Page 48 of Red Demon (Oria #1)

Outlaw

T he rhythmic rise and fall of Faruhar’s breathing kept my sleep that night shallow, tethered to wakefulness.

I felt relieved her body radiated heat against mine.

The first rays of dawn lit the ruined atrium and crumbling archway.

Just as I was drifting back to sleep, that warmth left me, and I heard the thud of a knife leaving a sheath.

I sprang up.

Faruhar stood over Asher, her eyes wide. She held one of her swords, its blade glinting in the pale winter light, angled at his throat. Her gaze darted between me and Asher, who had crawled back with a gasp, his back to the wall.

“Who are you?” she demanded of Asher, her voice hoarse, her stance ready.

Ice shivered up my spine, but I pushed panic back down with a breath. I forgot about the journal; I should have left it in sight.

“Faruhar, you’re safe.” I made slow movements to stand between them. “I’m Jesse. That’s Asher, my brother. You can trust him.”

She frowned, her gaze dissecting Asher, who watched back with raw terror.

“Jesse?” he stammered, looking at me.

The sight of Asher’s face sent a jolt through me. Faruhar narrowed her eyes as I moved closer to my brother, unarmed. Her sword lowered a fraction, but her grip remained tight.

“Jesse?” she echoed, her voice uncertain. “Where…? Who tore my armor? I was injured.”

“Major Mahakal injured you,” I said. “Last night you attacked his camp. You got us out; Asher too.” I gestured back to my brother with pleading eyes.

“Mahakal.” That word sparked a dark fire to life. Her nostrils flared before her eyes refocused. “Sorry Asher; Jesse.”

Asher’s mouth fell open, his muscles relaxing only after she sheathed her sword.

I couldn’t decipher the scurry of emotions contorting her face. “Thank you,” she said in her whispery rasp. “For saving me.”

“Same,” I said, exhaling.

A few birds trilled across the frosted forest. She went to her bag in the corner, removed the journal, flipping through pages at a rush.

“She can’t remember?” Asher whispered, keeping his back pinned to the wall.

“Who are you looking for?” I asked Faruhar.

“Mahakal,” she said. “I hate him. I need to remember why. Bria doesn’t want to talk about it, but she told me once.”

“Told you what?” I asked.

She’d found the page she was looking for. And the leather book shook in her hand as she tried to smooth the page. “He was one of the Chaeten-sa that raped my mother.”

I looked from her to Asher, his mouth open.

“How do you know that?” I asked her.

“Bria was there. Mahakal might be my father for all I know,” she said. “I don’t think I want to know.”

The horror of that left me speechless, my hands fisted . “ I’m sorry” didn’t cut it.

We sat in silence. She seemed to remember herself with a shiver. “I need some water.” She gestured outside to the stream. “You both must be tired, but we should get moving again soon.”

Asher watched her go, his back still plastered to the wall. His fearful brown and gold eyes met mine. “We need to leave her. Now.”

I shook my head, mind racing. “You’re scared of her?”

“You’re not?” he asked, but my face must have been enough of an answer. He gripped his head with his hands, biceps tense. “You’re not. Fuck.”

“She’s evaded Mahakal and the empire for almost a century. We need her help.” I ran a hand through my short curls. “I expect we’ll have wanted posters up in temples soon, our code records posted in every hospital. Sorry I dragged you into this. I didn’t see another way.”

Asher sighed, head against the wall. “If you never showed up, I’d still be out there tracking and killing Asri rebels.

Can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve only seen them defending themselves, Jesse.

They hate the empire, but their crimes against anyone else, I’ve taken on faith.

” His eyes lost focus. “Mahakal only tolerates us Asri—the queen demands we’re in the unit too.

He doesn’t respect us. I’ve probably been killing innocent ka for him. ” His body trembled against the stone.

I sat down beside him, my shoulder to his. “You didn’t know.”

He sighed, shook his head; kept shaking. “We still don’t know much. What I do know is that the Red Demon just tried to kill me.”

I’m pretty sure that anything I said next to reassure Ash didn’t work, but I tried to catch him up. He kept his thoughts to himself as we set to work, dousing the embers with the remains of my canteen and hiding the ashes under fallen leaves.

Faruhar returned, striding fast to put her journal in her bag. “Mahakal’s battalion is on the move. Let’s go.”

I came up alongside her, gesturing to see her arm, eying her ripped pants. “Shouldn’t we check your injuries first?”

Faruhar glanced down, pulling the gash of bloody fabric aside under her arm, her brow furrowing at the plantain dried to her skin.

She brushed it off with a harsh scrub that made me cringe.

“It’s fine.” A fresh pink scar under her arm was all that remained of the wound that almost killed her, a fresh line to add to the maze on her body.

My mouth dropped open. No wonder she thought nothing of my new healing abilities if this is what her body could do.

“Ready to go? We’ll forage for some breakfast on the way,” she said.

We rose. Ash grimaced, but didn’t argue. With a brisk pace, we plunged back into the brown leaves between bare branches.

We fell into a rhythm. Faruhar and I carried the bags, our movements silent, a dance in harmony.

I tried to out-quiet her while matching her speed.

Her yellow-green eyes darted between the path ahead and the undergrowth flanking us.

Now and then, she’d fall into a crouch, plucking nuts that had fallen near her route, dropping them into an open satchel.

My stomach growled when she came to a full stop, a tree with wide leaves still clinging, and oblong fist-sized fruits.

“Asimina.” She smiled, offering me and Ash the largest ones.

I peeled the yellow fruit with a knife as we walked, the cool, custardy flesh only taking the edge off my hunger.

“Hide the peels well,” she said to Ash, who was about to toss it. “Leave no trace.”

“No problem, Far.” I smiled at her.

She glared, guarded. “Far. Why do you say it like that? Are we friends?”

I weighed that. “I think so,” I said at the same time Asher said, “No.”

Ash scowled back at my raised eyebrow, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Faruhar laughed, picking her way over a branch.

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I’m very grateful for all you’ve done for my brother,” Asher said. “But I’ve heard so many things about you before last night, about what you do with your life and—”

“It’s fine, Asher.” She chuckled. “You should be terrified of me. It’s what your brother says that doesn’t make any sense.

” Her gaze softened as she flicked her hair out of her eyes.

“I don’t need you to think of me a friend, but I guess I don’t mind his pretending. It’s fun to have someone to talk to.”

“We’re running for our lives, and you’re having fun talking?” I asked.

She pointed out a patch of beechnuts nestled amongst the fallen leaves, their brown shells gleaming in the sun. “We’re walking for our lives, currently. For me, that’s an ideal day.”

I knelt beside her to collect nuts, trying to make sense of that smile.

“Bria likes you, Asher,” Faruhar said. “She says it’s okay to tell you most things, and she’ll answer what she can.”

Asher cracked a nut with his pocket knife, stuffing another in his pocket. “Who’s Bria? I mean, who was she when she was alive?”

Faruhar paused, listening. “She’s Attiq-ka, and she knew my mother before I was born. Bria has been in my mind as long as I can remember. She kept me alive when people attempted to kill me as a child.”

“As a child? Who?” Asher gave her a sidelong glance.

A bitter laugh. “I’m a halfbreed born during the Ghost War. Everyone wanted to kill me. Bria says I got my first scars as a baby when the town elders tried to throw me in the fire. She convinced someone to get me out.”

“Fuck, that’s horrible,” I said, especially how she said it, with so little feeling, like that didn’t matter.

Ash squinted as we walked, opened his mouth and closed it.

“So, Bria’s in your mind? She can talk to you in your head?

” Faruhar hesitated, seeming more upset by this question than the one about being burned alive.

“I don’t like telling you things you could use to hurt her.

But Bria said to just tell you yes. She’s a ghost. Too broken to rejoin Oria, but no demon. ”

The path passed a fast-moving stream, the cool air carrying the scent of damp earth and running water. Faruhar hopped down the rocks to fill her canteen, motioning for us to follow.

“Jesse said you were trying to stop the ruren-sa; kill them before they hurt people,” Asher said, wary.

“He makes it sound noble,” she said. “I do what Bria says, because she keeps me alive, and because I want to keep her alive. She’s the noble one; I kill. I know what I’m good at.”

Screwing the lid on my canteen, I studied every flicker of light on her face, unsure if it was possible to reconcile her at all.

“Is Mahakal driving the ghost swarms, or following them?” Faruhar asked. “Bria thinks the worst, but she has no proof.”

Asher frowned. “He doesn’t talk about ghosts at all. Although his personal squad keeps a lot of secrets. They have a higher clearance level than the rest of us, and we don’t overlap much.”

Faruhar nodded. “Ruren-sa didn’t swarm like this until what happened in the Bend. They prefer to be alone. When Mahakal is anywhere near a swarm, his khels are up. Bria can’t hear through the khel, so she won’t go close until he’s on the move. He can’t keep them up while traveling.”

“So he can put the magic shields up in the field, like it’s nothing? And turn them off?” I’d thought that was something only Asri mages could do.

She nodded.

I turned to Asher. “Good enough for me. I think someone in Mahakal’s squad turned Nunbiren’s khels off from the North Barrack. That’s how the ghosts got in. I’m going to kill him.”

Asher inhaled a breath.

Faruhar’s expression frosted over. “Bria is screaming at you now, and me. She never wanted me to get anywhere near Mahakal, ever.”

“Last night, too?” Asher looked between me and her.

“Yeah, she’s pissed,” Faruhar said with a huff. “But she’s right. I can’t kill him alone.”

I met her gaze, my jaw set. “You don’t have to do it alone. Voids, I’ll kill him for both of us. I don’t care.” I gave Asher an expectant look. He kept his eyes on the road.

“If I can’t do it alone, neither can you.” Her head jumped at a sound I couldn’t hear. “We need to speed up.”

We rose and fell into a jog, and my body welcomed it. One kilometer, two. Asher’s breath picked up into a frantic rhythm when we pushed the edge of his endurance, so we let him set our pace.

“Jesse, we should tell Mira what we know.” Asher took a sharp breath. “Warn her about Mahakal, the virus—”

“Mira?” Faruhar echoed.

“Our friend. She’s got a background with Modtech,” Asher explained. “She couldn’t map the SBO virus to Jesse’s code. If there is no such thing as SBO, that would be why.”

“Where is this Mira?” Faruhar asked, her long legs moving over the terrain with grace.

“Uyr Elderven.” Ash caught his breath. “The research hospital.”

“A Z’har? You’re crazy,” Faruhar huffed.

“Might not have pledged yet,” Asher said. “They gave her three months.”

I could hear the pain in his voice. “I always planned to head to her next, Ash. She’s family. We have to warn her before that pledge.”

Faruhar considered this, her face unreadable. “I’ll see you both to the gates of Uyr Elderven, but you’ll have to find your own way in. Although, I’d appreciate a hand along the way.”

“A hand with what?”

I heard them running toward us, crashing in the underbrush and the leaves of the clearing ahead. I halted as a dozen figures spread out in front of us, carrying a mismatch of weapons and tools, their clothes dirty and eyes glazed with hate.

“Demons,” she said, unsheathing her swords.