For a moment, the Hunter could have sworn she was about to continue, but she’d cut herself off mid-sentence.
“So these towers gather the light of the sun and transform it into magical energy?” he asked. “But what happens to all that energy?”
Taiana shot a strange look over her shoulder, then shook her head. “It is needed to sustain life.”
Again, the Hunter found her behavior strange. She answered his questions, but it felt like she only revealed part of the truth. A reminder that she was hiding something from him.
His thoughts flashed back to the conversation they’d had the first night he’d arrived. She had spoken of her time trapped in the Chambers of Sustenance, how it had changed her. She had also mentioned someone who would explain everything and make it clear.
No sense dancing around things any longer, the Hunter thought. Better to come straight out and ask.
“You mentioned speaking to someone who would explain it all,” the Hunter asked as he accompanied her down the stairs. “When will I meet this person?”
Taiana faltered for a heartbeat, her foot freezing in midair above the step. “Soon,” she said. “Once we have found our daughter, I will take you to him.”
The Hunter grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him. “Why not now?” His eyes narrowed. “Why won’t you tell me who he is?”
Her face twisted into a mask of sorrow. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” the Hunter growled.
After a moment, she let out a slow breath. “Because you wouldn’t understand.”
“Why wouldn’t I understand?” Her stonewalling fanned the flames of anger he’d been trying to control.
She met his gaze, and beneath the sorrow, steel sparkled in her black eyes. “Because you have believed the lies.”
“What lies?” the Hunter demanded.
“There’s too much to explain.” Taiana pulled free of his grip and returned to descending the stairs. “And too little time in which to do it.”
“Damn it, Taiana, stop with this cryptic horse shite and tell me what the bloody hell is going on!” The Hunter leapt around her and planted himself on the stair directly in front of her.
She stopped, and her expression grew pleading. “Drayvin, I want to tell you. More than anything else, I want you to understand everything. But we have to find Jaia before the Withering.”
“Why?” The Hunter demanded. “Why is it so important that we find our daughter before noon tomorrow? You know I want to find her as much as you do, but can’t you see we have more important problems to deal with? Like the Keeper-damned Sage and his Elivasti, and getting Hailen out of his clutches before he uses the boy to activate the power of Enarium.”
“It is precisely because he has your Hailen that we need to find our daughter.” Her voice rose to a shout, and an anger born of frustration and desperation glittered in her eyes. “With the Melechha’s blood, he has everything he needs to activate the power of Enarium and, in doing so, turn every soul trapped within the Chambers of Sustenance to ash.”
The thought of his daughter being turned into one of those blackened, withered corpses drove a dagger of horror into the Hunter’s gut.
Taiana gestured around her. “These Keeps are designed to collect the light of the sun and transform it into magical energy, which is stored in the bodies of those housed in the Chambers. But when the Keep is activated, it draws that magical energy out of its hosts. The draining will happen so quickly and with such force that it will suck all life from those within the Chambers. Not even the body of a Bucelarii could survive that. They were designed for the Serenii, after all.”
The Hunter pictured his daughter, barely more than an infant when the Warmaster had ripped her from Taiana’s arms, crumbling to ash as the Keeps tore the magical energy from her body.
“No.” His fists clenched with such force his hands trembled. “We will not permit that to happen.”
“We must free all those within the Chambers of Sustenance not only in this Keep, but in every other Keep in Enarium.” Taiana’s face creased into a frown. “We’ll have to move quickly to get to them all before the Withering, but with Soulhunger—”
“Even with Soulhunger, we’re not going to have time.” The Hunter thrust a finger upward. “But if we destroy whatever controls activate the power, we could stop the Sage from using the Keep at all. Surely there has to be a way to--”
“No!” Her voice held a burning intensity he’d never seen in her before. “The Keeps must remain functional.”
“Why?” the Hunter asked. His eyes narrowed. “You don’t want the Sage to activate their power, but you don’t want their power shut off. Why the bloody hell not?”
“Because Enarium has to remain intact.” Her eyes slid away from his. “The power of the city is vital.”
“For what?” Anger flared hot within the Hunter. He’d had enough of her half-answers. “Why is it so important? You’ve seen what happens to people locked away in those Chambers. Why would you want that to continue? What is so important that you would risk the Sage using the power?”
“I told you,” she said, and her expression grew guarded. “It is something he must explain to you for himself. He will make you understand.”
“This again?” The Hunter threw up his hands. “Who in the fiery hell is this mystery man that you follow blindly, like a calf to the slaughter?”
“It is no man.” She spoke in a quiet voice. “I answer to the one below us all.”
Something in those words froze the Hunter’s blood to ice. “No,” he breathed. He knew what she was about to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to belief it.
Her face grew as hard as the stone beneath their feet. “Yes. All of this is for Kharna.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Horror roiled in the Hunter’s gut. He’d wanted to believe that even after all this time, they had similar goals. He could understand her driving need to find their daughter, but this?
It can’t be!
Acid surged in the back of his throat. “You’re serving the Devourer?”
“Never!” Fire flashed in her eyes. “We’re fighting to stop it!”
“But you just said—”
“Listen,” Taiana gripped his shoulder in a strong hand. “The Devourer is death and destruction, the end of all things.”
“Which is precisely why Kharna needs to be stopped.”
“No!” Taiana growled, a gesture that reminded him a lot of himself. “Kharna is not the danger you think he is. He is—”
“The Keeper-damned Destroyer, the Devourer of Worlds!” The Hunter’s voice rose to a furious shout. “After everything that has happened to us because of him, how could you serve him? You know what will happen if he returns to Einan.”
“The world will end.” Taiana spoke in a flat, cold voice. “Total annihilation for our world.”
“Exactly!” The Hunter thrust a finger at her. “Yet you are serving him, just like the Sage.”
Her face twisted into a snarl. “Never. The demon seeks to loosen his bonds.”
“And you?” the Hunter demanded. “How do you serve him?”
“I seek to ensure that he remains alive, that he is fed.”
“Which, one day, will give him the strength needed to break free of his prison and return to Einan.”
Taiana shook her head. “No. This is what I meant when I said that you believed the lies.”
“So tell me the truth, Taiana!” The Hunter fixed her with a hard glare. “If what I know, what everyone in the world knows, is a lie, give me the truth we are missing.”
“I want to!” she shouted, a desperate, sorrowful cry. “More than anything, Drayvin, I want to tell you everything. But it is too much for me to share. You will not understand unless he shows you.”
The Hunter stepped back, horrified. “You want me to speak to Kharna?” His thoughts flashed to the night in the Serenii tunnels beneath Voramis, when he felt an enormous heartbeat echoing in h
is mind. It had been Kharna, sustained by the magick of Soulhunger and the other Im’tasi, the weapons of the Bucelarii, all these years.
Taiana took a step toward him. “Yes. I need you to know the truth so you can help me do what has to be done.”
“And what is that?” the Hunter growled, his voice cold with rage.
“The power of Enarium is sustaining him. We cannot allow the Sage to turn that power to freeing him.”
Her words made no sense to the Hunter. Everything he’d learned about Kharna—from the First and Third in Voramis, from Queen Asalah in Al Hani, and the Sage in Kara-ket—had led him to believe the Destroyer wanted to be freed from his eternal prison. He’d fought the urge to kill with Soulhunger because of the fact that every life taken sent power to Kharna. One day, the Devourer of Worlds would have enough to break free of his shackles.
The Sage sought to hasten that day by using the power of Enarium. Taiana claimed to be at odds with the Sage, yet planned to feed the Destroyer the very power he needed to shatter his bonds.
Dread sent ice curling down his spine. As the Beggar God had been corrupted by the seed of Kharna’s consciousness, has Taiana been corrupted by her communion with the Devourer as well? He stared at her as if truly seeing her for the first time. Everything she’s told me, was it all just another attempt to manipulate me into helping her feed Kharna?
His worst fear, the one he hadn’t dared to put into thought, had come true. He’d dreamed of the woman before him for years, yet now that he’d found her, she was a stranger. He didn’t know her any more than he knew himself. He’d clung to his faint memories of her out of desperation to find a sense of who he was, a sense of identity. Now, that last fragment of hope shattered and turned to ash in his hands.
“No.” He had only strength enough for the single word. Everything he’d endured over these last months, all the suffering and hardship, the endless leagues of travel, it had all come down to finding her. And now that he’d found her, he wanted nothing more than to flee.
“Please, Drayvin.” She reached for him. “Please, for the love we once shared and the sake of our child, trust me.”
“How?” Tears welled in his eyes and blurred his vision as he retreated a step, out of her reach.
“Everything you know about Kharna is a lie.” Taiana’s tone turned pleading. “You must speak to him yourself, and he will show you the truth. You have to know the danger—”
“I know the danger.” He scrubbed the moisture from his cheeks, but the tears refused to stop. “I wanted to trust you, Taiana. So badly. You were all I had. Now…”
“You still have me!” She moved toward him, and he backed down another step. “I swear, on my life, I would never do anything to hurt you.”
“Like put a dagger in my chest and turn me over to the Illusionist Clerics?”
She flinched, as if he’d struck her. He was surprised by the vehemence of the words. He understood the logic of her actions and believed he’d forgiven her. Perhaps he’d simply pushed down the anger, but never truly gotten past it. Now, the sting of that betrayal flared to life, compounded by his fury at the discovery that she served the very god he sought to thwart. His wife served his enemy, the enemy of all living things on Einan. That made her his enemy as well. The thought made him want to vomit.
“Did I find out what you planned to do all those years ago,” he asked in a quiet voice, “so you betrayed me, had my memories erased?”
“No!” Pain flashed in her eyes. “I told you, I did that because I thought it was best for our child.”
Anger bubbled within his chest and formed into hard, cold words. “Our child.” He swallowed the lump in his throat and continued retreating down the staircase, away from her. “The child I never had a chance to see, to hold in my arms. A child whose life is now being drained to feed the god you serve.”
“Which is why you have to help me find her!” Taiana followed him, trying to match the pace of his descent.
The Hunter turned and ran the last steps down to the ground floor. He ripped Soulhunger from its sheath and pressed the gemstone to the gemstone lock. As the door opened, he turned and hurled the dagger at Taiana, who had raced down the stairs behind him.
“Here! You want to find our child? Do it!”
She twisted aside, and the dagger clattered off the stone wall beside her head.
“For the sake of our child,” the Hunter snarled, “I will give you Thanal Eth’ Athaur to open the Chambers. But know this, I will not let you use the power of Enarium to feed the Devourer. If you try, I will put you down, just as I will do to the Sage.”
“Please, Drayvin, you don’t understand—”
“I understand enough.” A bitter taste filled his mouth. “You have your mission, and I have mine. Goodbye, Taiana. Do not get in my way. Nothing will stop me.”
He fled then.
“Drayvin!” Her cry echoed through the empty streets of Enarium, but he ignored it. If he stopped, if he listened to her, he knew he could not bring himself to do what needed to be done. He had crossed a world to find her, and now, for the sake of that same world, he had to leave her behind.
Tears streamed down his face as he raced down the streets of Enarium. He’d wanted to trust her—more than anything else, he’d wanted it—but he’d been a fool to believe he could. His years as an assassin had taught him the danger of trusting. Trust only ever earned a man a dagger in the back, often from the last person he expected.
At that moment, he needed to get as far away from her as he could. He needed to think.
He ran until his legs ached and his lungs burned, yet still he ran. He raced through the streets so fast the wind whipped at his long, black hair and pulled back his hood. Sweat streamed down his face, soaked into his tunic, dripped from his pumping arms. He ran until he reached the high stone wall surrounding Enarium. A short distance away, a staircase led from the street up to the top of the wall, and he pounded up it as fast as he dared.
Atop the wall, the view of the Empty Mountains surrounding the city was breathtaking. Hundreds of peaks rose as far as he could see, like the grey and red spines of a great beast. It was a harsh beauty, as rugged as it was barren, empty of human life.
The Hunter slumped to the hard stone, his back against the battlement, gasping for air. Chaos seethed like a tempest in his mind.
How could she? The very thought made him sick. How could she serve the god that caused so much death and destruction?
Such a strange thought, coming from him. For fifty years, he had earned a living by killing people. Not for noble ideals, religious beliefs, or even for the sake of saving someone else. No, he had killed for gold. For profit. For a comfortable life filled with whatever pleasures and luxuries he’d wanted. He had been a killer, never hesitating to spill blood. Before Voramis, he had been a soldier, a warrior, a conqueror.
How many had he killed over his long life? A thousand. Five thousand?
Hundreds of thousands had died during the War of Gods. Einan had been torn apart by the battle, the world scarred forever. Oceans had swallowed entire continents and rifts gouged deep into the bowels of the earth. He could never come close to matching the lives snuffed out at the hands of Kharna, the Destroyer, Devourer of Worlds.
The god Taiana served. “The one below us all”, she’d said.
She knew the truth of Kharna, yet still she served him.
I should have known. The thought raced through his mind over and over. I should have seen.
His first real memory of her had ended when she drove a dagger into his chest. She had been willing to sacrifice him for the sake of their child, so how much more was she willing to sacrifice for something else she believed in? Kharna had twisted her mind as he had so many others. Perhaps she truly believed that she did the right thing. She would do whatever it took, make whatever sacrifices were necessary, for that goal.
No, she wouldn’t sacrifice everything.
Taiana hadn’t been willing to give up t
heir daughter. The search of the Keeps had been meant as a way to find more Bucelarii to fight the Elivasti, but he had seen the truth—a truth, at least—in her eyes: nothing mattered more to her than finding their daughter, not even service to Kharna.
Was a part of the woman he’d once known still in there, locked away in the mind the Devourer of Worlds had twisted to his own ends? Could he reach that part of her, find a way to drag it out and break Kharna’s hold on her mind?
He reached into his robes and drew out the faded silver pendant he’d taken from Bardin, the former Illusionist Cleric that had befriended him in Malandria. The Illusionist Clerics had used their rituals to erase his memory, to give him a clean slate, a chance at a new life free of the mistakes of his past. They could do the same to her. They could wipe away the hold Kharna had on her and bring back the Taiana he’d once loved. There was a risk they would erase too much, leaving her with no memories of what they’d once shared, but he’d take that risk.
But that would have to wait. Right now, he had more important matters to capture his attention. The Sage, Hailen, the power of Enarium. He glanced to the north, toward the pillar of swirling crimson dust that filled the sky. It had grown, darkened, like a storm cloud that sought to drown the world in blood.
The Er’hato Tashat would occur tomorrow at noon. That left him a little more than a day to free Hailen. Even if he had to take on the army of the Elivasti alone, without Soulhunger, so be it. Hailen was all that mattered now. He stood, and though the ache of sorrow in his stomach hadn’t lightened, he felt his determination renewed.
He had taken the first step to descend to the ground level, when something to the east caught his attention. He looked up, and in the same moment felt the humming beneath his feet intensify.
On Enarium’s Base Echelon, the Eastern Keep flared to life and a bright blue glow filled the air.
The Hunter’s gut tightened. Only one person could do that.
The Sage had activated the power of the Serenii.
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