Borne Rising

by Matthew Callahan

  He glanced over at the gasping figure gurgling and choking on their own blood. No, no no no. He grabbed the thick blindfold and forced it onto their neck to stem the bleeding. It was soaked though in no time. The eyes, so familiar, stared at him in pleading terror.

  To hell with this.

  Will’s fist glowed with the white-hot fire of Radiance. He cupped his palm around the wound. The smell of searing flesh filled his nostrils.

  Within moments, he was thrown aside. People crowded him and the dying girl on the floor, immobilizing them and working in a controlled chaos. Will’s shirt was cut away. His body was burned over and over. But his eyes never left the face of the blood-soaked girl next to him.

  When Will came to, Jero din’Dael was lounging on the bunk next to him. The Revenant’s hands were clasped behind his head and he was staring at the stony ceiling. His eyes were fixed beneath their dark brows and his mouth was set in a thin line, yet his face was utterly relaxed. The entire thing was a mask. This isn’t going to go well.

  “How’s Rienne?” Will’s voice was a hoarse croak.

  “You had one job, William.”

  Will was quiet for a moment to see if din’Dael would continue. He didn’t. “Jero, how—”

  “One job, William. One job and one rule.”

  “I’m very aware of that but—”

  “What was the job, William?” Jero rose and stood over the bed.

  Will forced down the frustration building in him. He hated being patronized. “To escape by any means necessary. Except—”

  “And what was the rule?”

  Will rolled his eyes and inhaled deeply. The wounds in his stomach and ribs ached. “To escape by any means necessary. But under no circumstances should I call—”

  “Upon the powers of Radiance by which you are Borne. You must escape without the use of your Flare,” Jero finished for him with a sneer. “You failed to follow orders.”

  “The situation changed, Jero, it evolved. I changed with it.”

  “You deliberately disobeyed orders then? I would have preferred ignorance over insubordination.”

  “She was dying, Jero,” Will snapped. He looked up at the man. “Rienne was dying.”

  “In battle you will see many friends die. This is something you must accept. You were to overcome the enemy and finish the job. You should have let her die.”

  “If she had been an enemy,” Will said, meticulously enunciating each syllable, “I would have let her die. If it were combat and I couldn’t help, I would have let her die.” He leveled a stern gaze at din’Dael. “This was neither.”

  “Still, you didn’t follow orders.”

  “Did you want me to let her die?”

  Jero’s face brightened in a wide smile. He laughed, loud and cheerfully. “Not at all, William. Rienne is a very gifted Lightborne. A bit soft, maybe, but gifted nonetheless.”

  Will eyed the man. Soft was not a word he would ever have used to describe Rienne. Efficient, calculated, deadly? Yes, but never soft. “Given her knife-throwing skills, let’s agree to disagree on that point.”

  Jero laughed again and wiped his eyes. “Yes, she stuck you rather well, didn’t she? It was quite amusing.”

  Amusing? Will looked at the man next to him. His mentor. His teacher. His only connection to a life before the Sapholux. Jero din’Dael’s madness had largely left him since their arrival in the citadel of the Lightborne, the years of torture undone by years of safety and recovery. Yet still, there were traces of it. There was a wildness in the large man’s eyes, something feral. There was a piece of him that Will couldn’t understand, did not want to understand.

  “Jero, please. We can debrief later. I’ll report on every action I took and my reasoning behind it if you like but, please, is Rienne alright?”

  Din’Dael’s chuckling ceased. His expression darkened. “Why ask me? You inflicted the wound. You’re rather familiar with them by this point. What do you think?”

  Will clenched his fists, forcing himself to stay calm. “I know the severity of the wound. I’m asking if cauterizing it helped at all. Did Nelle and the rest get to her in time?”

  “I would hardly say that she is alright, William.” Din’Dael spread his hands and leaned back onto the bed behind him, lounging like a cat. “But I believe she’s still alive for the time.”

  For the time. The words echoed in Will’s mind. He swung his legs off the bed and fought back the waves of nausea that came when he twisted his abdomen. “May I go to her?”

  “For what purpose?”

  “To offer my aid.”

  Jero’s eyes darkened. “William, we’ve been through this. You must purge all traces of your old life in order to become a Blade.” Will said nothing. He met din’Dael’s gaze with determination. Finally, the large man rolled his eyes and shook his head. “All this time, they still function?”

  Will nodded. “Last time I checked.”

  Jero shook his head and returned to his feet. “You are an enigma, William Davis. Go to her, then. Offer what help you may. But do not be surprised when your methodology is poorly received.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Will pushed to his feet, wincing and momentarily reminiscing about the regenerative properties of the Shadowborne. Cauterizing from Radiance held its own relief, though it was a far cry from the comforts of a Shade. He forced the thought down, burying it amongst the rest of his former life. Stop it. That’s behind you now. He could fight through the pain. He controlled that part of him, not the other way around.

  “William.”

  Will paused and turned back to din’Dael.

  “You did well today.”

  The praise came as a surprise but Will said nothing, only nodded.

  “Compassion is not a weakness, but it does not always have its place. Today, however, you were correct in your course of action. Return to your quarters and retrieve what is necessary, but before you see her, head to the larder. You yourself are in need of rejuvenation.”

  Will smiled and inclined his head. “Yes, sir.”

  Will kept his chamber as spartan as the day he first entered the Sapholux. His sleeping pad was on the ground on a pallet. At the foot of it sat the small trunk that contained all his worldly possessions. When he arrived at the Sapholux, ragged and battered after weeks in the desert following din’Dael and his blasted eagle, most of his belongings had been burned. But his blood fangs, his key, those he had been permitted to keep. Mementos of a dead man, din’Dael had said. And I do not mean your grandfather.

  Will had certainly felt dead, then, a corpse walking. His skin had reddened and cracked before shriveling into a dry, leathery tan. There had been no food, no water, but he had survived. He knew now that the fires of Radiance had fueled him when he should have died, the fires that scorched and parched his insides. No drink could quench the thirst from Radiant flames. The constant thirst had driven him to near madness. What a pair din’Dael and I must have made in those weeks of travel.

  The decrepit exterior of the Sapholux had looked like a tomb, the final resting place where he would collapse in death. But when the gates beyond the terrifying entry tunnel opened and he stepped within the protective walls of the Sapholux, the terrible thirst began to abate almost instantly. It had shocked him by its absence. But more shocking still had been what he found on the interior of those ancient walls.

  The legends had been wrong. The histories, the records, everything had been wrong. The Lightborne, supposedly culled following the Wars of Dawning, were massed in force. For them, the Wars had never ended; they merely employed a new strategy. For hundreds of years, they shut themselves off from the world. Only their herald, Jero din’Dael of the Maddened Flame, Revenant of Radiance, dared venture out into Aeril. He’d sought out the straggling remnants of the Order, brought them together, hidden them from the world. Until the Shale caught up to him, that is.

  That was all before. After the Shale, din’Dael had taken Will under his wing and trained him
, taught him to embrace the brilliant fire within him. The Flare, so different from a Shade and yet so similar. Din’Dael taught him to leave the trappings of his old life and fuel the blaze within himself, stoke the coals. But Will had told din’Dael, told him right at the start of everything, that he would never leave it all behind, that there would always be a part of him that was still the same William Davis.

  He’d kept the bit about being Shadowborne to himself as well.

  Will grimaced in pain and removed the blood fangs from the trunk. He could still sense the power within them, though their stones were much diminished. But it was there. He fit the belt around his waist and stood, wincing when the wound in his stomach bit him. Coupling the fires of Radiance with the resources at the Sapholux was a boon toward healing, and their medicines were second to none, but it would still be days before his body felt right once more.

  Except that wasn’t the case. Not anymore. He had been permitted his blood fangs. They could undo the damage in no time at all, given proper fuel. He smiled at that. It felt right to be wearing them again. They were a part of him, as much a part of him as his Shade had once been—as much as the Flare that burned within him now. And, to din’Dael’s voiced amazement, the fangs still responded to Will.

  To the larder, then, Will mused. He closed the trunk and shoved it back against the bed. Will would recover. Rienne would survive. And din’Dael, well, din’Dael had relented on the fangs for the first time. That meant something had changed. Will smiled, sensing that his time within the confines of the Sapholux would soon be coming to an end.

  I’ll see you soon, Mad. Wherever you are.

  2

  Absolution

  Will’s hands were stained red by the time he left the larder. It was messy work and brought back far too many unpleasant memories, but the stones needed fuel. Steeling himself against the scent of fresh blood, he’d done his job delicately, cleaning the game under Quintel’s guidance in order to most effectively use the animals after. The Lightborne had sniffed disdainfully when he saw the blades Will intended to use, but he said nothing.

  I’d forgotten how much the smell lingers, Will thought. He coughed and grimaced, hands instinctively clutching at his stomach. He looked down and eyed his trembling, dark-stained fingers. Rienne isn’t the only one who needs healing.

  Leaning against a wall and sliding to the ground, Will reached for the flows of the bloodstones. He’d never felt them so alive before. He pulled at them and guided them over his stomach and set about knitting his broken flesh. The relief was almost instantaneous.

  And yet, the flow felt strange maneuvering through his body, manipulating and mending his cells. His nerves were firing, setting his skin alive with tingling. Old scars from the recent years of training burned with new pain before fading away. Will shuddered. Am I doing something wrong? It was so long since he last wielded the power, maybe things had changed.

  No, the familiarity was there. It was as if . . . as if the blades were fixing everything, not just the most recent wounds. What had Cephora said when she’d shown him their power? The power of the fang comes through my connection with it. Binding myself to it.

  Perhaps there was more to these things than he’d known. Surprise, surprise. It had all seemed so simple, then. He’d been healing mostly aches and blisters from travel. Mostly.

  Except for when it was worse. Except for the Shale.

  Memories of weapons protruding from flesh appeared in his mind’s eye. Images of Madigan, leg broken and body rent by wounds. Of Morella’s screams.

  No, not going there.

  Will tried to shake off the dark memories, but they clung. It had seemed like one big adventure in the beginning, filled with magic and mystery. Where had they gone wrong? He could still feel his arm go dead when the Shale’s weapon bit through it, could still feel the weapons piercing his body when he fell to the ground. When he slept, if he rolled over and cut the circulation off in his arm, he would wake in a state of panic. The nightmare of everything that had happened after, the rampant murder of Shale and prisoner alike, still haunted him.

  But we survived. He raised his bloodstained hands and stared at them. Most of us, anyway.

  He could still hear Morella’s screams. His stomach tightened, the sharp pain of loss a wound that the bloodstones could do nothing for. Valmont’s sudden appearance—the strange inevitability of it all—and then Will’s world being ripped away. Madigan was alive somewhere, Will still believed that. Cephora had gotten him out just like din’Dael had gotten Will out. But Morella . . . Will didn’t know.

  How had Valmont’s army, dead and twisted, been so silent in its approach? How had he gotten the drop on them? Me and Mad, sure, I’ll take that. But the Revenant of Radiance? The Prime of the Seekers? And throughout all that came after, the dark sorcerer Valmont had sneered.

  Bastard.

  That man was the root cause of all Will’s suffering. That man murdered his grandfather and destroyed his home. That man separated him from his brother and the woman he—loved?—cared for.

  Will closed his eyes and let his head fall between his knees. Morella was most likely dead, he knew. Abandoned at the end by Cephora and Madigan. Abandoned by himself and Jero din’Dael. Alone amidst the undead hordes of Valmont’s warriors and the sorcerer’s maddened power. Even if she had somehow escaped, she’d been weeks away from any sense of civilization, trapped in the Daurhi Wastes without food or water.

  And if she survived all that, she’s alone again. I abandoned her.

  The sting of tears wrinkled his nose. Will glowered and shoved the emotion down, suppressing the memory with all the rest. Someday, he knew, there would be a reckoning for so much suppression, but for now he needed to focus on the living. He stood and took a deep breath to quell his shaking. He could not undo what had been done to Morella, he could not salvage that loss, but he could at least help Rienne.

  Will arrived at the infirmary and paused just long enough to knock before pushing the door open and stepping into the large, bright room. There were enough beds for at least fifty occupants in this particular infirmary and there were at least a dozen others like it located within the Sapholux—a sign of the Order’s former strength. Now, however, only a single bed was occupied.

  “Rienne,” Will called out and stepped forward tentatively. “May I come in?”

  The woman raised a weak hand that Will took as an okay. He approached and took in the battered form of the young woman. Her tan skin was pale and had a gray tinge to it. Blood had pooled beneath her eyes, making her look as though she had been severely beaten. Her hair was hidden beneath a wrap that kept it free of her neck. The neck and wound itself were wrapped in bandages heavy with the strange salve used in the Sapholux to aid healing and prevent infection. The bandages also meant the wound was worse than Will feared.

  “Up and moving already?” Rienne’s voice was strained and she winced when she spoke. “Guess I didn’t get you as close as I thought.”

  “Oh, you got me well enough.” Will gave her a pained smile. He pulled over a stool and sat next to her. “You, though”—he shook his head—“I hope it’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “That bad, is it?” Rienne laughed briefly before her body seized in pain. Tears welled in her eyes, but she forced herself to return his smile. “A bit closer than I would like, that’s certain.”

  “Rienne.” Will thumbed the blood fangs. “I’m sorry. Jero din’Dael allowed me to come here, permitted me to help if I may. May I?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Help?” One corner of her mouth turned up in a weak smile. “You broke it. If din’Dael thinks you can fix it, be my guest.”

  Will inhaled and tried to calm his nerves. I can do this.

  He held out a hand and, raising an eyebrow at him, Rienne took it. He withdrew the left blood fang and gripped it tight in his hand. Rienne’s eyes grew wide at the sight of it and she recoiled from him—Of course she knows what they are—but he held her hand tight. He fel
t the bloodstone’s power, felt it cascading and entwining his hand, and guided it toward Rienne.

  He focused on her neck, uncertain of the extent of the damage and how much energy it would require to repair. His thoughts drifted to Morella, of the wound on her side when he met her on the road. He thought of his brother and the broken body he had suffered at the hands of the Shale while saving Will. He thought of himself, battered and bleeding on the stone floor after his Flare and the sudden power of Radiance had manifested within din’Dael’s prison chamber. Compared to the latter two, this wound was slight—Will knew that Rienne would be alright.

  She gave a sudden gasp and squeezed his hand, a grimace of pain crossing her face. Suddenly, she screamed, recoiling and pulling away, but Will held her. Her hands crackled with lightning, the Flare of Radiance burning defensively, and still he held on. She cried out again and again while he restored her broken flesh and replenished her body to a healthy state.

  He stopped, sensing that he had done all he could. Rienne was panting heavily, her eyes wide with shock and fear. He couldn’t understand the pain of the process for her; he had never seen it before.

  “Rienne, I—”

  “What the hell was that?” Her voice was sharp, angry, but strong and tinged with awe.

  Will was silent for a moment. “That was the art of the blood fang.”

  “I know what it was.” She reached a hand up to the bandage at her neck and tentatively pressed on it. Will hadn’t thought it possible for her eyes to grow any wider, but they did. She tore at the bandage and ripped it off, her fingers delicately touching the smooth, unblemished skin. “How? How did you . . .?”

  Will smiled. The pools of blood were gone from her eyes. The gray cast to her skin had faded, returning it to its natural deep tan. He sheathed the blood fang. “It’s a long story.”

  “Only Blades of Shadow are capable of wielding the blood fang.”

  “And Disciples,” Will corrected. “But I am neither.” He did not offer any further explanation. Rienne stared at him, questions clear upon her face. “I’m sorry for the pain it caused. I . . . I didn’t expect that.”