Page 2 of Veil of Vasara (Fate of the Five #1)

CHAPTER 2 – THE ACCIPEREAN

F our days had passed since I’d eaten.

Two nearly since I’d had water.

Today was the first I’d been allowed to wash myself in a week.

Earlier than usual.

Strange.

The water was cold enough to feel as if it were stripping the skin off my starved frame. I shuddered as I attempted to wipe the grime from my limbs.

A thud, loud and impatient, sounded to my left. I winced, fixing my gaze upwards, clutching at the sharp shard of soap I’d been given.

“You’ve got one more minute. We’re not letting you try again,” a voice hollered from around the corner.

Try again.

I scrubbed at my palms faster.

It wouldn’t work.

I had tried to die many times before.

But I could never die fast enough, they always caught me before I could slip into that oblivion.

Because they needed my power. I was one of the few Accipereans left.

I grabbed the rag hanging on the wall, placing it over my body moments before the guard emerged.

Marco. I knew this one’s name, unlike most the others, to whom I gave numbers. He looked as he always did, a pale tan made even cooler by the black of his short hair and uniform.

His dark gaze was trained on me suspiciously. “You took too long.”

I said nothing.

If he was hoping for an apology, some profuse admittance of wrongdoing, he was hoping in vain.

He strode forwards, I stalked behind him.

I wanted to die, yes, but I did not want to grovel.

Grovelling seemed worse than death to me.

I shook my head at the absurdity of the thought. I didn’t understand that part of me, thrashing around, fighting to live. The taste of resignation on my tongue always seemed so sweet but the words ‘I’m not done’ dripped from them each time I opened my mouth.

Or in this instance, kept it closed.

I was shoved onto the floor of my cell.

It was hardly difficult to ascertain why I was in despair, but harder to understand why I insisted on maintaining any shred of dignity I’d been afforded.

They took it away, after the Wielders’ War. I had been five when that had started, decades ago. The Five Kingdoms had united to eliminate sorcery from our lands.

Both kinds of sorcerers, Accipereans and Dareans drew power from the earth. They drew power from the air, the water, the soil, and the sun to use their magic. But for Dareans, their magic gave back to the world in kind. They were the healers, elementalists, protectors, transporters. But for Accipereans like me, their magic took a little more, from the land and, they said, from the self.

There used to be so many of us, illusionists, enchanters, necromancers, divinators.

Destroyers.

But there had been Accipereans who craved domination. Accipereans who would have bled the world dry to obtain it, had they not been defeated.

Now, we were paying for their mistakes, for their greed.

We were paying and they were gone.

We were told we should be grateful for our half-lives. After all, Vasara, Kalnasa, Zeima, Audra, and Jurasa, had planned to wipe out sorcery completely, to kill all sorcerers, to crush us. They pointed at the crumbs of the feasts they had barred us from, chanting ‘look how we feed you.’ They liked to think themselves generous. They cast themselves as saviours in Athlion’s story.

But I had heard the real stories, carried by hushed voices of guards and overseers, or from fellow captives, during those rare moments we were able to utter words to one another. I had heard many things, before they put me down here, deep in the underbelly of Audra's lands.

I had heard that the Five Kingdoms did, at first, crush us. That it was only after doing so, that they discovered sorcery was necessary for our world. Without it, foul things festered, crops died, the seasons stopped changing, the rain stopped falling.

They believed, foolishly, that they could undo what they had done. They captured Dareans and creatures of sorcery, hoping to use them and their abilities to remedy their mistakes.

Not Accipereans though, they did not think there was any use for those whose magic took from the world. They slaughtered every Acciperean they could find.

They devised a way to harness the magic of Dareans, to mine it and pour it back into our lands unnaturally, through a variety of instruments, devices, and torturous procedures.

And it worked.

For a little while.

Until the roots of trees grew so deep, they ripped through the earth. The days grew too long and the nights too short. The rivers overran and the seas rose, threatening to swallow everything whole.

Until they realised, they needed us, they needed Accipereans too.

They hunted down every Acciperean still breathing.

They needed balance, but they had murdered so many of us that there were practically none of us left. The few who had escaped were hiding and running. Some were still out there now, living a life in vacant, overlooked spaces.

I could barely remember my parents, or my life before this place. I’d spent practically every waking moment as a captive. They’d taken me from whatever home I’d had. They took all the Accipereans away from their families, their houses, their hideouts. But still, I knew as surely as the beat of my heart, that they were no saviours. Some desperate cry from my chest called out, that I had not deserved this. That no sorcerer had.

They didn’t call it enslavement, of course. They called it ‘the integration of magic wielders into society’ and they called those they drained ‘Vessels’ as if it were some sort of honorary title. But we weren’t integrated into anything. We were only allowed to breathe, move, eat, bathe, and blink within the quarters they allocated to us.

Vessels weren’t allowed to step outside of these quarters. Vessels were discouraged from speaking to one another too often, for fear of inciting rebellion. We were assigned to groups that changed every few months, never allowing us a chance to get too close to anyone. Vessels and non-Vessels were not allowed to converse with one another, to have any kind of relationship or reproduce together.

That didn’t stop the guards from trying to force themselves upon some of the women though, and the men.

That’s how I ended up deep underground.

Nobody would have believed us about their attempts, if we had told them the guards were violating the codes Vasara had established after the War, as the ruling Kingdom.

That’s why I didn’t regret killing the guard who had forced himself onto a girl, a few years ago. The chains around our limbs drained us of our powers, so I didn’t kill him with sorcery. I couldn’t. I killed him with his own sword instead, the sword that had been attached to his discarded belt.

Piercing his flesh had been easy, far easier than I had anticipated.

I had thought they would execute me after that. I had hoped for it. But being an Acciperean, death was not an option for me.

This was.

This isolation, starvation, humiliation. These beatings and burns. Whatever they could come up with that was enough to hurt me, but not enough to kill me.

A balance, they were all about balance. At least they were consistent in their cruelty.

A voice emerged in the distance.

Marco…again.

I could tell, not only by the sound of his voice, but by his steps. They were heavy, dragging across the ground. They were heading in my direction.

There was someone with him. I didn’t recognise their voice.

“…Many left.” I caught the end of Marco’s sentence. “How many do Kalnasa need?”

“As many as we are willing to give them. For a price of course,” the voice answered. It was a woman’s voice, devoid of emotion, indifferent, bored almost.

This happened regularly. Vessels were transferred and moved between the Five Kingdoms often. This was the third I had been dragged to. I had not seen any of their renowned landscapes or architecture though, only bars, barricades, and cells.

“And how many are we willing to give them?” Marco asked.

“How many do we have?”

“Sixteen.”

The woman’s steps froze. Marco stopped with her.

“That is…troubling. I thought we had more.” Her tone was accusatory.

“We did, but not all of them can take the drainings. We need to drain them harder than the Dareans.”

Accipereans, they were talking about Accipereans. Were there really only sixteen of us left here?

The woman tutted. “Who is responsible for their draining?”

“Tristan.”

“I should like to know what methods this…Tristan is employing.”

“Shall I send for him?”

“Afterwards.”

Their voices were growing louder.

“You said you’d selected suitable Vessels?”

“Yes, I’ve left five of them in the draining chamber for your inspection, but there’s another here I thought you’d want to take a look at.”

The woman sounded as if she were smiling. “Why is it down here?”

It.

“She’s the one that killed Karll,” Marco explained.

Now I knew two of their names. Many sorcerers forgot their own during the drainings.

Though that was not the reason I did not know mine.

The woman and Marco reached my cell and were standing in front of it now.

My eyes widened. There was no doubting it. The woman was Royalty, or nobility at least.

Her dark dress covered her shoulders like pads of armour. On top of those pads were silver ornaments, shaped like bird feathers. Its neckline revealed her brown skin, and a set of pale jewels that sat against her collarbones.

Her black eyes were slitted into a squint as she studied me. She laughed, the sound was clipped and without any real amusement. I snarled involuntarily at the sound.

“Yes, that one will do. Choose the three weakest from the others to send with it. We need the stronger ones for ourselves.”

“We’re truly sending them? But I thought—"

“You thought correctly, the plan has not changed.”

“I see,” Marco nodded.

“And Marco?”

“Yes?”

“I heard” – she stopped, placing a hand on his shoulder – “that you were speaking with my son.”

Marco blinked hard. His gaze shifted around as if searching for an answer in the air. “He asked some questions. I answered them. Should I not have? I thought he was aware.”

“You tell him nothing. Do not tell him of this either.” Her voice was sharp.

“Understood.” Marco nodded but appeared perplexed by the instruction.

“I’ll be waiting for Tristan. Get this done,” she said, casting me one final glance before walking away.

Marco, however, entered my cell.

“Get up,” he commanded, not aggressively like many of the guards here, but with no sympathy either.

I didn’t get up.

“Trust me,” his voice became softer, “doing as I say will be better for you.”

“Being free would be better for me,” I snapped as he forced me to stand.

“Not anymore,” he mumbled, dragging me out of the cell.

“Who else is being sent there?”

Marco didn’t answer.

“Is Amali?”

Marco didn’t take a second to respond, “Who?”

Of course, they didn’t know our names and not because, like us, we had never learnt them, but because they had never bothered to learn ours.

“She has a birthmark on her—" I began explaining.

“Dead,” he declared without feeling.

I could barely feel the sensation of my feet moving, or of getting closer to the dreaded light.

Amali is dead.

“How?”

He didn’t respond. He didn’t care. Of course he didn’t. Our value was in our utility, losing one of us was like losing an object, not a person.

A short time later, I was shoved into the back of a cramped shuttle. I was thankful for the darkness it shrouded me in, my eyes were not used to the light yet.

Three other Accipereans were staring back at me. I recognised one of them. A man about my age, brown olive skin, dark eyes, black hair that had grown to his shoulders, an unshaved face. He looked much thinner than when I had last seen him.

But then again, that had been years ago.

I didn’t know how many. There was no way I could measure time accurately underground. Had it been two? Three? Five? I wasn’t sure.

The other two Accipereans were a woman and child. The woman was shaking. The girl stared at me wide eyed. She appeared about six.

None of us said anything to each other. What could we say? What words would be worth it? None of us wanted empty platitudes and comfort. We had all gotten used to our own company, we had all gotten used to living in our own minds.

I supposed that was how we preferred it now.

We had never been given the chance to prefer anything else.

There were no windows. We couldn’t see where we were going, or at what point of the journey we were on. I lost count of the days we had been moving. It was only the erratic distribution of small quantities of food that gave us any sense of time passing.

At least I had eaten.

It was because of the lack of windows though, that I didn’t know where we were when it happened.

Our shuttle tipped over to the side.

The child was crying, the mother was trying to calm her down. The man and I looked at each other with alarm, fear, and that distinct emotion I had seen in the eyes of many Vessels.

Bitter determination.

This was our chance, this was our one, and likely, only chance to be free.

We didn’t know who had attacked the shuttle or why, we didn’t know what awaited us. Perhaps we would be shot, cut down, killed as soon as we attempted to escape. Perhaps this was a test.

But this was it. In all the years of my life I had never had a chance like this. By the look in the man’s eyes, neither had he.

I nodded. He nodded back at me. We looked at the woman and the child, silently communicating our intentions.

Outside, the sound of people dying.

Inside, the silence of people determined to live.

For the first time in years, I was adamant about the fact I would live.

The man spoke, looking at the mother.

“Are you coming with us?”

She nodded. Yes.

“Fuck it.” The young man kicked at the side of the cart, trying with all his might to break it down.

I joined him. We struck it again and again, but the casing was far stronger than it looked, while we, chained and bound, were still weak.

“It’s not going to work,” the woman wailed.

“It has to work. It has to fucking work!” the man shouted. The chaotic sound of battle surrounded us from all sides, seeping through the slats of the wood we were encased in. The child's shrill cries sounded louder than before. The man started screaming, his shouts laced with sobs and quivering with despair.

I put my hand on the man’s shoulder. “Stop.”

He didn’t listen to me. He kept hitting and hitting and hitting and hitting until his hands were raw and bloody.

“You’re hurting yourself. It’s pointless!” I yelled trying to get through to him.

“No, this” - he lifted his wrists, nodding at his chain - “this is hurting me!”

There were tears in his eyes. We looked at each other, he with tears in his eyes and mine dry from all the tears I had shed over the years.

“I know,” I whispered.

He sank back to the wall.

“Maybe we should…”

I halted.

Nothing. Silence. The commotion outside had stopped.

All the sounds that had dissolved into the air before now sounded so loud. Our breathing, our gulping, the sound of the footsteps approaching us. We all looked at each other.

These could be the last faces I see.

These could be the people my dead body lies by in some ditch.

With one swift movement, the side of the shuttle was torn off.

There was only one thing that could do that in this world.

One thing.