Book Two - Chapter Thirty-One

The noises outside had stopped. The initial noises had stopped after Boss had gone out. Then they’d come back, but quieter. There were fewer bangs and it had been just her shouting for a while. Then, the other sounds had come back. After that, there had been a couple minutes of nothing but the demons’ noises and pained moaning. Now, it was silent. Even the demons had finally stopped their racket. There was still a horrible smell coming from something outside though.

Ariya had succeeded in waking everyone in her cell. She waited by the door for Lusya to come in, but the others were either sitting where they had slept and staring at the ground or huddled at the back. The noises were scaring the second group, apparently. Ariya was pretty sure at least some of the people in the other cells were awake too. She had heard them talking. At some point, she supposed it had become pretty hard to pretend they didn’t hear what was happening outside.

Flaven was gone. He had slipped out a little after Boss. Ariya didn’t know what had happened to him after that. She hoped he was okay. He was a bad person, but she didn’t think it was ever a good thing for people to get hurt.

He hadn’t unlocked the cell doors or anything, so they were still trapped inside for a little longer. She heard people talking about that, too, even now.

“We’re going to rot in here,” a woman said. “We’re trapped until we starve.”

“We’re doomed,” a man agreed.

“No, we’re not,” Ariya said. She turned to face them, putting her hands on her hips. “You need to learn to be patient.”

That was something Mama used to say. She thought it fit here pretty well. And she had done a pretty good imitation, if she said so herself. Which she did.

It was just a matter of time, and it couldn’t even be all that much longer. Lusya was here. If it had gone quiet, that meant she had won. Ariya wasn’t sure what else Lusya was doing out there that was delaying her, but it wouldn’t take her that much longer to come inside. She could understand the others, though. It did feel like a long wait, though spending all day working or in a cell had not improved Ariya’s ability to keep track of time.

Finally, Ariya heard the prison door open. Beaming, she whirled to face it again. Her smile faltered immediately. It was Lusya, like Ariya had thought. But she was covered in blood like Ariya had never seen before. Her face, her shirt, her boots. Everything had fresh, crimson blood splashed on it. A lot of it was still wet. It did not seem to be Lusya’s blood.

Lusya caught sight of Ariya immediately and approached the cell, every step leaving a bright red print on the floor. Ariya’s smile started to come back. Bloody or not, Lusya being here was a good thing. But then, Ariya noticed something else. There was something different about Lusya’s expression, something Ariya hadn’t seen before. As she studied Lusya’s face, Ariya realized what it was: Lusya’s eyes were open slightly less than usual. Ariya had seen Lusya scowl before, occasionally, but this wasn’t even that. Ariya wasn’t sure what it meant. As the opposite of an eye-widen, it made sense to think of it as a frown. But Ariya had already seen plenty of Lusya’s frown equivalent expressions already. This wasn’t one of them, and Ariya couldn’t guess what made it different.

Lusya grabbed the lock on the cell door and tore it off. The metal lock didn’t stand a chance. She tossed the ruined lock aside and opened the door.

“Are you well, Ariya?” she asked.

Ariya nodded, sniffling. She tried hard to stay strong and hold herself back. To show Lusya what a good job she’d done. After a moment, heedless of the blood, Ariya burst into tears and ran forward. She wrapped her arms around Lusya, wailing and sobbing. Her face ended up right in a splotch of blood on Lusya’s shirt, but Ariya didn’t care. She just couldn’t stop crying. She felt like such a baby, but she couldn’t help it. For a few seconds, Lusya didn’t do anything, but then she rested a hand on Ariya’s head. The tears just kept coming.

“They were so scary and mean,” she said, as she started to collect herself. She pulled back, wiping her tears, and looked up at Lusya. “But I was brave, and I didn’t let them see, because I knew you were going to come for me.”

“I see,” Lusya replied. She patted Ariya’s head. “Well done, Ariya.”

Ariya beamed. She looked over Lusya’s bloody form again, and again her smile fell.

“Did…Did you kill them?” Ariya asked.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew Lusya killed people. It had been obvious with that Sacred Knight. Lusya had literally told him to die, and then the fight had stopped. Other times, she hadn’t realized at the time, but it made sense looking back. Those guys in the alley. She knew one of Lusya’s swords could burn things really well. That powder on the ground had been their ashes. The demon Biggs. He’d been so loud, but when Ariya had uncovered her ears, he hadn’t made a sound. Because he had been gone. Lusya usually didn’t talk about it. Ariya wasn’t sure why. She knew killing wasn’t good, but heroes did it all the times in stories, so obviously there were times when it was okay.

Lusya nodded. “Yes. I did.”

Ariya wasn’t happy about that. She didn’t want anyone to get hurt, and she had hoped the answer would somehow, against all the signs to the contrary, be “no.” Yet she couldn’t bring herself to feel sad about it at all. It was just something that had happened, not good or bad. She guessed that made this one of those times. Did that make Lusya a hero? Ariya wasn’t sure, but she decided right there that Lusya was one anyway. She might have been the helper to make Ariya into a hero, but that didn’t mean Lusya couldn’t be a hero herself.

All that in mind, her smile returned brighter than ever. “Okay. Are we gonna go now?” She looked around. “Where’s Ander? Did he leave?”

Lusya’s eyes narrowed a little more. “He is dead.”

Ariya gasped. “Oh, no…”

She got what being dead meant now, more or less. The books she’d read with Lusya had helped. And just being with Lusya had helped. Killing people meant making them dead, so understanding that Lusya killed people had meant understanding death more. A dead person got hurt, and then they were gone forever. They didn’t just go somewhere they couldn’t come back from. They left the world. She wasn’t completely sure what ultimately happened to them, but it seemed like adults couldn’t agree on that either, so it was probably fine.

Now Ander was dead. Ariya had liked him. He had been nice and happy, warm and comforting in a different, complementary way from Lusya, and he had restored Ariya’s faith in Sacred Knights. In part, at least. She was willing to believe most of them were like him, even if he hadn’t really been one. If Kadel had been more like him, maybe things could have been different three months ago.

“We must leave now,” Lusya said. “We will continue our journey.”

Ariya nodded. “Okay.”

She pointed back into her cell. Her cellmates who had been huddled against the wall were still there, watching Lusya with wide fearful eyes. Even the ones who had just been sitting now looked poised to run too, and their expressions were just as frightened. Normally, that would have been rude. Maybe it still was, but Ariya could at least understand it right now. Even for Ariya, Lusya looked a little scary covered head-to-toe in other people’s blood. For someone who didn’t know her, Lusya must have been a terrifying monster. Well, they might have thought that even if they did know her, what with Lusya being a demon and all. Ariya knew better, but that didn’t mean everybody would just accept that Lusya was a good demon. Grown-ups could be pretty silly sometimes.

“Can they come too?” Ariya asked.

Lusya glanced at them. “They will be a drain on our resources.”

“But we can’t just leave them here,” she said. “They don’t have any way to get home or stay alive.” She gulped. She didn’t want to say what she was thinking. It seemed mean. But she couldn’t leave the others because of that. He wouldn’t have wanted that either. “D-Don’t you still have Ander’s stuff?”

“It is near enough to retrieve,” Lusya said. She was quiet for a second, and her eyes narrowed a little more again. “We will have to return anyway for my pack.” Another silence, then she nodded. “Very well. I will escort them as far as the next town on our route. No farther. They will slow us.”

Ariya smiled. “Thank you, Lusya.” She pointed down the prison hall. “Everyone else too.”

Lusya nodded. Without a word, she started making her way down the cells, breaking the locks one by one. Ariya heard the people in there muttering or shouting in surprise. A few people outright screamed in terror, which, again, was fair with the whole “soaked in blood” thing Lusya had going on. Ariya stepped out of her cell, and the others followed shortly after. The woman who had been whining earlier came close to Ariya and leaned in.

“Is that the person you kept saying would save you?” the woman asked in a whisper, like she thought Lusya would be mad if she heard.

Ariya grinned and nodded. “Yeah, that’s Lusya. She’s the best.”

Slowly, people from the other cells started coming out, though they didn’t move much beyond the doors and kept their distance from Lusya. Lusya came back over to Ariya, and one of the men from her cell stepped forward, grabbing Lusya’s hand in both of his and giving it a vigorous shake.

“Thank you, so much, for freeing us,” the man said between sobs. “I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but we all owe you our lives.”

“That may be true,” Lusya said. “But I do not require any repayment.” She pulled her hand free, then walked over and offered it to Ariya. Ariya grabbed it like she’d just found ancient treasure. Lusya looked over everyone in the room. “Come along, all of you. I will not ask again.”