay.” Raisa held a hand up in peace. “But you have to consider—”

  “There’s nothing to consider. Stymphalia will sort itself out. I’m sorry, Raisa.”

  Pen saw Raisa visibly take a breath then say calmly, “I did not travel for six months just so you could say no.”

  “Well, I’m sorry you wasted your time.” Pen made for the door.

  Raisa blocked her path, her eyes hard as steel. “If you would just see the state the city is in.”

  Pen was nearly a foot shorter than Raisa but she shoved her aside, drawing a tendril of blood from her hand. Both wounds, on her hand and arm, were still exposed. The pain didn’t bother her; if anything, it felt good.

  Raisa stared at the tendril wide-eyed and then back to Pen. Pen hadn’t struck her, but the surprise and hurt in Raisa’s eyes was enough to force Pen to draw it back into her palm.

  Guilt tainted the rising anger, stifling it.

  “Give Drivas my regards,” Pen said before hurrying from the room.

  Chapter Three

  Pen

  The alley smelled of shit and rotting vegetables, but at least the patch she found was dry. Once leaving Raisa in that hideout, Pen stuck to the alleys and made her way to the city’s southern gate. The sun had started to set, and by the time she reached it, the gate was closed.

  She considered using the night to sneak into the amphitheater for her cloak and pack, but she couldn’t afford the risk. The guards were still looking for her and probably collected her stuff anyway. Not that there was much to begin with, just a few coppers and a small razor. She wished she at least had the wineskin from the pack. Her wounds were still exposed, and while she managed to clean them in a public well, the alcohol would have been better.

  She did at least bind them with the hem of the tunic they’d given her at the games. She planned on keeping the armor too. It was nondescript and light.

  The cloak would have been useful, though. Without the hood she had no way of hiding her hair or face. She considered taking one that was unattended, maybe from a lively tavern, but she couldn’t risk the theft either.

  It was a bit like being stuck in Stym
phalia the last time she was there. She just hoped she wouldn’t have to spend the night in a crypt this time. Pen sat contemplating her options, or lack thereof.

  She wished she could have at least been able to hear the report on the royal guards and their positions. Pen regretted leaving Raisa like that. She was one of the few people who had known Pen even existed. She couldn’t stop thinking about Stymphalia now.

  Fifteen years. The fact terrified Pen as she wrapped her arms around her legs. Shivers crept up her spine despite the warm night.

  After Nyx had promised to never release her from this life, and Scythe tried to help by preventing her from aging, Pen had to separate herself from time in general.

  She had tested Nyx’s promise a few times, but the goddess held true to her word. Pen couldn’t die.

  Time seemed meaningless after that, so she let each day slip by, focusing on basic needs like food and sleep. Though she couldn’t die of starvation, it was still uncomfortable when she didn’t eat. She had no idea fifteen years had slipped by.

  The hallucination of her father made more sense now too. That isolation probably wasn’t healthy.

  It took Pen a while to figure out how long it had been since his death. Almost twenty years at least. She remembered sitting by his bedside while he panted through the fever. His dark blue hair stuck to his pale face from the sweat. He couldn’t stop shivering, despite all of the blankets Pen piled onto him.

  She also made sure his foot wasn’t under the blankets, though she wished it was. The stench of rot coming from it, where the rusty nail had pierced him, was insufferable. The healer said to leave it uncovered, to help dry it out. It didn’t help.

  The strongest, kindest person she knew, the one who taught her how to fight and survive, brought low by a stupid rusty nail.

  Her father would have helped Stymphalia, maybe not on that much of a grand scale, but he had been hired out as a bodyguard now and then. He always accepted jobs that paid well enough to feed them for a few days, but it wasn’t a set rule. He volunteered to help with the barn in Malliae because they gave them shelter for the entire winter.