Paths of Alir (A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book 3)

by Melissa McPhail

  “A gracious gesture…yet as I recall, I followed you.”

  Franco clenched his jaw. He thought of a host of people he wanted to curse right then, but he knew he had only himself to blame.

  You started down this path when you listened to Niko and followed him blindly into Dore Madden’s hell.

  And I’ve been atoning for it ever since!

  Immanuel hadn’t been far off when he’d asked Franco if he would rather have drowned. At least it would’ve finally put an end to the travesty he’d made of his life.

  A wave of nausea came upon Franco, reminding him that he still had a hole in his gut, and he lay still while his injured abdomen throbbed sickly. On the bright side, his head at least felt numb. Numb and thick, so that thinking was as much a chore as moving his sluggish limbs.

  He heard the waves increasing in volume. The rope binding his wrists was tight, swollen with seawater. There would be no slipping out of his bounds. Nor could he swim in his condition. At least not for long.

  As he lay trembling with chill, he realized that the terror he felt at his impending death seemed somehow just, as if a penance overdue. “Immanuel,” he said hoarsely, “I’m sorry.”

  The artist responded with a wry chuckle. “In a situation such as this…a little hope…would come in handy. I see that now.”

  Franco grunted. What was there left to hope for?

  “May I…ask a question, Franco?”

  Franco turned his head to look upon the artist. Exhaustion pressed insistently behind his eyes, aided in its attempts to close his lids by the chill ice in his flesh and the loss of blood he’d sustained. But Franco forced himself to focus and blinked until the artist’s face came into clearer view. “Of course.”

  Immanuel pursed his lips for a thoughtful moment. He looked somehow fragile lying there bound in silver cord, pale in the fall of starlight…unearthly, like an angiel cast down from the heavens.

  “My brother teaches that a man…is destined to walk one path…and one path only. For a long time…I believed this. But now…I wonder. I question…I listen newly to old memories.” He shifted slightly as if to seek a more comfortable position, but he could hardly maneuver within the tight silver rope, and a grimace crossed his face before he found breath again. “So here is my question…do you know what it means…to walk one’s path?”

  Franco thought immediately of Isabel and the wisdom she’d shared with him to this end. Yet Isabel’s views required a sense of hope that Franco had never been able to muster. “Theoretically.” A pained sigh escaped him before he could stop it. “A man’s path is based on his choices.”

  “In your belief, is one’s path…foreordained?”

  “In…my belief,” he nearly stumbled over the phrase, for he certainly couldn’t claim to be a devoted practitioner of any faith—even Isabel’s. A parade of countless mistakes passed through his mind, and he grumbled miserably, “For good or ill, you choose your own path. You make our own future.”

  “And what about the idea…that certain men draw others into their paths…even unconsciously…others they will need to suit their ends? What is your view…on this?”

  Franco grimaced. “I think that view requires more faith than I could ever claim to possess.”

  Immanuel smiled quietly. “My last question…ere we meet our Maker, Franco.”

  “Yes?”

  “Does Björn van Gelderan defend the realm against the Malorin’athgul?”

  Franco jolted violently at this unexpected question. Then he cursed as pain coursed through him.

  “I apologize,” came Immanuel’s voice, low and regretful. “There was no easy way to ask it.”

  “What makes you think I know?” Franco cringed at his own shrill protest. He suddenly wished himself anywhere else than lying beside a man to whom he felt so indebted. For the span of an indrawn breath, he contemplated rolling his tortured body into the sea.

  Immanuel answered softly, “You know.”

  Franco’s gratitude to the artist filled him with obligation, but to share such a truth… He wasn’t sure why the question had elicited a feeling of betrayal, yet it had stunned him mightily. How did Immanuel di Nostri know of Malorin’athgul? Why would he know of them?

  Desperation thrummed through Franco, and a forceful need to protect the First Lord fueled a sudden vigorous return of stamina. “Why do you ask this of all things?”

  “The answer is the price I require…to save your life.”

  Franco barked a derisive laugh and looked around the dim cavern. “A postponement at best.”

  Immanuel closed his eyes and was quiet for a moment, as if summoning his strength. “Goracrosta can easily be severed…by a Merdanti blade.”

  Franco gazed blankly at him.

  “It so happens I have a Merdanti blade…in my boot…If you can release me…I can free us from this place.”

  “Shade and darkness—why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  Immanuel arched a resigned brow. “I must be certain I can trust you.”

  “You saved my life. You don’t think you can trust me?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  The question silenced Franco. He dropped his head back and closed his eyes, beset once more with a hopelessness that had long been an unwelcome bedfellow. “I’m not sure I know what trust even feels like anymore.”

  “Neither do I, to be fair…but I’ve recently learned…trust and faith…they are different animals…yet they amount to the same feeling…the same sense of peril…the same tumbling uncertainty. They require the same courage…to brave the unknown.”

  In the relative silence that followed, Franco imagined he heard Isabel’s voice whispering then, as she had once weeks ago, ‘…you cannot care for nothing when you work so fiercely in support of my brother...’

  Franco exhaled a shuddering sigh that sounded embarrassingly akin to a sob and gazed upwards at the heavens. He felt defenseless beneath the stars of Cephrael’s Hand, stripped bare to the angiel’s inspection.

  The First Lord’s words came floating back to him,‘…would that I had less personal experience myself…’

  Franco shut his eyes against a sudden acute remorse. He’d never honestly contemplated what the First Lord had endured, what he had sacrificed, what he had overcome. For a moment, Franco tried to view things from the First Lord’s eyes, but the difficulty in this task proved monumental—not because he couldn’t assume or understand the First Lord’s views, but because the man had endured so many centuries of sacrifice…because he stoically harbored so many regrets…so much loss.

  Franco’s exhalation that time caught deep in his throat. He didn’t know how to trust Immanuel di Nostri, or even if he should, but he knew that he owed the First Lord a good deal more courage than he had thus far displayed. The Fifth Vestal had never sought the easy way, only the effective way, no matter the personal tragedy, no matter the loss of those he held dear. He’d proven that on Tiern’aval—and every day since.

  Gritting his teeth, Franco pushed himself to a sitting position and looked down at Immanuel. “Yes.”

  The artist’s copper eyes gazed curiously up at him. “Yes?”

  “The answer to your question.” He swallowed, still unable to believe he was saying it. “Yes.”

  Immanuel held his gaze for a long time. Then he seemed to collect himself and jerked his head toward his legs. “My boot…the dagger.”

  Franco felt the water lapping at his hip and turned to find the sea suddenly rushing in. “Shadow take me—”

  “It will claim us both in a moment. Hurry, Franco.” Franco hastened to maneuver his bound hands closer to the artist’s feet. Immanuel added, “I cannot work…any power while bound with…goracrosta. We need the dagger…”

  “I’m working on it.” Between the awkward positioning of their bodies and Franco’s numb fingers—never mind trying to feel his way sightlessly with hands behind his back—success was not so easily accomplished.

  “You’ll
never…reach it…tha—” a sudden surge of the incoming tide washed away Immanuel’s words as sea water flooded across their beach. The icy wave buffeted Franco, and he narrowly kept from rolling over, noting in the same harrowing moment that Immanuel’s head was completely submerged. He made haste to help him, and together they managed to get him propped against the sharp stone wall, braced there by the swirling tide. The artist coughed and sputtered in the wave’s retreat.

  “Teeth…” the artist managed hoarsely.

  Franco blinked blankly. “What?”

  “Use…your teeth.” He indicated his boot, submerged now beneath the swirling water. “And for sake of us both, Franco…don’t lose that dagger!”

  Franco muttered an oath and plunged his head beneath the waves. Water swirled around him. The current alternately tugged and pushed, lifted or dragged. Several times he was buffeted off his knees and barely held on by grabbing backwards onto the cording binding Immanuel.

  The artist was coughing when Franco once again came up with only a spout of exhaled saltwater to show for his efforts. The sea was swirling around Immanuel’s chest. There was no headroom on the narrow beach, but standing wouldn’t have helped them in any case, for the chill waves were coming too forcefully now and would’ve readily swept a standing man away.

  “I feel…a certain need…for haste,” Immanuel gasped.

  Franco gave him a look of apology and dove under again. Resolving to stay down until he found the treasured dagger, he hooked his legs around Immanuel’s feet and nosed once again for the rim of his boot. He found it once and lost it as the waves lifted and nearly carried him away, but his foot remained hooked on the goracrosta, and he found his way back.

  On his next attempt, his senses guided him better, and he thrummed with excitement when his lips and then his teeth felt the dagger in their grasp. Clamping down on the dagger, Franco moved to rise, but now the water swirled farther above him. He lunged for the surface and came up with a gasp sucked in around the dagger clenched between his teeth. He spun around.

  Immanuel had disappeared beneath the waves.

  Shock and fear coursed through Franco.

  Epiphany—pray don’t abandon us now!

  With the dagger’s hilt gripped firmly in his teeth, Franco dove beneath the water. Perhaps the goddess heard his prayer, for moonlight in that moment shone down upon them, and Franco saw Immanuel’s wavering form still wedged below. He prayed the man could keep hold of his breath.

  Franco kicked to him and wrapped his feet around the other man’s. Immanuel’s eyes were open and his expression remained impressively serene though his gaze urged Franco to swift action.

  Franco wedged his feet against the stones, gripped the dagger tightly between his teeth, and set to cutting. To his immense relief, the goracrosta parted quickly beneath the dagger’s Merdanti edge. One, two, three turns of the corkscrew severed, the ends floating free. Franco dared not go up for a breath. Five, six, seven, eight—

  A wave surged and tore Franco away. He tumbled in the surf, crashed his shoulder painfully against the rocks, was swept into a cauldron of swirling saltwater and spit back to the black surface again with violent disregard. He kicked above the waves and gasped and choked around the dagger between his teeth—the dagger he dared not drop. His wound was an aching torment all along one side, and the icy water had his head a throbbing agony again.

  Keeping hold of the dagger despite his aching jaws while also not drowning was proving difficult. He had no way to safely transfer the dagger to his own bound hands. What’s more, he didn’t know if he’d succeeded in releasing Immanuel. In a desperate moment, he thought to look for leis or nodes—but of course Consuevé would’ve been careful to choose a cavern free of those particular routes of escape.

  A wave surged behind Franco, and he helplessly rode its crest toward the cavern wall and its jagged rocks. His legs burned from fighting the swirling current, and exhaustion and hopelessness set in. In the last moment, Franco closed his eyes…

  Arms grabbed him into an embrace, and a force greater than the sea pulled him down, deep into the dark depths. To his dismay, another force wrenched the dagger from his teeth. He cried out at its loss, but then seawater was pouring into his lungs, burning and forcing breath. A silver light speared through the deep, reflecting in the dark waves…

  Franco gulped seawater and submitted to his end—

  A sudden forceful thrust landed him on his hands and knees in airy darkness.

  He sucked in a compulsive gasp. The air met with too much resistance, and suddenly he was vomiting seawater. The cold caress of a knife released his bounds while he choked and sputtered. Hands supported him, arms embraced him from behind, and several forceful squeezes later, he found a painful breath again.

  Franco got back to his feet feeling shredded. He heard his own rasping inhalation echo in the void. It sounded pathetically like a whimper.

  “The dimension of Shadow.” Immanuel’s voice came softly to his ears, softer than Franco’s wheezing breath. The artist sounded restored without the magical binding of the goracrosta.

  But Immanuel couldn’t be merely an artist, could he?

  “Shadow,” Franco managed hoarsely. He extended a hand and felt around in the darkness until he found Immanuel’s sleeve. He pulled the man closer then, pulled his own body closer to Immanuel. He summoned another painful breath. “Immanuel…are you fifth strand?”

  Silence. And then, “Yes.”

  Franco closed his eyes, fearing a sudden terrifying truth. “Are you…” but the thought collapsed as his legs buckled beneath him.

  Immanuel caught him in his arms—strong arms, a warrior’s strength that belied his aristocratic build. “You’re bleeding again.” His voice filled with concern. “I have to get you help.”

  Franco wanted to finish his question—such an important question!—but a heaviness was pressing him down…down…down into his own darkness, where even thought was too bright to be welcomed.

  Nineteen

  “Let any man who begs understanding of the world first seek to know himself.”

  – The Seventeen Pillars of Restoration,

  an excerpt from the assembled scriptures of Jai’Gar

  Ean woke with a start.

  Coming abruptly aware, he pressed palms to his eyes, then looked around. The dark green walls of the tent made shadows of the day’s dying light, while beyond the open flaps, the sky flamed a vivid fuchsia with tongues of orange-red.

  The prince pressed up to sitting and swooned. He threw out a hand to stabilize himself—not a good sign—and waited for the vertigo to pass, guessing what it meant that he felt so weak and queasy. He may have escaped the Labyrinth, but clearly he’d taken his time about it. To accentuate this thought, his stomach heaved an angry growl of outrage, and his head gave him an equally pounding unwelcome.

  Regretting in every way imaginable the decision that had landed him the Labyrinth, Ean slowly got to his feet and shuffled stiffly from the tent.

  Dorn looked up from tending their campfire as Ean staggered out. “Ah, Your Highness, ‘tis well you’ve woken. The Lady thought you’d be back with us by nightfall.” He took a heavy stick and pulled an iron pot from the flames. “Kept the stew hot for you in case she was right this time.”

  Ean lowered himself down beside Dorn and gratefully took the bowl he offered. Their camp overlooked a broad desert valley of sandstone towers and painted sands with a jutting mesa in the distance. “Where…” his voice came in a rasp, and he had to work some moisture into his mouth. “Where are we?”

  Dorn covered the pot and picked up his dagger and a stick he’d been whittling. “Close to the fortress of Tal’Afaq. Somewhere in southern Saldaria.”

  Ean lifted the spoon to his mouth but paused and frowned when he saw his hand shaking. “Dorn…how long since we left Tyr’kharta?” How long was I trapped in the Labyrinth?

  Dorn was prying at a notch marring the smooth end of his stick. He looked up unde
r bushy eyebrows. “This is the fourth day, milord.”

  Four days!

  No wonder he felt so lightheaded. Suddenly the bowl of stew seemed all that stood between himself and utter starvation. Mentally he attacked it with fervor, but actually he ate with deliberate patience. As he slowly chewed, he asked, “Where are Isabel and the others?”

  “Looking for a way into Tal’Afaq.”

  Without me. Gods, what a mess I made of things.

  Out of necessity, he paid some attention to his meal, but it was hard not to fret over Isabel, hard not to leap up to find her and assure himself of her safety. Of course, he had little right to worry—he was the one who’d been incapacitated for four days while the others cared for him and continued on.

  Four days!

  Oh the things an enemy could’ve done to him in that time—what Dore Madden could’ve done…he shuddered to imagine. And what of Sebastian? What of Rhys and his loyal men still captive at Dore’s whim? What horrors might they be suffering while he further delayed their rescue?

  Inwardly, Ean cursed his brash stupidity, and if he was being perfectly honest, his utter ineptitude. Ramu had specifically warned him to stay alert for the Labyrinth!

  He was naught but a child fumbling across a master’s game board. Luck alone kept him alive. Luck…and Isabel. And the zanthyr, and Creighton and a host of others. Wasn’t it time he started being able to depend on himself?

  Wasn’t it time others could depend on him?

  The image of Arion standing before the mirror seemed so indelible in his memory now. That man had been confident. Self-contained, clearly a force within the pattern. He’d been bold but never arrogant, for Arion had the talent to bring his promises to fruition. Ean saw now in himself many of Arion’s same traits minus most of his skill. A galling state of affairs.

  As he ate and the sun sank behind the escarpment, the ratcheting song of cicadas began filling the night, mingling with Dorn’s whittling knife. The sky darkened to violet-blue and the air became crisp. Ean watched the stars appearing and experienced a sense of horror over the entire affair.