“What do you want from me?” Nik asked again, sensing the Draken wanted more than to just show him something.
Weshen, we want your heart.
Nik stumbled backward in shock, and he could have sworn the Draken chuckled.
No, we do not want your life. But we do want your magic. The Draken paused, watching Nik as though skimming his thoughts again. Nik didn’t even know what the creature might see because his brain was churning like the sea in a winter storm. No, we don’t want to strip it from you. So many wrong answers, the Draken said. But the world does need your magic to defeat Shadow.
“Shadow has been defeated,” Nik answered, immediately feeling foolish. Even as he said the words, he knew he and Sy had been short-sighted to think they could trap such a being.
Shadow lives, the Draken growled, his claws digging deep into the soft earth. And more, Shadow is growing in strength. If it is allowed to gather body and army, there will be nothing in the world to stop it from claiming all.
“I know nothing of this.” Nik held his palms open, apologizing. What he’d heard of Shadow was limited to bedtime stories and the battle fought in the woods weeks ago, where a black form had darted from the trees and slashed like knives at the Wesh, then snatched at Coren’s Vespa claw, stealing her power and nearly her life.
But he and Sy had shoved it beneath the earth, trapped it. How could such a creature, frightening though it had been, be powerful enough to claim the world?
And how could his magic, strong though it was, ever be what the world needed to defeat such a creature?
Nik turned his face to the clear sky above, silently searching for the Mirror Magi’s purpose in all of this but finding nothing.
It is time for your rest now, Weshen. More will be revealed upon sunrise, and you are safe to sleep here.
Nik suddenly felt very tired, as if the suggestion was a switch. His eyes heavy, he wondered if the Draken had doused him with magic. Too sleepy to care, he followed the Draken’s pointing claw and curled near his pack, the soft grass more of a pillow than he’d had since leaving Lorenya’s house.
As his eyes closed, he thought he saw the Draken take up watch nearby, his great body blocking the still bright sun. The eye in his mind blinked shut, and a heavy drape of calm soothed Nik to sleep within moments.
THE SPIRITS HAD GROWN bolder each day since arriving in StarsHelm, often gaining Sy’s attention beyond night and once, in front of others. He knew he’d accepted the curse by killing Graeme. He still accepted its reality.
But behind his calm compliance, he was growing a little desperate.
Coren hadn’t yet asked him to stay behind when the armies left for Sulit, but Sy was dreading the day she might. He couldn’t let her go with just Jyesh and the Riatan soldiers, especially since Resh was staying at StarsHelm.
Jyesh barged into Sy’s room just as he finished vomiting into a ceramic bowl. Today’s torture session had seen his stomach fill to brimming with bile over and over again until Sy’s throat was raw from the acid.
“I’ve spoken with many of the guards,” Jyesh said.
Sy leaned back against the bed frame, scraping his hair from his eyes as he stared at Jyesh, too tired to ask. Too tired to do anything but suffer through it. His only consolation was the brothers’ continued promises that he would never die from their work - they had too much fun doing it.
“Graeme never suffered this much or this publicly. You are losing control.”
“Sorry to inconvenience you,” Sy managed, his voice scratching from his throat.
“I’m trying to help you, Weshen,” Jyesh snapped.
“Why?”
Jyesh didn’t answer. He only turned and strode back out of Sy’s room, his impeccable cloak swishing elegantly behind him.
Sy doubled over with another bout of retching. How was it possible he had anything left in his stomach?
The spirits watched from the corner of the room, resting quietly instead of enjoying his pain. If Sy didn’t know better, he would have called them bored. As though this game had grown tiresome for them as well.
“Just leave if you’re not satisfied,” he ground out. The shapes twisted closer, and his skin began to heat. Sy slumped back on the bed, his will to resist gone. He couldn’t continue like this.
He couldn’t leave the palace grounds without it growing worse, which was an impossible thought.
He’d probably never see Nik again, or the beaches of Weshen Isle.
His dreams of a peaceful future were now saturated with pain. This was no way to live.
One of the spirits advanced, and Sy felt the trickle of flame that always began one of Lumien’s designs. He was the only brother Sy was able to regularly identify. He was the cruelest. As the last brother to die, Sy wondered if he held the strongest ties to life.
Then he had no more room in his head for wondering as agony flooded every bit of his mind, and his body writhed on the bed.
He felt the thud when he hit the floor, but it was small in comparison.
He heard the door open again and several sets of footsteps, but he had nothing left in him to care who saw this anymore. As the flames seeped away again, Sy peeled open his eyes.
Jyesh and a guard stood nearby, a bound young man between them.
“Leave us,” Jyesh said to the guard. The man nodded and slipped out of the room. “This man is a criminal,” Jyesh said, shoving the bound person to his knees. A large rag had been shoved in his mouth, holding back any words. The man’s eyes flared with hatred, but not with protest. “He forced himself on a young woman just yesterday. She fought back, but he was strong. He broke her arm and bloodied her face before the girl’s brother found them.”
Sy rolled to his hands and knees, still trying to catch his breath. For now, the golden brothers had retreated to the back of the room, not much more than a patch of sunbeams in a corner with no window.
“What... what do you want?” Sy said, his voice not quite whole.
“Kill him. Someone will do it regardless. It is Riatan law.”
Sy blinked up at Jyesh, startled.
“Your curse wants blood. Give it blood.” Jyesh pushed open his black cloak and drew a shining dagger from his belt. He dropped it on the floor next to Sy.
Sy sat back on his knees, staring at the young man before him. “Is this true?” he asked the supposed criminal. The man growled something around his gag, but it didn’t sound contrite. He lunged toward Sy but was yanked back by Jyesh’s hold on his chains.
Jyesh said, “I can bring the girl or the brother before you as well. But it would only waste time. This man will die, regardless whether it’s your hand or the palace executioner’s. Your spirits want blood, and though this man is not innocent, is it not worth a trial?”
Sy took a deep breath. Could he do this? Jyesh was right - his hands had not been clean for a long time now. He’d killed many in battle. He’d shredded the King who’d given him this curse.
And this man was a criminal, slated for death, according to the First Son. Sy was desperate enough to believe him.
“By the Magi, forgive me,” Sy whispered, leaning forward to grasp the dagger. He shut his eyes against the deed, although it would stay with him forever.
He drew the knife across the prisoner’s slim throat, opening its life vein.
Sy felt a frenzy of activity from the spirits behind him. They swooped around and through him in their haste to get to the blood. He reflexively opened his eyes at the sensation, seeing how the blood spilled and ran down the young man’s tunic. He fixated on how the spirits rolled in the liquid like dogs, lapping at it and crusting it into their every golden crevice.
Sy felt like vomiting again, and it had nothing to do with the pain of the curse.
Shimmering laughter filled the room, and as the last drop of red was spread over the golden fire, Sy realized he could see actual features of the men who taunted him nightly.
The blood had made them less spirit and more human. Was
this what they wanted?
“If you had enough blood, could you come back?” he asked.
The figures seethed, battling between body and fire already. The whispering began, and one brother flew to his ear. “It might seem that way, but Zorander killed thousands upon thousands and never sated our master.” The voice sounded wistful. Sad, even.
“Are you in pain as well?” Sy asked. Perhaps Graeme had never looked past his own nose. The stories said the brothers had been cruel in life as well, but stories were often wrong.
“Constant,” another spirit answered. Sy wished he knew which was which, but their faces were so rarely clear enough to match with the portraits he’d discovered in a side room of the library, and they often merged together and separated randomly.
“And what does my pain give you?”
“Our master requires it as fulfillment of the curse.”
“Who is your master?”
But the spirits did not answer this question, even when Sy repeated it. Their light began to fizzle and fade, and soon all seven had vanished, leaving the room empty aside from the dead body at Sy’s feet - and a silent Jyesh standing near the door.
Several minutes passed before Jyesh crossed the room and reached out a hand for Sy, helping him to his feet. Sy shook his head, dizzy from vomiting and stress. Jyesh pushed him back to the bed and shifted a curtain from the window onto the body, wrapping it neatly.
Sy grabbed the pitcher of water from the side table, drinking straight from it. He set it back on the wood with a thunk. He was glad to be in control of his body, but Jyesh’s nonchalance was making him nervous.
How long would the peace last? Would he need to do this again?
“And what have you learned about your curse?” Jyesh asked, his face oddly compassionate.
Sy stared at him for a long moment, sinking back into the pillows. He didn’t understand why Jyesh was trying to help him. “The blood excites them, but it also calms them. They seemed to enjoy it. It made them less spirit, more whole, for a few minutes. But one said there is no permanent solution.”
“If they were created with blood magic, it makes sense that blood would heal them. I’ve been speaking with Gernant,” Jyesh added.
“But Graeme killed so many and never broke the curse. Never made them human again.”
“Graeme did not want them human,” Jyesh pointed out. “He wanted them dead, so he could rule.”
Sy considered this point. Even if the spirits could be made whole, what would be the purpose in that? They would take Riata back, and if they were anything like Graeme, then this was nothing he wanted.
“Do you feel their sources?” he asked. He’d never been able to focus his shifting enough to grasp at them.
Jyesh shook his head. “They are true spirits. No body, no sources. According to Coren, no souls that she can tell. Don’t worry - she’ll know none of this. I’ll tell her it’s a spell or something.”
“Why are you helping me?” Sy asked after a moment, his voice almost too quiet.
Jyesh shrugged and paced to the window. “Torture for no reason is pointless,” he answered finally, repeating what he’d said before. “Besides, if I can help break your curse, you can leave. That’s one fewer person to watch over me.” He smirked at Sy and sauntered from the room, leaving Sy to figure out what to do with the body in the middle of his bedroom.
Chapter 27
THE DRAKEN HAD GIVEN Nik nothing more that night except a peaceful, dreamless sleep. But the next morning when Nik awoke, the massive creature was waiting again, watching him silently.
“Where are the others of your kind?” Nik asked, stretching himself limber. The Draken had used “we,” but Nik had yet to see any more creatures besides the fire Draken who had first greeted him.
They will meet you when they trust you.
Nik’s eyes widened. “What could I possibly do to harm them?”
Your magic is untested and powerful. We can sense its instability. I am one who believes this is good, but not many agree. We have seen too many men turn the blessed power of the gods into evil works.
“Do Draken live long, then?”
The only answer was a rumbling chuckle. Nik bent to rummage in his pack. He retrieved a nearly empty water skin and a chunk of dried meat.
I do not know what your kind may eat, but we have water here and bronzeberry bushes. The Draken swung his head toward the top of a small hill, where the sun was just cresting.
Nik followed the direction and found a narrow, bubbling stream, clear as glass. He tested the sources and found it as pure as any he’d ever seen. The berries hung in heavy clusters, and he shoved a handful in his mouth gratefully. Their sweetness rolled his eyes back, and he settled on the grass next to the stream with a happy sigh.
“Will you tell me your name?” Nik asked the Draken, who had come to sit nearby, his great scaly tail wrapped around his haunches like a catten might curl.
There was a slight hesitation, and Nik thought of how the witches hoarded names. “Unless that is too much,” he added quickly.
No, I understand. Humankind are fond of names. But names do hold power, so do not expect them from most Draken you meet. The creature turned to gaze at Nik for a long moment, and Nik felt the scanning eye in his mind. You may call me Kinmare.
And I am Shuri, a new voice said from behind them. Nik twisted around and stumbled to his feet as another Draken emerged from the shadows of the mountainside. I am a dusk Draken.
The voice was distinctly more female, and the way she moved was sinuous, even more like a catten, Nik thought. She was much smaller, too. Nik thought he could reach the base of her neck.
Her coloring was a deep, shadowy purple at the base of her claws and belly, nearly black like Kinmare. But her scales swirled with a gleaming ombre of the shadowy colors of sunset, the purple intensifying around her midsection, then lightening to lavender and streaks of feathery pink at the tips of her wings.
Our coloring tells our power, she said, watching Nik examine her.
Kinmare snorted. Do not share more than you are willing to face, he warned, glancing at Nik as though the warning were for him as well.
But Shuri shook her large head. He must know these things if I am to do what I am to do.
Nik watched the exchange with interest, afraid to ask the myriad questions brimming in his mind. “So, a fire Draken controls fire,” he said, settling on the more obvious. “What does it mean to control the dusk?” Fire and water and the other elements were simple. But dusk was simply a time.
Shuri stepped toward the clearing, centering herself in the meadow of flowers. She glanced at Kinmare, and the larger Draken nodded. She spread her wings and flapped them gently, and shadows began to spool from the scales on her belly and from beneath each wing.
Nik leaned away from one dark tendril as it brushed against his chest, oppressive in its touch as though it had body and form of its own. His stomach flipped at his mind’s comparison of these shadows and the Shadow he’d fought before.
Then Shuri opened her great, toothy mouth and shrieked, like the cry of a hunting bird, and the shadows snapped into ribbons that sliced away the tips of the grass, beheading several flowers.
She ducked her head and lowered the cry to something more like a coo, and the edges of her wings began to glow and radiate beams of light that broke apart her shadows, shattering them into pieces too tiny to be harmful.
Gathering her wings tight, she grew silent, and she turned to stare at Nik.
“You control the shadows. And the light,” he guessed, his mind churning. Her power was much more than he’d first thought. “Can you break apart all shadows? Even the Shadow?”
Shuri nodded, her mouth slitting open in what Nik supposed passed for a smile.
I am young in my power, but I am the only of my kind, she said, her words echoing in his mind. Dusk Draken are only born once every thousand years. But I am ready and willing, young Weshen. Like you, I wish for peace. Like you, I k
now we must battle for it.
The mountains around him creaked, and as Nik glanced up, he suddenly realized there were dozens of Draken slinking from between gaps in the cliffs, almost as though they broke apart from the stone itself. Nik’s eyes were glutted with color as he looked around and up, wondering how many types there really were.
“How will you help us, though? I do not want to slaughter our enemy indiscriminately. Riatans and witches are not all bad.” Nik looked around at all the Draken towering above him. He knew they were small in comparison to the mountains, but they were mountains against his frail human form. He had no idea how to politely ask if he could ride one of them. If there even was a way to be polite about that.
Several of the Draken chuckled, and the cliffs above rumbled with the vibration.
You are correct, Kinmare said. Draken do not take riders.
I would be willing, Shuri interrupted. He doesn’t yet believe or understand. He needs to see. She stared up at the others on the surrounding cliffs, a glint of challenge in her eyes.
“See what?” Nik asked. Fine blades of anxiety were slicing at his calm. He didn’t like secrets and surprises, and he’d already borne quite a few of those today.
Our enemy is not man or witch, she answered.
“Shadow,” Nik supplied, and both Draken nodded.
He needs to see, Shuri repeated, staring at Kinmare. They exchanged glances for long enough that Nik suspected they were conversing in their minds and shielding him from it. The Draken scattered in the cliffs above them grew restless, and tiny pebbles slipped down the rock face as they moved, but none spoke to Nik.
Weshen, Shuri agrees to too much. Do not take her sacrifices lightly, Kinmare warned.
Nik nodded, uncertain what she’d agreed to, or even what he was agreeing to. He’d come to this mountain to keep his friends from danger. Yet, his gut told him that by joining with the Draken, he would be stirring up more ancient evils than ever.
Dream of Darkness and Dominion Page 27