CHAPTER ASHBORN 426: THE PRICE OF FAILURE (MAIYA)

Alone and on the run, trapped within a castle designed by lunatics, and hunted by the strongest Talent wielder in the realm… Maiya had to admit—this was not one of her finest moments.

“Quite the mess you’ve gotten yourself into, eh, Mai?” she muttered, trying to keep the jitters down. Panic was not something she was prone to, not for a long while, but now, it took all of her willpower to keep herself from hugging her knees and crying. It was the terror all prey felt when hunted by a being far, far above their level.

Terror that redoubled every time she looked at her wounded thigh. Andros had driven his spear into her before she’d even registered his presence, puncturing her armor like it wasn’t even there. The man wasn’t just shockingly strong; he was superhumanly fast—a terrifying combination, especially against a mejai like Maiya. What good were her fastest spells if she didn’t know where to aim?

Dread iced her veins, and once again, Maiya had to fight the urge to shut down. To give up. It would be so easy. Everything was preordained, wasn’t it? The Fateweavers were cosmic beings. They’d decided this was how things should be. If she gave up, wasn’t that, too, their doing? What was the point when all of this could be ended by a spear to the gut?

And then, Maiya thought of Vir. Of how heartbroken he would be upon seeing her lifeless body.

Maiya chided herself. What a stupid thought! She banished it from her mind, forcing her body to move into another closet when the patrol had rounded the corner. She barely made it before another group of soldiers entered, searching for her. No, she would endure for as long as her wits and her body allowed. She’d fight to her last breath. She owed it to Vir, and she owed it to herself. She'd made a promise, hadn't she?

The only reason she was still alive was because, unlike the demons, human magic had comparatively little in the way of magical sensing. That, and the fact that Andros had had his mejai starve the castle of its prana, depriving Maiya of most of her offensive and defensive armaments. All she had now were her lowly C Rank orbs, and even those now took ages to charge.

While Sonam was too close to the Ash Boundary to deprive in full, it was well within the Imperator’s means to have his mejai continually starve the castle. The air prana, that was. Being a Talent Wielder, Andros had no trouble using his own Earth Affinity magic. His tactic had only amplified the already vast chasm between them.

Maiya knew it was only a matter of time until he and his forces found her. Eventually, she’d be forced to reveal her location, and that would be it. No hope of escape. No hope of rescue.

Maiya’s heart pined for Vir. For her gallant savior, the living demigod, to swoop in and save the day, killing Andros, rescuing Maiya and Ira, and restoring justice to the world.

Except, deep in that same heart, she knew the bitter truth. That Vir had allocated his precious time for his rebellion rather than charting a path through the Ash. As Maiya herself advised him to. It was the right decision for him at the time.

A decision that would now be her undoing.

Maiya let out a long breath. Was this karma, coming full circle? Was it punishing her for killing King Rayid? Or was this all part of the Fateweavers’ plan? Were her struggles meaningless? Just moves on a game board, to be killed off as they saw fit?

She shook her head. That was the panic talking. All she could do was what she had always done—struggle and fight.

If only that were enough. What of Princess Ira? What of the cruel fate that awaited her dear friend?

Ira was not dead, as Andros would have the world—or more specifically, the rebels—believe. Without their leader, the rebels were dead in the water. Aimless and easily taken down. Even now, as fires raged throughout the city, Ira’s supporters and her handmaidens were being hunted down and slaughtered, and there wasn’t a thing Maiya could do. Daha was under siege, while Andros’ army was but a day away from Kartara’s walls.

The tides of battle had shifted, and Ira had gone from being about to grasp victory to total annihilation in the blink of an eye.

Ira was not dead, but she soon would be. In just a few hours, Andros would hold a public execution for all of Sonam to watch as he mercilessly slaughtered his own daughter. To show the world that not even his own family would be spared from the heavy weight of Kin’jal law. Worse—her handmaidens had learned that the Imperator had something special planned. Some vile form of execution that was bound to be both long and gruesome to break the morale of any rebels who dared fight on.

Maiya could not allow that to happen to the princess. It was why she’d mustered every handmaiden she had and infiltrated Sonam’s castle to mount a rescue.

At least, she thought she was. In reality, Maiya had led Ira’s best troops into a trap. The castle had already been evacuated of prana by the time they arrived. Maiya had noticed it at the time, of course, but the lack of prana hadn’t been enough to scare them off. Ira was in there—she had to be saved. And besides, they had an arsenal of precharged orbs. Maiya had been confident that short of a minor war, they’d have been alright.

What she hadn’t factored was the defense those orbs granted them. The precious seconds of reaction time to find and eliminate any incoming threat.

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Once their defense orbs had been depleted, her handmaidens went down one by one at the hands of Imperator Andros himself. The man moved like a wraith, reaping life after life.

Maiya didn’t know what was more shocking. That he knew all about Ira’s plans and kept it a secret from her, or the fact that he killed her most elite troops in less time than it took to blink.

The seconds passed in agony, on account of her wound and stress both. Every minute was a desperate attempt to find a new hiding spot, which were few and far between. Andros’ troops knew every secret passage in the castle, and likely even some Maiya didn’t know of. They guarded every exit, and even if she didn’t find Andros there, Maiya had precious few orbs left to defeat the dozens of Balarian Guard that blocked her.

That was all if escape was her intention. It wasn’t. She still had a job to do. A princess to rescue.

This worked to her advantage. Andros’s forces assumed Maiya would try to escape and so had concentrated at the exits. A few of the hallways leading to the interior of the compound where Maiya believed Ira was being held were relatively free of guards.

Almost as if…

Maiya halted in her tracks. It was almost as if she were being invited in. Were this anyone else, Maiya would have dismissed the idea as pure paranoia.

But this was Andros Kin’jal. One of the most impressive men in the realm. He would do something like this. And yet, Maiya found herself with fewer and fewer options with each passing minute until it came down to two decisions.

Try and breach an entrance to escape? Or delve deeper into the castle to save Ira?

Maiya bit her lip. Her sense of duty and honor warred with her survival instincts. In the end, she made the only choice she could—Vir had told her to stay alive until he arrived. Walking into Andros’ trap seemed unlikely to achieve that goal.

A goal that seemed all but impossible. Yet, if she somehow managed it—if she escaped the castle and lived until Vir arrived, then she almost pitied what would happen to Andros. She pitied every Kin’jal who dared stand in her beloved’s way.

Vir would annihilate them all. Of that, she was certain. For as impressive as Andros was, he was still just a man. How could a mortal compare against the incarnation of a living god?

Thinking of Vir made Maiya's chest swell with warm confidence. If only confidence were enough. To have any chance of success, she needed a distraction.

And so, for what was perhaps the first time since she became the Blessed Chosen, she relied on her powers of the cult.

With the cult’s headquarters being located so close to Sonam, there were plenty in the city. To her utter disbelief, there were even a few among the Balarian guard who chased her down. Sensing them was one of the methods she used to avoid the patrols.

They must not have known of her identity. Or they felt they couldn’t afford to disobey orders.

But would they disobey an order that came directly from the Blessed Chosen?

Maiya concentrated, tapping into her Foundation Chakra and the Life Chakra she’d recently opened. Unlike Vir, the Chakras seemed to come more easily to her, though ‘easy’ was relative. It still took countless hours of practice, and those were hours she simply hadn’t had. Something she deeply regretted right now.

While not enough for an offensive attack, she’d briefly experimented with another use of the power, especially when combined with her Blessed Chosen abilities.

Focusing on the two powers, she sent a message. “Diversion. Create chaos.”

Even such a short message left her mentally spent. Through her connection, she felt that the Children in the area received the message. They left their formations and began to act, moving individually at first and then together as they ran into each other.

And then they attacked.

It pained Maiya to feel the connections cut out, one by one. It pained her to know she was sacrificing those cultists to survive. And while she’d never met them, she swore their deaths would be avenged.

It didn’t take long for their actions to have an effect. Guards moved to reposition, at a loss for why their own people were defecting. Ira’s faction was blamed, and suspicion took root in the Balarian Guard. The patrols became more haphazard, and entire exits were left with a skeleton crew as the priority shifted from Maiya to the ‘rebels’.

That was her cue.

Finding the least manned exit, Maiya ambushed the half-dozen Balarian Guard. Two were dead before they knew it, as a single Wind Blade bisected one and decapitated another.

One more fell to Maiya’s dagger, plunged into the gap between their cuirass and helm.

The final two put up more of a fight, striking at Maiya with Talents and metal alike, but they too put up little resistance. Maiya had mastered their arts. She knew how they would strike and where. And so, they fell to another Wind Blade.

The whole fight had taken less than thirty seconds.

Maiya stripped off her handmaiden garb and donned the armor of the Balarian guard she’d just killed. A bit of makeup later, and she doubted anyone could make her out, even up close. Instead of sneaking out of the castle, she stepped right into the throng of soldiers running this way and that, and before she knew it, she was out of the courtyard and into the Balarian Garrison.

If the courtyard had been a pond of soldiers, the Garrison was a sea, and Maiya didn’t even earn a second glance as she confidently stepped into the tunnel that divided the Garrison from the Upper district.

Even still, there was another set of Gates to navigate, and it was only once she’d reached the Commons that she allowed herself to breathe easy.

Maiya found an abandoned alley and slumped against the wall. Her hands trembled at the thought of what she’d done. She’d just escaped the most fortified citadel in the entire realm—perhaps in all the realm. She’d slipped out of the grasp of the most dangerous man in the city.

All her training, all those days and weeks and months of blood, sweat, and tears. It had all come together this night, allowing her to survive.

Now, the hard part was over. She needed only to hole up somewhere and await Vir’s arrival. That she could do.

Maiya lifted herself with a spring in her step… And froze cold when a shadow loomed in front of her.

“Impressive, I must say,” a deep voice resounded. “I didn’t think anyone could give me the slip. Not in my own castle. Ira was right to put you in such a position of power. How tragic that you chose the wrong side.”

Maiya didn’t think. She didn’t respond. She simply activated every orb she had left—the two Wind Blades and the three Icicles—all at once.

Against any other, her attacks would have ripped her opponent to shreds, killing them before their body hit the ground.

Against Imperator Andros Kin’jal, sovereign of the most powerful empire in the Known World, she hit nothing but air.

Maiya knew then that it was all over. Even before she felt the cold sensation blossom from her stomach.

Looking down, Maiya was unsurprised to find Andros’ talwar driven through her. The blade penetrated all the way through her stomach and out her back, as though her armor weren’t even there.

“You’ve been quite the thorn in my side, Maiya of Hiranya,” Andros said. “For that, you have earned my respect. I will enjoy watching you die.”

Then the pain struck, and there was but one thought in Maiya’s mind as the darkness overtook her.

I’m sorry, Vir. I won’t be able to keep my promise, after all.