Page 48 of Blood Red Woes

Shit. It’s forcing me to make a move.

As the soldier readies itself for another attack, I think fast. The other was defeated when I knocked its helmet off, like whatever magic is keeping it upright is dependent on the head area. All I have to do is get this one’s helmet off, too, but how?

The cage grows smaller. Now ten feet wide, soon we’re going to be on top of each other.

“Uh, Rey, I’d figure something out if I were you!” Rune shouts.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say as I spread my feet apart, getting ready. I don’t know if my plan will work, but if I have any chance, I need this fucker to be in mid-swing when I make my move. I’m smaller than it, and I need to use that to my advantage.

It hoists the ax onto its shoulder, and the woman’s voice makes one final demand: “You will die here, demon!” Two hands on the shaft, it brings the sizzling ax down.

I use magic to push myself back, narrowly avoiding the sharp ax as it buries itself in the stone for a second time. I don’t hesitate; while the ax is in the stone ground, I make a mad dash head-on. I jump over the implanted ax, using magic to boost the jump higher than nature normally allows.

I soar over its tall figure. The only reason I don’t go flying head-first into the lightning cage wall is because I reach for the shoulder pad of the soldier and use it to swing myself around. One leg lifts over its head and soon enough I’m straddling the magical soldier, my thighs on either side of its helmet.

My fingers grip the bottom of the helmet. Lightning pierces the sky as I growl out, “Better luck next time, bitch.”

The soldier releases its hold on the ax—which is still implanted in the stone—but it’s too slow. Too much of a lumbering giant. I pull the helmet off, and even though there isn’t a face underneath, it’s still like I’m pulling it off a real person. I whip the helmet into the magical cage wall, and it sizzles into nothing.

The soldier under me falls forward, right next to its ax, and I jump off its shoulders before it hits the ground in a duck and roll. By the time I turn around and stand up, the soldier is ash in the wind, the storm above my head already dissipating. The lightning cage that surrounded me before is gone, nothing but black marks on the stone ground as signs of what just happened.

The storm clears, the air eerily still. That’s when it hits me, when it all hits me.

The destruction. The crying. The people who hide behind whatever they ran to, watching me around the corners of the buildings like they don’t trust me or the power I wield. What market stalls still stand are a mess, but the ones closest to where I am are in ruins. Broken wood, destroyed items; some are even on fire, the lightning from the storm having miraculously found what little wood there is in Laconia.

I look for Frederick and Prim, but I can’t see them. I do, however, hear marching, and I turn around and face the stairs that lead to the higher district of the city. Dozens of soldiers have finally mobilized, spears and shields in hand. Behind them, Kretia walks with her head held high.

The soldiers surround me, and Kretia slowly surveys the marketplace before bringing her dark brown eyes to me. She wears the same getup she wore the day she and the others jailed me, regal in her gray couture. Her long hair is braided, split evenly so the braids rest on both shoulders.

“I knew you would be trouble the first moment I saw you,” Kretia says, her guards focused on me when they should turn their attention to the chaos around us, to the people who need help. I’m sure there are some who got injured with the wind and lightning. “When I heard you had escaped, I hoped you would leave and never return to Laconia, for surely you would only bring darkness with you.”

My feet are still spread shoulder-length apart. I’m ready to bolt. To run, to fight, to do something. If she thinks I’m going to let her lock me up again, she’s wrong. I’ll fight an old lady if I have to.

“And now look.” Kretia gestures around us. “Empress Gladus’s soldiers are seen for the first time in years, and they only come for you.”

“Look at what they did,” I say as I point to the fire, to the destruction around us. “Your empress doesn’t deserve to be worshiped if this is what she does. She would’ve killed Frederick and Prim—a little girl—for what? Because they were trying to protect me?”

That finally gets the haughty look Kretia wears to crack. Her brows come together and her gaze falls to the ground as she must think on what I said. When she looks up at me again, there is something different about her expression, something I can’t name. “I saw the golden glow you command. You control the threads of magic, just as Gladus, Morimento, and Krotas do. If you are not our ruin, what are you?”

I don’t know what she’s asking of me, and I don’t know how to answer. “I—”

Before I can say more, I hear my name shouted from the other side of the marketplace. Frederick’s voice, and he sounds desperate. I turn away from Kretia, push through the guards—and they’re confused enough to let me through without a fight. I hurry along, following Frederick’s voice.

Just beyond a broken wooden stall, Frederick kneels, and when I approach him he turns to me, his face pale and his hands bloodied. “Rey—” It takes me a moment to realize the blood on his hands doesn’t belong to him.

It belongs to the girl lying on part of the broken stall, a girl whose gut is pierced with a broken stake.Prim. The wood, jagged and bloodied, is nothing but a reminder of how bad things are.

I fall to my knees beside Frederick. My breath comes out short and heavy as my gaze travels along her tiny, frail body. Her dress is all bloody, her tan skin too pale. I’m no doctor, but even I know it doesn’t look good.

Prim watches me with her hazel eyes, and one of her hands reaches out to me. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, her small voicetrembling with a mixture of what must be pain and fear. “I wanted… I wanted to help.”

“It’s okay,” I whisper as I smooth down some of the hair around her face. “Don’t be sorry.” The girl must’ve been blown back when the soldiers were whipping wind around; she was too small to stand her ground. She literally got blown away.

Frederick’s voice is low when he tells me, “I don’t have the resources to help her.”

My heart twists inside my chest. Behind us, Kretia and a few of her guards approach. I’m ready to tell them off, to tell them all off, but Kretia stuns me by saying, “We can help her in the upper district. We’ll get a stretcher and carry her up.” She turns and nods to the guards behind her. “And—” She raises her voice louder so the others in the chaos can hear her. “—we will aid anyone else that was injured in this attack.”

Even Frederick’s confused, and it tells me that’s the first time something like this has ever been offered. It’s good, though; if Prim has a fighting chance, she needs to go where the medicine is best.

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