by H. L. Burke
Evyd spun around, rage contorting his face. “Don’t you dare mention your mother to me, boy. You were the reason she died, and if she’d seen what you would become, the chaos you would inflict upon our kingdom just by existing, Ever knows she would’ve let me do what I should’ve when you were born. Would I could bring her to life by ending yours, but even if I can’t, I won’t stand you throwing her name at me like a cast stone. Not when you killed her.”
Kay shuddered. “Please. All I’m asking from you is honesty.”
“It won’t hurt to tell him.” Friya straightened from her crouch, the final shards in place, one beside each of Kay’s hands, another above his head, and the fourth and fifth at his feet. She stroked the blade of her dagger with a thin, pale finger. “Your soul has potent magic, Kajik, not because of any merit of your character, because we all know that is lacking, but due to the purity of your heritage. You are one of the few starcasters within Frorheim, a direct descendent of the founder of our kingdom, and as such, your soul can power a mighty spell, such as one that will strengthen the boundary between the mortal realm and the Lingering Dark and prevent Athan’s return.”
Cold sweat broke out across Kay’s forehead. “And what happens to my soul?”
“Devoured,” Valka gleefully chimed in. “Or more precisely, thrown into the Lingering Dark and left to the mercies of the evil spirits who live there, but we all know how that will end.”
Kay’s throat closed in on itself. He’d prepared for death but had clung to the hope of something after, of the Field of Stars, of seeing his mother’s face and begging her forgiveness, of watching over Arynne and Olyn from beyond. To not exist at all snatched his one comfort from him, and he found he could not breathe.
Valka moved to stand behind his head, just out of his sight, but Friya and Evyd continued to loom over him. From their expressions, he had no hope of mercy, but perhaps there was one chance.
“Father, if you do this to me, what will Olyn think? You’ll break his heart.”
“Olyn won’t even remember you, boy,” Evyd mocked him. “I know the fool has a weakness for you. Perhaps his only weakness, which is why being rid of you will be good even for him. As much as it displeases me to say so, I need your brother, and I need him to be pliable, which he won’t be if he knows of your fate.” He held up the dark vial. “That is why I had your aunt prepare this. Once I have used this potion upon you, the memory of you to any outside this room will begin to fade. Olyn will have no recollection of you, no thought that he even had a brother.”
A cold hand clamped around Kay’s heart, stealing his voice away, but he somehow managed to stammer, “And Arynne?”
“As if she’d never met you, wiped clean and pure as strained milk.” Evyd leaned over his son, an ugly sneer marring his face.
Kay’s insides flopped, and he desperately flailed for the heartbond. He clung to it, concentrating on the warmth of their faint connection. He could accept death but not this.
Evyd pulled the stopper from the vial and held it over Kay’s chest. “How do I do this?”
“A drop of your blood will activate it, then it needs to go into his blood.” Friya slipped her knife beneath Kay’s shirt and ripped it up the front, exposing his heaving chest. She sliced across his collar bone. The shallow cut stung like fire, and Kay winced. She then nodded to Evyd. “As I said, just a drop from your fingertip.”
Kay held his breath, trying to ignore his pain and panic, as Evyd extended his hand towards his sister. She lightly ran the blade over his outstretched fingertip drawing a thin line of deep red to the surface. He pressed his wounded finger to the mouth of the vial. The liquid simmered and began to glow with an eerie purple light. Kay jaw clenched until it hurt. This couldn’t be happening. His father stooped over him.
“Stop!” Kay gasped as Evyd tilted the vial towards Kay’s exposed wound. “Listen to me!”
Evyd froze, a quizzical look in his cold eyes.
With a calming breath to steady his shaking voice, Kay stared at his father. “Please, sir, whatever you think of me, I love Arynne and I love my brother. They’re everything to me. I’d die a thousand deaths for either of them. I came back knowing it would mean death because I had to save Arynne.” A sob escaped him. “But I can’t be forgotten by them. Whatever I’ve done in my life, whatever mistakes I’ve made, what I feel for them, for those two people, it’s pure, and it’s good, and it’s worth preserving. I can’t not exist. I can’t disappear. If so, then what I feel for them will perish, and it can’t. It has to live on. Please. Kill me if you must, but let me have the comfort that they’ll remember me, that they’ll remember how I loved them.” His vision blurred, and hot tears slipped down his cheeks. “Please.”
Evyd’s scowl deepened. “I regret that in order the bestow this spell, I must be outside of its effects. I certainly would like to forget I ever sired such a weak-minded excuse for a son.”
Kay’s last thread of hope snapped, and despair crashed over him like a flood of cold water. Every muscle in his body gave out. A sob escaped him as he clung to that slight trace of Arynne, like a scent left in a room long after the source had departed. He remembered her arms about him, her lips against his, her warmth singing through him.
Evyd tipped the vial. The dark liquid spilled onto Kay’s chest. It sizzled within the cut left by Friya’s knife, but cold somehow rather than hot. Kay’s head jerked back as sharp, stinging pain radiated through his body.
“Channel your magic into it,” Friya ordered, her voice muffled by the pain. “A starcaster can just as easily influence dark spirits as star spirits. You need to bind them to him.”
Hand extended over Kay, Evyd began to glow with an eerie purple light. The power surged from him, down his arm, into Kay’s body.
Kay screamed. His magic sprang to his defense, glowing within him, pushing outward from his chest like a drowning man clawing for the surface of the water. It met the resistance of the magic-dampening collar, but instead of abating, it magnified.
Friya’s eyes widened. “What’s happening? He shouldn’t be able to access—”
Kay’s whole being convulsed. Silver light burst from his skin. Valka shrieked, and Friya threw her hands over her face.
Kay’s teeth knocked together, jarring his brain, and increasing his agony. Then with a crack, the collar at his neck snapped, and he could feel again.
Arynne!
Kay?
Her love rushed to meet him. He could sense her strength, her determination, her heat. With her, he could overcome this. Fists clenched, he drew his magic into his hands, ready to fight.
“We’re losing our chance!” Evyd bellowed. “Friya, stop him!”
Friya plunged the knife into Kay’s chest.
Chapter Twenty-One
Evyd must die.
Arynne examined the various containers upon her dressing table. While most had a pleasant, herbal fragrance, a few carried acrid or even medicinal odors. Arynne well-remembered hearing the healer at the Solean palace warn a patient that, taken in too great a dose, medicine could turn to poison.
The bathing chamber door opened, and Sigid entered, face drawn.
“Are you all right, princess?” she asked, peering over Arynne's shoulder. The reflection of her eyes in the mirror reminded Arynne of Elfrida, her former maid, when she suspected Arynne was breaking palace rules again. Arynne had no time for concern.
“Can you ingest these?” She waved her hand at the vessels.
Sigid’s eyebrows arched. “That’s not their purpose.”
“I know, but if someone were to eat some of this—” Arynne popped the lid off a jar of coarse gray powder. “What would happen?”
“Well, it wouldn’t taste very good, but I don’t think it would harm you.”
Wrinkling her nose, Arynne chose another bottle, filled with a thick, oily liquid Sigid used to moisturize Arynne’s curls. “And this?”
“Oh, I actually have a cousin who did swallow a good deal of tha
t when he was just old enough to walk about.” Sigid brightened. “Messed his trousers for the rest of the brightening, but was fine by the dimming.”
Two down, half a dozen to go. Arynne picked the worst smelling of the lot, a vial she’d never used herself but had seen Sigid use to clean jewelry.
“And this one? If I were to drink it, would it kill me?”
“Princess!” Sigid blanched.
Arynne rolled her eyes. “I don’t plan to take it myself.”
“That doesn’t make me feel that much better.” Sigid snatched at the vial, but Arynne yanked it away. That Sigid wouldn’t answer gave her hope, but she needed to be sure before she risked slipping any substance into Evyd’s wine.
Sigid pursed her lips and let out a whistling breath. “Princess—may I call you Arynne?”
The tightness in Arynne’s chest eased. “I think we’ve passed a point where we have any interest in maintaining formality.”
“Arynne, I know you want to help Prince Kajik, but Prince Olyn has a plan.” Sigid eased around Arynne and reached for the vial. “You shouldn’t take any risk upon yourself until he’s had a chance to set things into motion.”
Arynne reluctantly dropped the vessel into Sigid’s outstretched hand. “I wish I could count on Olyn, but he’s too trusting. He won’t be able to reason King Evyd out of harming Kay this time.”
Sigid’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, he’s not planning to reason. He’s planning to threaten.”
Arynne’s breath caught in her throat. Gentle, restrained Olyn was going to threaten someone? “How?”
“Oh, you should’ve seen him!” Sigid gave an exaggerated shiver. “I crept into the barracks when he was laying out his plan to the wardens. You’d have thought he’d been leading men all his life.”
Arynne fiddled with a loose curl. “I didn’t know he had that in him.” She started to pace. “I don’t like sitting still when Kay’s in danger.”
“I personally think you should just sit back now that Olyn’s agreed to take the burden upon his own shoulders.” Sigid closed her eyes and smiled. “His broad, strong, capable shoulders.”
Arynne paused in her pacing. “Really, Sigid?”
Sigid wrinkled her nose. “Well, you’re not using him. It’s a shame to let him go to waste.”
Arynne gave an exaggerated groan, but something within her lightened. She wasn’t alone in this. She had friends, people who were there for both her and Kay. She still would feel a lot better if Evyd were dead, but at least until she could make that a reality, she had hope.
Sigid tapped her foot. “It is hard to wait, though, I admit. I’m anxious myself.” She snapped her fingers. “I know! I’ll hurry down to the kitchens and get us a spread. Maybe even something I can drip in the tea to ease the tension, if you know what I mean.” She winked.
Arynne opened her mouth to protest that the last thing she needed was anything that would dull her edge right now but decided not to. She could have a few sips of whatever it was to make Sigid feel like she was helping. “That sounds fine.”
They left the bathing chamber. Sigid slipped out the door as Arynne plopped down on her couch. On his perch by the window, Sol leaned forward into a stretch before flapping his white-feathered wings and gliding to Arynne’s side.
“Good boy,” she whispered, running her fingers over his smooth fur and feathers.
Arynne closed her eyes and toyed with the heartbond. She hated how faint it felt. The memory of it blazing between them, alive with passion, during the dimming before still fueled her soul. Still, a connection was a connection, and she’d take what she could get.
Idly she continued to stroke Sol as he butted his head against her shoulder and face.
A burst of silver light exploded within her. Sol sprang into the air with a panicked, “Meeoot!”
The heartbond crackled to life with an intensity that chased away all other sensations. The room around her disappeared. Even her awareness of her own body faded, and she hovered, a disembodied soul surrounded by light, the awareness of Kay’s spirit, and pain.
So, so much pain.
His voice echoed about her, crying out her name in a penetrating mix of despair and desperation.
Her heart shattered.
“Kay?” she screamed.
She pushed forward, trying to find him within the chaos of the vision, but even as she grasped their connection, something stabbed into her core. Ribs she didn’t have cracked within her, pain shot through a body that wasn’t her own, then numbness, darkness. The light around her extinguished as if she’d fallen into a pit.
A quick, steady beat like someone frantically banging on a drum surrounded her until it was all she could feel or hear. Something warm and damp nudged at her face, and she sat up with a gasp.
Two worried yellow eyes gazed down at her. “Mewoo?” Sol cooed.
Arynne sat up, causing the cat-owl to shy away.
“Kay,” she breathed.
Their heartbond still simmered, somehow even weaker than before. If it had been a thread, it was now a strand of spider’s silk, ready to break at any moment. She rushed to the door, yanked it open, and bolted out into the hall.
There was a yelp, and a crash, and she smashed headlong into another human being. Hot tea splashed over her, followed quickly by the shattering of china.
“Arynne?” Sigid grabbed Arynne by the shoulders to keep her from falling. “What’s wrong? Where are you going?”
Arynne jerked away. “I need to get to Olyn. Kay’s in trouble!”
Sigid blinked at her, eyes clouding. “Who is Kay?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
For a moment Kay felt nothing. The knife seemed to descend in slow motion. It hit his body. He saw the blade penetrate his skin, heard the crack of ribs beneath the blow, smelt the acrid odor of fresh blood, but as if from a distance or in a dream.
Then in a rush, the pain hit, slamming into him. He tried to scream but could not.
Friya still gripped the hilt, crouching over him, her face deadly calm, her eyes pitch black. Dark flames rose from her hands, wreathing the knife. Kay writhed. The freezing fire sent waves of agony through his torso.
“Finish it!” Evyd snarled.
“Oh, brother,” Friya intoned, a sly smile creeping over her face. “I have just begun.” With one hand still clutching the knife hilt, she raised her other hand towards Evyd. Black smoke shot from her palm. It snaked about the king, binding him in cords of mist.
Evyd gave a beastial cry. “Friya! What are you doing?”
“What I’ve longed to do since you banished my twin!” she growled.
The fog expanded, surrounding both Kay and his father like impenetrable walls. A gaping pit opened beneath Kay. He felt himself falling out of his body. He tumbled. Friya and Valka stared down at him as if they were standing atop a well and he were toppling down the shaft.
Darkness swirled around him, and a cold wind sprang up, carrying maniacal laughter along with it. Kay hit the ground at bone-jarring speed. Another crash and a rage-filled shout, and his father was beside him. Kay inhaled sharply, then shot to his feet before he could remember he was bound. The pain from his collision faded quickly—too quickly, as if his body no longer had the ability to retain physical sensations.
He wasn’t bound. His shirt no longer had the tear from Friya’s strike, and there was no wound upon his chest. Evyd stared at him, furious eyes glinting in the sickly green light of the Lingering Dark.
“What did you do?” Evyd lunged at Kay.
Still breathless, Kay dodged, and his father stumbled to the frost encrusted stone beneath them.
“What did I do?” Kay’s hand strayed to his chest. How was he alive? ... Or was he alive? “I wasn’t the one meddling in dark magic.”
The distant laughter rose to a fevered pitch, and both men cringed.
With a crackle, a pillar of purple flame rose before them, followed swiftly by a column of sickly green fire. From these stepped two figures: the
sepulchral Athan and the smug Friya.
The blood drained from Evyd’s face. “What is this?”
“Really, brother, isn’t it obvious?” Friya sighed. “When you agreed to sacrifice your own son to prevent Athan’s return, but trusted me completely to perform the ceremony, it was hard enough to contain my glee, but then when you agreed to the memory erasure spell and allowed your blood to be tied into the magic? Well, it was as if you handed me your kingdom with a smile.”
A chill crept through Kay. “You’re the ally Athan—” He shut his mouth.
“Yes, that he mentioned to you.” Friya continued the thought.
Evyd picked himself up and spun to face Kay. “I knew you were in league with my enemies!”
“I’m not!” Kay barked. “Are you still so blind?”
“In spite of my best efforts, the fool never betrayed you. A pity. I would’ve spared his life if he’d given us what we needed willingly rather than force us to remove it with violence.” Athan glided closer, his dark eyes hollow and filled with malice. “His blood was the perfect vehicle for my return. Already with it shed, I feel the mortal realm calling to me like the beckoning of an old friend.”
Evyd’s jaw dropped. “But ... but how? The sacrifice was supposed to bind you to this realm, not—”
“And who told you that would be the result of it, brother?” The merriment lacing Friya’s tone sent a shiver down Kay’s spine.
Evyd’s mouth clamped shut.
“You never let it enter into your head that I could be lying to you?” She laughed. “My, you are a greater fool than even I had imagined. Either your or Kay’s blood would’ve been strong enough on its own to facilitate Athan’s return. When you unquestioningly mingled your blood with Kay’s, victory was mine. Two cat-owls in one spear-throw.”
“And what happens to us?” Kay whispered.
As if in answer, shrill cries echoed about them.
“The dark spirits you summoned to open the door—albeit unwittingly—have caught your scent, and are ready to welcome you into this realm.” A sardonic smile spread across Athan’s thin lips. “As a sorcerer, I was able to bargain with them for my existence, though they took a toll on my strength and leeched off my lifeforce for many starcycles. I suspect they will be less amicable with you.”