Doru wove another spell, but lost control of his threads. At first Keriya thought it a fluke, a lapse in his concentration, but he tried once more and the same thing happened.
She watched him, the sword drooping in her exhausted arms. Doru went as still as an ice sculpture, his eyes bulging out of his head. His body contorted into an impossible shape.
Keriya withdrew as she heard the crack of bones and the groan of straining tendons. Next he went limp, swaying on the spot like a puppet dangling from an invisible thread. If she had pushed him, he would have toppled over—but she didn’t dare draw near.
He twitched. Tension flowed into his body. He straightened gracefully and turned to look at her. When his lightless eyes met hers, goosebumps erupted across her flesh.
“We meet at last, Keriya.”
Keriya didn’t know what had happened, but she was certain that the person standing before her was no longer Doru. She thought she knew who this new monster was, but there was no way it could be . . .
“Necrovar?” she whispered hoarsely.
“You recognize me.” He smiled. “I like a woman with a modicum of sense.”
“I . . . but—how?”
“Doru Maermist died in the Galantrian Village. He no longer exists; he is simply an extension of my power. I am all there is.”
No, no! It was too soon, she wasn’t ready. Keriya had been so busy worrying about Thorion that she’d hardly given any thought to what she would do when she faced the Shadow alone.
Necrovar made Doru’s body step toward her. It was as if the mere presence of such power had transformed the shadowman, making him taller, more muscular, more intimidating. Poison in a capsule. A deadly blade behind a black curtain.
“Your awe is flattering,” he said, addressing her thoughts as he circled her. “And the feelings are mutual. You’ve been the object of my fascination—and frustration—for quite some time. But finally seeing you . . . it’s exhilarating.”
“Why?” she croaked, reduced to single-syllable speech.
“Dear, naïve Keriya. Why? Because I’ve been waiting for this moment for seven thousand years.” He stopped before her and reached out slowly, almost lovingly. He placed one of Doru’s fingers on her cheek and traced it along her jaw. A cold thrill shot through her and she withered away from his touch.
“Ten ages ago, I was unjustly banished to a parallel universe.” His voice had become a sinister hiss. “You know it as the Etherworld. To me, it was hell. My followers were placed in a stasis, suspended in time, but I was conscious for my entire imprisonment. And I was tortured. The Etherworld feeds on energy, so the greater your power, the greater your suffering.”
I need to kill him, Keriya thought. Get him while he’s talking, wait until his back is turned, catch him off guard—
“You can’t catch me off guard. You are transparent and predictable. I know everything about you.” He waggled a finger, as a parent might when scolding a rambunctious child. “You cannot cheat the Shadow. And you cannot kill me.”
“Yes I can. Shivnath chose me for this!”
She didn’t care if it wasn’t true. Just saying the words made her feel less alone, made her believe there might be a chance, however slim, that she would survive this.
Shivnath chose me. She gave me power. She brought me back from the dead to kill Necrovar. I have to wait until the right moment and the magic will come! Though Keriya was wondering, with increasing desperation, when her magic would realize that the right moment was right now.
“Shivnath doesn’t want to kill me,” said Necrovar. “Shivnath wants balance. The balance was ruined long before my rise, and will remain in upheaval as long as mortals are allowed to abuse and defile their powers. The world needs to be saved. And that’s where you come into the picture, my dear.”
“Yes,” she insisted stubbornly, “to kill you.”
“You are not listening to me,” he growled as he began to pace. “I am not meant to be destroyed, I am meant to be the balance. The problem is that I am not balanced. I’ve gained enough strength to widen the Rift, to send my shadowbeasts forth, but my body remains imprisoned. To return to Selaras and secure my eternal rule, I need a particular magic. Do you know which one?”
Given Necrovar’s obsession with Thorion, she could make an educated guess. “Lightmagic?”
“Very good,” he said, clapping slowly. Despite her panic, her jaw clenched angrily at his patronization.
He leaned in close, as if the two of them were old friends. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he breathed. “You are a peace offering, a bartering chip. Shivnath sent you to give me the magic I need.”
“That’s a lie!”
Shivnath would never have done that—not to me, not to Thorion. She wants to save Thorion. Shivnath is the ruler of all that is good and just, and the evil god Helkryvt is her worst enemy! Keriya repeated the line from her favorite book over and over in her head to remind herself that it was true.
A tick went off in Necrovar’s borrowed face. “I’m evil, am I? You think so?”
“I know so.”
“It says more about your character than mine if you believe that. Tell me, did Shivnath, who you so blindly adore and idolize, ever once describe me as evil? Did she ever explicitly command you to kill me?”
“Of course! She said . . .” But as Keriya combed through the conversations she’d had with Shivnath, she realized the dragon god had never said either of those things.
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t possibly be.
Keriya’s knees buckled and she sank to the ground. She had lost control of her body. Her brain was rebelling, trying to tell her that Shivnath had betrayed her.
Necrovar crouched and reached for her free hand. She was so in shock that she allowed him to take her pale fingers in his sable ones.
“You were a sacrifice,” he told her gently. “Shivnath hoped I might take you, and give that damned dragon-child back his soul.”
Another painful frisson of fear roared through her. What did he mean by that? Was it possible that Thorion had been touched by darksalm?
“At first, I refused to do it,” he said. “I didn’t want to win this war with unnecessary cruelty. Besides, your soul meant nothing to me—so I decided to use you to call the one I wanted out of hiding.”
Keriya’s brows knitted. How had Necrovar used her? She’d called Thorion on her own . . . hadn’t she?
“Then you wielded something you had no right to wield.” He straightened and resumed his rhythmic pacing. “That day in the fen, when I saw what you were capable of, I knew you were going to be a problem. You also made Thorion wield, though dragons don’t reach magical maturity until they’ve seen three hundred cycles and that pup is barely a centureling. That is a rare power, even among the rheenarae.”
His words sparked inspiration. “My power! If Shivnath wanted you to take me instead of Thorion, then do it! She gave me—”
“You think a dragon would give you magic? And not just any dragon, but Shivnath, god and ruler of them all?” A bitter chuckle escaped him. “No, Keriya, she gave you nothing.”
“She asked for my help. She put magic in my soul.”
“Do you mean this magical block?” Necrovar raised a hand and contracted Doru’s fingers. Keriya gasped—it felt like someone had grabbed her heart and was trying to yank it from between her ribs. “It was supposed to prevent you from wielding.”
No. Not true. Not possible.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?” he whispered. “Never trust a dragon, my dear.”
Keriya drew a shuddering breath. She was on the verge of tears, but she had no tears to shed. She was empty. Lost.
Alone.
“You know, I admire you,” he continued. “You’ve lived a hard life, yet you carry on with such determination. You are so desperate to prove your worth. In many ways, you remi
nd me of myself when I was young. I understand how you suffer. And for your suffering, I am truly sorry.”
He did sound sorry, but Keriya, who was trying to gather all the broken pieces of herself and put them back together, refused to listen. He was lying! He was trying to turn her against Shivnath in a pathetic attempt to save his sorry neck.
“Still you stand by Shivnath, after everything she put you through. You are loyal to a fault. I admire that about you, too. You are quick to hate, but you wish only to love—and that love, once given, never goes away, does it? You can never just stop loving someone.” A haunted look crossed the shadowman’s face before the sharp glint returned to his eyes.
“I shall have to work to earn your trust. That’s fine. I couldn’t respect you if you were some harlot too easy to please.” He shot her a roguish wink. “You’ve been taught to hate me, but I will give you my side of the story. Once you have all the details, I’ll let you choose for yourself what you believe. Does that sound fair?”
Keriya didn’t respond. Necrovar began anyway.
“In the age before ages, humans used their magic for evil—killing, destroying, taking and abusing powers that did not belong to them—and they ruined the delicate balance of nature. From that imbalance, I rose to power. I am the embodiment of dark energy. I grow stronger with every evil action humans take. The stronger I grow, the more evil humans become; and the more evil humans become, the more everyone suffers. Do you understand this concept?”
“Yes. It—you—are us. The evil is us.”
“I hadn’t meant it like that, but you aren’t wrong,” he conceded. “I’m caught in a vicious cycle, for I also feel the repercussions of those actions, the pain and suffering they cause. So in fact, my only desire is to eradicate evil.”
Keriya didn’t believe that. Trust Necrovar? She would rather throw herself off the cliff, stab herself in the eye with an evasdrin dart, drink drachvold acid.
“In the Second Age, when I bonded with my human host, I gained the ability to wield. I knew what I had to do with my newfound power. The world would only be saved if I ruled it. All who resisted would have to be struck down. The wicked would have to be punished. Those who were evil would have to die.”
“If you gain strength from our evil,” said Keriya, “wouldn’t you die if you got what you wanted?”
“Evil can never truly be eradicated, it can only be contained. And I am the only one who can contain it.”
“That’s a paradox,” she argued. “As long as you’re around, evil won’t be contained. Your whole plan is evil.”
“I take responsibility for my choices. Everything I do is a necessary evil, if you’ll excuse the pun.” He favored her with a dry smile. “Your world doesn’t have a future. Without anyone to control them, humans will destroy it. Everything I do is to create a new future, a peaceful future—a better future.”
“And murdering my dragon? Is that part of your better future?”
“I will forgive your stupidity,” he said icily, “because there is no way you could know the truth. Dragons are not only evil by nature, they are a threat to the balance. Their magic is a danger to us all, so they will be the first to go in my new world.”
“I won’t let you do that,” she declared, sounding braver than she felt.
Necrovar bared his teeth. “You think you can stop me? Not even the dragons could do that. The World Alliance couldn’t stop me. Valerion Equilumos couldn’t stop me. All the gods of Selaras couldn’t stop me!” His voice had crescendoed to a roar, and Keriya flinched away from his wrath.
“But,” he went on, soft and alluring once more, “because I do admire you, Keriya, I’ll make you an offer. I want you to help me. Together, you and I can rule not only Selaras, but the universe. We will reshape destiny. We will balance the magics. And when we rule . . .” He knelt again and placed his hands on her shoulders.
“. . . then no one will ever have to suffer as we have suffered.”
Keriya stared into Necrovar’s eyes. Why was he bothering to make this offer? Moreover, why was he bothering to make this offer to her? She wished it weren’t so, but she felt flattered.
“Join me,” he whispered, moving one hand from her shoulder to her chin, cupping it in his palm.
The fact that Keriya was even considering this made her question the core of her being. How could she, after all she’d been told about Necrovar, think of joining him?
But that had been his point, hadn’t it? Why should she be swayed by the commands and opinions of people like Empress Aldelphia and King Wavewalker, who had proven how dangerous they were? Loath though she was to admit it, Necrovar’s logic seemed sound. He was open and sincere in a way that Shivnath had never been. Now that she’d heard his side of the story, she could make her own choice about who she believed.
Still, who was she to make that choice? The fate of the world hinged on its outcome.
I can’t make this decision, said the voice inside her head. I’m useless. I’m nobody.
If I can keep others from suffering the kinds of things I suffered in Aeria, began another voice, then it’s my duty to join Necrovar. If I can prevent someone else’s pain, I should.
Why should I care about any of them? demanded a dark voice that swam up from the cavernous depths of her consciousness, a place she never dared to inspect too closely. They’ve done nothing for me, and they mean nothing to me.
He’s lying! Don’t trust him. Don’t join him, pleaded a fourth voice.
He’ll kill me if I don’t. There’s no choice, protested a fifth.
Then a different voice rang above the cacophony in her head, a voice that was as familiar as her own:
There is always a choice.
Though Keriya had been torn asunder by Necrovar’s exposition, she knew one thing for certain: he was a threat to Thorion, so she could never join him, no matter how golden his intentions.
She could choose how to face her fears. She could choose who she wanted to be.
“Well?” Necrovar crouched before her, waiting. It seemed he was no longer reading her thoughts—he was waiting for her to announce her decision.
Keriya drew a deep, steadying breath. She stood and backed away, hefting her sword.
“I see,” he said, rising slowly. “Then I’m afraid I must kill you.”
CHAPTER FORTY
“Trying is more important than triumph.”
~ Evran Mistforth, Ninth Age
“I had hoped you would see reason,” said Necrovar. “I had hoped you would choose me.”
Keriya said nothing. If she spoke to him, he would draw her in again. She needed to keep her head clear.
“You are so young,” he mused. “For all you’ve suffered, you know nothing of pain. You are unbroken, and therefore empty. I doubt you understand what you’re facing. I doubt you’ve looked death in the eye and leveled with him.”
“I’ve seen my share of death.” She had confronted death in the Galantrian Village. She’d believed both Fletcher and Roxanne had died in the fen when Doru first attacked them. “In fact, I’ve died before.”
Shut up, she screamed at herself. Don’t talk to him. Don’t tell him anything!
“You could walk away from men you saw murdered, men you never knew or cared about. Your friends were returned to you mere moments after you thought you’d lost them. Even at the end of all things, it was not the end—Shivnath bent the rules of the universe and resurrected you. But death is final and infinite. Death is losing everything you have and everything you are.”
That brought Keriya back to the void. Before Shivnath had returned her memories
, she hadn’t known who she was. She had been nothing, and the memory of that nothingness haunted her.
She understood death better than most.
“So I ask—are you sure this awful world is worth dying for?”
Maybe it wasn’t, and Keriya was ashamed that a part of her felt that way. She would never be pure and kind like Fletcher, who saw the goodness in everyone; she would never be brave and strong like Roxanne, who feared nothing; she would never be powerful and wise like Thorion, who was revered by everyone he met.
But they were a part of this awful world. And if she had to die for something, it would be them.
Thinking of Thorion made him seem close. She drew courage from his imagined presence and prepared for a fight she couldn’t hope to win. Necrovar shook his head, seeming disappointed. Then his eyes slid from her and fixed on something in the trees. His mouth widened in a feral grin.
A roar, deep and powerful, echoed through the jungle. The sound filled Keriya with warmth, mending the fractures in her heart and soul. She turned to see Thorion burst onto the mossy bluff, resplendent against a backdrop of emerald vines. He’d grown in the short time they’d been apart. Moonlight arced across his scales, drenching him with a gloss of triumph.
He ran to her side, and it was as if all the hollow places aching in her chest and mind had vanished.
he replied, leaning his head against her shoulder.
“Thorion Sveltorious.” Necrovar’s caustic hiss brought Keriya crashing back to reality. “Welcome, friend.”
He spoke the draconic language perfectly. Did that mean he was a rheenar? How could he be?
Keriya glanced at Thorion, but his attention was on Necrovar. He narrowed his eyes and curled his scaly lips in a snarl. “I am no friend of yours.”
“Careful with that arrogant tone. I could kill you where you stand if I found you disagreeable.”
“I don’t think so,” said Keriya, surprising even herself. “I think that’s why you’ve been talking all this time instead of making good on your threats. You can’t use your magic on us. Not while we have this.” She waved the bogspectre’s sword at him.
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