ODE TO THE END: A BALLAD OF BROTHERS

CHAPTER 36

MAVE

When Mave first received reports of the Slum Town Slayer, she did not respond in the way one might have expected. In fact, the reports she read, to include those detailing the infamous Warden killing, only roused a curious 'Hmmm'. During her long tenure on the Warden throne, she was the first ear on the line of countless anomalies. None were as tangibly fantastical as the moon-eyed boy and his darkly cohorts, but she was long past the age of awe.

Achim, and the demons in his shadow, were not fantasy for gawking. They were sources of data in an ever-growing calculus to which she devoted her mind. It was often a detached endeavor; preparing her agents, fortifying her city, ensuring the safety of the realm, but she bore her cross better than most could have dreamed. Sacrifices were made. People died, some were killed, and many were left where they could make the least amount of noise, but they were honored pawns. Pieces given to the fire. It worked too. She never gave her instruments a second thought if the results were to her liking, but not this time.

Naomi. She turned out to be an unexpected key to felling the foul intruders. Even her capture was, in a way, advantageous, but Mave could not calculate a comeback the way she often did. The motherly instincts that sunk their claws into her brain were laced with a poison beyond her ability to resist. A poison that compelled her to act outside her normal mode of rationality. It was truly a maddening thing, Mave thought. A madness she cursed for every inch it dragged her deeper into the dark boy's prison.

After passing the gates and receiving the guards' spiteful blessing, Mave entered the dim, gray cell of Achim Arbitor. The dark boy's arms were restricted by a thick straitjacket with thicker rubber lining and his feet were bound and chained just enough for him to stand on his own. Beyond Achim, his bonds, and a steel interrogation chair, the room was completely bare.

Mave bore witness to a little boy slumped in the corner. It was Achim, though she could scarcely believe it. A moment's look confirmed his identity and solidified her suspicions all at once. Mave approached with hurried boots and her borrowed knife in hand. She sliced the blindfold from Achim's eyes but what loomed beneath the blindfold was a soulless stare.

This defeated thing was not the person she met in The Slums. The assailant who brutalized her agents, the killer that slaughtered his foes, the gallant that saved his daughter; all of them were gone. Replaced by a forlorn ghost.

Was this the boy her daughter had grown so attached? Was this the character of the one whom Naomi had been so smitten that she risked her broken body to seek out? Mave gnarled her teeth and hissed her objection. "No."

She had seen the damage he could do. She knew all the damage he had done. Beyond the bounds of her rising anger, Mave clearly recalled his inhuman capabilities she herself had witnessed. The boy had been injured profusely when he made the effort to carry her daughter to safety, away from The Beast that bit his heels. Not only had he performed calmly in the fog of a losing fight, but the dark boy displayed a deathly determination she scarcely saw. Indeed, he was defiant in the face of despair and all for Naomi's sake.

Mave did not yet know the details of their relationship, but she knew not to tarry on them now. All that mattered was that, for reasons she was loathed to acknowledge, this boy committed himself to his daughter. Them, to each other. So why did he languish here, not yet dead, but determined to die? Mave glared at the limp creature before her, rebuking the sullen sight.. "My daughter gets taken, and this is how you react. I expected more," she coldly goaded.

Achim did not move. Only his eyes acknowledged the woman, but it was barely a passing glance. At his non-response, Mave ran her hands through her disheveling hair. "Do you have nothing to say, Mr. Arbitor?" When Achim said nothing, she shouted. "Speak, damnit!"