After Reuben had left George and Valiant, he had been replaced by a woman with light-brown skin and a braided ponytail. She wore the same blue uniform as Reuben, pristine and immaculate. George couldn’t see a single crease. She probably spent hours ironing it, he thought wryly to himself.
Across her face was a purple scar; it looked to have only half-healed and was still oozing. George grimaced. Without the scar, she would have been very pretty, with a sharp jawline and two beady blue eyes that glistened like sapphires. However, the scar, which stretched over much of her face, decidedly ruined her beauty. That and the perpetual frown she wore.
Since being in the containment room, the woman had yet to speak and had ignored both men strung-up on the walls. After about five minutes of silence – though it felt to George like hours – it was Valiant who broke the silence, glancing towards the woman, trying his ebst to smile though only managing a grimace. ‘Hello, Annabelle.’ His voice was stiff and awkward. ‘You still together with Hugh, then?’
George’s eyes widened. Hugh has a girlfriend? Looking at Annabelle’s moody disposition, he wondered what the older reaver had seen in her.
Annabelle’s eyes narrowed as they fixed on Valiant. ‘We’re not together anymore, no, Grimoire. Not that it’s any of your business,’ she added icily.
‘So what happened, then?’ Valiant asked. ‘Did you realise Ov’l-murdering didn’t make someone a hero – that is why you left me, right? Because Hugh was a hero and I was nothing but a guy you worked with.’
She stiffened. ‘Shut up–’
‘Sinchara Khan was your friend too,’ Valiant continued, cutting over her. ‘And now he’s dead – because of Hugh Fisher.’
‘You’re a mercenary, Grimoire,’ Annabelle snapped, cheeks glowing scarlet. ‘In fact, you’re more than that: you’re a mercenary for the Red Dragon. You’ve killed people, Grimoire, so don’t act like you are in any way superior to Hugh. Seems I was right to pick the hero over a no-good loser like you, else I’d be stuck in the same position as you, on the run, always watching your back in case the Reaver Society comes for you.’
Valiant huffed. ‘You didn’t answer my question, Annie–’
‘Don’t call me that,’ she snapped, her words as sharp as knives. ‘As for why Hugh and I split up, that is information only we two shall ever know.’
Valiant grimaced. ‘Have it your way then. You and that murderer can keep your little secret.’
Her eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Sinchara Khan had to die, Grimoire, and you know it. You know we can’t let the Ov’ls live – despite our codes.’ She pointed at George, but kept her face firmly pointed in Valiant’s direction. ‘The captain is right: he has to die, Grimoire. By keeping him alive, Hugh has betrayed us.’
Valiant looked up, glancing across the room at George. As the burly man’s eyes fixed on him, George stooped his neck, pointing his head at the ground. He knew the truth, understood what needed to happen: he, George Marsh, cursed by the Powers of the Ov’l, had to die. And they had to kill him quick, before he got too powerful, before he went out of control and Turned. Before he became another Sinchara Khan; before he caused another Windermere Heights.
‘I don’t care what happens to the kid,’ said Valiant, voice hollow. ‘So long as he’s alive long enough for me to get my money, I don’t care. Whatever happens, I’m not getting involved any of your reaver business.’
Annabelle stifled a laugh. ‘You’re already involved, Grimoire. Right in the thick of it.’
Valiant did not reply.
George looked up, looking across the room at the other man, who hung limply from his constraints. His face looked pained, his eyes twinkling. He looked somewhat paler than before Annabelle had entered.
George suddenly came to a horrifying realisation: he realised he’d prefer to be away with Valiant and his men, than here, caught by the Reaver Society. At least the Red Dragon Warriors didn’t have any plans to have him killed – yet.
He shoved those naive thoughts aside, mentally chastising himself. No, it is your duty to be here. You have to be here. You have to die. At the thought, his stomach twisted. He didn’t want to die. But I must.
He looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps and saw a bald, East-Asian woman entering the room. Like Annabelle, her uniform was pristine. The woman fixed George with a hard glare, before turning to Annabelle.
‘Hugh is back,’ she said in a low voice. ‘David is treating his injuries.’ She nodded at the purple scar on Annabelle’s cheek. ‘Seems he did a good job with the cut that jinxer hex gave you.’
Annabelle smiled slightly. ‘Says it’ll be gone in a week at most. I’ve never known pain like it, Cleo; it feels as though this thing is eating at my face.’
George’s eyes widened as he heard her reply, fixing his eyes on the East-Asian woman. So this was the “Cleo” Hugh had been talking to back at St Benedict’s Hospital. She smiled a thin-lipped, tight smile.
After a final brief exchange, the two women finished their conversation. Annabelle left to go see Hugh in the medbay – George wished he could have joined her; he was very worried about what state the dragon had left Hugh in – and Cleo stayed to keep watch over the prisoners. Silence resumed – unbroken, this time. Occasionally, though, Cleo did glance across at George, strapped up on the wall. The combination of her hard stare and tight smile was unnerving; George could almost feel the hatred behind it, like a roiling storm threatening to attack. The hairs on the back of his neck pricked.
Cleo was later joined by another man with dark-brown skin and dreadlocks. He looked muscular – nearly as muscular as Valiant – and had a square head which mirrored his square shoulders. His face was adorned with thick-ridged scars. Unlike both Cleo and Annabelle, the man wore his uniform untucked and it was in far less pristine condition than the two women’s. Through overhearing the pair’s murmured conversation, George discerned that the other man was David, the healer of Taskforce Delta. He looked a lot more like a soldier than the kind-faced healer George had envisioned.
Soon after, a second woman entered the room, joining Cleo and David and remarking about how quick Annabelle had been to get her away from Hugh’s bedside. She was very dark-skinned, her skin almost pitch-black, and – unlike the others – she did not wear any uniform, instead opting for a sleek, tightly-fitted dress of shocking-white, which contrasted sharply with her skin. Her curly, black locks flowed over her shoulders, shimmering in the room’s light.
‘I should should go,’ David began. ‘If Annabelle and Hugh are alone together, it won’t be long before there’s a fight,’ he finished with a grin.
Cleo nodded. ‘I should go, too. Make sure the captain isn’t doubting about what to do with him.’ She cast a harsh glance up at George, before following David out of the room.
As the pair left, the dark-skinned woman with the white dress turned to face George. Her eyes were kind; she beamed at him, the very sight of her smile sparking a warm and fuzzy feeling inside him. She was quick to introduce herself as “Fiona” but said George could refer to her as “Fi”.
‘Ignore Cleo,’ Fi said, still beaming at him. ‘You’re not going to die today, George – Hugh will make sure of that. You’re an Ov’l, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll Turn.’
George sobered at the reminder of his Ov’l powers. I wish I’d never had them. But there’s no one to blame but Fate; Hugh did, after all, say there was no rhyme or reason as to who becomes an Ov’l. ‘Sinchara Khan was evil, and Hugh said he was just like me,’ George replied dully. ‘I have to die.’
‘I won’t let Reuben kill you just yet,’ Valiant said, from his position on the other wall. ‘Least, not ‘til I get my money,’ he added quickly, flashing them a roguish grin.
Fi shook her head, smiling kindly at George. ‘No one’s killing anyone – and there’s no way we’d let Valiant take you. And stop thinking you need to die. My reading of you says you’re a good person. A little rough around the edges, but aren’t we all?’ She flashed him a quick grin. ‘Life’s not so fun if you keep wanting to die all the time. Kind of spoils it, you know?’ As she said the words, George spied a flash of something in her eyes.
‘I can’t keep on living as a danger to you all.’ George’s voice was as hard as steel.
Despite his antagonism, Fi continued smiling. ‘You’re a good person, George–’
‘So was Sinchara Khan,’ George bit back. ‘At least, that’s what I can tell from what everyone says.’
It was Valiant who replied to him. ‘Sinchara Khan…was the best…’ the mercenary’s voice was pained. ‘The Reaver Society corrupted him…They Turned him!’ His final shout echoed through the room, rebounding harshly off the walls, bludgeoning George’s eardrums. George flinched.
A minor fracture appeared in Fi’s joyful persona: her smile faded somewhat, and the light in her eyes seemed to dim. Her eyes rested for a second on Valiant, before she turned back to face George. ‘You will not Turn, George. I won’t let you.’ Her voice, which before had been so soft and delicate, was as hard as George’s had been, echoing her grim-faced determination. ‘I will not, under any circumstances, let you Turn. You are not dying today – nor for any other day while I’m around.’
As George looked at her eyes, those eyes that still shone with kindness, he heard the words, processed them, and understood them. And believed them. A new determination surged through him. I will not die today. His hard face softened, donning the barest of smiles.
In an instant, the hardness of Fi’s voice and face was gone as well. She smiled broadly at him – beamed, even – and her eyes were alight with joy. ‘Yes, George. You understand.’ Her voice was softer than bedlinen, kinder than an angel’s, sweeter than sugar-soaked candyfloss.
‘You two finished your little heart-to-heart?’ Valiant remarked with a grin.
Fi turned to face him. ‘If I were you Valiant, I would keep my head low – especially now Hugh is back. Your Dragon Weaver was fun to fight, but that doesn’t undermine the simple fact that there should be no Dragon Weaving anymore, not since the Ynaev destroyed the Dragonborn Scimitar. It is a forbidden strain of Weaving, a cursed strain. Reuben and the rest of them will have a lot of questions for you – maybe even the Council of Masters will be getting involved, too.’
George frowned. He hadn’t realised Dragon Weaving was forbidden – but that revelation brought up more questions than answers, as did Fi’s reference to the “Ynaev” and the “ Dragonborn Scimitar”. He followed Fi’s gaze, eyes fixing on Valiant.
‘How did the Red Dragon get Dragon Weaving?’ Fi asked softly.
Valiant’s eyes narrowed. His jaw clenched, but he did not reply.
#
‘The boy must die.’ Reuben’s voice was hard. His blue eyes were as cold as ice, sending a shudder down Hugh’s spine.
Looking up from the hospital bed he was lying in, groaning softly to himself, Hugh glared at Reuben and shook his head. ‘You will have to kill me first, Reuben, and I’m a difficult man to kill.’ He nodded to his wounds, as if to show the level of injury he could take. That battle with the Dragon Weaver had been very difficult; for the first time as a reaver, he wasn’t scared of Reuben.
His Cosmic Weaving seems like nothing after facing that Dragon Weaving…
Reuben’s eyes narrowed to icy slits. ‘It is only out of respect for you, Hugh, and respect for our kinship that I have not told the Council of Masters about your Ov’l.’
‘He has a name, you know,’ Hugh bit back. ‘As for our “kinship”, our kinship ends when you start killing children, when we start judging people on mights and maybes.’
Reuben’s eyes narrowed. The air in the room suddenly felt very still. ‘We must judge people on mights and maybes when those very same mights and maybes involve the Powers of the Ov’l. Sinchara Khan Turned for a day – a day, Hugh! And in that day, he levelled an apartment block, killed a thousand people – your mother included.’ His voice was hard; Hugh could hear the barely-suppressed anger in Reuben’s words.
Over the course of three years, Sinchara Khan had become increasingly erratic and manic. Hugh and the rest of the reavers had attributed it to stress: tensions had been high between the Reaver Society and the Ynaev, threatening another Great Space War, and coupled with that, the Society had been dealing with the vast numbers of hexes created by the huge death tolls of the Three Pandemics. All of the reavers had been under a lot of stress and had acted out on this stress – Sinchara especially. Despite the efforts of Hugh and Sinchara’s close friend, Grimoire Valiant, they had been unable to stop Sinchara’s outbursts, which grew more violent by the day. Hugh had requested Sinchara take time out of the Reaver Society; Battlemaster Val and the Council of Masters, backed by Reuben, refused. The Reaver Society was under too much pressure in the aftermath of the Three Pandemics to give skilled reavers like Sinchara Khan any time off.
I should have tried harder to get him out. I failed him. Hugh’s stomach knotted itself a thousand times, twisting and writhing inside him.
Sinchara’s final steps to being Turned had come about at the hands of a disagreement with Hugh. Hours after Sinchara had stormed off, Hugh had been ambushed at his home by Sinchara, and in the resulting battle, his mother had been killed.
Hugh’s chest tightened at the thought of her. He wished Reuben had never mentioned her; the thought of his mother brought him only pain.
Sinchara had spared Hugh his life in a bizarre display of morality, before fleeing to his childhood home in Windermere Heights. Soon after, Hugh had followed in pursuit to end his old apprentice’s bloody crusade. And he had succeeded.
Never again. I will not let the Reaver Society fail George like it failed Sinchara.
‘Give George a chance, Reuben, please.’ Hugh was begging now; he was desperate. Reuben was stubborn, but maybe if he could appeal to his compassionate side…
‘No.’ Reuben’s voice echoed through the medbay with a tone of finality.
But Hugh wouldn’t give up just yet. ‘The Trials, Reuben. Put him through the Tria–’
Reuben’s eyes flared. ‘The Trials? Are you insane?’
‘Let him learn control,’ Hugh pleaded. ‘Fi and I, we’ll train him.’
Reuben shook his head. ‘No. Out of the question–’
‘He doesn’t have to die, Reuben. Please!’
Reuben’s eyes narrowed as he studied Hugh’s face carefully. ‘Fine,’ he said at last, huffing. ‘He can take the Trials. If he passes, he can live but under our careful watch; any signs of Turning and we kill him. However, if he fails to have adequate control of his powers to pass the Trials, then we will execute him.’
Hugh inhaled sharply. His face remained hard. Though they were in a better situation now than before, George still wasn’t safe just yet. And what about the others, Cleo and Annabelle in particular, who despised the Ov’ls? Would George ever be safe from them?
--
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