Ashwood: Stories from the World of Rax

By Alina Lee

Maria Ashwood never thought she'd return home.

 

Five years ago, Maria left home to escape her home and the looming shadow of her father and the family traditions he enforced. Now, called back to Ashwood Manor upon his death to be recognized as his heir, she must navigate the lingering issues with her siblings and something older and more sinister lurking amidst the old stones. She will need to rely on her wits, her experience in fighting monsters that lurked in the dark of night, and her friend Akara to unravel the mysterious haze that haunts the Ashwood family and her own tangled relations with her brothers and sister.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alina Lee
• Release date: Jun 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201797775

Alina Lee

Alina Lee is a fan of the fantasy genre and tabletop RPG player, dabbles occasionally in video games, and watches more educational youtube content than most people expect. It prefers to write the kinds of stories it enjoys reading or things that just strike it as something worth writing. This means it is mostly small-scale, non-standard fantasy. It may or may not be a very private komodo dragon.

Book preview

Maria Ashwood

One of the universal truths of long carriage rides is that passengers have nothing to do but ask each other questions. The three-hour ride from the heart of Greater Starkwall to the ancestral home I hoped to never darken again was no different. I wanted to sit in silence, watch as the city I knew was replaced by the countryside I'd avoided for so long. The blackened smoke-mists of the city lost their color and turned white as snow on a mountaintop. But I wasn't alone in the carriage.

Akara didn't care that I had my focus on what was on the other side of the window. She asked what I expected her to ask.

I wished Akara hadn't asked that, truly. Answering her was all the invitation she needed to ask more questions I didn't want to think about. But questions I answered, because if I didn't, she'd have kept prying.

Five years ago. I didn't take my focus away from the window. On how the ivy-choked stones of the city began to fade, replaced by trees with gaping, gnawing maws. A change of scenery that made my stomach cross. I haven't looked back since. And no one's bothered to summon me back until now.

Would you have answered if they did?

Not if it was my father.

Something about the setting sun and the shadows in the carriage made her green eyes more unsettling than usual. So why are you coming at their call now?

One of my siblings called for me. I don't resent them as much.

And they are calling you for what reason?

Victor Ashwood is dead, and that invokes the vigil.

We'd both seen our share of trouble caused during one of those. From the way her hands suddenly fingered her blessed bone daggers, she felt the same concern. Faith was not something I embraced, but I trusted whatever gods or spirits gave power to those daggers.

In future, that appreciation would become more intense.

You are expecting trouble during the vigil?

I shook my head. No, but it does present an opportunity for me. Her face asked the question her mouth didn't. After the vigil, I will formally take up the title of Lady of Ashwood Manor as my father's heir. A title I plan to surrender as soon as I have the authority to do so.

She didn't say anything, but I recognized the way she looked at me. A more detailed answer was tacitly requested.

For the next ten days, no one is Lord or Lady of Ashwood Manor. The title can't legally pass on to me until after the vigil is complete; an old gentry tradition, I explained. It was a legal matter I didn't dwell on much, though Strauss sometimes hinted at a willingness to assist in managing the legalities of it. As soon as it's official, I plan on signing the legal paperwork to have it passed to one of my siblings.

You have no interest in claiming your inheritance? And what makes you so sure your father left it to you? Her hands remained fingering her daggers. We were far from the city; far from what was familiar to her, if anything could be familiar to her so far from home.

Because it was one of my siblings that sent the summons. And that tells me they want me there, if only to sign away my title and claims. If I wasn't named as heir in the will, they would never bother with me.

You have a very poor opinion of their view of you.

She was perhaps too optimistic about my familial relations. You do not know my family. That was the end of that, I hoped.

For a moment, I hoped the sound of the rain would be the only thing that kept the silence away.

I was dreading returning to the ancestral estate. Ashwood Manor hadn't been home in five years; perhaps it never was. I stopped all contact with my siblings the day I left, save for that one incident with the witch that tried to slow me down by making me feel guilty at having abandoned them to my father's attention. I thought to reach out, but any attempt to do so would only be blocked by father, or used in some ploy to drag me back home. The only ones I ever spoke to after I left were Chives, the old majordomo, and Wilhemina, a serving girl I quietly arranged to find work elsewhere.

My only goal was to arrive, endure the vigil, and sign away my claim to the titles. If at all possible, I planned to interact as little as possible with my siblings. Meals with the family would be the minimum required. But I decided that if I kept to a routine that was mostly nocturnal, I could get away with keeping to myself and minimizing the odds of having to sit down and speak to them.

There was nothing for me to speak to them about regardless. Five years was a long time, but I knew it wasn't long enough. Perhaps, given our shared history, no length was ever enough.

The silence couldn't last forever, to my lamentation. I can see why Strauss thought someone should accompany you.

I leaned back in my seat and turned to face her for the first time. If he thought that, why isn't he here himself?

A rhetorical question. I knew why he had other matters to attend to that he couldn't be pulled away from. She knew that too, of course.

Gillian's not likely to gainsay you, she said, cutting off the other question. Also rhetorical. Besides, I was the one that was with you when you got the message. I was curious.

I sighed. I don't recall inviting you.

I don't recall you stopping me.

She had a point. I was certain my father would never die; that he'd find a way to outlive all the children he deemed disappointments. He would outlive me because of the choices I made and the dangers of the Hunt. The shock of receiving word of his death must have left me less guarded than usual, and Akara was skilled at slipping under someone's guard.

Perhaps I felt some small surprise at still being heir. I expected the man to choose one of the others in my stead, someone more pliable to his long-term goals for the family. I never listened to him, nor took to the fields and interests he wanted me to. Mother, before she died, suggested it was because he saw more of himself in me than he did my siblings. No one but her can say whether she saw that as a positive or a negative. From what I remembered, I doubted she would answer even if I did. She kept many things closely guarded.

The thought of that brought back memories of arguments with my sister Annalise. Of all of us, she inherited the most from mother. The brow, the nose. Even the voice that was wasted on social soirees when it could have commanded audiences in the finest operas.

Maybe I should have, I told Akara. I waited too long and it was already impolite to bring up a dead topic. But too late for that now.

It would be rude to force me to walk all the way back. She smiled and looked out the window. Have the mists turned white?

The further you are from the cities, the whiter they get. I guess it's because you're getting away from the smoke of the factories.

She sneered at the mists. The choking grip of your precious industry, she said. Perhaps it would be better to spend my time in this country of yours away from it.

I hadn't expected her to say that. She'd never stepped foot outside Greater Starkwall before. She arrived some years ago on personal business, tracking someone down in her personal Hunt. Why that entailed her going into exile and never returning to the land of her ancestors, she never said. Though she never said they threw her out, either.

There's not as much trouble out here, I told her. There was a reason most hunters worked the city, with only rare excursions out of it. You'd find it terribly dull.

She laughed, and the little necklace of predator's teeth and knucklebones rattled. Something handed down through family lines to provide a tangible link to her ancestors. Something precious to her people. On some days, I envied people who had connections like that. That might not be so unpleasant as I get older, she answered. The Hunt is for the young, because you do not live long enough to become old.

Unless you stop and become a scholar, I said, completing the old adage.

And I am becoming old. Not as fast as I used to be.

I frowned, remembering the last time she said that. It was while we were clearing out an alchemical lab, spilling the reanimation fluid everywhere before setting it ablaze. You said that three days ago.

I meant it back then, too.

She also drew her daggers and cut a reanimator's throat in one motion not long after saying it that time. The man didn't have time to call the abomination of stitched body parts, fluids that smelled like blackberries, and sharpened lumps of iron to attack us. If that was how she saw getting old and slow, I could only hope to be half as fast when I reached her age.

You are packed for trouble. She gestured to the little trunk at my feet.

I packed light. Enough clothes to last, a spare coat, two additional pairs of gloves, and I even threw in a formal dress. The kind heavy enough and needlessly complicated enough that I'd need a maid to put it on or take it off. Those were below our feet, stored with her own luggage. The small trunk at my feet had my kit.

I parted some of my coat to show her the pistol I kept at my hip. Loaded and ready, with the barrel and grip silvered. Answer enough for her.

Does your Ashwood Manor have a history of trouble? she asked. I don't think I've ever heard any requests for hunters come from there before.

No such history. Like most of the estates of the aristocracy, the only monsters in Ashwood Manor were the ones who lived in it. But I don't like to travel unarmed.

She nodded. The bone daggers she carried were always with her, and I suspected she considered them as much a part of her as I considered my spear a fifth limb. All hunters grow attached to their weapons, as Strauss would say. Or perhaps they had cultural significance. I admit that I never looked deep into the culture Akara came from; it seemed a topic best left for her to speak of and not pried into by an outsider.

What are your siblings like?

You'll find out for yourself when we get there, I answered. Though guests aren't typically welcome during an aristocrat's vigil. And whatever else, my father insisted we were gentrified and not upstart merchants who married into proper aristocracy.

She chuckled. You Aensmarchers and your fascination with class and rank. So many intricacies over something so trivial.

Trivial, she called it. I knew many who disagreed with such sentiments, though she'd have gotten away with saying so because she was a foreigner. They'd just assume she didn't understand how things worked and that her home didn't have proper distinctions between those who toiled and those who didn't. It wasn't something that ever came up, so no one asked.

So in an effort to redirect the conversation away from myself, I decided to be rude.

In Kuwembe, we look at the matter differently, she answered. If she took it as rude, she didn't show. She sounded pleased, in fact. But you are avoiding the proper topic. You do not wish to speak of what we are approaching.

Her taunting failed to get a rise from me. It was childish of me to simply shut up and look away, but I had no interest in being further interrogated.

She chuckled, but said nothing further.

Left to my own thoughts, I looked out the window again. Open fields, with a few trees and hills to interrupt the monotony. I guessed that there wouldn't be much of a wait before we arrived at the edge of the property. I didn't need to present or identify myself, not with the family crest emblazoned on the carriage. I didn't want anyone, servant or sibling, knowing I had arrived until I knocked on the door.

The idea of fear was ridiculous. I engaged in the Hunt, tracked down and slaughtered monsters on a nightly basis. The thirsting dead. Beasts in human flesh. Corpses stirred through foul alchemy. Butchers that carved out hearts to stave off death. Twisted brutes hiding in the skin of respectable folk. But there I was, with sweaty palms and feeling a growing tightness in my throat and chest. Perhaps I was afraid of coming home, of what I would find there. Or what I would find waiting for me. Had my siblings become more like father in the years I was away?

I almost wish there was a monster. I hadn't realized the words were spoken aloud until I was done.

And why is that?

I didn't want to continue the matter, but I already made the error. It was best to just lean into it and indulge her. I know how to deal with monsters.

She shook her head. Was it out of pity? Disappointment? It didn't look like surprise and most certainly was not understanding. It is truly a difficult thing to see, a soul so lost as to not understand how to live with her own kin.

I imagine you had happier relations with your family before you left home?

She nodded, fingering her necklace of charms. Yes. Before what happened.

I wondered what she meant. She and Strauss would often discuss philosophy, on the nuances and differences between the classics and the ancient wisdom of her home. With Gillian, they bonded over stories from their previous travels or sharing sea shanties in half a dozen languages that neither of them fully understood. For the two of us, it was more focused on the Hunt. Who she was outside of it was something I never asked about.

Only after the silence took hold again did I consider if I'd asked something hurtful, or something sensitive. People could be tender in unexpected ways; yet another reason to keep discussions away from the personal.

Was the right move to ask? Apologize? Was I supposed to pry? There were protocols for these things, decided silently between people. I didn't know.

Neither of us said anything or looked the other in the eye. Better than pointless talk or interrogation, at least. I let it linger. It was better for me.

Until we arrived at Ashwood Manor and walked up to the front door, with the carriage driver carrying our bags behind us. I thought it perhaps polite to offer her a chance to turn back before I knocked on the door and let everyone know the errant daughter of Victor Ashwood returned home.

The old brass knocker was heavy in my hands. Heavy, and all too familiar.

Akara Nukuye, Blade-of-the-Ancestors

Akara sucked in a sharp breath and let her gaze trace the lines of Ashwood Manor. The stones were old and worn. Drops of water from the rain that began to pour slid down the facade, the dust pushed down and out of the way to leave visible paths behind. Where there wasn't dust and a weary patina of age, there was ivy that crept up, along, sideways, and through the stones. Everything was sharp angles and flat surfaces; cold, pragmatic, but enduring. Above were the monstrous maws of horned demons acting as downspouts that emptied to the ground below. Two moss-coated argoyles that were decorative loomed over the doorway, their eyes fixed on those who approached by the front door.

Around her, there was only an open field. She saw hints of something in the distance to her left. A structure of some sort, but smaller than the manor and far enough away that she couldn't make out what it was. There were a few trees in the distance, even further away than the mysterious building. Old and tall, branches grasping and reaching at the clouds and birds and other things. Even from a distance, it was easy to see there were little to no leaves, but it was late in the year and the weather was cold. It wouldn't take long before the light drizzle turned into snowfall.

Behind her, she heard the footfalls of the carriage driver as he struggled with their luggage. A large chest for Maria, a slightly smaller one for her, and the little trunk where the younger hunter kept her arms. The sound of the steps were snuffed out by the mists, but every clunk of the chests on the cobblestones remained easy enough to hear.

The horses were tethered to a large, heavy rod stuck in the ground, slightly tilted towards the gates they passed on the way in. Nothing decorative or artistic. Just a rod hammered into the dirt. Even with the tethering, the horses seemed to struggle to stay still and pulled away from the manor as much as they could.

In front of her was Maria, knocking on the door. The pair of lanterns that flanked the door resembled eyes. That tall door, with a frame that arced too much like the mouth of some hungry predator.

Of a crocodile, she thought with a chill.

At the top of the arc was a teardrop-shaped crest, with hints that the edges were gilded once upon a time. A dirtied white background and three drops of faded red color was emblazoned on it. Underneath were words written using the same writing characters as other Aensmarch texts, but the meaning was unfamiliar to her. Words from the Old Culture.

Akara glanced behind her and saw the driver deposit their belongings nearby, but he scurried away and stood by the horses.

Your driver does not seem eager to be here, Akara noted.

Maria knocked on the door three times before answering her. He doesn't work for the family. We don't have horses or a carriage here.

She looked at the gargoyles and their silent, ominous watch over her. The stones seemed famished. I did not think that typical.

"No, it isn't. But horses tend to starve themselves to death when they live on the estate; replacing them became too costly, so the