Red Waters

  Knees buckling, falling onto a pool of warm blood, she brought bloody hands up to her face. Dug her nails into her skin, so close she could almost taste the iron. A monster. Alone.

  “You need to go.”

  She froze.

  “Right now. I report this, and you go. I don’t care where. Leave.”

  She let her hands fall, revealing no tears. “You don’t understand.”

  “Anyone would feel remorseful for massacring their comrades.”

  “That’s not it. It’s those kids. The ones that died. They saw me. It was my fault. They thought I could help. I killed them. It was my fault.”

  “And it’ll be your fault when your friends die because you didn’t go like I told you to.”

  Shakily, she stood up and felt the blood creep down her black stockings, the ghosts of the dead still trying to cling onto her. “You’re right,” she whispered as she turned around to walk back to her friends, dodging the remnants of her revenge until she reached the one who once loved her.

  “Don’t explain anything to me,” Nate waved dismissively when she obediently walked up to him as if he was her master, as if she couldn’t kill him if she wanted to, quietly observing the passive look on his face. “The less I know, the better. Just go.”

  “Thanks,” she uttered weakly as she left, thinking about what she was going to say. What rational explanation she could possibly offer. The lies compounded on lies. Everything she hid from everyone because it was safer for them not to know, because everything depended on no one else knowing. The small things, though—the small things, she did give away. When she felt human. When she felt like herself. She was still herself, even if the Earth Mother’s voice rang in her head, even if She was trying to take her away because of what she was doing. Because the Mother could see, after all, what the tactician’s plan was, what no one else saw—She had good reason to want to take her away.

  But she wouldn’t give up that easily. She still had months of work to go.

  “Goodness, lead, what the f—”

  The tactician looked up, eyes distant as she glanced at her two duelists lying on the ground with her physician and healer taking care of them. “We’re leaving. Something happened over at Eve’s camp, and Professor Moriya is going to take care of it. He instructed us to leave as soon as possible. Is everyone okay to head out?”

  “Is that why you have blood all over you?”

  Her eyes shifted to Selene, but she didn’t take the challenge. “I’ll get washed, and then I’ll come around to help and inspect everyone. We’re going to head back to town to stay the night, maybe Cephelia; it’s not safe here.” She faltered for a moment, blinking and feeling some clarity return as her voice finally broke to reveal the fear that she had shuttered deep inside her. “C-Cyril, can you come with me?”

  Without even waiting for him to acknowledge her order, she started walking away, shrugging off her cloak while she made her way outside camp so no one else could hear, stopping entirely once she was far enough to pull her sticky shoes and stockings off.

  “Did you get hurt?”

  “Nothing that can’t be healed with time,” she mumbled, bending down to wash the blood off her legs.

  Cyril looked uncomfortable, furtively glancing back at the camp while shifting his weight from side to side. “So…what did you call me out here for? I just finished helping Elias reset his shoulder—Theo’s busy with Alex, too, so I probably shouldn’t leave him untended for too long.”

  Ty watched the water slowly flow out of her fingertips and down her leg, washing away the red streaks. “Are you okay?” she barely whispered.

  Silence.

  “Are you doing okay after what happened to the children?” she asked again in the same volume.

  “This week I watched two children get murdered in front of me, and then I buried them. I am far from okay, tactician.”

  The acidity of the way he spoke her title hurt more than the dark red wound around her finger, where her tactician’s ring used to be. It felt like a joke—Tactician, Child of Hope? She was none of it. She was…who was she?

  An emissary of death, our hateful Earth Mother.

  “I took care of it.”

  He stopped shifting and stared at her. “What did you take care of?”

  “I took care of it.”

  The silence filled in the words between them as she moved on to washing her face.

  “Is that where this blood is from? Did you—don’t tell me you—”

  As Ty contemplated how one would conjure up cold water instead of warm, she suddenly felt him shove her against a tree. Cyril’s balled-up fist was clutching her black dress so hard his knuckles were white, a contorted expression on his face again as he spoke through gritted teeth.

  “You killed them?”

  She stared at him, feeling the icy numbness thaw, the humanity in her beginning to resurface as the droplets ran down her face.

  Don’t close your eyes, or you’ll see more than just the children this time.

  “Do you think that’ll bring them back? Do you think that makes what you did any better?”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat, forcing it back down like everything else.

  “Did they even try to hurt you? Did you just kill them in cold blood?”

  It was no use.

  She raised her hands up to cover her face, steadying the shaking against her burning face.

  The one who once loved you.

  “Ty, the only thing you’ve done by killing them is making yourself a murderer. Just like them. Those kids aren’t—you’re not their savior, you don’t need to avenge them—who do you think you—”

  “Hey, Cyril! Cyril, do you think you could help me out with Elias for a moment?”

  “Tch.”

  She crumbled onto the ground and wept silently.

  * * *

  “How long we gonna walk for?” groaned Elias first.

  Theo tried to offer some comforting words. “Just to the next town over. It’ll be a few hours, but at least we won’t be heading through Eslah’s Pass—we’ll go west, then hug southern Lake Lachesis until we reach Cephelia.”

  “And then we’re heading back to school, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s on the way.”

  Selene piped up next, tugging on Kor’s coat. “Cephelia is the more southern city, right? Cadelia is north?”

  But her partner could only offer a shrug. “Yes, though Cadelia is technically the southern MATS main office. Not sure why we’re not going there instead—it’s safer.”

  “Dude, don’t make me walk more than I have to. I’m tired.”

  “If you’re tired, ask Darius to piggyback you.”

  “Elias big.”

  “I can help Weightless…if anyone needs it.”

  “Thanks, Callie, but we should probably lie low—not sure how fast news spreads, and this area shouldn’t be too hostile, but there’s still a chance.”

  A whole half-hour. It had been a whole half-hour since her crying spell back at camp. Her eyes hurt, her head hurt, and everything around her felt fuzzy. She wasn’t even walking properly—cloak in her arms, stumbling intermittently so she was bumping into Theo every time she shifted her weight to her right leg, she was at least glad that she was leaving like Nate had told her.

  Dropping the tactician act, Theo mumbled softly from the back of the group, “Are you sure you don’t need my anima?”

  Shaking her head, rubbing her eyes because she felt the pain intensifying again, she realized too late that she had used her left hand and flinched.

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  “Wait, what’s wrong with your hand?”

  Before she could retract it, Theo took it and looked at the wound. “That’s why you gave me your ring—you should have just taken it off to do the spell.”

  “That’s cheating,” she uttered in a register barely above a whisper as she tugged on her hand, painfully bringing it back to her side. “It was an exam.”

  With a worried sigh, her physician put his hands in his pockets and didn’t press the issue.

  “Isn’t someone here from Cadelia or something? I swear I remember something like that.”

  “Callie’s from the south.”

  “Oh, yes. Yes…but I’m not from Cadelia. Alex is.”

  “Mhm! Born and raised. Not too far of a walk to the Academy, too. Family’s there, though probably can’t, er, house everyone.”

  “But we’ll know someone there, at least. Lead?”

  “Kor, I will not walk another three hours just so we can stay at an official MATS town. I don’t care who’s from there. For Graces’ sakes, I would gladly sleep on the ground right here if I could.”

  Ty’s gaze lowered as she shook her head. “Elias is right. We’ll need to rest, and there’s nothing wrong with Cephelia. There are proper accommodations there for MATS members and students.”

  “Wait until you walk an extra few hours and then ask to go to Cadelia. Ha.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You can’t even walk more than an hour or two max without asking Kor to carry you.”

  “Eh, she’s lighter than my textbooks. It’s not a big deal.”

  Listening to her classmates talk, she could not help but feel like it was so far away—the peaceful times, the easier times. Uncomplicated. The puzzles she now resigned herself to never completing. That was okay, though—there would be someone else to carry that for her. And perhaps one day they would find a way to put their pieces together to create a complete picture. One day.

  Theo raised a hand to her face and wiped away a few stray tears. “You okay?”

  I was seven when I—

  Afraid of closing her eyes for too long, the tactician shielded her eyes with her hands and shook her head, feeling her shoulders shake and her stomach churn.

  “Here.”

  An arm looped around hers, helping lead the way through the darkness.

  * * *

  It was one of the worst scenarios that Ty had run through her head when they arrived in Cephelia.

  “Who wants to bet that they’ve already heard the news?”

  “They can hear you when you talk that loud, Kor,” was Selene’s dry reply.

  “No one’s stupid enough,” replied Faris casually, assessing the number of stares the class was currently garnering.

  Callie fidgeted with her spear, worried despite knowing she couldn’t hide a whole weapon without using inappropriately high-level magic. “We…we look pretty suspicious, though.”

  “We’re just walking—how is that suspicious?” Elias added irately, steadying Callie’s spear so she couldn’t fidget with it.

  “Hey, stop that.”

  Leading the way, Ty easily recalled the maps of every major township and village in Chloris, including this one. Her nerves had calmed down slightly, and walking for so long had expended a lot of the energy that would have probably gone into one of her crying spells again. “We’ll be there soon,” she replied tepidly, sneaking a glance to the back where Theo was monitoring everyone with Cyril.

  Though it was disconcerting not being near him, this was the soundest option, especially because the sun hadn’t set yet, so there were plenty of people out going about their lives—clearly having already heard the news about the defeat of not only the commoners’ army, but one of the MATS ones.

  For obvious reasons, it was an unfortunate time to be anywhere other than the Academy. And she did not want to risk being under the scrutiny of a plethora of MATS officials.

  “At least they do not act,” commented Darius sheepishly from beside Ty—the safest place that she could think of for him.

  “For now,” grinned Kor in an ominous tone.

  On edge like everyone else, Alex responded with a loud sigh and censure. “Kor, quit it. It’s not funny.”

  “You hit your head pretty hard, huh?” was the half-hearted response.

  “That has nothing to d—”

  “Don’t get worked up over it, Alex,” interjected the one who had looked after her injuries after the fight, injuries that Ty had only found out when she was writing up her report during the long walk.

  I should consider the terrain next time we’re fighting in the middle of a forest…maybe fix it if I have the time, or change equips…

  Correction.

  Did you forget?

  Ignoring it like she always did, Ty abruptly pivoted to the left and walked down a stone-paved alleyway with stairs at the very end.

  “Oh, there it is,” Kor breathed.

  “How you remember that is insane,” quipped Elias.

  “Looks like the last one,” mumbled Selene.

  “Probably MATS-run, too,” Faris commented.

  It was an unremarkable building. Dark yellowish-green vine covered almost half the red ochre bricks, and with no numbers or words among the black windows that showed only darkness on the other side, the building looked very much uninhabited.

  Stopping in front of mossy stone stairs, the tactician warily eyed a dark-cloaked individual emerging from the heavy black wooden door at the top.

  “Students?” she inquired tersely.

  The tactician nodded, pulling a folded MATS-embossed parchment out of her inner breast pocket to hand to the official. “I’ve got the Headmistress’s orders.”

  Crossing her arms against her chest, she sized up the students before extending a limp arm to take the paper. “Where did you guys come in from?”

  As powerful as she was, she dared not lie. “Eslah.”

  Right on cue, the hostess froze, raising her eyes slowly from the document. “Left as soon as you heard the news, I’m sure.”

  Ty nodded, holding her breath and hoping that her brief second of hesitation went unnoticed.

  “Well.” The lady handed back the document, pulled her cloak closer, and waved the students in while turning around. “Come in. I’ll get you guys settled.”

  * * *

  “Thanks for letting me out—Theo’s been suffocating me with his ‘physician’s orders’.”

  “Try not to put too much strain on it, Alex,” mumbled the tactician, not wanting to create more work for Theo than necessary.

  Faris chimed in, too. “You can see okay now, right?”

  “Mhm! Was only for a bit. No biggie.”

  Kor exhaled. “Man, you’d think none of these people’ve never seen students around here.”

  “Growing up around here, there’s definitely a population of people from Cephelia who moved here from Cadelia because they didn’t want to hang around magic-y people…but I could be mistaken. I’m sure not everyone’s like that. Besides, the people we fought were from Eletia, right?”

  “Correct,” Ty affirmed, observing the stores and restaurants that were closing because the sun was going to set soon. That didn’t stop people from peering out of their windows to stare at them passing by, however. “Though smaller, there is an office here because it makes more strategic sense to monitor the people and make sure it doesn’t turn into another Eletia. Seeing sorcerers shouldn’t be a common sight, but you’d think they wouldn’t stare so much.”

  “It’s the news. Even that lady knew,” muttered Faris dispassionately.

  The chemist wasn’t in disagreement with the caster for once. “Commoners on edge because big operation from Eletia failed, MATS people on edge because clearly something terrible happened over at Eve’s squad, or else Ty wouldn’t have shown up like that—by the way, you still haven’t told us what happened.”

  “Maybe they lost, and Ty cleaned up the mess.”

  Silence.

  Kor looked back at Ty, a mischievous grin on her face. “Was that what happened?”

  “No.”

  Her smile turned into a pout. “Dang. Was I close?”

  Ty sighed and shook her head, pointing to the left now that they had arrived at a crossroads. “No. Let’s go left and loop around. The MATS office should be this way. Maybe they’ll be able to tell us what the news says.”

  With Alex and Kor leading the way, they rounded the bend before beginning to chat again.

  “You’ve been awfully silent, Ferry. Do you have a guess?”

  “Shut up. We’re here on patrol, not to have fun.”

  “But it’s more fun to chat!”

  “No, I want to listen to what the locals are saying.”

  Together, they walked in silence for a moment.

  “…I can’t hear anything, Ferry.”

  “Pfft.”

  Ty turned her head, unable to help but grin as she watched Faris lightly chuckle behind his hand. His untainted violet eyes sparkled as the setting sun shone in front of them.

  “Hey, you knew! That’s mean.”

  “I mean, you fell for it, Alex,” laughed Kor lightly.

  “That’s because I like Ferry. And I know he likes me too—he just won’t give in. Hmph!”

  “I don’t know where you got that from.”

  Alex turned around, her eyes narrowed as she pointed an accusing finger at Faris. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t think I don’t know. You would have totally chastised me for calling you Ferry by now.”

  Kor stopped in her tracks from up front. “Hold up, Alex—what’s that? There’s a crowd up there.”

  “What? It’s too bright, I can’t—”

  Ty’s heart sank. “Wait,” she interrupted as the uneasiness settled in. “Stop.”

  You did the unbinding at the inn.

  Pushing past her duelist and chemist, who were slowly stepping backwards, Ty walked forward and saw a group of what looked like locals standing outside a shop.

  She knew the town map by heart. “That’s—that’s the MATS office.”

  “Do you think they heard about our fight and—”

  “‘Our fight?’”

  That was not a voice she had heard before.

  Spinning around, Ty instinctively put a hand on her sword, her mind running through an arsenal of spells when she saw it was a group of more locals.

  “I—I um, I—” stuttered Alex, shirking but staying in front of Faris. “Sorry, I meant nothing like—it wasn’t us, I—oh my Graces.”

  While Alex spoke, Ty began mumbling a weak veil around them, the only thing she could do that could go unseen.

  The middle-aged man who had asked the initial question stood menacingly in front of a group of four more people wearing simple plainclothes. “You folks students comin’ back from a fight? Y’all wearin’ them student garb and allat.”

  With that prepared, Ty put herself between the local and her classmates, hand not leaving her sword hilt under her coat. “Yes, we’re just students taking a walk. We have nothing to do with what you may have heard. Please leave us alone.”

  The man looked down at the tactician, who was running individual shield spells in her mind because a field one took far too long to cast, and because it wasn’t mobile should they need to run away. Kor first, being non-combat, then Alex because she was injured, and then Faris. Did she have enough time?

  At first, they seemed dissatisfied, having been prepared to fight, but then their expression changed as they watched her lips move. It turned into a smile. “So you’re saying you had a hand in that battle, huh? I know your kind, you students that go around fighting your own people!” he shouted, showing his yellowed and disfigured teeth—

  One, two.

  She held fast onto her sword with both hands—one on the sheath, one on the hilt—before seeing Cyril in her mind, kept feeling his shove, kept hearing those words. Wanting to choose the good path this time, like she cared about all that time ago. The path she forgot about ever since she was handed one on a platter overflowing with deep red.

  Too slow.

  “Hey, what’ve you got there?”

  About to turn around again, to another new voice, heart beating faster than ever as she considered the placement of her classmates, barely seeing a new crowd appear out of the corner of her eye before opening her mouth to cast a standard—

  “No! Wait!”

  A voice she recognized. Never that loudly, never in that register. Almost behind her. To her side, because she was busy pivoting. She had wanted to keep the peace. She had seen death, confronted it many times. But that night—why did that night stay with her? Why could she not let go of it?

  The one who once loved—

  I was seven when I—

  The one who had been on her right, it was—

  A scream that came from someone else. A smiling face, a dagger. Red, sliding across the right side of their face, through the fair skin, creating the break through their right eye like she had seen all those months ago. The day everything went wrong. The day that had solidified her fate. The day that things could have been different if she had only gotten him to stay.

  That unwavering violet she had always loved. The one who had never seen the monster. Red. All red.

  And then it was as if the world had turned white. The man and his dagger disappeared, the people behind him disappeared, and those who were on the other side disappeared. All that remained was her in a sea of white, exposed to the world. She could see nothing but the blinding whiteness of the Earth Mother, the whiteness of the world and the blackness of the sins she had to eradicate. No more color. No more gray. The violet was broken. The monster that never was, manifested. Bloody tears rained down from the skies onto a world that refused to heal. Regardless of love, regardless of time. No flowers would bloom. The dead land would not bear any fruit. Not for those who had sinned. Not for those who deserved nothing. No more innocence. No more mercy. No more hope. Only the monster that had once laid beneath violet waters.