100. Sacrifice

Chapter 100
Sacrifice

Standing in Rea’s home, Zorian ignored the curious gazes leveled at him from Rea and Haslush and kept silent, calmly considering things. A million questions swam through his head. Why were these three gathered in Rea’s house, despite the fact they shouldn’t even know about each other? Why did Rea think he could help in this situation and what were their enemies even thinking when they orchestrated this kidnapping? Was this some kind of strike against him and Zach? Why not go after all of his classmates, then?

Raynie did not give him a lot of time to ponder those questions, though, and took his silence as a sign she should keep going.

“My family doesn’t live in Cyoria, so I didn’t even know it happened at first. It wasn’t until my family discovered some signs the kidnappers might have originated from Cyoria that they contacted me, several days later, and asked me for help,” Raynie explained quietly. “I was shocked. Shocked that it happened, and… umm…”

She fumbled with her words for a few seconds before falling into an awkward silence and lowering her head even further. She looked quite pitiable at the moment.

“That they asked for your help with this?” Zorian tried.

She flinched slightly and gave him a shocked look for a second. Guilt, sadness, and confusion emanated from her in an equal mix. However, she quickly schooled her expression and cleared her throat with a trace of panic.

“Y-Yes, exactly! I’m just an academy student, what can I even do?” she said hurriedly. “I want to help my little brother, of course, but this is way above me! So I… contacted the police about it… and they eventually pointed me at detective Ikzeteri here, who agreed to help. And… here we are, I guess.” She took a deep breath after finishing her explanation and gave Zorian a disbelieving, but slightly hopeful look. “No offense, Zorian, but I’m still not sure how you can help me with this.”

“Neither am I,” Zorian told her honestly.

He could help, of course. How he should go about doing that, however, was something he couldn’t decide on at the moment.

Raynie’s expression immediately dimmed after his admission, but he didn’t let that bother him. He couldn’t ruin all their plans just to assure her everything would be alright.

He glanced at Rea and she glanced back at him, completely unconcerned with whether or not she had judged him wrong. What exactly gave her the confidence that he was someone who could make a difference here? No matter how he wracked his head, he couldn’t figure it out.

“You’re pretty calm about this,” Haslush commented from the side, giving him a shrewd look.

“Panicking wouldn’t help anyone,” Zorian commented, unconcerned with the veiled accusation. That wasn’t enough to prove anything.

“That’s not how people work, but alright,” Haslush said with a light shrug. “I guess you’re just an exceptionally calm person.”

This probably wasn’t a deliberate attack on him and Zach, Zorian decided. While Raynie was one of their classmates, neither of them were very close to her in the time loop. Zorian did feel a certain kinship towards her, due to her messed up family situation, but Silverlake shouldn’t know that. Therefore, Jornak and the rest shouldn’t either.

The fact their enemies kidnapped Raynie’s brother was probably just an accident. Since Zorian sabotaged their efforts to kidnap shifter children in the city of Cyoria and its surroundings, they looked further away for suitable targets. They needed those sacrifices, after all. Without the primordial essence contained in the blood of shifter children, the primordial’s prison couldn’t be opened. In the time loop, the Sovereign Gate could serve as a substitute key, but out here in the real world that wasn’t possible.

As it turned out, Raynie’s brother was one of the children the invaders ended up targeting in their expanded search. Did they even know they were targeting the family of someone who went to class with Zach and Zorian? Then again, even if they did, they may have thought it wouldn’t matter. Raynie’s relationship with her family was not exactly the best. It wouldn’t be out of line to assume she would be glad to have her brother out of the picture.

“I have to say, though, I’m surprised to see you here,” Zorian told Raynie. “I didn’t know you and Rea knew each other.”

In fact, considering her disdain towards cat shifters, he would expect Raynie to purposely stay away from Rea.

“Err, we don’t,” Raynie said, giving Rea an unsure look. “Detective Ikzeteri is the one who brought me here. He thought she might be able to help.”

“We have received reports of a group targeting shifter children some time ago, so we have been in contact with city shifters about the issue,” Haslush clarified, idly studying some kind of metal disc in his hands, flipping it over from time to time. Zorian recognized it as one of the communication devices the cultists and Ibasans sometimes used to coordinate their actions. Apparently the detective hadn’t been sitting idly all this time. “Ms. Sashal was one of the… less adversarial contacts we established during that time. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to bring your classmate here to see if she had some insight into the situation.”

“I’m just a humble housewife, so how could I offer insight into a situation like that?” Rea said with a slight smile, shaking her head lightly. “Still, the mother in me can’t help but empathize with the pain of having your little brother stolen away by some heartless fiends. In another life, that could have been my little Nochka in his place, no?”

She gave Zorian a piercing look, but he just raised his eyebrow at her in response.

“What are you implying?” he bluntly asked after a few seconds.

“I know you are connected to the evacuation effort that has been going on recently, and that it’s not a minor connection either,” Rea told him with an exaggerated sigh. “Your scent is present on almost everyone that has come to talk to me about getting Nochka and the rest of us out of the city. You have several adult friends who all treat you with respect, and even a little deference, more like you’re their leader than a precocious teenager. You are known as a diligent and hard-working student, but you’ve been skipping all your classes for weeks now, doing gods know what.”

‘Stupid cat shifters and their superhuman sense of smell…’ Zorian grumbled internally. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t have gotten suspicious and started connecting things if there were no scent clues to attract her attention.

“Plus, when Ms. Sashal mentioned you, I couldn’t help but notice that your older brother Daimen, who is said to be in Koth, has been very active in the city lately,” Haslush added from the side. He placed the communication disc he was fiddling with in his pocket and focused his full attention on Zorian. “Almost like some kind of emergency has popped up, forcing him to drop whatever he had been doing to rush back to Eldemar, no?”

“Oh, come on. Me and my brother almost never interact with one another,” Zorian told him. “You seem to have investigated me, surely you know that much? How would I know anything about what he has been doing?”

“But you do know he’s here in Cyoria right now?” Haslush pressed.

“Of course. He dropped by to let me know he’s in the city. It’s just common courtesy. We are family, after all,” Zorian said with a shrug. He saw no point in telling an obvious lie and pretending he never saw Daimen recently.

“Do you two seriously believe Zorian is some kind of secret agent?” Raynie asked incredulously from the side, her eyes shifting between the three of them in rapid succession.

“He definitely knows more than he lets on,” Rea shrugged. “Considering the situation, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try to wring some information out of him. It’s your brother’s life on the line here.”

“It, it doesn’t have to be,” Raynie tried anxiously. “Maybe it’s just a ransom thing and they just haven’t gotten to state their demands. It’s–”

“You’re lying to yourself and you know it,” Rea said, giving her a knowing look. “When a shifter child gets kidnapped, nine times out of ten it’s because the kidnappers want their blood essence. With so much time having passed, it’s a question whether your brother is still alive at this point.”

Raynie paled at the reminder.

“Let’s not be all doom and gloom here. I’m sure her brother is still very much alive,” Haslush hurriedly assured Raynie. “The ritual they are kidnapping all these children for is only due to happen on the night of the summer festival. They need to keep her brother alive for a while yet.”

“Hm. If you say so,” Rea said. “Still, that date is just around the corner. If that’s our deadline, we don’t really have much to work with.”

“Look, what do you even expect of me?” Zorian asked Rea, frowning at her slightly. “I don’t know where any kidnapped children are being kept. Do you think I would just sit on that information if I knew?”

It wasn’t like Zach and Zorian didn’t try to sabotage the primordial release ritual by denying the invaders the needed sacrifices. The problem was that they couldn’t possibly round up every shifter child on the continent and hide them away – no matter how thorough they were, their enemies could always throw a wider net and go after some shifter community that Zach and Zorian didn’t even know about. Jornak had spent decades preparing for this. Zorian suspected the power-mad lawyer would have found the needed sacrifices no matter what they did.

Of course, if Zach and Zorian could locate the place where the shifter children were being kept, he was all for launching a rescue operation. Without the needed sacrifices, Panaxeth couldn’t get free, which would be an automatic win in a sense. It would be worth it to trigger the final battle before the summer festival if they could inflict such a critical blow on their opposition. The problem was that Zorian genuinely had no idea where Raynie’s brother could be held. It could very well be that those children were being kept on Ulquaan Ibasa, Koth or some other distant place.

They could be anywhere on the planet, so finding them was like searching for a needle in a haystack.

“I don’t know,” Rea admitted. “I know you’re involved with this somehow, but I don’t know in what way. Maybe you really can’t do anything for poor Raynie here, but I’m hoping you can. I know she thinks I’m just a scheming, skulking cat, but I really do want to help her.”

“What!?” Raynie protested. “I don’t–”

“It’s fine,” Rea said with a chuckle, gesturing with her hand towards Raynie to quiet her down. “I get it. There’s too much bad blood between our peoples to let go on a whim. And I get why Zorian here is feeling defensive and denying everything. I suppose it must feel like I led him here into some sort of ambush.”

“Didn’t you?” Zorian asked, raising his eyebrow at her.

“No… well, yes, I guess I kind of did,” Rea admitted. “But considering you’ve been less than honest with me these past few weeks, I think you should be able to stomach a little underhandedness.”

Zorian opened his mouth to defend himself but she raised her palm to stop him.

“I understand,” Rea said. “I’m not angry with you. You wanted to get your sister’s friend and her family out of danger, but you didn’t want to reveal your secrets. I would have probably made the same choice in your place. I’m just curious… was our first meeting really an accident?”

“Yes,” Zorian said easily. From a certain perspective it was true. “I’m not terribly social. If my little sister wasn’t such a giant busybody and insisted I accompany Nochka to her home, the idea would have never occurred to me. Getting Nochka’s bike out of the river so she could stop crying would be enough for me.”

“Oh, is that what really happened?” Rea laughed. “You know, Nochka later told me a bunch of mean boys were trying to take her bike away from her and you chased them off and then escorted her home in case they came back.”

Oops. He should have synchronized stories with Nochka, apparently. He didn’t think it was a big secret!

“Err, of course Nochka’s version is the correct one,” Zorian assured her. “Don’t mind my earlier ramblings, I just got confused for a moment.”

“Sure, sure,” Rea said indulgently. “It was very heroic of you to defend my precious daughter from random ruffians like that…”

For a while, Haslush and Raynie watched them curiously as they talked, not interrupting their interaction. However, while Haslush was a grown man and an experienced detective, Raynie was just a teenager and under a lot of stress at the moment. As such, she soon became impatient.

“You… Zorian, can you help me with this or not?” she loudly asked, impatience and frustration in her voice.

Zorian stared at her for a second before opening his mouth to apologize and tell her he was just an academy student and that there was nothing he could do to help her brother…

…but then he shut his mouth and started thinking about something.

It suddenly dawned on him that their enemies may have made a huge mistake when they kidnapped Raynie’s brother.

After a few seconds, he focused back on the redheaded girl staring at him expectantly and stared back straight into her eyes.

“You know what?” he told her. “I actually think there is something I can do. But I’m going to need your help.”

Haslush silently leaned forward, his lazy-looking posture shifting into one of alertness.

“Me?” she asked, taken aback. She shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “But I’m just an academy student.”

“So am I,” Zorian told her. “Here’s what we need to do…”

– break –

In the port city of Luja, there was a small abandoned warehouse. It was a dark, uninviting place – the walls were moldy and crumbling, the floors were full of rat droppings and glass shards from broken bottles, and the windows and doors were crudely barricaded with wooden boards. There were a number of such places in Luja, as it was a large port town where trading companies were starting up and going bankrupt on a regular basis. Most abandoned warehouses would eventually find a new buyer and be fixed up into useable condition, but it wasn’t unusual for places like this to stay unoccupied for months or even years as old owners tried to hold on to them in hopes of getting a better price later.

As it happened though, this particular place held a dark secret. In the back of the warehouse, shielded from view by a mountain of rotting crates and boards, there was a black egg-like object attached to the floor with a mass of root-like tendrils. Spiral lines were etched into the black oval, beginning at the bottom and reaching all the way to the tip. Perceptive individuals would note that the oval almost looked like a giant black flower bulb on the verge of unfolding into a proper flower.

Or maybe a container, patiently waiting for the day it could unleash its contents upon its oblivious surroundings.

Zach, Zorian and Alanic stood some distance away from the black oval, staring at it grimly. They dared not approach, lest they activate the hidden wards and traps strategically placed around it.

“This is the fourth one we found,” Alanic commented. “One in Cyoria, two in Korsa, and now one in Luja. Just how many wraith bombs did these people make?”

“There has to be more than one of these things in Cyoria,” Zorian commented. “There is no way they would place two in Korsa and then leave only one for Cyoria. Korsa is important, but Cyoria is a far more critical location. We just haven’t found the others.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“There are probably a few in the capital city as well,” Zach said. “Jornak seems to have a downright personal grudge with our country’s leadership. No way would he miss the chance to strike at them at the heart of their power. Plus, considering what he said about Sulamnon and Falkrinea, there’s bound to be a few of these bombs reserved for them as well…”

“We’ll never be able to find more than a fraction of them,” Alanic commented grimly. “This is going to be a disaster. Entire city districts could end up being devoured by wraiths. The cleanup will take years.”

He glanced at Zach and Zorian unhappily, but neither of them said anything. There was nothing to say, really. They knew this as well.

“You still don’t know how to neutralize these things without triggering them?” Alanic asked with a trace of resignation in his voice. He already suspected the answer he was going to get.

Sure enough, Zach and Zorian shook their heads in denial.

“They’re superbly well made,” Zorian told him. “Jornak must have spent ages refining the design in the time loop. Any tampering I can think of will set one off, as well as alert our enemies to our actions. The only way we can deal with these is by employing the same tactics we used on the previous wraith bombs – set up a specialized ward field just outside the bomb’s defensive field and try to contain the wraiths once they’re released. It should be effective, but I obviously haven’t tested it, so…”

“I see,” Alanic said. He turned around towards the wraith bomb again, staring at it as if it that was going to suddenly provide him with some new insights. “You don’t have to waste time on that. I’ll contact the church higher ups and send them to perform another containment job here. I still say we should trigger these things the moment we find them and deal with the consequences.”

“And I still say we shouldn’t,” Zorian argued back. “These wraith bombs can be harmlessly disarmed. Jornak has a method to do so, I’m sure. I just need to rip it out of his head.”

“You really think you can do that?” Zach asked doubtfully. “We’d have to capture Jornak alive for that to happen. That seems… difficult.”

“These wraith bombs are set to collectively go off the instant Jornak dies, so we want to avoid killing him if at all possible, anyway,” Zorian pointed out. “Not to mention the other surprises he may have left for us in the case of his death. For all his megalomania, he clearly realized there’s a real chance he’s going to lose this conflict and made contingencies to account for it.”

Zach snorted derisively.

“Too many contingencies, if you ask me,” Zach said. “He put so much time into making sure everyone suffers if he loses… what does he even gain out of that? It’s just petty. Sore loser.”

“Well, we were just discussing how we should try to capture him instead of killing him outright,” Alanic noted. “So it’s not just pettiness. But yes, I get the feeling this is more than just about power for Jornak. He wants revenge.”

“Revenge?” Zach asked, surprised. “On who?”