Chapter 649: Assassin
A thousand shards of stone, as thin and razor sharp as a blade, and as small as a coin, ripped out from beneath Ivander and shot upwards in a rain of stone, eviscerating Ivander and his chair in countless splinters of wood and strips of bloody viscera.
Evelyn and Tauri screamed in shock. Krall threw himself in front of his wife and daughter on instinct. Beatrix was already channeling Blue, lightning crackling at her fingertips. She aimed at the back of Arden’s head, but then she saw a flicker of green shoot down from his leg.
The ground underneath Beatrix’s feet twisted and she jerked forward. The lightning bolt missed Arden’s head and shot out past the balcony.
Krall and Tauri charged Arden, magic coursing through them. Green mana surged into the seed underneath the bandages wrapped around Arden’s forearms. The seeds bloomed into a swarm of vines that caught the three Katags. Beatrix’s feet suddenly sank into the balcony as if it were mud and her legs were yanked backwards. She slammed hard into the wall and her limbs were sucked up into the stone bricks, leaving only her body and head exposed. Her vision swam and she saw stars.
It had all happened so fast. In the span of two breaths, Arden had incapacitated all of them. Evelyn wasn’t sure what had happened. Krall roared as the berserker magic took over. A metallic bronze sheen covered his body and his muscles swelled. He ripped through the vines as if they were made of straw.
A vine entwined Krall’s ankle and with a flick of Arden’s wrist, the vine pulled the ground underneath Krall. His hands slammed onto the ground, catching himself. Before he had a chance to stand, the vine pulled back and flung him with incredible force. He roared as he went flying past the neighborhood and disappeared with the sound of a distant crash.
“Krall!” Evelyn screamed.
Arden tapped his foot and a vine snaked around her neck and choked her. Evelyn gasped for air, but none came.
“Let my mother go!” Tauri yelled. She channeled brown and tried to rip free from the vines, but thorns quickly grew around them and dug into her scarlet flesh. She grimaced and tried to channel Orange instead.
“I was told to spare you, but do not think I will hesitate to stop you. It would be best if you do not resist,” warned Arden, his eyes shifting towards Evelyn.
Tauri stopped and glared at him. “Stryg didn’t send you.”
It wasn’t a question.
“My loyalty has always been to one person,” Arden said.
“Lunae.” Tauri paled. Had the goddess come to kill them all? For what happened to Lunis? Had Ivander been right?
Guards rushed into the parlor and spotted them on the balcony. “Let them go!”
“Wait, no! Stay back!” Tauri yelled.
But they rushed in, their only focus on Tauri and Evelyn. Arden clenched his hand into a fist. The parlor’s wall burst into a thousand shards of stone and shredded the guards into a bloody splatter on the floor.
“No,” Tauri whimpered in horror. She had grown up with those guards. Men and women she had trained with on a daily basis. Many were her friends. “Please, I’ll do anything you want. Just please, let my mother go.”
Evelyn kicked the air weakly and her face was quickly turning a shade of purple. Arden gave a subtle nod and released the vine around Evelyn’s neck just enough for her to breathe, barely. She sucked in what little air she could.
Arden turned to Beatrix, hanging from the wall. “What does dai-Morrigan mean? Are you not a Morrigan?”
Beatrix blinked the stars out of her vision. “I… It means I’m a bastard.”
“You insult yourself? Or do you jest with me?” Arden summoned a stone dagger to his hand and raised it to her waist.
Another group of guards rushed out from the courtyard and gardens, shouting for Lord and Lady Katag.
“Stay back! Please, just stay back!” Tauri screamed.
Her pitiful scream gave the guards pause and they slowed down to a halt and looked at each other uncertainly. They could not see what was happening up on the balcony and for that, Tauri was grateful. The guards would have rushed in otherwise. But her words would not hold them back for long. Someone would come to investigate and the moment they did, Arden would kill them all.
Beatrix noticed the panic in Tauri’s eyes. Beatrix licked her lips and swallowed. “I do not jest. Many orcs of Murkton still follow practices of the Scarlet Realm, including bastardy.”
“Bastardy…? What does this word mean?” Arden asked.
“If a child is not born to the first wife of a lord, they are not considered a true part of the family. The ‘dai’ signifies that I am not a ‘true daughter’ of the Morrigans.”
“But Lord Corvus Morrigan is your father?”
“He is…”
“This is a foolish custom,” Arden muttered. “You are his daughter. It makes no difference who bore you. The blood of the Morrigans runs through your veins.” He stabbed Beatrix without hesitation.
“No!” Tauri bit back her scream to avoid alerting the guards.
Beatrix did no such thing. She cried out in pain, a hollow sound, as Arden twisted the stone dagger into her stomach. He did not seem satisfied with the act; his expression was calm, it was simply duty to him.
“Out of the way!” Rhian burst into the gardens. Stryg and Gale were on her back; the former cast an agility spell to lessen his weight and leaped onto the balcony’s ledge.
“Arden, wait—!” Stryg stopped mid-sentence and took in the scene.
“Chosen? What are you doing here?” Arden asked with a mild frown.
Stryg didn’t hear him. His gaze was focused entirely on Tauri and the blood seeping from the thorns digging into her skin.
Beatrix’s vision swam at the edges, pain clouded her senses, and she felt cold and hot all at once, but the sight of chromatic colors burning brightly in Stryg’s chest caught her Clarity-touched eyes. The colors swirled around his heart in a disarray, a common reaction to strong emotions, but then another bloomed from the second heart. Something colder. A dark mass of oil slick colors erupted and consumed his entire being.
A chill ran down Beatrix’s neck. She recognized that energy. It was the same as the day in Undergrowth. No. This was far concentrated and sickening. Even from where she hung dying, she could feel her stomach turn in revulsion as something terribly wrong had seeped into the very air.
Tauri saw the look in her lover’s eyes for what it was. She panicked as the wind suddenly died down and she saw small grains of shattered stone slowly float upwards. “Stryg, I’m fine! Calm down, please. Before you start something you cannot stop. Please, listen to me. I am fine.”
“Tauri…” Stryg muttered, the light in his lilac eyes softened.
Arden stepped forward and blocked Tauri from Stryg’s sight. “Chosen, it would be best if you do not interfere—”
Stryg exploded into motion. He kicked off the balcony ledge and tackled Arden. Tauri barely saw a blur pass by and then they were gone. She heard something crash into the ground below. She turned and saw Stryg rolling on the grass, wrestling a giant sabertooth as big as Blueberry.
Stryg channeled Brown and kicked Arden off him with all his strength. The sabertooth went flying straight into the air and flailed in surprise. Shadowy whips shot out from Stryg’s silhouette and latched onto the beast. Stryg pulled himself up, an arrow in flight, and slammed into the sabertooth and socked him in the sternum with a resounding crack. Arden roared in pain as they plummeted.
Green vines erupted from Arden’s fur and latched onto Stryg. He ripped them away, but for every one he tore off, three more took their place, until Stryg was quickly encased in a prison of vines; a green sphere between the sabertooth’s paws.
Small rays of light slipped through the vines’ cracks and the cage exploded in a mass of flames, engulfing both of them. The guards shouted and fell back as the two crashed in a ball of fire, sending flames scattering outwards.
As the smoke dissipated, the sabertooth emerged, patches of fur scorched, but still standing. Stryg lay underneath him, struggling to get out from under his giant paw.
Arden pushed his paw down on Stryg’s chest as the latter’s Yellow protective scales cracked from the weight. “Stay down.”
Lightning fell down from the sky and struck Arden. He jerked forward but managed to keep his paw in place.
“Let him go or I swear to all the gods above and below, I will end your miserable existence,” Gale said from atop Rhian’s back. The vampiress raised her sword, lightning swirling around the blade’s edge.
“You do not want this fight,” Arden warned with a growl.
Rhian pointed her spear at him. “Bring it on, you giant fucker.”
Arden narrowed his feline, jade eyes. “If you stay out of my mission, I will let him go.”
“Let Stryg go first,” Gale said.
“...Very well. Stand back.”
“...na,” Stryg mumbled.
Arden’s ears flicked and he glanced down. “What?”
Stryg glared up at him and bared his teeth in a vicious smile. “Heed my call, Svartna.”
“What are you—?”
The black spear soared through the sky and crashed down with a high-pitched scream as it punctured clean into the sabertooth’s back and out through his chest, landing right next to Stryg, covered in red. Arden staggered back and coughed up mouthfuls of blood.
Stryg snapped forward in a kick-up and landed on his feet. He drew Krikolm with one hand and picked up Svartna in the other. The blood trailed away from the spear in thin red lines, swirled around and into Krikolm’s scarlet blade.
Arden growled and bared his bloodied teeth. “I warned you. You did not want this fight. Now you have it.”
An orange burst of sparks suddenly exploded in front of them and Holo emerged from the ashes. “On the contrary, Guardian, you’ll find that I do. I suggest you stand down.”
“I am under orders from Lunae,” Arden said between bloody coughs.
“Whatever orders you were under, you clearly went too far. Or do you think Lunae will approve of you hurting her precious Chosen?” Holo cocked an eyebrow.
Arden glanced up at Beatrix and growled, before turning away. He leaped over the manor wall and ran off down the street.
Holo turned to her brother. “Stryg, you need to calm down. You risk igniting the Astral Light.”
“I am calm enough,” Stryg snapped at her and leaped back onto the balcony. He placed a hand on the vines holding Tauri and Evelyn, respectively, then channeled Grey and cast a drain spell. The vines withered away at his touch. He caught Tauri before she fell. Evelyn was at her daughter’s side and immediately began to cast a healing spell.
“I have her, help Beatrix,” she said in a hoarse voice.
Stryg noticed the orc hanging from the wall. Her head was already lolling from the side and the lower half of her dress was dyed a deep red. He ran over and slapped his hands against the wall. Green surged into his arms and his hands sank into the stone bricks as if it were a thick sludge. Carefully, he pulled Beatrix out and laid her on the ground.
With a sharp claw, he tore off the front of her dress and quickly examined the stab wound. He pulled out the stone dagger and placed his hand over the gaping hole. White mana flowed out from his fingers and seeped into the wound and the bleeding slowly stopped.
The sounds of the guards running up the stairs resounded in the distance. Gale arrived at his side first. “My lord, we shouldn’t stay out in the open like this. There may be other assassins.”
“Get Tauri to the infirmary,” Stryg said without taking his eyes off his Beatrix.
“My father… Arden tossed him far away when he became a berserker,” Tauri said.
Evelyn nodded. “She’s right, we need to find Krall and stop him from killing more people.”
“But Tauri needs—”
“I’ve patched up Krall’s wounds plenty of times. Tauri will be fine,” said Evelyn.
“Holo!” Stryg shouted.
His sister flickered onto the balcony. “I can hear you just fine, no need to shout.”
“I need your help.”
“Save it. I’m only here to stop you from igniting the Astral Light. I’m not leaving you until the pebbles stop floating. Find someone else.”
Stryg didn’t bother trying to convince her. “Gale, summon the Shields. Protect the people.”
“At once, my lord.” Gale nodded. “Rhiannon! We move!”
“Aye, aye, Captain!” Rhian saluted from below.