Page 9 of Red Demon (Oria #1)

Raven

M any weeks into my ritual of survival, a brush of morning sunlight seeped through my closed eyes.

The sky above me rolled clear: violet splashed with streaks of rose and gold clouds.

With a sigh, I crawled out of my piles of leaves to my feet, the damp chill of earth seeping through my worn cloak as I brushed off the debris.

I’d traded for an Asri style cloak a few days before, wearing it over my Chaeten coat.

I found it put strangers at ease if I looked like everyone else from a distance. It put me at ease too.

The death scream of a rabbit found its way through my dreams last night, and I found it caught in my snare. I untangled it, field dressed it, and cooked it for breakfast.

I was two days from the North Barrack, and only a little light on cash.

By a fallen oak, I hid my meager belongings under a pile of leaves.

Then, I took my emptied backpack and walked into the woods to forage.

As usual, I took that time to stoke my hope to a healthy fire, reminding myself that better days were coming.

The stream I followed wound through the forest, sunlight dappling on the water and sprinkling shadows through the leaves overhead.

I thinned a patch of early morels that was too bountiful to harvest all at once.

For variety, I selected some pale gooseberries and juicy strawberries, and I washed and packed them in my homemade boxes of woven wax leaves.

I could taste the promise of spring as I walked, serenaded by an orchestra of chirps and whistles and rustling leaves far above me. Then, the trees fell away, and the town bloomed before me.

The sun glinted off pale stone walls built to endure against time. Carvings ran the length of the marble walls on the first buildings, intricate swirls and spirals dating back thousands of years before a Chaeten ever dreamed of the Nara.

I offered a brief nod to the guard as I strolled past the stone gate, moss growing in every groove, the elaborate faded carvings telling stories of people I’ve never heard of and strange beasts I’d never seen.

Few places in the Nara had recovered the population it held before the war a century ago, and this town was no exception.

A couple of old cottages stood with boarded windows for every one with smoke coming out of the chimney.

I walked toward the open-air market that I’d learned would always be in the center of an Asri town.

The scent of spices mingled with the earthy aroma of freshly baked mushroom and shortgrain bread as I passed the first booths, a smell that made my stomach rumble with hunger.

Iden used to hate mushroom flour, even though the Asri staple was too affordable to ignore.

I’d since learned to love it. The Asri cooked it much better.

Children with sun-kissed skin chased each other through the square as I laid out my blanket and wares on a clear patch of grass, their laughter oblivious to the death of my Chaeten kin in villages to the south.

Their parents mingled between the stalls.

I sat down next to my little baskets of mushrooms and berries. A middle-aged woman with dark hair caught my eye, approaching until her ringed eyes noted the pale green of mine. I kept my head high as she took a moment to look me over, frowning in suspicion. I just smiled as she kept walking.

A shadow blocked the sun. Black wings stretched before me, suspended in the sky.

The huge raven descended in front of me with unsettling silence, resting at my feet.

The beast that hopped onto the edge of my blanket was as large as a house cat, and it cocked intense black eyes at me, sizing me up as if I were prey.

It let out a dry, guttural caw, loud enough to echo through the market.

Its feathers gleamed green and blue and violet as it turned to fixate on a plump strawberry.

With a snatch of its sharp beak, it unfurled massive wings, and I felt the beat of the air against my skin as it launched.

I swore under my breath when the raven arced around the market rather than fly away. It dipped again to fall onto a shoulder I recognized as Chaeten-sa.

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.

It wasn’t her . I had to repeat that to myself.

The Chaeten-sa man had the same yellow-green eyes etched with the strength of the cold void—the same grace as the woman who had killed my brothers.

He stroked a gentle hand over his bird. Spiky red hair, bronze skin, and clean full armor, colored black and shimmering like the feathers of his pet.

The queen’s sigil on his armor wasn’t enough to keep my blood from churning thick in my veins.

He wasn’t alone: a ripple of silence spread through the sparse crowd as the unit of Z’har soldiers strode through the market in the traditional red, the Chaeten-sa at their center, black insignia of Azara’s Introgression Tree on each soldier’s shoulder.

These were people I could trust, those who gave their lives in service of the empire.

And one—no, two Asri soldiers strode among them with the same confidence, a testament to how much Queen Azara had done to bridge the divide between our cultures.

I reminded myself to stop staring like an idiot. This was what I was waiting for. Steeling myself as I jogged toward them, my voice cracked with an “Excuse me!”

A few heads turned, but not the Chaeten-sa’s. I focused on a soldier with the most detailed uniform, a captain probably. A gruff man with tawny skin, and a jagged scar across his lips.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said, after clearing my throat, “Do you have any news about the attack down south? Because—”

The Chaeten-sa’s eyes whipped to me, the same inhuman motion as the woman who killed my brothers.

I felt burned under his gaze and stopped talking.

Beside him, the scar-faced captain moved his hand ever so slightly to the shining blade strapped across his thigh.

He brought his hand back, forced a smile.

I felt wary eyes on me as the surrounding crowd stopped to listen in.

“Which attack do you mean, friend?” the captain asked, voice rough as gravel. “Which village?”

My heart pounded at the gruff response. Their eyes were all narrow with suspicion, or darting onward, perhaps annoyed. I was someone whom it was their job to protect; someone they failed to protect.

“I have some friends in the Bend, spread about,” I said, deciding not to risk the full truth out in the open air. Most of the Z’har soldiers appeared to relax, but not the Chaeten-sa. I felt the eyes I refused to meet burning into my face.

“Do you know who killed them? Are the attacks still happening?” I swallowed the lump of fear in my throat.

A grim silence descended. The captain’s curt nod, sharp as a knife, confirmed my worst fears.

“How do you know so little?” The Chaeten-sa’s voice was deep, piercing.

“I don’t venture into town much,” I said, still unable to meet his eyes for more than a moment.

The captain clamped his lips shut, and looked to the Chaeten-sa. “Shall I handle this for you, Major Mahakal?”

The Chaeten-sa, Mahakal I guess, took a moment before he tore his eyes away from me. “Yes please, Captain Havoc.” He started walking away. “Meet us in the temple. Ren: stay with your captain.”

“Yes sir, Major Mahakal,” the captain said, in unison with the Asri Lieutenant Ren, a woman with straw-colored braids.

“Thank you for staying to talk, Captain Havoc,” I said, heart pounding. “I’m worried my friends might be dead.”

Captain Havoc furrowed his eyebrows. “It’s possible. The rebels have hijacked quite a bit of tech in Chaeten settlements. Communication is limited, but the temples are tracking the casualty list.”

I tried to hide my frustration at how incomplete that explanation was. “What can you tell me?”

“Only what any temple bulletin could. Every Chaeten town south of the Noé Bend was hit by rebels now in some capacity. Same bioweapon as the first attack on Crofton.”

Crofton. My town. “What bioweapon? Why?”

The captain considered, looking as if I asked him to choose what to have for lunch.

“Where did you say you were from, friend?” Ren adjusted the pin in her hair that held her braid tight to her head.

I gulped, knowing the townspeople were listening too. “Can we talk in private somewhere? I live in the forest. Just out of the loop.”

“I’ve never seen you before,” Ren said.

The crowd whispered, but I didn’t dare look up.

Captain Havoc frowned at his colleague before looking back at me.

“All you need to know now is the rebels are spreading a disease. In most cases, the virus kills in seconds or minutes, but some infected can take up to a couple weeks, spreading disease all the while. The Bend is now in full quarantine, and we’re about to start evacuation of the Asri towns too, one by one.

Keep yourself above the Bend, make sure the temples inspect and license any tech you own, and tell anyone else out-of-the-loop the same.

” He put a suspicious stress on the “out-of-the-loop” part.

I made every effort to clear my thoughts from my face.

Could there really be a disease that kills people in minutes …

or seconds? I thought of the bodies in the market, still holding their coins in their hands.

And what of the Red Demon? I’d seen her kill my brothers, but they never mentioned her.

Did they really know what was happening?

Fuck. My thoughts raced in circles. Maybe the truth was so much worse, and they just weren’t going to tell me.

“You should check bulletins at the temple to stay informed, and you can inquire about your friends there for the usual search fee.” The captain shifted on his feet, looking toward the direction the Chaeten-sa Major had gone.