Bloodflower

Kale often warned Jàden to trust her instincts, but the thought came too late as she lay on her back, terror freezing her in place.

Jon’s sword shuddered against her head, tapping her lightly as a reminder in giant neon lights how close she’d come to having her skull cracked open.

As he reached down to help her up, Jàden shoved the dead man-boy’s arm away from her throat and rolled into a crouch. She wanted to scream at him, but she’d been that close to death before with Kale behind the trigger.

Jon seemed to sense her hesitation and yanked his sword free. “Hide. Now.”

But she couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

Mather fell to his knees as dozens of wardens charged in.

Everything shifted around her in slow motion: Jon killing gold-armored soldiers, Mather gasping for breath, the woman with braids on horseback watching with a sinister gleam in her eye as she tried to staunch the blood in her wound.

Run, Jàden. She screamed the words at herself, but her body wouldn’t respond.

Gold-armored soldiers dropped dead, arrows buried in their necks with blue fletchings. She hadn’t seen arrows like those before.

Someone else had to be here.

Run!

Her body responded sluggishly to the shock as she tried to stand. Two hooded figures appeared from the woods, each with a bow. They fired arrows into the attackers with deadly precision. A bright red beard caught the light as a hooded man charged the braid-haired woman still on horseback.

“Get down.” Jon shoved her back to the ground, a knife barely missing her head.

Limbs and swords and bodies lay scattered across the ground, red soaking into white snow.

Jàden scurried backward, pulse pounding in her ears. Her fingers brushed over a weapon. She grabbed the sword hilt, but it was so heavy she could barely pull it out of the mud.

Jon dropped to his knees beside Mather and pushed their foreheads together. “Stay with me, brother.”

He whistled sharply, calling the horses to his side. “Let’s get him up.”

Mather’s weapons dropped into the mud-churned snow as the two hooded figures crouched beside Jon.

Mather laid a bloodied hand against Jon’s cheek. “Sh-Sharie.”

That one word tore into Jàden as she sobbed. He was supposed to go home, to embrace his wife and hold his child.

“This is my fault.” She clutched her head.

More than a dozen gold-fletched arrows stuck out from his chest in all directions.

Her only instinct now was to hide from everyone. To hide from all these deaths and scream her anger to the universe. She shouldn’t have listened to Jon. They should never have left the crashed nadrér ship.

Blood dripped from the side of Mather’s lip.

Jon smacked his cheek. “Get up. You’re going home, brother. Back to Sharie.”

There was no way Mather would ride home to his wife now, not even with a skilled surgeon and an ass-load of luck. At least a few of the arrows must have penetrated his organs, but even if they hadn’t, Mather would be bleeding internally.

A tear slid down Mather’s cheek, and the light dimmed from his eyes, followed by a howl of grief from Jon that stretched Jàden’s nerves to their breaking point.

Jon’s sword crunching bone against her ear. Kale’s ship exploding next to Bradshaw’s lab. All the rawness of those jarring sounds unfurled a manic need to escape. Hands shaking and sobs wracking her chest, she scrambled toward the horses.

But Jon’s horse lowered his head and watched her, ears forward as if he accused her of Mather’s death.

“He told me not to,” she whispered but couldn’t ignore the sting of the animal’s stare.

The stallion snorted and tried to bite her then reared up in a display of dominance.

Jàden stumbled backwards, straight into someone’s arms. “Leave me alone.”

“Quiet,” Jon hissed in her ear.

He turned her around and held the sides of her head, his palms warm against her ears. “Pull yourself together.”

His words froze her, as did the anguish in his eyes.

“We need to leave before more wardens come, so get your head on straight.” The biting tone in his words didn’t reach his eyes, but he lifted her onto the back of his horse like she was more burden than company.

One hooded figure pushed back his cowl. Black shaggy hair fell across a young face lined with a thin, black beard. “Captain, torchlight on the next hill. Gotta move quick.”

“Fuck off, Theryn.” Jon’s hand slid to her thigh. “You—don’t fall behind.”

Everything about his manner was cold and distant, except where his hand touched her. Fire ignited in her gut. So many long years without intimacy, and her body picked now to feel the stirring heat.

Shame stabbed at her heart as she laid a hand on Jon’s shoulder in comfort, but he pulled away and retreated to the others, helping to snap the shafts off Mather’s embedded arrows.

A knot hardened in Jàden’s chest as the frigid wind blew across her cheek. Death always found her when she tried too hard to stifle her power. She should have ripped every tree from the soil and toppled them onto the soldiers.

I could have saved him. And then her power would grow out of control that much quicker.

The other hooded figure emerged from the trees, leading two more black horses. Bright red hair crowned a pale, freckled face, but his eyes held the same steely edge as the others. He tossed the reins of one horse to his companion and climbed onto the other, reigning his mount toward the rising moons. “This way.”

Jon climbed onto Agnar behind Mather. “I’m sorry, brother.”

“I’ll keep them off our asses,” the dark-skinned man said, an arrow readied in his bow.

Jàden clutched the reins and nudged the stallion alongside Jon. Snow fell, and she tugged up her hood, the shame of desire burning her thoughts.

His horse tried to bite her again, obviously unhappy it wasn’t Jon on his back, but Jàden dug her heels in and kept close to the others.

Snow turned to sleet as they rode through the night over hills and between thick redwoods. Once Jàden dozed off only to wake screaming in pain as the red-haired man gripped her injured shoulder to nudge her back into the saddle.

She didn’t doze again, her injury throbbing. Two sister moons peeked every so often between the clouds, no more than a hologram generated by the bionet.

These men didn’t need her—nothing but a burden who didn’t have enough strength to lift a sword. Gray streaks in the southern skies pressed back the gloom as they followed the riverbed, turning the woods as colorless as her grief.

Firelight danced in the distance, laughter ringing through the trees across the river.

Several men from a small campsite lifted their heads, and the smiles slid off their faces as they raced to the shore. Identical twins with tawny brown skin and black hair and a middle-aged man with gray hair pulled into a knot at the nape of his neck.

These had to be Jon’s men.

“No!” A blond man with hair cropped close to his head splashed into the river. His piercing blue eyes fixed on Mather. He reached their side of the river and trudged onto the shore, water dripping from his dark green clothes. He rubbed a hand over his pale features. “What happened?”

Jàden winced at the razor edge in his voice. How could she face these men when their friend died because of her? She lowered her head so the hood covered her face.

“Hareth laid a trap,” the black-bearded man with the bow said. “Dusty and I got there too late.”

Skirting away from the others, she nudged the stallion into the river, lifting her feet as the current brushed against the black’s chest. She circled toward the fire, the wind howling through the trees and scattering snow across stacked gear. These men looked ready to pack their horses and go.

“I’m sorry, brother.” Jon embraced an older man with white-streaked hair, several horses lifting their heads from sparse patches of frozen grass.

She wiped a tear from her cheek and glanced at Mather, his chin drooped against an arrow shaft.

He’d never go home to his wife now, never see his child born.

The pain gutted her.

Jon laid a hand against her leg, his eyes full of bitter grief. “There’s nothing to be done.”

The edge in his tone sliced into her. Jàden desperately wanted to turn back the clock and succumb to the Flame’s power, if only to spare Jon the anguish etched across his features.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

He pulled her from his horse into a tight embrace. “It wasn’t your fault. Éli laid a trap, and we walked right into it.”

She hugged him tight, burying her cheek against his neck. His warmth bled into her skin, offering no comfort to her aching heart. “What can I do to make this right?”

Jon sighed and leaned his head against hers. “Only one thing can make this right. Éli Hareth is going to die.”

She recalled the boy’s strange laugh, how it twisted into a man’s. “I should have used my power.”

“No.” He wrapped his fingers in her hair and forced her to look at him. “It’s too dangerous. The Rakir will hunt and kill anyone with even a hint of magic. As for the wardens, they’d lock you in a tower and worship you as a Guardian while they kept you a slave to their beliefs.”

Just like home.

Everyone wanted her dead or to steal her power for their own machinations. If they only understood that she’d give it all away to have a boring, mundane life.

The Flame had caused so much grief in her past, and even now, the moon’s heartbeat seemed to keep nudging her toward embracing the destruction. She had to find another way to protect herself and maybe not be a burden to Jon.

“Teach me to fight like you,” she whispered. So when I find Kale, I can protect him.

She closed her eyes, absorbing Jon’s scent and the comfort of his arms, hating herself a little more for how much she didn’t want to let go.

“Get some rest.” Jon gestured toward the fire. “You’re safe with these men. No one here will harm you.”

Jàden left him to unsaddle the horses and curled up by the fire. The flames crackled in a deeper pit than what Jon and Mather usually dug, heat washing over her face.

Mather’s lover would wait until she couldn’t stand the ticking of a clock. Then she’d search every rock and tree until she was forced to face one of two truths: either he was dead or he didn’t want her.

The same thoughts circled in her own head for years as she waited for Kale. It seemed as if any moment he’d come blazing in. Then the anger would grab hold and drive her to pace her cage again for any small fracture or hidden mechanism.

Poor Sharie might wait her whole life and never find an answer.

Jàden shed her tears behind her hands as Jon’s men moved around the camp in grief-stricken silence. The blue-eyed man clenched his jaw tight across from her, the older man rubbing his forearms. He must have been in pain behind his stoic mask, but she couldn’t be certain. For all she knew, it was a ritual she hadn’t seen before.

Jon sat on a log nearby, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He sliced small sections of a reed paper with his knife and rolled each one around a pinch of rust-colored leaves. He stuffed each new cigarette into a small pouch and tied off the top.

His eyes found hers and held her gaze. Then he turned to his men, who had fallen silent. “It’s time.”

No laughter.

No playful banter.

The men left her alone by the fire. Each grasped one of Mather’s shoulders or legs and carried their brother into the icy river.

Jon held his head while the others removed every arrow.

They cut away his clothes, washed his body and stitched each wound. Mather’s hair and beard were neatly trimmed. Finally, they dried him off, dressed him in a fresh set of clothes and wrapped his bow and quiver in his arms.

Their grief coalesced with Jàden’s own. She’d known men and women, brothers and sisters, colleagues and friends her whole life with the same expressions. Seen the grief on their faces when one passed or when a mother and father put their children into hypersleep.

But this devastated her heart.

These men loved Mather. The masked pain on their faces fed the guilt throbbing in her chest as they carried his body to an unlit pyre they’d built.

She was an outsider, and yet Mather’s sentiments from the previous night slammed into her as she followed.

It was her duty to care for Jon now and one she couldn’t fulfill.

“No more tower law, no more duty.” Jon stood next to the pyre with a bow in one hand and a single arrow in the other, white fletchings on its shaft.

Each of his men held a bow and a single arrow.

Jàden peered closely at faint lines etched into their arrow shaft. They’d carved their final farewells to him.

Jon spoke again. “Mather died a free man whose only desire was to return to the loving embrace of his wife.”

He glanced at Jàden. “We should all be so fortunate.”

Warmth blossomed in her neck.

Each man dipped their arrow tips into a bowl of pitch and ignited the ends.

Flames licked the arrowheads as all seven men lined up and aimed at the logs below the pyre.

They released the arrows.

The fire danced higher, igniting bursts of sap and dried branches as it consumed the body. Jon grabbed both of Mather’s swords and shoved them into the earth.

“This sword”—he touched the first one—“was given to Mather by his father. I will bind the hilt with white cloth and carry it as a sign of mourning. Every man who stands between me and Éli Hareth will feel the sting of its blade until I can bury it in his black heart.”

Jon touched the next one, a crafted weapon of silver steel stamped with the Rakir emblem.

“This sword is Mather’s last link to the Tower. It will be bound with blood-cloth and used against every enemy who dares to cage us. Who among you will carry it?”

“I will.” The blond man stepped forward and touched the blade. “We all will, until the hearts of every soldier who murders, maims and kills for pleasure no longer has a heartbeat in this world.”

A shudder rippled up Jàden’s spine at the ice in his tone.

They tore two long strips off a bolt of white cloth. Jon wrapped Mather’s family sword until the hilt was snowy white over gleaming silver then buckled it to his back. He carried two now, as Mather had done.

The blond tugged off his shirt and unsheathed a dagger. A Guild emblem scarred his skin, the same one Jàden had seen the day she woke from hypersleep. This one shimmered black as if he’d melted obsidian into his skin. What type of man would brand his own flesh?

He pulled out a dagger and sliced open the skin near his scar, letting his blood soak the second piece of cloth. “Every time I feel the pain of this cut, I’ll remember the man who killed our brother.”

One by one, the others stripped off their shirts. Each was branded with the same emblem. A ritualistic practice used to mark livestock back on the Alliance worlds. Her grandfather would never have scarred the animals he loved.

They sliced open their shoulders, passing the cloth between them until it was soaked red in every corner. When it was finished, the blond man wrapped the blood-cloth around the hilt. “For Mather. May the Guardians embrace him in the next world.”

“For Mather,” the others echoed.

“Ash and stone, death and duty. May he be free of the Tower in every life hereafter.” Jon unsheathed his dagger and walked toward the horses.

Agnar bolted toward Jàden and circled behind her.

“Grab him,” Jon said.

She grasped the stallion’s halter and patted his cheek.

Agnar neighed and reared up, ripping his halter from her grasp.

When his hooves hit the ground, she grabbed the reins and whispered soft words in her own language. “Easy.”

“Hold him tight.”

Jàden frowned. Then the meaning in Jon’s words slammed into her. “You can’t kill him.”

“Mather’s gone to the land of the Guardians until he finds a new life. I ain’t sending him alone.” Despite the determined tone in his words, grief lay bare in his eyes.

But Jàden ignored it and stepped between them. “There is no land of the Guardians. I told you this. Killing Agnar won’t do anything except give you a dead horse. My horse. Mather gave him to me.”

The guilt from all the lives she’d destroyed wrapped her chest like a vice. She couldn’t bring back Mather, but at least she’d try to preserve some small part of him to ease her conscience.

“Step aside, Jàden.”

“No.” Agnar nudged her shoulder, almost as if he egged her on. “No more death. I can ride him and save the strain on your horse.”

He stared at her for a long time, the pyre flickering higher behind him like a halo. Jon pushed past her before she could stop him.

Icy wind rippled her hood as Jàden reached for the blade. “No! You can’t—”

He grabbed a handful of Agnar’s mane and sliced the hairs.

Jon patted the stallion’s shoulder. “You’d better keep her safe, horse.”

Agnar grunted.

“As for you”—he sheathed his dagger and pointed at Jàden, the black and gray hairs clenched between his fingers—“horse and rider always stay together.”

“Then he stays with me.” She inched toward Agnar, sliding her fingers around his leather bridle. Jàden couldn’t bear another life gone because of her.

“He’s your responsibility now.” Jon stalked back to the pyre and scattered the hairs across Mather’s charred body.

The stallion leaned over her shoulder, pressing his nose into her hands. She caressed Agnar’s velvet fur, her forehead against his cheek. “You’re safe now.”

Her words sounded hollow. Hopefully Agnar’s affection meant he’d accepted her as a rider, but Jàden had no idea how to care for a war horse.

The animals on her grandfather’s farm, an old docking bay converted into grazing fields, were all bred for work or racing.

She hugged Agnar’s nose, and Jon’s men fanned out between her and the pyre.

Each one’s stony gaze bored into her—tall, muscular men dressed in greens and browns and grays. Dark eyes and blue, red hair and blond. Their silence lay thick over the campsite as they appeared to size her up.

She leaned against Agnar’s shoulder, noting their guarded expressions. Hiding their grief. Or maybe their hatred.

One by one, they burst into laughter.

Except the blond man, who turned away without a glimmer of kindness in his expression.

“Must be one hell of a woman to stand up to the captain like that.” The black-bearded man stepped forward, tall and wiry, his hair cropped short since they’d crossed the river. He offered his forearm. “Theryn Blakewood. And that red-haired bastard over there is Dusty Inman.”

Dusty nodded, fiddling with the string on his bow.

Theryn offered touch, connection, and yet she glanced at Jon, refusing to offer her arm. “Jàden.”

The man laid a hand on her shoulder. “What, no family name?”

Her cheeks burned. People from her world never asked her family name more than once. Ravenscraft carried the stigma of “rich girl” to those who knew her grandfather and his work, except it was entirely unfounded. Her grandparents may have owned the bay, but it took every credit he had to keep it running.

These men knew nothing of her past, but if Frank and Bradshaw were still out there, she’d need all the protection she could get now that Mather was gone.

Jàden pushed back her hood. “It’s Ravenscraft.”

“Herana.” The smile dropped off Theryn’s face. He pressed a fist to his left shoulder and bowed his head.

The others repeated his gesture, except a shorter man with rich brown skin and small blades sheathed down the length of his chest. He shoved Theryn aside, a mischievous smile on his lips.

“I’m Ashe, and this is my brother Andrew.” He slapped the identical man next to him on the chest. “Don’t know how you got mixed up with the captain, Guardian, but most of us don’t bite.”

“I’m not…” The words died on her tongue as she recalled the statue in the healer’s village. Like the others, these men had grown up with her legacy. Or at least her face carved into stone.

She was nobody, and yet she bit back the rest of her words.

Seven men to protect her instead of two. If they’d all been near the village, would Mather have suffered the same fate? Jàden wanted to believe he’d still be alive.

Ashe grinned at her then bolted as Theryn charged him.

She jumped back. What was wrong with these men? A moment ago they’d had tears in their eyes and now these full-grown warriors smacked and dodged one another like playful children.

Then she recalled something Kale used to tell her long ago. Sometimes the only way to deal with the pain is to pretend it doesn’t exist. It was a coping mechanism. A way to handle grief when it was too overwhelming.

An older man, black and gray hair pulled into a knot at the base of his neck, edged closer. On his back, he carried a sword and a large ax, each handle bound with fine threads and dull-colored feathers. He patted her on the shoulder, his tanned skin deeply weathered but not yet showing the wrinkles of his age. “I’m Malcolm Radford. The captain told us what happened.”

The lines around his features pulled tight with grief, but his blue eyes were sharp and inquisitive. She guessed him to be close to a hundred, with at least another eighty years of a strong, rich life.

“Jàden,” she muttered and shouldered his hand away. She only wanted to be comforted by Jon, who stood like a horse ready to bolt for all the tension he carried.

They needed to get on the road again. Ironstar lay far to the south, and if she’d had a ship, they could fly there in less than an hour. Even with a computer, she could at least calculate how long they’d have to ride before crossing the sea.

“The captain blames himself.” Malcolm pulled out a pipe and lit the bowl. The smoke curled up, offering a scent of fog and rain and hickory.

“It was my fault. Not his.” And she had to untie their energy before she got Jon killed too. Just being close to her might be enough. All the more reason she needed to find Kale as soon as possible, but working technology was so hard to find in this world.

“That scream of yours is how Dusty and Theryn found you. Wasn’t anyone’s fault. Just damn bad luck.” Malcolm talked away like they were old friends, but she barely listened. Maybe he was trying to figure her out, or his grandfatherly voice could mean an attempt to put her at ease. “It’s warmer by the fire. You hungry?”

“No.” She couldn’t possibly eat with such a heavy weight in her chest, and this man was still a stranger—someone she didn’t trust. She released Agnar’s halter and hastened toward Jon to feel a little more secure.

Or maybe she still needed his comfort to erase her guilt.

But as heat from the blazing timber warmed her cheek, she was reminded once again of the fireball from Kale’s crash burning her life into embers.

The same devastation etched itself across Jon’s expression, and she couldn’t bear the pain of it. Jàden reached for his hand.

“Don’t.” He curled his fingers into a fist.

The hole in her chest opened wider, and she pulled her arm back. “I’m sorry. I thought—”

“I know what you thought, Jàden.” His brusque voice turned hard as steel. “I ain’t gonna kill a damn horse unless I have to.”

She shied away from his anger, the echo resonating through their bond until every muscle in her body tightened. Jon was all she had in this world, and no one could understand more the ache he must be feeling. She swallowed a lump in her throat, recalling Mather’s words as she whispered, “You don’t have to grieve alone.”

He stepped close and leaned toward her ear. “Always alone.”

Jon pushed past, a darker edge to his voice. Wrapping his fingers in his horse’s mane, he climbed onto the stallion’s back and raced into the woods.

She closed her eyes, the ache burning inside her.

Always alone, the motto of her existence.