Ashes Unwritten: Oblivion's Heir [Volume 1 Complete!]

Rowan was shocked to find the underground empty. It was late, but the last time he'd been here with Kess, even nighttime hadn't stopped the hive of activity below. Death, apparently, did. There were noticeably fewer people in the hallways, and most didn't even spare their bloody entourage a passing glance as they wove through the hallways.

Fulminant patrols were luckily nowhere to be seen; either they were busy attempting to assault the manor, or the locals had run them out. Either way was fine with Rowan. He wasn't sure they'd be capable of fighting, anyway.

Arlette led them into a busier square, still leaning on Eamon, and Rowan realized he'd been here before with Kess when visiting Malane. Arlette led them through the packed intersection of taverns into one unfamiliar to Rowan. The three of them climbed down a set of creaky wooden steps into the tavern proper.

It was a dingy little place, though Rowan supposed it was well-kept enough. It was relatively populated, though most of its patrons were occupied with a fight in the far left corner of the room between two women. As he watched, one of the women slammed her foot into the other's head, then fell on her, pounding fist after fist into the girl until the referee—or what passed for one, anyway—called the match.

Claire was already there, leaning against a worn wooden bar, staring at the match, open-mouthed. Her fingers twitched, and Rowan wondered if she was already running through triage steps in her mind. Rowan couldn't help making a comment as he limped up to the bar beside her with Arlette and Eamon.

"Do you see now why I suggested not to pick a fight with Kess?" Claire scowled up at him, then turned, pulling up a section of the bar on its hinges to lead them through. She disappeared through a swinging doorway ahead.

The doorway opened into a small, dark hallway, and then into a well-lit room that sat in stark contrast to the depressing bar outside. Here, the wooden floors were clean and well-maintained, the few tables shining, and the lamps plentiful. A hearth crackled in the corner, and Rae sat on the floor in front of it, midsection bandaged, staring at the fire like a ghost.

Rowan helped Eamon deposit a half-conscious Arlette onto a table in front of Claire, her wounds soaking through her shirt and pants, even bandaged. She groaned as they lowered her, then closed her eyes again, her face pale. Claire grabbed her things and went to work, though her gaze snapped to Rowan and Eamon both.

They waved her off, though Eamon forced Rowan to sit. With his leg still in searing pain and his side wound reopening, Rowan didn't find the strength to argue. The four of them sat in silence for some time like that, the only sound that of Arlette's complaints as Claire worked.

Finally, a door creaked open from the back of the room, and a bulky woman appeared. Rowan was not a small man, but he was fairly certain this dark woman dwarfed him. She folded both arms and cackled at Arlette.

"Well," she said, pulling up a chair to sit in it backwards. "How the mighty have fallen. The great Arlette, brought to her knees."

"We've had a bit of an evening, if you'll excuse my disposition, Maude," Arlette ground out, eyes still closed. Maude looked over the group of them, the ghost of a smile on her lips.

"I can see that. You should have warned me, though. I nearly threw that blond lass out on her ass. She about pissed herself when she met me."

Claire's faced flushed deep red, but she continued to work. Claire hadn't grown up Downhill, and Rowan figured it must have taken a lot of guts for her to enter a place like this alone.

"You're lucky I owe you, Arlette," Maude said, watching Claire work. "I don't want this kind of trouble on my doorstep. People ask questions."

"What do you owe her for?" Rowan asked, curious. Maude met his eyes then, her own dark ones solemn.

"I asked her to keep an eye on a girl, years ago."

From the way Arlette's eyes snapped open to glare at Maude, Rowan was certain he wasn't supposed to have asked.

"From what I can tell, she did a fine job of it since the lass isn't with you all anymore," Maude said darkly.

"That girl?" Rowan asked, surprised. He turned to Arlette. "You knew her before she showed up?" Arlette nodded, her face exhausted.

"I knew of the rogue Seventh Seat. Maude was one of my contacts, and this was the first place Kess went after…whatever happened up top. We compared descriptions and realized who she was." Maude nodded, her eyes distant.

"The lass showed up here and wanted to fight for some reason. I didn't much understand it myself, but I let her in a ring with one of the newer girls. She thrashed her, then got so drunk I had to carry her out before she tried to fight the men. It was only after Arlette told me the rest of the story that I understood."

Rowan sat there, thinking of Kess—of the woman she'd been when she first came here. Broken, battered, self-destructive. It was no wonder she'd been so quick to dismiss him.

"If you knew what she was—" Rowan frowned, fishing for words. "If you knew what she'd done, why didn't you warn me?"

Arlette let out a shaky breath, eyes still closed. "You did just fine with your brothers, and I didn't want the manor blown to bits. I also thought that having an active Mariel would help the Downhill rise up. I thought it might even form a resistance. And—" Arlette paused. "I wanted her to have a way to fight her own battles—to use what she'd been given."

"Well, she certainly has the fighting part of it down," Claire snapped, then looked at Maude and closed her mouth again. Maude simply smiled a little too nicely at Claire.

"So, you're missing the girl," Maude said, ticking off on her fingers. "The manor was attacked. There are creatures in the streets, people turning into Shadows, and a third of the Downhill is gone from the storm. Nice start to a revolution."

Rowan just stared. He'd never heard anyone dress down Arlette like that, but the woman took it, something hard in her gaze as she stared up at the ceiling. "I always thought it would go differently."

"Aye lass, that's the problem—everyone does," Eamon said. Rowan stood, fighting a wave of dizziness as he paced away from the group.

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"Forget all that," he said. "What are we doing about Kess?" His voice rose at the end, and five pairs of eyes turned to stare at him—even Rae, beside the fireplace. Claire looked up from her work, eyes solemn. Arlette looked away, as did Maude. Only Rae watched him, those strange eyes piercing even from across the room. Finally, Eamon spoke, his voice gentle.

"Lad, I'm not sure what we can do. They'll likely have her executed, if they haven't already." Rowan shook his head, unbelieving. He'd come back to get help, not to leave her up there to die. Rae continued to watch him as he paced the back of the room.

"They've likely already taken her Fulminancy," she said. "It was the first thing they did with me." She turned back to the fireplace.

Rowan paused in his pacing, his dizziness and exhaustion overpowered by something stronger—anger. "So that's it, then? We encourage her to use her powers, send her on covert missions up to the very people hellbent on finding her, and we leave her?"

"Rowan, the girl made her own choices, as did we all," Arlette said quietly, still on the table as Claire finished her work.

"Would she have made those choices without her brother dangled like a bone in front of her?" he asked. Maude got to her feet then, walking over to Rowan and putting a hand on his shoulder. She matched his height, looking into his eyes with grim determination.

"Lad, I understand your frustration, but we've got bigger fish to fry. That storm out there is only good for my business up to a point. After that, it'll wipe out everything."

Rowan shrugged off the woman, continuing his route around the room. "They must not have filled you in," he said, pausing by the fireplace. "Kess was our way to deal with that storm, and now they'd rather leave her to die than risk their own necks trying to get her back."

"Is that true?" Maude asked, turning to Arlette. Arlette sat up slowly, her face the color of parchment. She nodded.

"It was a long shot, but she thought she could talk to it." Maude, to her credit, only looked curious.

"She did talk to it that night in the Archives," Rowan said. Or something approximating it, anyway.

"But Rae was there that night," Arlette said. "As were you, Rowan. Maybe you two can—"

"I can't talk to it," Rae said, not turning from the fireplace. "Kess could."

"Or so she says," Claire murmured.

"Then we get her back," Rowan said. Maude laughed darkly, crossing her beefy arms.

"You'll have a hard time finding anyone Downhill willing to risk their necks for Mariel right now," she said. "Regardless of what she did, she's no one's favorite Fulminancer."

Rowan stared at the room, unbelieving. "You're all serious," he said. "I can't believe it."

"I can get you into the palace," Arlette finally said. "But it's a suicide mission, Rowan. They'll have guards everywhere. We might have better luck waiting until the execution day."

"Which is why they won't publish that kind of information," Maude said. "Though I might be able to pull some strings and see what I can prise out."

"If we find her poorly guarded, we move soon," Arlette said. "If the guards are worse than we thought, we'll wait for the execution date—assuming we can find it in time." She looked up at Rowan. "Does that satisfy you?"

Rowan held her gaze for several seconds, willing his pounding heart to slow. He couldn't ask these people to risk their lives for Kess. Finding her in the first place would be nearly impossible, and though he knew no one wanted her death on their hands, they also wanted to live to see another day. That much was understandable, at least. Though unsatisfied and sick, he nodded. It was all any of them could do.

Claire spent the rest of the night rotating between the three of them, stitching wounds she'd missed. Though Claire hadn't seen much battle, Rowan noticed her exhaustion and finally waved her off. Claire would fuss endlessly if allowed to, and he was sure the fighting wasn't over yet.

Maude brought them bowls of stew, and they ate in silence, though Arlette had already collapsed on a nearby couch. Claire wasn't far behind, murmuring something about a nap after half-finishing her food. Rae refused to eat entirely.

Finally, Eamon clapped him gently on the shoulder and left towards one of the back rooms to sleep. Rowan settled down on the couch next to Rae, who continued to stare into the fire, eyes lost. He knew he should sleep, and exhaustion pulled at him, but every time he closed his eyes, all he could think of was Kess. If he'd been truly Fulminant, would he have been able to save her? Rowan was a talented swordsman, but that's all he was. Even his new powers barely added to his existing skills. He'd ultimately failed to protect Kess, and it made him feel worthless. Worse, his father had put them in the situation to begin with, and Niall certainly hadn't helped.

Rae was like a ghost next to him. Rowan never saw her enter or leave rooms, and most of his conversations with the woman left him spooked. But after returning powerless from the palace, she'd become even more ghostlike. He nearly forgot she was there until she spoke.

"She loves you, you know."

"I know." Those strange eyes turned to stare at him, strangely lucid for her comatose demeanor.

"And do you love her?"

"Yes." Rae turned back to watch the crackling fire as it cast an amber glow on her face against the darkness of the rest of the room.

"Then you're already doing the best thing for her." It was an odd statement to make. "If you'd stayed," she continued, "she would have had to listen every night to what they did to you. They would have used you against her. Kess isn't afraid of physical pain, but emotional pain is quite different. And, when they inevitably killed you, she would die knowing that her very involvement with you had caused your death. It would be a confirmation of the ghost that she's been fighting for the last six years—that her very existence is a curse to others."

The fire snapped as a log fell apart inside, sending sparks spewing up. "You seem to know a lot about her for someone who tried to kill her for years." A ghost of a smile appeared on Rae's lips.

"Fighting someone has a strange way of helping you understand them," she said. "I think Kess would agree." Rowan smiled briefly before his thoughts turned back to that fight in the palace hallway, a scene that replayed over and over in his head.

"Do you think I could have saved her, if I'd had Fulminancy?"

Rae shrugged.

"Maybe. But power can be a trick. It makes you confident—lures you into unwinnable situations."

"What's it like?" he whispered. "That power?" Rae flexed her hands, as if feeling for a missing limb. Some of the life returned to her face as she thought of it, or remembered the feel of it.

"Freedom," she replied. "It's who I am. It's who I've always been. But…" she trailed off, catching Rowan's eyes in the darkness. "What you've got, that's who you are. You shouldn't be so quick to throw it away—to replace it with what you think is better." She looked away, back into the fire. "I threw myself away," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "Fulminancy was all I had left. It's what I used to survive the grief—to make it to the next day. For awhile I wondered if Kess might do that same thing. If she might be lost in that power, more and more, with every person she killed with it. There was nothing I could say—it's something she'll have to figure out herself when she makes it out." She smiled faintly at Rowan. "You'll have to figure yours out too, I guess. Just don't make the same mistake I did."

She moved to stand, but Rowan stopped her.

"Wait, what do you mean when she gets out?" Rae's smile crept further onto her face, though her eyes were as haunted as they'd been earlier.

"Kess has a rather frustrating quality, Rowan. Do you know what it is?" Rowan shook his head, confused.

"She doesn't know when to quit."

Rae sauntered off, more lift in her step than she'd had before. Rowan watched her disappear into the back rooms, marveling at the change in her temperament. Still, as he let the sound of the fire lull him, he realized that Rae had offered him a priceless gift: hope.

Rowan let that warmth fill him as he drifted off in front of the fire. He would see Kess again, one way or another. He would choose to hope, even when the night was too dark for him to see ahead.