“Of all the ways—” Safir convulsed with a gurgling cough, “—I thought… I might die.” He winced in pain, going limp, weakening. “This is… the least expected… and the most welcome.”
“You’re not dying!” I hissed at him, but something was wrong. His body was healing, his wounds closing, yet he still grew weaker. When I sensed into him, the grotesque taint of the poison was somehow everywhere in his system. It was too virulent, too strong. I couldn’t heal it fast enough!
“I… fulfill… my oath.” Safir struggled to say the words, then he gave a wan smile and went still.
“No!” I screamed, pushing everything I had into healing him, but even as my strength drained, the poison persisted. What the hell was this stuff?
And with my senses infused into Safir’s body… Ifelthim die. His heart stopping, his life slipping away, the poison turning more and more of his tissue into necrotic filth.
“No, no, no, no, no!” I shouted. “You can’t die!”
But my words did nothing.
Safir was gone.
AMARHUK (ROOK)
Izzy’s speechdid not continue. There was too much to clean up, too many dead to continue with a speech about hope.
Looking at the devastation, the fire inside me burned with rage. Izzy had been the primary target of the assassins, that was clear, but it seemed sowing doubt and fear by killing any in their path and as many innocents as possible had also been an objective.
Koar got Izzy to safety, while Vyns and I stayed behind to help with the cleanup. And Safir… Fuck. His body had slowly disintegrated on stage, a blackened, festering husk.
Kanali poison was nasty stuff. One of the few toxins to which elves were vulnerable. It also wreaked havoc on any other natives of Seial, which had been most of those in attendance. Dwarves, dryads, nymphs, hobgoblins, and pixies were the most vulnerable with undines and tritons having a greater resistance. While those of us from Urval or Elysial were immune. And the assassins had unleashed several aerosol bombs of the poison into the crowd in addition to their weapons being coated in the stuff.
By the time evening had set in, we’d sorted through the bodies: one hundred attackers in total, all dead, and nearly seven hundred others killed in perhaps the worse way possible.
It was a gruesome scene.
The assassins themselves were mostly shifters, with a few pixies — known for their illusion magic and tricky ways — and a smattering of sylphim, dwarves, and elves, who’d probably been the leaders.
By that point the cleanup was well underway and handled by others, so Vyns and I could go, but I lingered, staring at the black stain on the stage where Safir had died. He’d probably saved Izzy’s life. We’d all been fighting to protect her, but despite our best efforts some of the assassins had managed to get close and Safir had sacrificed himself to save her.
This was war. The horror we had ahead of us.
Valnea wouldn’t play fair. Izzy would never do anything like this… but a part of me wondered if she didn’t, would we still win?
“Come on, let’s go,” Vyns said, a hand on my shoulder, a boost of spirit helping to tear me away from my contemplation of Safir’s sacrifice.
When Vyns and I returned to Izzy’s residence, we told her what we’d discovered, and she was baffled.
“Shifters?” she breathed. “Why? Why would they still fight for Valnea, die for her, when I was promising a better life, where they didn’t have to live every day in fear of death?”
“They probably had no clue who you were,” Koar explained. “There are cabals of shifters who live their whole lives in seclusion, training as assassins for the crown, perfectly expendable and trained to be completely loyal.”
“Ugh!” Izzy grunt-shouted. “I just… can’t even!” She paced, distraught and frustrated and furious.
Vyns and I exchanged glances, both thinking the same thing. For all of Izzy’s spirit and desire to change this world, she really had no clue how dark things got here.
“There’s probably far worse than that going on in the depths below the capital,” Vyns said, voicing what I’d been thinking. “This is the depravity you’re fighting against.”
Izzy stopped. “Could any of the audience be saved?” she asked, clearly concerned. I couldn’t imagine the empathy it took to worry for so many others, who you didn’t know at all. It blew my mind.
“About twenty,” I said. “Though surviving Kanali poisoning is a life sentence of pain and chronic injury.”
“Of course it is.” Izzy threw her arms up and began pacing again. “Remind me to have the stuff banned when I’m queen. Oh… and to have a war-crimes tribunal for any who were involved in this, who survive the war.” She stopped again, vibrating with rage. “I’m going to win this war, no matter what. I have to. This is just… intolerable!”
It was… and it was also what we’d all lived with our whole lives. To us, this was another day under the brutal regime of the elves. None of us said as much to Izzy, though.
