Heart of Ash (The Dark Arcane Series: Book 1)

Chapter Thirty Two

Four years ago, Ashyn's family died.

Unfortunately, she wasn't a child or a babe or a newborn when it happened. She remembered everything, with torturous details to spare. And then some.

She had snuck out the house to visit her friend, Deliah, a girl whom Ashyn's father had said wasn't a good influence, but she was a bold girl of sixteen and she knew what she wanted. And on that day, she wanted to visit her friend.

Even though she was explicitly forbidden to leave, and even though they were supposed to have a family meal together, she still left for Deliah's.

She couldn't have known that would be the last time she would see her family alive.

They lived on the outskirts of the city, just close enough to be counted as part of the city and yet far enough to have their own house positioned on a small hill. A young Ashyn had gaped at the dark smoke in the sky and sprinted home, only to collapse as she saw the angry yellow and orange glow of her house.

She had only arrived in time to see them set the last torch down, but she was there to see the flames eat the rest of her house from the bottom up. It caught on fire in a woosh. It was the kind of roaring sound that haunted her nightmares, stalking her dreams as she had stalked the streets.

She had known in that moment back then, that if she had been in that house—and for years later she would taunt herself with the thought of oh moons, if only she had been in that house—then she would have died alongside them. Her mother, father, and brother. And so that sixteen year old Ashyn, with tears streaming and a fist over her mouth to stop her sobs, had watched and waited as her house, and her life as she knew it, burned into ashes.

The smoke may not have filled the entire sky, but it filled her sky, her world.

She had been crouched near enough to see the faces of the seven uniformed guards, and had had enough time to watch them as they waited for the flames to diminish. She looked at their faces, and catalogued them. She soaked in the details of their faces because even in that moment she knew she would avenge her family. Even as a child, she held a grudge.

One guard, who she would later learn was called Mik, had mousy hair, limp and combed over, as if that would make up for the obvious lack of it. It would be Mik's scar though, on his left cheek, that allowed Ashyn to track him down when she was renamed and masked as the deathstalker.

It took years to track them down, but joining the Ka l'asterei meant she could travel at the same time as training to kill making it a lot easier. Who better to train her to kill than the Mother's Handmaidens themselves?

But there were only seven guards. And by the time they were all dead, Ashyn's rage and thirst for blood had far outgrown what Brialdia was prepared to withstand. There had been a moment—a fork in the road—a year and a half ago, when all seven murderers were dead, and Ashyn had decided that they were not enough. She still had a red fury in her veins and she had more vengeance to bring. So under the guise of deathstalker, she continued hunting the guards who laughed when they burnt families alive, and the guards who took sick pleasure in watching people cower before them.

Teri Stolk, the man found dead in Wimsley, was no exception. Although a respected man in common society, he was renowned in the underworld as the man who procured girls for work in brothels—he kidnapped them from their families and forced them to work as whores. She'd heard about him in one of the fighting pits Nala had brought her to. So, she killed him.

She dragged his wretched corpse all the way to Wemsley. She'd gathered in the Shadow meeting that Kade wouldn't go with them north because he was busy tracking her as the nighstalker. So, she'd just made sure he suddenly had a reason to go north; he was an incredible fighter and she needed him to ensure their passage north.