Prologue.

AMERY-BRET

Thick, red liquid sprayed onto her dress as screams echoed from the rooms around her. She clawed at the dirt, dried blood slicked onto her hair, face scratched and bruised. The man laughed, stomping on one of his many daggers, digging it deeper into her leg, licking his lips as the blood stained his cheeks. He turned to the next, repeating the action, pinning his prisoner in place with bold cruelty that was colder than the coldest winds of winter.

“Despicable bitch,” he hissed, spitting onto the sobbing woman. He knelt down, a knee on either side of her, gripping a sword in his fist. With a grunt, he stabbed it through the thin flesh on both of her hands, bending down to lick the blood from the stubborn wound that he had so ruthlessly created.

“HELP!”

Her voice, frail and thin, broke as she fought to fight the firm grip of blades. She screamed as the wounds opened further, the dirt beneath unrecognizable, slicked with a fiery-red.

“Shut up.”

The man bent to bite her neck, chuckling as screams visited from the rooms beside. He slid his nails into her flesh, raking them down her spine, to her abdomen, tearing her dress the rest of the way. He kicked the dagger that held her foot, chuckling as the sickening gurgle of blood escaped from tearing flesh, the crack of breaking bones thunderous. He kicked it again as the woman’s foot escaped her body, tumbling limp against the ground. The man’s shoes slipped against the thick, rust-scented substance that filled the room. He growled and bit harder until another scream collapsed from bloodied lungs, laughing as she fought to catch her breath.

“You don’t have to watch if you’re going to make such a fuss, my sweet,” the gruff, crackly voice threatened. He raised a red-stained hand and pressed a thumb to her cheek, smearing the blood that was already plastered to paled, black and blue skin. He slid the thumb up, tracing her mouth, her nose, and finally, her eyes. In one swift motion, he slipped a thumb into the socket, tearing the eye from its place. It hung limply as the woman moaned and screamed and sobbed and gurgled. The man took the round, fleshy substance in his hand, squeezing it in his fist, tearing the muscle that still held it to the head.

He repeated the act with the other eye, laughing as the blood choked his threats and grunts. He leaned closer, biting his prisoner’s lip, licking the blood that oozed, his torturous laughter never ceasing as he stood and kicked her, the heel of his foot clashing into her groin and forcing another scream, breaking her fingers that had only a little feeling left, in the first place. He dismembered her breasts and feet and cut her hair and her ears, experimenting endlessly with the thin, sharp blades.

It was a wonder how many strategies he came up with to make her scream. How many different sounds he could force the captor to make, how much blood he could force from the body until, finally, the woman fell silent and still.

And all the while, I, the woman’s young daughter, sat in the dark corner, watching, trying not to breathe, swallowing my vomit and my screams. I knew that if I moved, I would be found, and killed. I knew that if I closed my eyes, I wouldn’t notice if the man came too close, and wouldn’t have time to run or fight or anything.

And so I sat, for hours and hours, watching as my mother was tortured, listening to the screams of my friends and family as they, too, were tortured. I was forced to watch as the man drank at the dead corpse, laughing and laughing, until finally, his laughs turned to sobs, and he turned his dagger to himself.

The many talents of a blade haunted my thoughts, and, when I finally allowed myself to sleep, my dreams. It was the crudeness, the cruelty that brought sin to its use. The cold way that it broke skin like an eggshell, how attached that man had been, how the same blood that he had used to direct his anger had been used to put it at its end.

And yet they were so elegant: that grace in which they moved, fearless, stubborn, a force that, when properly wielded, was invincible. The slick silver coating, the mighty hilt, the point that made stone seem tender.

I had seen swords and knives before: the sword that had held my mother’s hand in place had been no ordinary blade. I could feel, young though I was, the magic rippling from its use. That’s what hurt the most. The thought of my mother being slaughtered against such odds, by something so beautiful and legendary as that.

I sat and sat, petrified, afraid there might still be raiders in my home, for days and days, my limbs growing weak and my thoughts growing cold and numb.

Until, finally, she came.

“Mistress, protect me…”

The voice that woke me was softer and lighter than the previous. The sound of human that was not in pain I found alien to my sensitive ears. I shivered in the corner, wiping away the blood at my nose, eyes stinging from sweat. A whimper escaped my dry throat, and I broke out panting. I had been breathing only shallowly, afraid that I would be discovered. My throat stung violently with each breath.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the woman continued, bending down. Kind blue eyes met my own, and she smiled gently. Short, blonde hair hung loosely, brushing her pale skin. “Oh, dear Mistress, you’re only a child. How old are you?”

Meeting her eyes with my own wide, sharp green, I tried to speak. The fear that I had been holding back jumped in my throat and I vomited. When I was finished, I wiped my mouth, and tried again. “Seven.” My words were shallow and she had to lean in to hear me.

“What’s your name?”

Her eyes were gentle and her movements were soft. She was in mourning. I responded only out of pity. “Amery-Bret,” I coughed, trying to maintain an ego. “Who are you?”

She smiled wider, standing and extending a hand. “There’s your spirit. I’m Bihne. Are you… okay?”

I nodded, jumping up on my own, brushing my self down. The nausea took over: I had moved too quickly. It took a few dry heaves to ease the lump in my throat. Bihne stood frowning for a few moments before leading me towards the door.

We had to step over the bodies. She motioned for me to stand towards the wall, away from the most of the blood. I obeyed, watching with wide eyes as she stepped towards the dead man that had killed my mother. Bending down, she kissed her fingertips, smiling sadly.

“I’ll miss you, Thio. We lived a good live together.”

She pressed the tips of her fingers to the dead man’s eyes, a tear dropping on blood-covered skin. Bihne closed the eyelids and ran her hand along the body, staring at the blood on her hands for a few moments before sighing and standing back up.

“This woman,” she asked, turning towards me and motioning towards my mother. “Did you know her?”

I swallowed the lump cautiously. “That was mum.”

Bihne gasped, snapping a hand to her mouth, eyes wider than mine. “Oh, Mistress, help her soul,” the words came out in whispers. We stood in silence for a moment, until she stepped forward, took my hand, and walked me out of the house.

There was blood everywhere. Bodies lay, raped and tortured and cut apart, all spread across the floor. I tripped a couple of times, until Bihne sighed and picked me up and carried me. I didn’t object. Truthfully, I didn’t care what happened to me now. I had died with my mother. I was just a shell, waiting to be filled with some life, fighting to find a new purpose.

The fresh air caught me by surprise. I choked on it for a few moments before recovering and standing weakly. I had cramps and my arms and legs were stiff from sitting still so long. I stretched, the loud cracks of aching muscle filling the air. Bihne jumped, the sound startling her. We laughed a little, which felt weird in my raw throat.

We sat in the dirt a little ways off from the house, sitting in silence. My jaw was trembling, and I felt painfully sick, but there was something about Bihne that was comforting and forced me to remain calm.

I stayed seated as she stood and took a small box out of her pocket. Opening it, she took out two small sticks. The house was beginning to smell; blood was splattered on the windows and out the doorway, a few bodies thrown to the side of the house. It had, before the raid, been a dining hall. We had been celebrating the Cold Wind’s festival when they came. We had been laughing and having fun, the rest of the town deserted, except for that one little building.

Bihne threw the sticks towards the building. As their ends hit the dry brown of Kim’s famous wood, I screamed in realization. They burst into flames, hitting the wood, passing their fury onto the corpses and spilled blood. I tried to scream again, rushing forward, trying to think of something that I could do to stop the destruction. Two firm hands gripped my shoulders, yanking me back. I glared up at Bihne, tears blurring my sight.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” she demanded.

“You--stop! Do not kill my family! Do not make them disappear!”

Bihne remained silent for a few moments as the fire took hold of the entire house. Finally, she took a deep, shaky breath. “What am I supposed to do, Amery? Leave them there to rot?”

“NO! Bury them!”

The woman bit her lip, shaking her head dramatically. “For what? So that the worms can eat them?!”

“NO!”

I collapsed onto my knees, screaming, moaning, crying, clawing at the dirt as the bodies of all the people I had grown up with, all of my friends and enemies and, most importantly, my mother, were destroyed.

By the time I had calmed down, the flames were at their mightiest. I took a few shaky breaths as Bihne led me to a grassy spot a ways off. We sat on the soft hill, staring at the bright yellows and reds and oranges in silence.

“That man…” she murmured after a while, just as the fire was calming. Her voice was tight with sadness. “He was my only love. I had known him since I was four… we’ve never been apart, not for more than a day. He’d seen his mother, too, die as a child. The raiders forced him to kill her by his own hand. I suppose the madness finally got to him…”

I stared at her for a few moments, not knowing what to say. I hated that man. I hated him for what he made me watch and what he put my mother through. But this woman loved him. This woman was kind, and warm, and motherly. I had to respect that. Finally, I thought of what I would want said to me. But, the truth was, I wouldn’t want anything said at all. So I stayed silent, and she seemed content.

“Amery-Bret, have you any family left?”

I blinked up at her, frowning as I thought about this. Father had left when I was just a baby. His brother had lived with us for a while, helping us, but then he went out for Kiman army. We had gotten a letter from a tall man on a horse that announced him dead a few months later. My mother’s sisters traveled to Frining, the capitol, when I was still very young, to practice religion in high ranking temples and schools. My grandfather had been a kindred man, but was possessed when he traveled through Som with my aunts. He had killed them all.

“I do not think so,” I announced, broken voice distant.

“Hm. Are you strong?”

“Yes! I mean, well, I think so.” I found her question weird, but I answered anyways. Of course I was strong. Of course I was.

“Would you like to travel with me, Amery, to the Blade Society?” She pulled a loaf of bread from her pack and tore off a piece, handing it to me as she spoke.

“What is the ‘Blade Society’?” I mumbled, accepting the bread and anxiously stuffing into my mouth. I had not realized until then just how hungry I was, having emptied my stomachs contents on the dining room floor.

“It’s directly east of here, past Idaraless, on the ocean shore.”

“The ocean….” I had heard of it before. It was supposed to be deep and dark and amazingly blue, with waves that rippled gently on an endless, endless stretch. I would listen to stories that travelers would tell as they passed through Kim. They spoke of sunsets that cast blazing reflections across that long, somber grey. They spoke of the raging waters that would have waves ten times as big as people, of the skies reflection, the perfect imitations that were lain upon the crude blue each day, the birds and dolphins and whales, which I had never seen, but had heard countless descriptions of.

“You like the ocean?” Bihne smiled down at me, red lips enthusiastic against perfect white teeth.

I blinked. “I do not know. I have never seen it. But a lot of the rogues that would pass through Kim knew a lot about it. I would listen to their stories, and wonder.”

“So you’d come with me, and see it?”

I wrinkled my brow skeptically. I was about to say no, I would like to stay here, with my family. But when my eyes caught gaze again of the ashes, the only thing left of my home, I realized that I had no choice. Forfeiting, I mumbled, “I guess.”

Bihne smiled, patting my on the back and pulling me into a hug. “Good. You’ll like the Blade Society,” she leaned back onto the grass, smiling to herself. I imitated her movement, and we sat in silence, again.

Finally, she broke it. “We’d best be on the road.”

I stared at the ashes for a few moments more before nodding, lulling my sore body from the ground. Bihne smiled at me as she followed, turning me away from the fires gently. “Amery-Bret, whatever you do, you can’t look back. Promise me.”

“Why?”

“Promise me.”

I nodded blankly, meeting her serious eyes. “Okay. I promise.”

Bihne smiled again, pulling me along. “Let’s get walking.

I don’t know how long we walked. But I do now that, within those few minutes, I loved Bihne more than I had ever loved anyone, even more than mum. She was insightful and kind, warm toward the world and it’s many faults. I wished I could be like that.

At night, I would lay beside her. When I shivered, she would hug me, and when I sweated she would scoot away. We explored and laughed together. We didn’t travel very quickly, I’ll admit, but we had fun.

For about a week, we were one.

“Amery, why don’t you go wash? I’ll cook the meat,” Bihne offered as she skinned the wild pig that we had caught earlier that day. I smiled and nodded enthusiastically, skipping towards the spring that we had stopped by.

The water was cool and grey under the thick canopy of trees. I stuck a toe in first, giggling at the warmth. Slipping my new, brown dress off and folding it on a rock, I jumped in. I pulled at my stubborn, shoulder length hair, letting it slip from the pony tail. I spun one of the weird, blondish-brownish-red locks around a finger. I scrubbed my pure, pale skin with harsh moss, happy to get the dirt of travel off. I swam around for a few moments, giggling as my foot got caught in some water ferns and I fell like a log. I swam onto my back, staring at the intimidating moon above, admiring the stars that clung to the dark blue sky like baby ducks. I closed my eyes for a few moments and allowed myself to just float, the peace of night running through my mind. The Cold Wind’s first snow would come soon, but that night was filled with unquestionable beauty.

Then I heard the scream.

Jumping as the clang of metal and blood reached my position west of our camp, I raced towards the land, grabbing my dress and running. I tried to put it on as I ran, but gave up. I didn’t have the time to worry about simple dignities.

My clean feet scraped against the rock and mud below. My hair caught on a couple branches, and I cursed as some tore out. But I did not stop, and I did not look back.

I screamed as I entered the field that Bihne had been waiting in. Some men were staring down at her, spatting.

“Yeah, she be one of them magic folk, alright,” a thick, gurgled voice announced. He held her head back by the hair, eyeing her heartlessly. “What should we do with ‘er?”

“Rape her!”

“Torture!”

“Bury her alive!”

I shivered as the men carried on with their conversation, not paying any mind to my scream. They carried on with their business, pawing through her pack boldly. They snatched her wolf’s fur coat up, gasping at what lay underneath.

Bihne’s sword. The one that she had collected from her dead love, the one that she kept close. I had seen her cry as she held it. When I had asked, she had struggled to construct an answer. But she told me, nonetheless.

“It’s a symbol of Thio and my love for each other. We’ve had it for many years, and it’s never failed to save us when we wielded it. I’ll have to say goodbye to it, soon.”

They took the sword, admiring its blade, it’s hilt. They knew what it was, what it meant. They made Bihne watch as they urinated on it, spat on it, did all they could to try and break it. But the black and white sword proved true and indestructible.

They neared my friend’s neck, scowling, insulting her in a language that I couldn’t understand. Tears escaped Bihne’s eyes as she clawed, just as my mother had, at the ground below.

Without knowing what I was doing, my knees buckled under, and I clasped my hands to the ground.

“PIRET EK DIL VALLE!”

The words escaped my throat before I realized what was going on. My voice sounded deep, harsh, alien.

The ground shook. All the grass within a mile of us blackened. The dirt below blazed a blinding white. I fell back as the shaking increased. The ground split, chasing the men as they ran. They fell beneath, screaming, praying to the gods for protection. Regaining by balance as the last of them fell, I crawled towards the crack, peeking in, balancing on the trembling palms of my hands. Black flames swallowed the murderer’s bodies, turning them to stone as they bent their heads back to scream. I gasped as the ground below pushed back together. In the blink of the eye, the ground’s crude white faded, the grass returning to its green, but a brighter, more lively tone than before.

I sat in the silence for a few moments, dazed. I would not allow myself to faint, however powerful the urge was. As the contents of my stomach settled, I vomited, the scent of burning flesh still lingering in the air around. I crawled to Bihne as I heard her whimper. She smiled.

“I knew it. I knew you were one of us.”

She brought her hand up to my face, stroking my again dirty skin before I could construct a proper response. I whispered her name as tears escaped my eyes.

“Amer-Bret, I am going to die,” she confided, bright voice hazy. I whimpered, and she pressed a finger to my lips to silenced me. “But I need you to do something.”

I nodded solemnly.

“In my pack, there are more of those fire sticks that you saw me use. I want you to leave me here, and burn me. Once the flames die down, you need to take out the black and blue box that I have in my pack. Spread the contents over my ashes--it is what was left of Thio. I collected his dust while you were sleeping.”

I bit my lip. I could not see through the tears. But, nevertheless, I nodded my understanding.

“You can leave my pack and everything here, if you wish. But you must take my sword, and keep traveling east, to the Blade Society. Ask for the Dawn Tribe leader, Rik, and tell him that it is from the Protection Pair. Tell him that I am sorry. Can you do that, for me, Amery?”

I nodded without thinking, sobbing. I choked on my tears as I realized that I was sitting in her blood. She had lost so much blood. So much life.

“I love you, Amery. If only fate wasn’t so cruel.”

“I--I--I love you too, Bihne. Please don’t die!”

She laughed darkly, voice growing weaker and weaker with each passing second. I’ll try and wait until you fall asleep.

It’s so hard to stay awake when you have been up for days. But I couldn’t fall sleep: Bihne would die if I fell asleep. I bit my lip until it bled. I hummed to myself. I forced myself to stare at Bihne’s poor condition. But, no matter how hard I tried, I could not put a halt to the cycle of life.

And when I woke, Bihne was dead.