Kayna rose to watch the rout, Nara’s forces in full retreat through the pass. As Kayna’s cavalry made a charge to end the enemy, however, the ground erupted, and most of her cavalry were completely swallowed up by the earth. Gone. It was just that fast.
She squinted to see a lone figure on the slope. It was Nara, red hair blowing in the breeze as she rode a pillar of rocks straight at the royal army. Curse Dei!
Nara’s charge was fast and straight, directly toward Kayna and her troops. Brave girl, but she couldn’t take that many.
Moments later, the ground beneath Kayna’s infantry sprouted sinkholes that sucked soldiers down by the dozens. Columns appeared under the archers’ feet, launching them into the air. The entire slope quaked in chaos, shifting, rising and falling at the whim of her sister. Rocks came up to the surface, then fell, churning the earth, sucking in her army and crushing, then burying hundreds of royal troops.
Some of Kayna’s elites charged forward, but many of her soldiers broke ranks, having no way to move or attack when the ground they depended on had now become their enemy. Cowards! But Nara was no normal enemy. She commanded the earth beneath their feet today, and it was obeying her.
Kayna refused to lose her army over this. Or her crown. Curling a lip in frustration, she rose with the air, calling to a sergeant nearby, and pointed behind the platform at the string of prisoners. “Keep them close to me,” she said. “Looks like I may need them.”
Nara’s first wave of attacks fell upon the front lines, sinkholes and churning earth killing many and confusing others. There was no time for lamenting the lost lives—she was up against an entire army herself, with little energy left in her spirit. If she could delay them long enough for her own army to escape, this would be a worthy effort.
Anne had faith in her and believed that Nara was the only one who could defeat Kayna. Now Anne was dying herself, on the other side of this battlefield. Sammy was misshapen and had been turned against her and Mykel. Children from across the Great Land had been captured and tortured. If she failed, the darkness would persist.
Nara was the only hope for an end to the horrors. She wouldn’t give up yet. Not when there was any chance of ending this fight with a win. She wielded the name of the earth, and although weak, she wasn’t out of strength just yet.
Directing the pillar that carried her to the right, she blocked the passage of any remaining horsemen from slipping around toward the pass. Then she realized—she didn’t need to block them herself; she could let the earth do it. She willed it to be, and a giant pit, hundreds of feet across and a dozen feet deep, appeared on the slope between Kayna’s army and the pass. Let them detour around that!
Again, she focused her attention on Kayna’s army, which was in disarray and confusion. Many more were fleeing. They may have held the battlefield for a while, but they didn’t seem eager to stay. Nara stopped advancing, hoping they would all retreat, only to be disappointed when she saw Kayna engage. Up from her platform the Queen rose, followed by a man on horseback leading a string of dirty, emaciated prisoners. Fuel for their mistress. Nara should have figured as much.
Nara had no such energy to draw from, but she had complete command of the earth, which now required almost no strength from her. “Uf-fhal!” she said again, flaring earth and reasserting her mastery over her best weapon. She hoped it would be enough.
Kayna came close, floating about twenty feet above the pitted slope, matching Nara’s height on her shifting pillar of earth. Nara was now eye-to-eye with the source of the Great Land’s troubles.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Kayna yelled.
“And I you.”
Then half of the prisoners collapsed, writhing and shrinking, their life force sucked into Kayna from almost a hundred feet away without her even glancing at them. Nara used sight to discover that Kayna’s body was decorated with cepps. Rings on her fingers, bracers on her arms, and greaves under her dress shining so brightly they all had to be made of coral. Like the king’s armor.
Nara attacked first, sending a pillar of rock straight up at her sister, but Kayna easily dodged. Kayna was not vulnerable to the unstable earth that had scattered her army. She floated above it all, and Nara now realized how different this fight would be. Nara’s success had depended on her enemy standing upon the earth, but earth couldn’t touch Kayna. And Nara didn’t have the strength to attack any other way.
Wait. Yes, she did.
Behind Kayna, a thirty-foot wall of earth rose, then Nara flared the fire rune, screamed “Aysh” and let a torrent fly.
The power of fire, when its name was called, dwarfed any destruction Nara had ever seen before—a raging inferno erupting from her fingers toward her hated sister. It launched Kayna backward to impact the wall with a thundering sound that sent her into the dirt barrier, the crushing impact making a thunderous noise.
But Kayna had protection flared and recovered a moment later, a gust of wind sustaining her flight as she moved away from the earthen wall. She must have shielded herself from the fire with a gust of air, because her dress was only partially burned, now tattered and smoking. Her skin was scorched in places, raw and red, including her left shoulder, where the damage extended deep into the bone. Some of her hair was gone, burned away, but the health rune flashed, and Kayna’s body became whole once again, her face now twisted in a snarling rage. A gust of air launched the Queen forward.
Nara raised a rock wall to stop Kayna’s charge and give her time to send another burst of fire, but Kayna flared chaos and the wall fell apart. An instant later, Kayna was upon Nara, a hand around her arm, squeezing like a vise and spinning.
Supreme strength, far greater than Sammy’s, swung Nara toward the ground, but Nara flared protection just before impact. The collision took the breath out of her, and she was dizzy, unable to focus. She looked up just in time to see fire coming down from the heavens.
Again, she flared protection and also summoned earth to block the attack, but the earth was too slow, flames hitting her before the barrier could intercede. Her clothes singed and skin burned, even with the protection rune active. Kayna had so much strength, powered by coral cepps and devoured souls, her might was greater by far, and using protection had depleted Nara’s meager reserves even further.
Pain from the burns racked her body. She flared health and moved away on a pillar of earth. Movement caught her eye. Mykel was racing through the pit that blocked the pass. He leaped out of the depression and onto the slope, running directly for Kayna.
Kayna turned to follow Nara’s gaze.
“So, your lover comes to save the day, does he?”
Nara shot flames at Kayna, but just as she did so, Kayna flared motion without even looking in Nara’s direction, launching Nara into the air hundreds of feet away. The wind whistled through her ears as she fell, but before colliding, she transformed the earth below into soft dirt to ease the blow. It was still hard enough to twist her right forearm unnaturally on impact. Nara cried out as the pain burned hot.
She grabbed her broken arm with the other hand and pulled it straight with a scream, then flared health to knit the bone. Just a bit, not much—she dared not use all of her energy. Her legs grew weaker, and her vision blurred again. Looking up, she saw Kayna’s form high in the sky, silhouetted against the rising sun. Watching.
Struggling against the fatigue, Nara rose to her feet. Her legs would not run for her, so she commanded the earth again to propel her, high toward Kayna once again. But before she could finish her approach, a giant rock flew through the air and struck Kayna, knocking her sideways.
Mykel was throwing huge rocks at the Queen, screaming as he did so. Boulders far larger than a man’s head catapulted toward Kayna, most of them missing his target. Such strength he spent in his effort, but it was the only way he could attack her. Just then, beyond Mykel, Nara saw a large figure running at a full sprint for Mykel.
Sammy.
Struggling to focus her vision, N
ara put up an earthen wall to block him, but Sammy charged right through it, tackling Mykel and knocking the staff far from his reach. Arms locked about Mykel in fury as Sammy beat on his brother with thunderous blows and Nara could see Mykel’s protection rune failing.
Motion out of the corner of her eye alerted Nara and she turned to see Kayna flying on the wind toward her, chaos flared. Nara threw up an earthen wall, but it disintegrated. She flared protection, but it shredded.
This was it. This was the end.
Even the name of earth would not defeat Kayna. The name of fire had done no better.
But she hadn’t tried sound.
Sound, you are the key, I know you are, she thought. What was your name?
Then she had it. Ni-shma.
She flared the sound rune and called, “Ni-shma!”
The power of sound’s name being uttered propelled Kayna backward, forcing her to steady herself in the air.
Again, Nara flared the rune, screaming ever louder, “Ni-shma!” The ground shook with the power of Nara’s twice-amplified voice, columns of rock in the landscape below shattering with the power she uttered. An avalanche crashed down in the pass, thundering and building as if bowing in obedience to the power of her voice. So much power in the names!
Power that might change everything.
Her thoughts turned to earth. So many times, she had flared the earth rune, and it was a friend, a willing partner. She’d shaped it, coaxed it, let it ease the pain of her headaches or asked it to carry her strength to Mykel as he fought. But when she asked for it to yield her its energy, it refused. Time and again, it said no. Things were different, now. She had the name of earth, and she had the name of sound, and she could use one to command the other. With power in her voice, Nara now flared the earth rune with all her might and screamed with her very soul, “UF-FHAL!”
She heard a giant crack, and the spirit of the earth broke open.
The power that came up from the earth was nothing like she expected, overwhelming Nara with euphoria like no other. It was alive with power but also with memories that stretched eons. Time seemed to stand still as images flooded her mind. Scenes from mountains, valleys, and hills across a vast expanse of ages where people walked, where trees dug their roots, and animals burrowed their homes. She felt the presence of other nations across the globe, castles carved from the rock of the earth, homes built from the clay of her riverbeds. The entire world was Nara’s now, a slave to do her bidding, and she held unlimited power, power held secret since the beginning of creation. She could change the course of rivers, raise islands, crush entire armies, or swallow cities. But, at the moment, she had only one goal.
Nara tapped her new source of power, flaring protection and health. Her body repaired itself, just as Kayna threw chaos. It was a mosquito attacking a castle wall. A toothpick against an iron shield. Kayna threw fire, a raging inferno in power and in anger, but Nara didn’t even feel it.
Kayna continued, unrelenting in her attack on Nara, but to no effect. She sent fire and gusts of air. She screamed and screamed, but Nara was untouched. Nara flared the motion rune from several directions, paralyzing Kayna in midair as if she were a puppet.
“It’s over,” Nara said, voice thundering. The confidence in her heart was absolute, the power she bore unlimited. Her voice was a raging river, her words a thunderous mountain. She reached deep into the ground beneath her, summoning the spirit of the rock and the dirt, not asking but demanding the magic that would end this fight. Her spirit surged with ancient power.
A gargantuan fissure opened in the ground, shaking the battlefield below. Avalanches streamed down the slopes of the Twins, and Nara sensed a tremor shaking the Great Land, the Yukan, and beyond. She was one with the earth, sensing its movements, and that which rested upon it. Buildings in Fairmont, Ankar, and Junn shook under the strength of the growing quake, falling into dust with the power of a subjugated earth. The world was unmaking itself.
She sensed the spiked peak of the Twins shift, then fracture as it tumbled down its own slopes. The planet was crying in pain.
Because of her.
Like harvesting a human being, Nara was stealing life she had no claim to. Castle walls crumbled, and children were running from their collapsing homes.
Because of her.
Many would die in this cataclysm. Through the magic of the earth, she felt their suffering. Their panic. Mothers screamed in anguish across the land, their voices silenced as they expired. Castles shattered, libraries and churches burned, and innocent people went quiet. Nara was murdering the world.
It doesn’t belong to you.
The voice was deep but didn’t ring in her ears. It was in her mind. She looked around. Mykel and Sammy were still fighting below on the chaotic landscape, Kayna was paralyzed with a face full of fear, but Nara couldn’t find where the voice came from.
Let it go.
The voice brought clarity, shaking the euphoria that had overwhelmed her. For a moment, she came to her senses and realized what she was doing. She was destroying everything she had tried to protect, embracing violence that gave birth to pain. Instead of seeking Dei and His favor, she had succumbed to pain and anger, embracing not life, but death, overstepping her bounds. She had crossed a line into the realm of the divine, where she had no rightful place. She had the power to end Kayna, right here, but the cost would be too high.
Let it go.
That was His voice. It had to be. So long she had yearned to hear it, and now He came at this moment? To tell her to give up?
Trust me.
A tug-of-war ensued in Nara’s mind. Let go of the power, the sweet, sweet power, and embrace death, or use it to save the Great Land. But she wasn’t saving the Great Land. She was annihilating it.
At that moment, she realized her greatest fear, that she was a dark thing, not born of Dei but choosing the way of Kai. A demon of destruction and death, a bringer of calamity and anguish, much worse than her sister.
“What am I doing?” she said with a whisper that was heard for miles.
The horror of her now complete realization cleared her of the intoxicating effect of the magic. Dei’s words had helped restore her senses, but she didn’t know how long she would retain the clarity.
“I can’t do this,” she said. “This isn’t me.”
Let it go.
Nara let the power go. Back into the earth the magic flowed in an instant, straight down into the soil, the bedrock, to its home, where it belonged. The earth stopped shaking, and Nara fell to the ground as the pillar under her collapsed into dust.
Now free of her bonds, Kayna flared air, coming straight at Nara like a bolt from a crossbow. She flared chaos and Nara’s skin sprouted sores, limbs contorting as the life siphoned out of her body. Horrible pain.
Flare protection. Now. Deep within yourself.
The voice again! Nara obeyed, flaring protection with her last ounce of strength, but it was too late for her body. She flared it much deeper, around her spirit. Cloaked in the rune, she closed her eyes a moment before they turned to dust. The agony faded, growing distant now, as if it was happening to someone else. She felt her legs disintegrate. It was a curious feeling, safely housed in the protection rune as her body gave up its life.
Then the pain stopped, and her spirit was free.
37
History
The pain was gone. Nara floated in a detached state of being, fear and panic a distant memory. She looked about to see one of the Twins as it crumbled in slow motion. Kayna, clothes burnt and visage manic, floated over a slope while she harvested the life of a human being. The person was blackened, shriveled, with her limbs, her skull, then her whole body turning to dust. It was Nara’s own body. She was dead now, but somehow not afraid. Why not?
She looked around again to see Mykel sprinting across the broken field. He had subdued his brother yet again but now raced to save his love. He was too late.
A tug from inside her brought a curious f
eeling, then the landscape faded away like a waning light. A different light dawned in Nara’s vision, and she felt a rushing sensation as she hurtled down a tunnel. Her progress slowed as the new light grew, welcoming her with a strange warmth, comforting and peaceful.
A heartbeat later, she found herself standing on a beautiful field, high snow-capped mountains visible in the distance. Flowers decorated the field for farther than she could see, in colors she didn’t have names for. So beautiful! The lights of other people walked through the field, but they were far away, and she couldn’t see any details.
Nara stood there for a long time but didn’t know what she waited for. The warmth on her skin was comforting, and she felt she could stand there for hours. A gentle breeze danced through the flowers and grasses as the other lights in the field moved about. Was this heaven?
One of the lights came nearer, and as it did so, the image flickered, the brilliance of it fading until it was a single form. A woman. She was not tall, and neither old nor young. She moved with a glow through the flowers and grasses of the field, gracefully and confidently. As she approached, Nara could see that her hair was a deep auburn, long and wavy, and her face bore large brown eyes and a wide smile.
“Took you long enough,” she said, then gave a hearty chuckle.
It was Anne. She was alive, and so much younger! She carried no cane and wore no patch over her eye.
Nara ran the last few steps and embraced her mentor with all her might.
“Well, now. Look who misses me so much!”
“I thought you were dead!” Nara said, and pulled back but kept a solid grip on Anne’s hand. “On the slope near the Twins, you were bleeding, and I knitted you, but you were pale, and I thought you were dying. It was terrible.”
“You weren’t wrong.”
A wave of knowledge came over Nara, washing away the elation that had clouded her senses. “Oh.”
“Yes, I’m dead,” Anne said. “Finally. It took me long enough.”
Finding Kai Page 23