“What the hell happ…” Korden began before catching sight of the corpse.
“An assassin,” Jularra replied.
Korden looked at Jularra, but only for a moment. Clearly, the news didn’t come as too huge a surprise.
The queen was more concerned with her advisor's defiance of her instructions. “What are you doing out here, damn it? You know I like to walk alone!”
Korden slipped closer, between the tree and Jularra. He pulled one of her arms over his shoulders and started to help her down the mountain, back towards Morganon.
“Well?” she asked, secretly grateful for his disobedience.
“Well, I came looking for you. I ran into Latham, who said you had gone walking,” he replied.
“Latham?” Jularra repeated, puzzled. “Oh, he must have heard me talking with Keleah.”
Korden merely grunted. Jularra pulled away and glared at him.
“What?” she pressed.
Korden took in a deep breath. “I always follow you,” he said.
Jularra’s ire ripped through the woods. “What? Are you joking?”
“No. I stay nearby, just in case.”
“Just in case?”
“In case of something like this.”
The queen flailed her hand back towards the dead assassin. “I obviously handled the situation, Korden!”
Korden chuckled while guiding Jularra around Prader’s Mine, a landmark denoting the interior edge of Acorilan’s southern forests.
“Obviously. Still, when I heard the commotion, I came running. I never stay too close.”
“Every walk?”
“Most of them.”
Jularra fell silent, mollified by the fact that she knew Korden didn’t think her weak or incapable. She took his word for it—that he only wanted to be nearby. Just in case.
“After I killed him, I had to fight his ghost. He was wearing a doppelcharm.”
Korden whipped his head around. His eyebrows drew together. “A doppelcharm? Not the sort of thing a typical assassin would have.”
“No, it’s not,” Jularra agreed. She sighed as the implications already began to wear on her. “That kind of enchanted item more than likely has significant support and funding behind it.”
Anticipating Korden's next question, Jularra added, “I didn’t find any insignia, crests, letters or anything else. I have no idea who he was, or who might be behind it.”
“We’ll find out,” Korden assured her.
He tripped, jostling Jularra. She winced, but bit her tongue, reminding herself that there were worse pains. The tight, scarred skin on her back itched in response to that thought, and her mother’s slit throat floated in front of her mind’s eye.
“Sorry,” Korden said, apologizing for stumbling.
“It’s fine,” she whispered back.
The trail grew steep and rocky. The conversation dwindled mostly to Korden saying things such as, “Watch that rock,” or, “Over here,” allowing her memory to take over. As it so often did, it plunged her back, deep into the Vacant Grave.
***
“I am the Voidwarden.” It snickered as it rose from its condescending bow. The pitch of the creature's voice fluctuated up and down between a masculine baritone and a feminine alto.
“Your mother is dead. She has played her part, just as generations of queens before her. Just as you will, too, someday, in repayment of Detsepera’s debt.”
Jularra’s shock settled into resolve, but though she was without fear, she didn’t know what to say.
“You will come here to this pool during every hunter’s moon, so that I may refresh my hold upon you. If you do not, I will destroy your people. Your descendant promised ownership of your line to me in exchange for saving your realm from the Nurudians. You are simply the next to oblige.”
The Voidwarden paused. Jularra turned her head stiffly and caught sight of one of the spirits that had carried her and held her down in the pool of blood. The spirit’s head was tilted down in shame.
“Now go to your people, Queen.”
The entity let loose a mocking guffaw that rippled throughout the hall.
“Your people will be waiting for you. They will know what has transpired here. They will have answers to your questions.”
Once the Voidwarden finished speaking, the four spirits who had carried Jularra backed away to the doors of their respective tombs and faded back into them.
She slowly stood up, instinctively clutching for clothes that weren’t there. She wanted to turn and look directly at the creature, but stopped when the nasty thing registered in her peripheral vision. She could see its malicious grin growing from her curiosity. It would not have the privilege of her full attention, but she did desire to speak to it.
“Do not count on this ritual happening again, Vacant filth.”
She stepped out of the pool and marched from the hall, but not before another condescending eruption of laughter.
“If the mountains on Acorilan’s crown had a peak for every time I’ve heard that,” it found breath to shout, “your head would be crushed from its weight!”
She said nothing else, increasing her speed with each step. The Voidwarden’s laughter followed her up countless flights of stairs back towards the surface.
She was weak from her lost blood, her lost mother, and lost adrenaline from her lost fear. She'd shed energy along with tears; tears for the unknowns of what had happened to her, and what was before her. Still, she climbed hard at a steady pace, caring for nothing but reaching the mountain’s door and breathing the purifying outside air.
She climbed alone for the longest time before finally passing some of the strangers she and her mother had seen on their way down. They paid no attention to her on her way back up, focusing only on their mourning, sheltered by the shadowed crypts and tombs carved deep into the upper halls.
At last, Jularra saw the flickering of the guard’s brazier above her at the mountain’s entrance. Silent tears started to fall, though she had no lump in her throat or desire to cry. It was simply a release.
“Guard!” Jularra called. Her voice was strong. It surprised her.
By her next step, he was at the entrance, looking down at Jularra. Before she could think of what to say, she reached the top and was stunned by what she saw.
Lining the edges of the path, out
