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

by Melissa McPhail

  “You chose…?”

  He looked up at her desperately. “I suppose I chose to pursue a purpose counter to his own.”

  Her heart made a sudden lump in her throat as she realized what he was saying. “You wanted to save this world?”

  His gaze…she’d never seen him look so tormented. After a moment, he hung his head between his hands. “Yes.”

  Hope roused its weary head—he was so close to choosing a path! “May I ask… why?”

  He looked up with a twisted smile. “Would you believe for love of a child?”

  “Love is the best reason.”

  He considered her answer. “I don’t know why it happened, our friendship. It shouldn’t have, by all accounts. I told you once of this boy—he was a truthreader. I thought at first he was one of my brother’s spies. But as I came to know him…” His brow furrowed. “I thought once that I perceived something of my maker in him, just something impossibly….pure.” He shrugged. “He’s special to me now in a way I have no words to describe.”

  Isabel didn’t need his words to understand; she knew what he had perceived. “Where is he, your truthreader friend?”

  Pelas shook his head. “I don’t know.” Then he grunted ruefully. “Waiting for me to find him again, I suppose.”

  “And will you?”

  Suddenly his gaze darkened, and he shot her a rancorous glare. “Assuming he still lives when my two hundred years are up?”

  Isabel’s gaze held gentleness and understanding—no matter what he did to her in the throes of his compulsion, she couldn’t bring herself to give him other than kindness in return. “Imagine he does. Would you seek him out?”

  Pelas clenched his jaw. Then he pushed abruptly to his feet and walked to his table of knives.

  “If you never choose a path, you will always be a danger to our world.”

  He grunted at this.

  “Pathless, you’ll continue to disrupt the paths of others as you pull them in to suit your whims. You’re like the prow of a ship plowing through the waves, sending ripples in vastly different directions, disrupting the equanimity of the tapestry, tearing its pattern.”

  He pressed both hands wide against the table, bowed his head and growled, “How do I find a path when all the world is black, Isabel?”

  She searched for words to help him. Threads spun before her vision, crossing and entwining, branching again. The threads looked oddly grey in the perpetual gloaming of their shared prison, but she knew somewhere the light was shining. The trouble was that Pelas didn’t.

  “I don’t think the compulsion is the problem.”

  He turned her a fierce look over his shoulder. He’d drawn that dark veil across his thoughts again.

  “I know a little about compulsion, Pelas.”

  “High Mage of the Citadel, indeed.” He looked back to his knives.

  “What does Darshan’s compulsion require you to do?”

  “I tire of this line of questioning, Isabel.”

  “You haven’t ever answered the question.”

  He turned with stylus in hand. “And yet, I don’t have to answer it at all.”

  “If only you—” But the rest of the sentence came out in a hiss as he started in again on the pattern he’d been scoring into her back, and afterwards, she couldn’t find the energy to ask him anymore.

  ***

  Isabel hung her head. Exhaustion and pain flew in circles through her thoughts, spiraling ghosts, spinning…spinning…

  Pain flared in her back—brilliant, intense, overpowering…

  Images of Arion, then Ean, then the two of them somehow as the same person flashed back and forth before her tearing eyes, tormenting her with a desperate sense of loss. They whispered that she’d chosen this path and abandoned them, and for what…? For what? To die in a tower halfway across the realm having accomplished nothing?

  Twice since waking in the tower, Isabel had caught a glimpse of the path before her and seen…well, if not exactly its end, then at least a door opening upon a new eventuality. But she didn’t know how to get to that door from where she and Pelas now stood.

  It was difficult not to give in to despair, yet she had to hold onto awareness—hold to hope, so that when Epiphany gave her an opening, she’d be able to claim it. For she understood that if Cephrael carried the staff of condemnation, Epiphany carried one of redemption. Even when Cephrael had set his sights against a man, Epiphany always gave him one last chance to prove his quality.

  In truth, it wasn’t that she feared to die; she just feared failing all of those who believed in her, who depended on her. She didn’t want to leave her thread in the game unfinished.

  For the first time she understood the torment Arion had endured in the weeks leading up to the Citadel, when he’d known he was going to die there.

  Perhaps she shouldn’t have told him, but he’d begged her to share what she’d seen among the shifting veils of the future, and she’d never been able to deny him anything. What courage he’d demonstrated in walking his path anyway, in going on alone and giving his life for her brother’s game! They would’ve lost the Citadel that night if not for him.

  Isabel thought of Arion in those days, and she thought of Ean now—so buoyant at times, and so overwhelmed in others, yet consistently brilliant if only he could see it in himself. How dreadful it must be for him to be constantly compared to and held up against his own genius, all the while knowing—believing—that even with all the knowledge and skill he’d possessed as Arion Tavestra, still he’d failed. Yet Ean chose to continue on.

  In every moment, we bear the choice to embrace that moment or become the victim of it.

  The temptation to feel that sorrow pounded constantly on the door of her mind, but she knew that once one opened the door of self-pity, it became nearly impossible to close it again. So she had to stay there, in the moment, in the pain—aware, so that she wouldn’t miss Epiphany’s whisper.

  He lifted the needle from her skin to her immeasurable relief. She sucked in several short breaths, for the pain remained intense even after he’d removed the tool from her flesh. He wet a linen cloth with ice-water and spread it gently across the pattern he’d scored into her back.

  Her body was almost covered in such patterns now.

  Most were hidden from her view—carved in places on her body that her bound position prevented her from viewing. But the patterns at her shoulders and thighs…never had she seen any so beautiful.

  The icy cloth on her back felt heaven’s blessing. He must’ve heard her sigh, for he bent a kiss to her shoulder and then treated two of his other patterns—older carvings from earlier days—with their own chill dressing. Then he walked to a basin and washed his hands.

  “What would Darshan say if he knew you were keeping me alive like this?”

  Pelas shrugged without looking at her. “The point is moot. It will be decades before he returns.”

  “I would last longer as company with something to eat.”

  He paused in his washing. Then he turned and leaned back against the basin to stare at her. “You would choose to stay alive for this?” he waved a hand to encompass her bondage and all of the tools that brought her pain.

  “Not for this, Pelas…for you.”

  Now he really stared at her. “You actually believe…you believe your path brought you here.” He grunted with incredulity. “For what, Isabel?”

  She held his gaze as best she could with the world spinning around her. “I think you know.”

  He slung the rag to the floor. “I don’t know! I don’t know anything anymore—not who I am, nor what I think, nor even why I bother trying to appease my brother when he has me exactly where he wants me right now!” These final words came out in a dreadful thunder.

  Power darkened the room in shadowed clouds of static, responding to his rage. Even with goracrosta masking her from the full force of the currents, Isabel perceived this storm, but he sensed none of it as she did.

  She hun
g her head and let the cauldron boil around her. Such power he possessed! She might’ve survived on his power alone had he channeled it towards giving her life instead of instinctively drawing upon it as fuel for his anger.

  Isabel hung her head dizzily. “If you despise it so much, why do you not fight the compulsion?”

  He barked an incredulous laugh. “You think this is me not fighting it?” He shoved off the basin and approached her. “Do you have any idea what this compulsion demands of me? What it drives me to want to do?” He caught her around the throat and forced her head back as he pressed himself close to her. His copper eyes flamed beneath a brow shadowed by fury and despair. She saw him grit his teeth, saw the muscles of his jaw tighten with anger. “Believe me, Isabel,” he hissed, low and fervent, “I’m fighting it—Tooth. And. Claw.”

  He’d forced her head painfully back, so she had to strain to whisper, “What does it demand of you?”

  Oh, how he growled at her at this. “You really want to know?”

  She nodded, the barest of motions against the constraint of his marble hand.

  Pelas hooked an arm around her body and pulled her close, bringing his mouth to her ear while his other hand clutched her throat. “Need,” he whispered, and he stroked his fingers down her neck. His breath fell cool across her, and his hand felt colder against her back than the icy cloth he’d dressed for her. “Hunger.” His lips brushed her ear and along her neck. “Ache—yearning—heat and fury…insatiable want.” He pressed his nose into her hair and smelled deeply of her.

  “That’s…” She tried to catch her breath with him still clinging to her. “Darshan cast a broad compulsion—formless. He would’ve given it direction as well.”

  Pelas laid his head on her shoulder and let his fingers trace down to pause in the hollow between her breasts. “He wants me to kill you—to kill all of you.”

  Her heart quickened beneath his touch. “Healers,” she breathed.

  He nodded against her shoulder, and still he clutched her to him like a dying man. Her arms ached, strained against her bonds.

  Then he simply pushed her away and stalked across the room. She feared for him as much as for herself. He posed the most danger when set upon by this mood, when Darshan’s compulsive darkness wound about him like a viperous shroud, masking all that was innately him.

  “I don’t know why I fight it.” He turned a brimstone glare over his shoulder. “Perhaps I shouldn’t. Mayhap he knows even now that I defy him—how am I to know what patterns he’s cast about this place? I have no power anymore!” He kicked at the table and sent the entire piece skidding, knives tumbling askew. Then he pushed both hands against the mantle and hung his head.

  “Pelas…”

  But there was no reaching him now. She saw that.

  After a moment, he straightened and walked to his table. Her blood ran cold when she saw the blade he selected. “No—” She watched him in horror as he approached, eyes hooded and dark, his face twisted with despair. “Don’t give in to it. Don’t give up!”

  He stopped before her and looked her over, jaw clenched. Then he ran the razor edge of the blade lightly down both sides of her neck and in an arc across her chest, as if mapping out the lines of his intended incisions. Panic gripped Isabel.

  More lines followed, tracing down across her shift, outlining her breasts, across her abdomen, another low arc from hip to hip. “Pelas, please…”

  Oh, if only her mind were clear instead of plagued by this murky, sordid twilight, or if her thoughts weren’t so fogged by exhaustion and pain. If only she could see the paths instead of these shifting threads, myriad filaments of possibility leading nowhere!

  Abruptly he pressed the cold steel against her throat. Isabel caught her breath—she feared any moment he would lose his battle with the darkness and bring an end to both of them.

  Holding his knife in place, he traced a hand down her face, watching her with hooded eyes blind to her pleas. Then his fiery gaze narrowed. “But I would see you when we do this, Isabel.”

  He ripped off her blindfold.

  She gasped at the shock of it, at the sudden sensation of cool air upon her eyes, at a different sort of muted light…daylight, sensed more than seen. Her lids fluttered, and then Isabel blinked and looked upon the world with her naked eyes. Looked at him.

  Pelas met her gaze hungrily, expectantly. Then she saw his brow tighten—

  The knife fell from his fingers to clatter against the floor, and he staggered back—back—all the way across the room until he hit up against the far wall. She found no words to describe the horror on his face.

  He gasped in a shuddering breath, pinned immobile. “You’re—”

  She nodded. She knew what he’d seen when he looked into her eyes.

  “By Chaos born!” Still he was gaping at her. “If you knew…why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me—” but he choked over the words, suddenly sickened by what he’d done. He pushed off the wall and shoved both hands into his long hair and swore a litany of curses in a language of lightning and formless static.

  Yet as she watched him, she knew she was seeing Pelas as himself again for the first time. The shock of meeting her gaze—of the recognition in that meeting—had driven Darshan’s shadows momentarily to bay. Pelas turned away, hands gripped behind his head, and—

  Chills striped Isabel, for she experienced in that instant a Seer’s duality, when life mimics the dream.

  She saw the moment—his stance, the agonized expression on his face…

  She understood it now, how to help him, but oh…the price was so high.

  Isabel marshaled her courage. “A broad compulsion…can be rechanneled.”

  He threw her a tormented look.

  “Compulsive hunger can be assuaged in more than one way.” She strained to find her voice, her breath, to stay focused and aware. “Hunger and desire find harmonics up and down the scale. You can succumb to the craving in whatever form has been forced on you, or you can take charge of it, find a higher harmonic of the same driving impulse—direct it, own it…sublimate it.”

  He turned. Stared at her. His eyes searched her gaze for meaning. She knew he would find it there.

  His eyes widened. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  But her gaze, holding his, said otherwise.

  “Sublimate it?” Confusion and hopelessness twisted on his brow. “I…don’t know how.”

  “Hunger is desire…” She dropped her gaze and summoned her resolve. Then she lifted her head and looked him in the eye. “Desire me.”

  In three quick strides he’d crossed the room and grabbed her into his arms. “I do desire you.”

  She turned her mouth to receive his, and he claimed of her a violent kiss…a powerful kiss that stole her breath with heat and froze her deeply in the same terrible moment.

  Suddenly he ripped away and staggered back. Misgiving and alarm made his copper eyes too bright, hot with accusation. He dabbed at his mouth with the back of one hand. “You would betray your love and give yourself to me just to secure your freedom.”

  “No.” Her tone gentled the distrust in his rebuke while her gaze showed him the truth of her intent. “…but I would do it to secure yours.”

  For a moment, Pelas stared at her. Then he came for her. In a single motion, he swept his knife up from the floor and severed the ropes that bound her to the poles—though not the goracrosta cuffs that bound her wrists. Then he lifted her into his arms and carried her to his bed.

  He nearly pitched her onto the mattress in his haste. She watched with naked eyes as he freed himself and threw his body down across her own. He sealed his mouth on hers and pressed her painfully into the mattress. His right hand pinned both of hers above her head, powerful legs forced hers apart, and in this way did he bind her anew. Then he penetrated her. She gasped into his kiss and arched helplessly into his motion, and Pelas channeled the full force of Darshan’s compulsion into their copulation.

  Fo
r a time, Isabel knew only the passionate engagement of his lovemaking, intense with sensation and terrifying with guilt, but as Pelas found a sense of himself in his rhythm, his eyes sought hers again.

  “Tell me…” he growled, low and feverish, “tell me how to do this.”

  Momentarily overcome, Isabel squeezed closed her eyes and threw back her head and let herself claim the experience while dizziness claimed her thoughts and guilt her heart. His tongue found her mouth and his hand her breast. When he gave her breath back to her she told him haltingly, for logical words and heady sensation did not often well combine, “You take the force of the compulsion…and you channel it to your own desire. This is how you overcome it.”

  He swung around and rolled her atop himself and did…something…it nearly sent her over the edge. She fell forward and braced herself with her hands on either side of him, letting her hair drape around them both as she looked into his eyes. “This is how you become the master of any compulsion.”

  He stilled for a heartbeat’s pause, digesting that. Then he captured her mouth with his and spun her around beneath him again and she lost herself in his need.

  Violent, fervent, desperate…the hours passed in this guise. Isabel became the vessel into which Pelas poured all of his fury and out of which he took everything he could to sate the compulsion’s hunger. Sometimes she felt outside of herself, lost in a dizzying kaleidoscope of sensations and emotions that were often intense and wonderful…and always heartbreaking. But he didn’t give her time for thought, for regret—that would come later. He demanded her undivided attention with his mouth and his hands and with the driving heat he roused inside her.

  At some point—she didn’t know when, for the hours had become a blur—he pressed his forehead against hers and whispered, “This cannot be the way.”

  Isabel closed her eyes, but the tormenting truth still stared at her. “This is the only way.”

  He growled and thrust himself into her again, and the rhythm of their union paced the rapid beating of her heart. When he turned her over and took her from behind, he unconsciously wrapped his power around her in a hundred arms, a thousand hands. His thoughts took flight and shaped themselves and claimed Isabel for their pleasure equally.