David Dalglish - A Dance of Cloaks

“How dare you try to hurt her,” Haern whispered, his whole body trembling with rage. He held a dagger in each hand, and he looked more than ready to use them. Madelyn sat on her knees and glared.

“Don’t,” Delysia shouted. “Please, let her go.”

Haern glanced at her, and Madelyn took the chance to run. Haern looked back, clearly debating.

“Please stay,” Delysia insisted, and that was enough to keep him with her.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, sliding both daggers into his belt.

“I was…I was doing something dumb. I’m sorry. I should get back.”

“Wait,” Haern said, reaching out and grabbing her wrist. Delysia tensed, but his touch was soft. He held her there, neither moving, only their eyes alive as they stared at one another.

“Please stay,” he said.

“We’ll be caught,” Delysia said.

She heard the boy laugh.

“No we won’t,” he said, sliding his grip down from her wrist to her hand. Then they were running, her heart hammering, and suddenly she was shimmying up the side of a house and onto the roof.

W e’ll be safe here,” Haern said. They sat cross-legged before each other. The city stretched all around them, enclosed within the great wall. He gestured to his right, where the street was safely hidden from view.

“No one can see us passing by,” he said.

Delysia nodded. She rubbed her arms with her hands, feeling both cold and afraid. The past few days were a whirlwind of pain and confusion, and all she wanted was to curl up somewhere warm and sleep. Yet Haern kept looking at her with his blue eyes, so intense in their desperation. He wanted something of her, but what, she didn’t know.

“Why did you come for me?” she asked, hoping to pry it out of him quickly so she could go back to the temple.

“Because I… it’s about your father.”

Delysia winced.

“What about him, Haern?”

Haern sighed and looked away. His mask helped hide his emotions, but it didn’t erase them completely. He was reluctant and embarrassed. Delysia felt her fear hardening in her stomach. Whatever Haern had to say, she sensed she would not like hearing it.

“I helped kill your father,” Haern said suddenly.

Delysia didn’t move. Her thoughts returned to that day, but she remembered no boy. She only remembered tears, the surprised cries of the crowd, and then running far away so she could cry alone. Still, Haern’s ache was too real to be a lie.

“Why?” she asked. “Why did you help?”

“Because my father asked it of me,” Haern said. “That’s not all, Delysia. I had a mission, one I failed. You were my target. I was to kill you.”

Delysia suddenly felt paralyzed with fear. She thought back to her talk with him in the pantry. What if she had been a fool to let him out? He’d been stopped on his way to finish the job, and now here she was, helpless atop a roof with no way off other than a long fall.

“What do you want from me?” she asked, praying to Ashhur that the boy didn’t draw his daggers.

“I followed you that day,” Haern said. “You didn’t see me, but I followed. I listened to you pray. It broke my heart. Do you understand? Listening to you cry, listening to you pleading so helplessly with your god, I couldn’t…”

He stood and turned away.

“I couldn’t let myself become such a monster. I’ve come close. I won’t do it.”

Delysia stood. The trouble inside him was so great, and her inner nature won out. She reached over and put a hand on his shoulder and turned him back to face her. Tears were in his eyes, wetting the cloth wrapped tight about his head.

“I want to know how to pray like you did,” he said. “I want to have that kind of faith. Your father was dead, and you still believed. I’ve tried, but people died. I feel hollow and fake. What is it you know? What is it you do? Please, tell me, Delysia. I need this. I need something to cling to, otherwise I’ll be lost forever. I’ll become what my father wishes me to be.”

Delysia blushed. She felt so young and foolish, and yet he was coming to her for help? She tried to think of all her father’s lectures. The memory of his kind words and warm smile only hurt her more.

“Give me your hands,” she said. There was one thing she remembered, one moment that nothing could ruin. It was the nightly prayers her father had said with her whenever she felt scared or lost. Tears in their eyes, she knelt, her fingers still interlocked with Haern’s. The boy knelt with her.

“Bow your head,” she told him.

“What now,” he asked.

“Close your eyes.” He did, and then he waited.

“Think of everything you love,” she said. “And pray it safe. Don’t think about to whom you pray. Don’t worry about whether it’ll be heard or not. Just pray.”

Haern opened his eyes and looked at her.

“What if I have nothing to love?” he asked.

The question pierced Delysia’s heart. She’d once asked that same question to her father after they’d had a bad fight. She gave Haern the same answer he had given. Never in her life had she missed her father so much.

“Then you can love me,” she said.

Her body lurched forward. Her mouth opened in shock. Blood seeped down the front of her dress as she fell, a small arrow shaft sticking out of her back.

“No!” Haern screamed, catching her in his arms. All around him men leapt to the roof. Two houses over, a man in a gray cloak lowered his handheld crossbow and approached.

“Stay away from me,” Haern screamed, holding Delysia in one arm and drawing his dagger with the other. Members of the Spider Guild surrounded him, their weapons drawn. None approached, all waiting for the man from afar who’d wielded the crossbow.

Haern glanced behind him, seeing his casual approach. He knew who it was. He begged it wasn’t, but he knew.

Thren leapt across the last gap and landed atop the house. He still held the small crossbow.

“You have disobeyed me for the last time,” Thren said. His voice was overwhelmed with rage. “Rooftop prayers? Hiding away with a priestess? What is the matter with you!”

“Stay back!” Haern screamed again, tears streaming down his covered face. Thren paid him no heed. He walked over and yanked the mask off Haern’s face, not at all worried by the dagger his son held.

“You disappoint me,” Thren said.

Something hard struck Haern from behind. His eyes rolled into his head, and then he collapsed atop Delysia’s body.

Kayla stood behind him, a rock wrapped in leather hanging limp from her hand. Thren nodded, thankful that she’d sapped the boy.

“Carry him,” Thren ordered his men. “Leave the girl.”

Two of them hoisted the boy onto their shoulders and made their way toward the edge of the house. A group of three waited in the street below, catching Aaron when they lowered him down.

“Where are we taking him?” Kayla dared ask.

“These foolish notions need curing,” Thren said as he put away the crossbow. “Ashhur is a disease infecting my son, and it seems I am incapable of removing it on my own.”

Kayla followed the logic to its horrific end.

“You’ll give him to the priests of Karak,” she said.

Thren glanced over to her.

“I do not like it either, but it must be done,” he said. “They’ll crush his faith in Ashhur, purify him. I’m taking back my heir.”

At that, he leapt off the roof to join the rest of his men. Kayla glanced back at the girl with red hair.

“Damn it, Aaron,” she said. “I didn’t know!”

Thren had ordered her to follow Aaron about. Once he’d stopped at the temple, she’d returned. Part of her had hoped he’d be gone by the time they returned, and he had, but not far enough. Thren had found him, and even worse, found him with the daughter of that idiot priest Kayla had killed. The blood spilling across the roof was her fault.