“I killed a man, once,” he continued. “It didn’t mean much to me at the time. Just another criminal delivered his sentence. Just another countless victim to my supposed justice. But I didn’t really know anything about him. I didn’t know . . . didn’t know . . .”
Mevon felt an arm slip gently around his, and didn’t need to turn his head to know that Jasside now stood at his side, whispering without a word to go on.
“I didn’t know that he stood for something. Something I couldn’t understand at the time. He stood for hope. He stood so that his actions could help create a better life for those he cared about. A better world. And somehow, his sister, who stands here beside me, not only found a way to forgive me for his death, which I caused in my ignorance, but also . . . to love me.
“It’s not the kind of love I will ever think I deserve, but it is the kind of love that has made me want to be a better man. A man at least partially worthy of the gift she has given me.”
As Mevon and Jasside pressed their foreheads together, Draevenus rose to his feet. Though this hadn’t been part of the plan, he knew that his normally recalcitrant friend had run far past his quota of words for the day, and that he had something valuable to add to the conversation.
“My tribe, the mierothi, once declared war on the valynkar. Darkness and light . . . it seemed appropriate that our peoples should stand in opposition. It seemed . . . inevitable. And for almost two thousand years of separation, our mutual animosity grew, festering like an open wound dragged around in the mud. When we finally crashed together again, it was no surprise that it came accompanied by bloodshed.
“Yet a moment came when we either could have renewed our hate, or put it behind us. I chose the latter, and one among them, thankfully, agreed. Since then, we’ve learned to look past our differences, all those insignificant things that divide us, and focused instead on the things we had in common. Once we put old, pointless animosities to rest, we found that those things were much more numerous than we could have guessed.”
Something gripped him: a feeling he’d grown familiar with, yet hadn’t experienced in so long he thought he’d never feel it again.
Ruul.
The vision came clearer than it ever had before. Not just a memory of the time he’d spent in that cave, but something deeper. Older. A shared memory from Ruul himself.
He felt his mouth move, depicting all that he could see.
“He called himself Ruulan, and he wandered the void for thousands upon thousands of years, carrying with him innumerable sleeping hosts. This world was the first he found that might serve as a home for them. A place they could finally find new life, and for himself, at last find some rest.
“But it wasn’t as empty as he had first assumed.
“This world’s creatures struck out at him, threatening his very existence, and that of all he carried within him.
“Ruulan called out for help.
“Only by a miracle was the entity known as Durelos close by at the time, and came to the aid of Ruulan, striking down those who assailed him and sending the rest fleeing deep into the void. Even so, such actions were not enough to save Ruulan, who fell to the world in ruin and flames, burning the very sky in his descent.
“In their ignorance, they had both caused so much death and had no way to repair the damage. Ruulan released his hosts, damaged as they were, and Durelos, compelled by compassion to remain, did the same. In time, the world came to be theirs, these humans, and all memory of how they had come to be here faded into myth and legend, only to be forgotten entirely.
“But those we came to know as gods did not forget. Only they were powerless to stop us from shutting them out from our council, and we came to war among ourselves, time and time again, ignoring all that bound us together in search of blind, greedy advantage. They knew that a time would come when this world’s original inhabitants would return, and that the only way to prevent another catastrophe was to . . .”
Draevenus slumped to his knees, panting, drained of all energy by the insistent force of the vision. Even so, the last word of it managed to force its way past his quivering lips.
“. . . sacrifice.”
For a dozen labored breaths, the space around him remained empty of all sound, and that strange, chaotic energy did not resume its assault.
But what he felt a moment later let him know it wouldn’t last.
A wave of dark washed across the face of the entire planet, as if dredged from the very depths of the abyss.
The ruvak erupted into screams.
Yandumar shouted in triumph, lifting twin blades dripping orange blood as the latest assault upon the fortress turned back. Nine attempts, and the wall had yet to be breached. His three thousand stood strong, proving their value far above their meagre number, having suffered fewer than fifty losses so far.
He was honored to fight at their side, a feat only made possible by the energy coursing through him courtesy of his oldest living friend.
“You’ve gotta do better than that!” he shouted at the backs of his enemy, as they retreated across the two-hundred-pace-wide killing field. “This is my Imperial Guard you’re dealing with. So long as even one of them remained standing, this fortress will hold forever!”
A shout went up from along the palisades, and thousands of blades rose to join his own. His words were a lie, and every one of them knew it. It didn’t matter that the enemy had finally run out of tricks. His men might last a few more days until exhaustion and countless small wounds caught up to them, while the ruvak could field fresh troops with every surge. Still, that wasn’t going to stop them from going down swinging.
Yandumar turned from the wall as the Guard began making use of the break in combat: binding cuts, fixing or replacing damaged gear, throwing food down their throats, and hunkering down to snatch what little shut-eye they could afford. Despite fighting for most of a day already, he felt little need for rest.
“Gil, ole friend, I haven’t felt like this in ages,” he proclaimed as he marched over towards the valynkar. “You put something special in that mystical concoction of yours this time?”
Gilshamed smiled but shook his head. “Not at all, Yan. But you’ve been too long gone from the fight. This first renewed taste of it must make the effects seem stronger.”
“That so? Next you’ll be telling me you’re only giving me half the usual dose.”
“Well, I have had to conserve my energy, while dividing it between healing the wounded and pushing back the most vicious of ruvak assaults. I cannot say for certain—”
Yandumar raised an eyebrow, watching as Gilshamed clamped his jaws shut, then spun to look northward, his golden eyes wider than he’d ever seen before.
“What . . . has she . . . done?” Gilshamed whispered.
It took Yandumar three whole beats to put together what he was talking about—what she Gilshamed meant—which was probably about two beats too long.
“Vashodia,” he said, trying not to make the name sound like a curse. “What’d she do this time?”
Gilshamed shook his head once. “I do not know. I suspect, however, that the whole world is about to find out.”
The words soon proved prophetic.
It began with a jolt, which sent him crashing to his knees. He lifted his head to see Gilshamed in a similar posture, and looking beyond him, most of the Guard were also struggling to keep their balance.
He had just enough time to right himself and catch his breath before the rumbling began.
Half helping and half helped by Gilshamed, Yandumar stumbled to the palisades. The shaking intensified. Within a mark, he heard a deep snap and watched as the ground along the center of the killing field began cracking open.
From that gap poured no natural kind of darkness.
In a blink, the split lengthened to either side, flowing across the hills as far to each horizon as he could see.
Then, it began to widen.
Jasside knew why the ruvaki masters were in an uproar. No caster on
the planet could ignore the raw oceans of power being unleashed half a world away. Although, perhaps raw wasn’t the right word to describe it. For all its wide-reaching effects, the energy felt controlled, shaped for a specific purpose. And while there was no doubt in her mind about who was responsible, without access to her power, there was no way to determine exactly what was going on.
Standing on the tips of her toes, she leaned as close to Mevon’s ear as she could. “I need to let you go.”
He turned his mouth towards her ear, whispering in return. “Are you sure?”
“It will only be for a moment. Stay close, will you?”
Mevon smiled. “Always.”
Jasside released his arm. The presence of her power returned in an instant, like a sudden plunge into icy waters. She didn’t hesitate to grasp it.
After that, it was a simple matter of following the energy from its source out to where it was being expended, and tracing the boundaries of its effect. The task was made difficult by the distance, yet she had it finished in five beats.
What she found was . . . unexpected.
As she released her power and took hold of Mevon’s arm once more, Jasside couldn’t help but laugh.
“What do you find so funny?” screeched a voice.
The cacophony around her dimmed, as if holding its breath in anticipation of her response. “Vashodia,” she said. “My old mentor, and the one responsible for your current outrage. I didn’t think she could surprise me anymore. She isn’t exactly known for her mercy.”
“Mercy?” another unseen ruvak said. “The snake has sundered the very surface of our world!”
“It isn’t the first time. Nor the last, I imagine.”
“Is that your plan, then? If you can’t have this planet, then you’ll destroy it beyond hope of repair?”
“Not at all. But the quantity of power she’s wielding right now has the capability to do all kinds of things, many of a far more devastating nature. Namely, to destroy every last vessel of yours in an instant.”
“Lies!”
Jasside shrugged. “Considering the source she’s drawing on—the very source keeping your skyships out of my empire—I’d say it took her quite a bit of effort to make it do anything else.”
And though I might never know what caused her change of heart, perhaps my influence played some small part. Either way, I can rest assured knowing I did everything I could to reach her.
Whatever had happened, and why, didn’t really matter at the moment, though. Vashodia had handed them the perfect opportunity, and Jasside knew better than to question her good fortune.
She cast her gaze upon the young queen. “It’s time.”
Arivana nodded at Jasside, then glanced up at Daye. “Keep a hand on me, please. We’re going.”
A flash of distress crossed his features, the hesitation of both a soldier and a husband to send her into more danger than himself. As much as she loved him for that, she loved him all the more for his ability to push past it, knowing what needed to be done.
“I’ll be right here the whole time.” He reached to her shoulder and squeezed once, gently.
“You’re not going to tell me to be careful?”
“I think we’re too far gone for careful. Just be . . . queenly.”
She smiled. “That, I can do.”
Settling her nerves with a deep breath, she took a long step out from the group, positioning herself so as to be visible by those strange pods, half seen through swirling mist, which supposedly held the ruvaki masters. Once set, Arivana reached behind her, lifting the rope that bound Sem Aira’s hands, and tugged the woman forward to join her.
“My queen?” Sem Aira said, her face a maze of confusion. “What are you doing?”
She kept her voice a whisper, so that only her companions could hear her.
“Sem Aira . . .” she began, then stopped and shook her head. “Flumere . . .”
Her mind emptied. All their plans had come down to this moment, all their hopes resting on the next few beats in time, and how the ruvak would react . . . and she couldn’t think of anything else to say. It seemed appropriate, somehow. Any words that might sway the ruvak had already been said.
All that mattered now . . . was action.
Arivana drew the small, ceremonial knife from her belt and sliced through Flumere’s binding.
Before the woman could do much more than blink, Arivana reversed the blade and thrust the hilt into her old handmaiden’s newly freed hands.
Arivana closed her eyes, and waited.
For five beats, there was no sound. Not even a breath. But at last the silence was broken by a deep ruvaki voice, the kind used to being obeyed without question. The kind that took pleasure in it.
“Kill her.”
Five more beats. Then ten. Arivana kept her eyes closed, knowing there was nothing more she could do to influence events. From the moment they had flown free of the Veiled Empire, they had each considered their lives forfeit. And not only their own, but that of all humankind. What they hoped to achieve was a gamble only the truly desperate would even attempt.
All they had to keep them going was faith.
The second silence shattered with a muted metallic ring, as the knife fell faintly to the floor.
Tender, inhuman arms wrapped around Arivana, embracing her with fierce affection. She gasped in surprise, feeling a ready well burst forth from behind her eyelids, and hugged the woman back as strongly as she dared.
“Oh, Arivana,” Flumere said between sobs. “How did you ever think I could hurt you?”
“I didn’t,” Arivana replied in kind. “Not even for a heartbeat. We just needed them to know that.”
Arivana punctuated her words by sweeping an arm through the air above her.
As if the gesture was a signal of some kind, the ruvaki masters began screeching in incoherent rantings once more. This time, however, it had the feeling of a pointed debate, with wave after wave of shouts in opposing pitch thrown back and forth across the foggy, bitter air overhead.
Soon, the sound was joined by magic.
Chaos billowed and snapped and rolled, collapsing around Arivana and her companions like an avalanche. Just as it seemed like it would crash upon them, it drew back, yet not far. The argument in unintelligible words had crossed over to become an argument of energies, surging closer and farther away as those opposed fought back against those in favor of their annihilation, turning the air acrid all the while.
Yet within moments it became clear that the virulent strands were growing ever closer.
Tassariel watched Jasside mouth the words that, even shouted, could not be heard over the maelstrom now surrounding them.
You know what to do, they said.
This was the moment they’d planned for, practiced for, but now that it was here, she began shaking and felt her throat go dry. Before this tempest of chaotic power . . . she was nothing.
Remotely, she saw Daye pull on Arivana and Sem Aira, bundling them at his feet before spreading both legs and arms wide. Mevon took up a similar stance on the opposite side, and the two men leaned in until their fingertips were nearly touching. Draevenus and Jasside huddled close beside her. The three of them, by design, were in the center of the protective circle, such as the two men could provide, yet not in contact with either of them.
They had a job to do, and it could not be done while voided.
She sensed the two dark casters energize. They put their energy to work instantly, threading through gaps in the circle to deflect metal shards that came shrieking out of the gloom.
Now, Jasside’s lips pleaded. I need you to go first.
Trembling, Tassariel fumbled for her own power, yet came up short of grasping it, again and again. What had once been an act as routine as breathing had suddenly become like trying to swim up a waterfall.
But when Draevenus grabbed her face and pressed his lips against her own, she remembered that she didn’t need to swim at all. Though she’d lost
them once, she still had her wings.
Time for me to fly.
Light filled her.
She looked towards Arivana. So young, yet she’d been wise enough to find a way through hatred, to put animosity to rest and put love in its place. She could see it in the way the queen gazed upon Daye’s face and clutched at Sem Aira: two who had once been her enemy, but now counted among those she called friend. The love that swirled around them seemed almost palpable, as if Tassariel could reach out and grab it.
And from the man before her, there was no as if about it. She could feel it, a warmth and passion flowing from him to her like heat from a hearth in winter. It was the greatest gift she had ever received, greater than she had ever expected or even hoped for. Returning it felt the most natural thing in the world.
Her fear forgotten in the face of such overwhelming beauty, Tassariel lifted her hand, spilling forth purest light from her fingertips. Though she held only a fraction of the power her father had when he’d first planted the idea in her head, it was enough to spread fully throughout the maelstrom beyond. The light didn’t do anything—it didn’t need to—but its very presence forced the smallest measure of order on the chaos.
Order saturated not with guilt, but with love.
Jasside squinted against the sudden brightness above her, and patted Draevenus on the shoulder. He tore his ebony gaze from Tassariel’s glowing face, his own features filled with something she’d never seen in him before. Something very much like happiness.
It’s up to you now, she mouthed to him, as the torrent of chaos and squabbling ruvaki voices were still drowning them in noise.
Draevenus nodded his understanding. Reluctantly, he pulled back from the valynkar and thrust his hands to either side, sending out tendrils of darkness to replace her own in blocking the incoming projectiles.
The ruvaki masters were at last attuned to light, and nothing else stood in her way.
Time to end this.
Jasside gathered her power. Though she didn’t think she would need all of it, she wanted to make sure she had more than enough to accomplish the job. The amount that filled her would have made a younger version of herself drool with envy. Like so many things, this had been Vashodia’s doing. That woman trapped in a girl’s malformed body was always planning ahead, thinking in terms of centuries when the next best had trouble thinking in years. Yet for all her forethought, Vashodia hadn’t steered events towards this moment.
The Light That Binds Page 42