The Fate of the Tala

by Jeffe Kennedy

  Was that how Rayfe felt, hearing words that weren’t his coming out of his mouth? No—the high priestess must do something to dull his awareness so he didn’t know what was going on. I startled Jepp because she was fully aware. I was purging Rayfe as soon as possible, I didn’t care what Ursula said.

  “I have to hold the portal open,” I explained quickly. “I can’t just open it and leave—I have to be present. I’ll update Ursula and will be back in an hour. Yes?”

  Kral scrutinized the search pattern, picked up an instrument and measured against the sky. “Make it two hours, and we’ll be ready. Tell Her Majesty to trust us to make decisions here. She can’t control every Danu-cursed thing.”

  I felt Jepp roll her eyes. “Leaving now,” I said through Jepp’s mouth, as it felt like the right courtesy. As I withdrew, I heard her spit over the rail. “If I never have to do that again, it will be too soon,” she declared.

  Apparently I didn’t need to defect to Deyrr to become just like the high priestess. No time for guilt, however. I ran a quick check of the barrier, as I mentally travelled away. All good. I drew my consciousness back over the waters, past n’Andana, then scanned for the null spot that would be Zynda. I found her quite easily. That was a concern as the high priestess no doubt could do the same. I touched Zynda’s mind in greeting, a sort of knock on the door I could do with a sister telepath that didn’t work with someone like Jepp.

  Zynda welcomed me in with a mental embrace.

  “How’s progress?” I asked.

  “Sea and sky, sea and sky,” she answered with a mental shrug. “Zyr is holding up well, as are the reinforcements. No trouble so far. If they’re expecting us, they’re letting us come all the way in, which makes sense for an ambush. I estimate we’ll arrive in about three hours.”

  I mentally groaned. How long would it take a warship to sail through the portal? Some time to verify they’d found it, then to alter course. Then time to actually pass through. For multiple ships to come through and make the battle worth it… The timing couldn’t be worse.

  But if the high priestess was helping Hestar, we needed the distraction of that battle to divide her attention. We’d deliberately set up this timing to coincide. I really hated that Ursula might be right about too much depending solely on me. I refused to be the weak link.

  “All right, I’ll be back before then,” I promised.

  “Careful what you think at me—she might be able to listen in.”

  Good point. This began to feel very bad, the balance shifting in the wrong direction. Back in my own body and senses, I gazed out at the dark ocean beyond the glow of the Heart. The crabs winked glossy blue as they scrabbled over the dome, doing their work.

  So tempting to look through the future visions, to see how the next few hours would fall out. But what good would that serve? I’d committed to several courses of action—we all had—and knowing one way or the other at this point wouldn’t give us time to change course. Or would it?

  I rolled the Star in my palm, hoping I’d made the right choice not to send it with Zynda. I might not be able to strike at the high priestess as effectively through her smaller focus stone, but in the moment intuition—or Moranu?—had advised me not to send the powerful artifact into Deyrr’s hands. Moranu, I’m listening.

  Nothing. Just me, my thoughts, and the glow of the Star. I could wish that it held the power to guide me through this chain of decisions the way it had guided Ursula and Ami to rescue me when Terin and his gang had kidnapped Stella and taken me hostage. A foolish gambit of theirs, as it would’ve been years before Stella could get them into the Heart. I still didn’t know what Terin’s little rebellion had hoped to gain by—

  I sat up straighter, the edge of realization creeping over me, a pattern emerging that I hadn’t had the wit to recognize before.

  Stella had been born with the Mark of the Tala, as I had. We’d assumed Terin had abducted Stella as a way to control the Heart, which was puzzling since she was only an infant at the time and wouldn’t be able to access it until she matured into a young woman. But looking at the bigger picture—what else was going on at that same time? Illyria, minion of Deyrr and of the high priestess, had been in Ordnung, manipulating Uorsin, trying to locate and steal the Star.

  She’d been unsuccessful because Ursula had brought the Star with her into Annfwn, chasing after Terin. Our late, unlamented Uncle Terin had been outside the much smaller barrier that at the time enclosed only Annfwn. He’d left after I demonstrated my ability to control the barrier, to become Queen of Annfwn in fact as well as in name. He’d been bitter that his brother—Salena’s mate in their youth—had committed suicide, jealous, bent on revenge. Easy emotions to manipulate.

  Could Terin have been mind-controlled by the high priestess to kidnap Stella? That would explain a great deal. It had made no sense, the way Terin and his people had holed up in that cave. A desperation move we’d thought at the time, going to ground, but what if they’d been waiting? I thought back to those few days I’d been held by them, mostly concerned with caring for baby Stella, confident that Rayfe would come for me, as he’d always sworn he’d do. Those hushed conversations, Terin watching impatiently, pacing. Protesting when his people had argued for surrender. Refusing to leave that place.

  I’d sealed the barrier a few days before that, right after Ursula and Harlan came through. I’d needed to admit them, but I’d known I’d be distracted by the search for Stella. I’d been still learning to sort the ever-changing visions of the future. So I’d made the barrier impermeable even to animals for those few days, as one less thing to think about. Had I inadvertently—and fortuitously—shut out the high priestess?

  It could’ve been a two-pronged strategy in direct response to my taking my mother’s place in Annfwn: get the Star and take control of the Heart using Stella.

  Understanding unfolded like window after window opening into a brightly lit room. This was why Windroven had been under siege all this time—because of Stella. I’d seen visions of the storming of Windroven, the devastating attacks that tore the castle from its clifftop perch. I’d thought those visions had been due to Djakos, but then the visions hadn’t changed when Zynda and Marskal liberated the slumbering dragon. Instead it seemed that Djakos might’ve been what held the Deyrr creatures at bay.

  The high priestess wanted Stella. It was so obvious now, though she’d hidden that aim as deftly as a con artist sliding shells from one spot to the next.

  The high priestess wanted the Star of Annfwn, too, which I’d nearly handed to her. Could she have been manipulating us into that move, one I’d thwarted only by last-moment instinct? But clearly she believed that Stella would give her something she needed.

  And now Stella was in Annfwn, unprotected because we’d sent all of our warriors away.

  Panic surging in me, I pocketed the Star, and flung myself at the Heart’s barrier, shapeshifting into a deep-water fish first, then wriggling my way through. Painfully and ignominiously slow. After that, I ascended rapidly, shifting from one form to the next, then finally shooting into the air as the heron, arrowing my way toward the cliff city. My staymach guard swirled up, spun around me and, reading my mood, shifted into raptor form. The harbor and bay looked stark and empty, with so many ships out, the previously teeming cliff city nearly a ghost town with so many of the warriors departed on our oh-so-clever plan, leaving Annfwn virtually undefended.

  I pumped my wings, cursing myself for being a fool. I’d said it to Rayfe myself, only hours before. The fighters can take care of themselves. The rest of the people here rely on your protection. The non-combatants, the children, the elderly, those who can’t or won’t fight—they need you.

  They weren’t only coming for Stella. This was it. The attack on Annfwn I’d seen a thousand times in my mind had nearly arrived. And we were woefully vulnerable.

  I desperately wanted to call for Rayfe.

  I didn’t dare call for him.

  This would be up to m
e. First things first. We could afford to lose this battle. If we lost Stella to them, we’d lose the war. I knew it as surely as if Moranu whispered in my mind.

  I flew directly to the council chambers, landing in their midst and shifting back to human form with a thump to the floor that startled everyone. Rayfe wasn’t there. Ursula and Harlan both leapt to their feet, swords drawn.

  “What?” Ursula demanded.

  “And who is watching Rayfe? Where are the kids?” I demanded in turn, and Ami surged to her feet also. “Stella—where is she?”

  “At the new secret training ground.” Ami had gone deathly pale. “Why—what’s wrong?”

  “Where is it?” I nearly shouted at her. Why, oh why hadn’t I had someone tell me? This was what came of delegating.

  Ami was already moving. “I’ll take you there.”

  “Where’s Rayfe?” I called as I ran with her.

  “We’re coming.” Ursula and Harlan paced us. “I have two Hawks on Rayfe.”

  I spun back. Nakoa had stood, too, Dafne clutching the baby to her, eyes wide. “Dafne,” I said, “call Kiraka to defend you. Nakoa, guard them. Don’t trust anyone until we return.” It burned my mouth to say it. “Not even Rayfe.”

  I hurried to catch up with Ami, who’d gathered her skirts to run, moving far more swiftly than I’d expected of her. Summoning more staymachs, I gathered them to us, sending a warning out to all the denizens of the cliff city. Attack incoming, I broadcast to anyone who could hear. Wizards, seal the lower levels, close off the upper. Prepare to defend! Prepare for siege.

  With another thought, I activated the Gate of Annfwn, closing down access to the rest of the kingdoms. Annfwn might fall, but maybe we could restrict the doom to this place.

  “Andi, explain.” Ursula ran easily beside me.

  “We fucked up. I did. We have to abort the attack on n’Andana. They’re coming here. I’m sending the call to lock up the city and prepare for attack.”

  Ursula cursed viciously. “Can you tell Kral—can someone?”

  “I have to get to Stella first. Then… No. Too late. They’re already here.”

  “What—”

  A roar interrupted the question as all around, serenity went to jagged chaos. The sea erupted into geysers typhooning at the cliff city. Sand clogged the air, and shrieks rent the sky. Deyrr’s n’Andanan forces swarmed over the beach like swamp midges descending on bare flesh. Screams rang out, and the formerly empty harbor suddenly teemed with ships. Barely a tenth of them ours.

  She’d fooled me. Completely and thoroughly.

  Ursula hurled orders at a few of her lieutenants. Cursed. “I have to mount the defense.”

  “Go do that. I have to stop her from getting Stella,” I bit out. Ami was racing for the lower caverns. Of course, of course. We’d learned the cliff heights were unsafe so we went down to protect the kids. So easily pushed this way and that. Right into her waiting hands. “Ami!” I yelled in sudden panic, realizing what she would run headlong into.

  I shifted to heron form again. My staymach guard, now raptors with wicked beaks and lethal talons, flanked me, as I plunged into the shadows below. The lower levels were dark. The parts of the cliff city open to air and light started well above beach level, but inside they dug down deep. Though Tala rushed to obey my orders, all the portals—even the ones closed on peaceful days—all stood open to the beach. Rayfe. Only he could’ve issued that command. What… I turned a corner and found two of Ursula’s Hawks, a woman whose name I didn’t know and a man named Tays. Both dead, showing marks from Rayfe’s wolfhound guard.

  With our doors standing open, the Deyrr army poured into the cliff city, countless animals of all kinds, from gigantic to tiny, cascading through the arches in an unending wave. Ami slowed, aghast at the sight, then set her shoulders in her trademark obstinacy and started forward again. I winged ahead of her, circling to buffet her with my wings, herding her back.

  She tried to bat me away, head down, but Harlan appeared just then, exercising the simple expedient of lifting Ami and tossing her over his shoulder, as she screamed bloody murder. I left him to protect her, knowing with a certainty that could be foresight or was simple logic where to find the kids.

  I flew through and over the Deyrr attackers, masking myself with the high priestess’s mind-control taint, one more bird among many. Taking a shortcut through the warren of tunnels, I quickly put them behind me, and followed the echoing ursine roars of Meg, and the shrieks of terrified children.

  Reaching out wildly in a mental call, I risked a message to Zynda. “Abort, abort, abort.”

  “What? I don’t—Oh, Moranu save us,” she swiftly followed as I showed her the scene. “We’re coming, but it will be hours.”

  I knew. I knew all too well. “Send someone to Kral. Warn the fleet.”

  “Warn them of what, exactly? What can they do?”

  I rounded the bend in the tunnel, the screams and roars no longer echoes, but immediate and terrifying to my sensitive ears.

  “Andi? Andi, what—”

  I shut out Zynda’s mind-voice with ruthless resolve. All that mattered was in front of me: a wall of Deyrr creatures trapping the children in a cave. Landing and changing to human form—and fought off the wave of dizziness that came from shapeshifting so many times in succession—I brandished the Star, which glowed like a sun. Tapping into the fiery power of the heart, I hit the advancing creatures with a blast of magic.

  It bounced off them, just as had happened with the warthog. They turned, far too alert and fast for the standard Deyrr creature, recognizing me now as the enemy, moving fast toward me.

  I couldn’t possibly fight them all. Instead, I swallowed the dizziness and changed to horse form, galloping with all speed for the children. If nothing else, I had to rescue Stella. We might be doomed to lose this battle—as I’d seen all along—but forfeiting Stella would be the absolute and final defeat.

  I burst through, ignoring the bite of claws and teeth—and came face to face with Rayfe, in human form. Meg lay collapsed his feet, and he pointed a bloody sword at a snarling bear cub, Astar. In his arm, he gripped a fiercely struggling, naked, and blood-smeared Stella.

  ~ 18 ~

  All right. So we were doing this.

  All of those visions of the future, of this moment, telescoped into a concise present. I focused on this, and only this. I gathered the power to me, from the Heart, from the ambient magic of Annfwn soaked into the very stones around me, and my own native magic, wringing out the cells of my body for everything in me.

  As I did, Astar lunged, swiping at Rayfe, and he—expression cold and somehow cruelly beautiful with the high priestess’s visage—stabbed the sword into the bear cub’s breast. Stella screamed like a person five times her size, the gut-curdling wail shocking Rayfe. Her clawed fingers raked down his face, gouging his eyes and making him jerk backward.

  “You brat!” he howled, his voice a curious comingling of the high priestess’s chill command and the wolf’s howl. Power whipped out, fastened on Stella, and she went limp, unconscious.

  Taking the opportunity Stella afforded me, I focused all my power through the Star and stabbed at him.

  Or, rather, at the tether of her consciousness connecting to Rayfe. Like an oily black rope, it snaked from the distance, from wherever the high priestess physically was. I wasn’t going for her, however, instead I concentrated on where the connection split into his mind, sundering into its many branching and countless small connections that needled into the smallest parts of his brain—tiny tentacles operating the levers that made him move, hear, speak. Betray.

  Ruthlessly, I laid his mind open with my mental knife. I couldn’t afford sentimentality or fear. Rayfe’s mind was chaos. His will struggling to reassert itself. Deep panic. Overwhelming remorse and fury. And the multiplying threads of Deyrr magic, slamming the cage doors shut on him.

  I felt her, turning her attention to me. Calling her minions to attack me.

  I spare
d a thought to alert my staymach guard, but had no time for surgical precision with Rayfe. Throwing all of my intent behind it, I reached for the rope to the high priestess, biting back the instinctive revulsion as the Deyrr magic slimed into me as I gripped it.

  She was there, and so was the god.

  As I’d seen through Karyn’s eyes, the remorseless golden face of the incarnate god—chillingly beautiful, unbearably cruel—stared into my very soul with His black, depthless gaze.

  You cannot defeat me, mortal daughter, He whispered chidingly. The gods are beyond your ken.

  “I don’t have to.” I probably said it aloud, too focused on sharpening and positioning my mental blade to bother with making my words mind-voice only. Thank Moranu I’d so carefully planned how I’d do this. “I only have to cut off your hands.”

  With superhuman effort, I sliced through the rope, holding on with everything in me to the end tethered to Rayfe’s mind. I hauled at the other end, grimly delighted by the high priestess’s agony thrumming down the taut length, then released it. It snapped back with a boom that resonated on physical and metaphysical levels. The high priestess screamed, the sound scraping across the timeline with horrifying resonance. She punched back at me, reaching into and through me, opening a hole in something deep inside. Stunned by the unexpected blow, I lashed back at her—and she vanished, Deyrr’s presence going with her.

  Though I held on as tightly as I knew how, the threads of Deyrr control still embedded in Rayfe’s mind slipped from my grasp like water through splayed fingers. Rayfe sent up a howl of anguish, blood pouring from his eyes, ears and mouth. He fell, and, still unconscious, Stella went with him. Both collapsed over Astar’s prone and bleeding body.

  No! I lunged for them and—

  Claws raked my back, teeth sinking into my neck. My turn to scream, the physical agony a shock after being so immersed in the metaphysical realm. I rallied my staymach guard, bringing them in to free me from whatever had me in its grip. Spending power recklessly, I spun out a blade of power and severed the connections of these creatures to Deyrr. It would leave their souls suspended, forever trapped in Deyrr’s hold and removed from their undead bodies, but I couldn’t do otherwise.