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

There was little humanity left in Kess as she made her way to Arlette's office. She chased away phantoms of Wyatt's sister, a woman whose name she hadn't even known. Had she always been treated that way by the Fulminant? Or had Kess's request put her in contact with abusers and womanizers?

Kess shook her head as she flung the door open. Arlette sat at her desk, scrawling a series of numbers on a piece of paper. Ignoring her. Fine. She shut the door and sat down, crossing her arms.

"Do you have maps of Redring's garrison building?" she asked. Her voice was lifeless and stilted. Arlette's pen froze, and the older woman studied her.

"I spend months trying to convince you to help, trying to borrow your men, and now you darken my doorstep and offer your services?"

Kess looked away. "Things changed."

"Clearly."

Arlette watched her for a few seconds longer, tapping her pen against the paper idly.

"Redring's garrison is the last holdout Downhill. If that's gone, they'll have to travel further to put patrols down here. It might give us a chance to set up a perimeter of our own. If we do that, the wagon nonsense might stop."

And, if Kess moved fast enough, those men wouldn't have their way with any Downhill women tonight.

"Perfect," Kess said, moving to stand as Arlette wrote the address down and fished out a map. "I'll take Rae." The pen froze again.

"Rae still isn't back." Kess frowned. Rae sometimes disappeared for days, but given what she'd gone to investigate, it was worrisome.

"We've got eyes out for her," Arlette added, handing the paper over to Kess. "I'll let you know what we find out."

"Thank you." Kess moved towards the door, then paused. "Don't tell Rowan about this."

She didn't look back to see Arlette's reply. The door snapped shut behind her.

Kess perched on the slanted roof of the garrison with one hand to steady her where the rooftop peaked. Overhead, the storm still raged, worse perhaps than it had been before. Lightning snapped at her figure on the rooftop, though her Fulminancy coaxed the bolts away or into her body without injury. Maybe I should have asked Claire about that, she thought idly. It wouldn't have mattered. Something was off about her Fulminancy, but she had been given the chance to right some of the wrongs of the city, and she would start tonight.

The Redring garrison was a series of three barracks attached to a square interior courtyard, lit by gray-tinged Fulminant lights of Rowan's design. Tall, yawning outdoor hallways allowed men to pass through the courtyard without the unpleasantries of whatever storm might rage nearby, and the northern exit led into the mess hall, small library, and officer quarters. Those were Kess's target.

She would find the man who struck Wyatt's sister and make him pay.

She crumpled her map and eyed the courtyard. In a way, it would be preferable to fight outside in the open, with the cover of a storm that normal men—even Fulminant men—feared. But fighting with her back to the three barracks also seemed suicidal to Kess, and she hadn't come here to be killed.

Kess slid down the slanted roof, boots slick with rainwater. Flags of the garrison's crest hung from poles which jutted out from the wall—it was one of these she leapt to, fingers nearly losing their grip in the rain. She used the flag to lower herself the rest of the way to the ground. Rae loved her leaping, but Kess still found it a little terrifying, and it was loud. With this method, Kess's feet hit the ground with barely a tap, and she slipped inside the main building without fuss.

It was there that her luck ran out.

The mess hall was full of Fulminant soldiers. There was no food, and they seemed to be there for some sort of briefing—a briefing that oddly revolved around a map of Hillcrest that focused on an extremely familiar portion of the city. The manor and its surrounding streets were there, plain as day, visible even across the hall. Are they trying to attack it? Kess wondered, heart hammering against her chest.

The briefing stopped as several soldiers noticed her, and Fulminancy and the angry buzz of conversation erupted throughout the room. She swore and clicked her staff together, checking absently to make sure Fulminancy still kept her hood low. It would be a hindrance in the fight, but she couldn't afford to blow her cover now.

She searched the room quickly for the man in question, but couldn't find him addressing the crowd. Perhaps he was in the officers' quarters then. She considered dashing towards that hallway, but decided she'd rather not trap herself so soon. Kess backed up slowly, intending to use the hallway behind to funnel the men through. If there were men still in the barracks, there wouldn't be many of them.

Several men rushed through, unafraid of the small woman who stood in front of them, though the vast majority of the garrison remained in the hall beyond. Augmented with Fulminancy, Kess slammed her crackling staff into the first man's head, forcing it into the nearby wall. With a crack, he slumped, weapon still in hand.

Three more charged, Fulminant swords drawn. Kess ducked a swing that would have taken her head off and swept their legs with her staff, her Fulminancy giving her speed in a way that these men could never understand. Fulminant soldiers were gifted, yes, but they were garden variety—normal.

Kess wasn't normal—not anymore.

The men cried out, their legs flailing in the air. They hit the floor on their backs, and Kess thrust her staff into the stone, sending waves of her Fulminancy through it to force the men back. They crumpled into the walls. The storm surged overhead, tendrils of clouds drifting into the massive hallway, the fog swirling around Kess's staff as she fought. It was a haze in her mind and her vision as she swung her weapon, beckoning her to use more of that power. Kess didn't need much to take out these men, but she reached deep inside that well all the same.

More men came, more men died. Kess lost track of time, lost track of her own progress. She was a storm of her own, a never-ending well of power that she could tap to best these men who had hunted and slain her own people—these men who raped and beat women like Wyatt's sister.

The thought snapped her back to awareness.

Men piled in the hallway where she stood, nearly blocking her entrance to the mess hall. Many still breathed, though they clutched at their middles. Some soldiers stood hesitantly just inside the doorway, as if they weren't sure they wanted to enter a place where so many of their brethren had been defeated.

It suited Kess just fine.

Her quarry, after all, was still ahead.

She charged, spinning her staff, her Fulminancy searing through her body with each breath, that white-hot heat a centering force within. When she reached the waiting soldiers, she leapt over several men, then ducked, sending her powers through her boots so she could slide underneath them. Her staff cracked against several knees, and those men fell, hobbled.

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Another squad charged in the larger entryway, but far from being a disadvantage, the open space gave Kess the maneuverability needed to dodge and strike more quickly. No longer was she worried about the confines of the hallway or the piles of bodies. She moved like the lightning and wind itself, blocking strikes, ramming her staff into unfortunate men, and braining others with second and third strikes.

The acrid smell of her Fulminancy filled the room, layered on top of burnt flesh and the stench of death. Men screamed and fell, and Kess kept going. There was a numbness to it all. She had fought bloody battles for years in fighting rings, but there, the fights had seemed fair. Kess supposed that they never really had been.

A sickness crept into her limbs as she blocked a strike with her staff, then spun it to dislodge a Fulminant hilt and break the faces of two other men who rushed at her. As those men fell with a thud, the rest of the room backed away from her, some trickling out of the back doors towards distant shouting as Kess rammed her staff into the blocked man's ribcage with a crunch.

She felt sick, but there was a strange part of it that was cathartic. These men were the enemy. These men had hunted her for years, had murdered and pillaged just because they had powers that others didn't. It was about time they met someone that was their match.

She stepped over fallen men, trying to calm her stomach. This garrison would alert other garrisons. She had little time.

Kess made it to the large arch that opened up into the officers' quarters, and a few men flooded out. She let them go.

The arch gave way to a large, opulent sitting room, complete with velvet couches and imported Tamreshian rugs. Several partially clothed women fled from surrounding doorways, glancing at Kess, then squealing at the mess outside as they ran.

Kess checked the doorways one at a time, her Fulminancy crackling and at the ready. With a pause in the fighting, Kess began to wonder why an entire garrison had thrown themselves at her at all. What were they hiding?

Kess found it in a series of documents in one of the main offices she broke into—a promise for men and forces from Forgebrand to aid in expelling Fulminancers from the Downhill, signed by one of the rogue Forgebrand factions. In return, the Redring garrison promised…resources?

Kess blinked, looking over the documents again. This one had been recently signed, though there was an additional section that implied a previous agreement. The Uphill's giving them food and buildings for Fulminancers, Kess realized. But why?

Certainly the storm outside was a very good reason to stock up on food and goods, but the Downhill wasn't hurting for resources quite yet. More baffling still was why the same Forgebrand faction that had burned down the Archives would bother working with the Uphill at all—and for humanitarian purposes, no less.

Kess folded the paper and stuffed it inside one of her pockets, stalking from the room. She'd leave the details for Arlette and Rowan to sort out. She had other business to attend to.

In the sitting area outside, a door clicked, and Kess spun. The man from the party stumbled out, still wearing his regalia from the night's events. His ruddy cheeks were flushed from the alcohol, his shirt disheveled, and his hair—long for an officer—was a tangled mess. His steps were unsteady, and it took several beats for his face to shift from dazed to fearful as he gazed at Kess, marching towards him.

She grabbed him with one hand and slammed him to the floor. Her Fulminancy gave her more strength than a grown man, and even his Fulminancy could do little against what she now felt coursing through her own body.

"Do you know why I'm here?" she whispered. The room was silent save for the groans of some of the men outside—the uninjured ones had fled. The man shook his head, looking confused. "You hit a young woman tonight. You planned to have your way with her."

"Oh, her," the man slurred, looking unconcerned. "We pay her for that service, you know. She's not cheap either. Last night everyone was a little rougher than usual—war riles the boys up and all that."

Kess sat there, straddling the man, and stared at him blankly. Seconds passed as she tried to make her mind work again through the haze of her Fulminancy and her own anger. Then she dropped her staff, pulled back her fist, and slammed it into the man's face with a roar.

She didn't use Fulminancy until the man threatened to blast her with his own. Only then did she use it to steady herself as she unloaded blow after blow on his face with her bare hands, her knuckles smarting as they crunched into bone and flesh alike. Finally, sobbing, she heard him whimper underneath her, and brought her Fulminancy into her fist as she held it overhead.

She hesitated, as she had a year ago in that alleyway with the Witchblades.

He sobbed, shaking beneath her, his face unrecognizable under the bruises and blood as he babbled incoherently.

He was just a man. But he was a man who had made the wrong decisions. He was a man who had taken advantage of his powers—who used them to get his way and abuse others.

A man like that didn't deserve to live.

Sobbing, Kess planted a punch so hard in the man's face that she felt his neck snap beneath her. She saw the fear fade into nothingness in his eyes. She felt his life leave his body.

Suddenly sick, Kess pushed off the man, numbly grabbing her staff and scrambling back as weakness flooded her body. The haze of the storm retreated, and with it, her taste for killing.

He had deserved it, but didn't Kess deserve the same? What right did she have to dole out justice? She was no god. She was just…a woman.

Another door clicked. Movement. Footsteps. A blond man rushed out wearing a blue and silver sash, his clothing at odds with the soldiers inhabiting the garrison. Kess took one look at his face and nearly collapsed.

"Niall."

Niall froze in the sitting area, his eyes distant and shocked as he leaned over to take in the room outside. Slowly, he padded over the lush carpet to crouch in front of the garrison leader and felt for a pulse. Kess knew there was none. The man's bloodied and mutilated face was testament to that.

His eyes found her face, and recognition shone there. Even beneath the hood, there were few in the city who could accomplish this level of destruction.

"When I said to win my city back, this is not what I had in mind," he snapped, still crouched over the garrison leader. "You spend years dodging the Seat like a coward, and when you finally accept it you use those powers to murder your people?" Kess looked at some of the soldiers for the first time and realized that many of them were just boys, perhaps no older than she'd been when she first moved Downhill. Boys, led to rape a young girl under the guise of paying for a night of entertainment.

"They're not my people," she replied, her voice cracked and broken from yelling. Niall stared at her, outrage on his face. He slammed his fist into the floor, bloodying his knuckles.

"They're just as much yours as anyone else in the city," he said, voice rising. "No matter what the Council may be pushing them to do, these are good men, caught on the wrong side. We can make things right, but this isn't how you do it," he finished, voice pained.

Kess took in the carnage for the first time. Men lay dying and broken in the entry hall. She had meant to do this. It had felt good to do this. So why was she now filled with a sense of dread? They had deserved it—they were abusive Fulminancers from the Uphill. She had been given these powers to make sure that people like Wyatt's sister were never taken advantage of again—so why did it still feel wrong?

"Why are you here?" she finally asked, voice toneless. Niall just shook his head as he straightened.

"It doesn't matter anymore, does it?" He looked down at her with none of the humor he usually reserved for her. "Are you going to kill me now?"

"Why would I kill you?"

"Wasn't that your intention here? Murder the garrison leader, capture the garrison, make sure no one has a foothold in your territory?" He spat on the ground, his face twisting in disgust. "You're no better than a common thug."

Kess sat there, her staff still crackling, the moans and coughs of men echoing outside. Her hands shook. She should kill Niall. He'd witnessed it. He was a liability, and she hadn't trusted him before this.

But she liked Niall. She knew Niall. He was human, for all he was Fulminant. A sick weakness flooded through her body then, and her Fulminancy snuffed out on the staff. Niall blinked.

"See to your men," Kess said, getting to her feet. "I have no quarrel with you."

She turned on her heel and left, picking her way over men into the courtyard beyond. Most were too incapacitated to stop her. As soon as the rain hit her, she turned and vomited into the bushes.

There, on her knees in the grass, soaked in blood and rainwater, she realized what she'd been too scared to admit. This was her future as Fulminant—that she become a weapon, a tool to be used. She wouldn't occupy the Seat, making things better for those below. Kess couldn't create. She could only destroy.

She had been right all along when she'd argued with Rowan in that bright manor kitchen nearly a year ago. She'd been right to reject what Fanas offered. Power corrupted everything it touched, including her own soul. Yet she had no other way forward—no other way of righting the wrongs she'd witnessed. If the cost was a blackened soul, then so be it.

Shaking, she got to her feet, then squared her shoulders and left. Still, she refused to reach for her Fulminancy to leap between buildings, and made her way back home one plodding step at a time, trying to remember, as if from a dream, how to be human again.