Aster Wood series Box Set

by J B Cantwell

  He looked up, giving a knowing glance to one of the giants who stood in the tight circle around me. He quickly moved out from under the overhang and climbed the last steps to the top.

  “No!” I cried, not daring to raise my voice higher than a whisper.

  But my words had no effect. Only the enormous hands of Druce on my shoulder kept me from chasing after the giant as he walked knowingly to his death.

  Frustration coursed through me, and tears sprang to my eyes.

  “You can’t!” I argued. “It’s not right! We can do this without you. Just stop killing yourselves. It’s not worth it!”

  Another giant peeled away from the group, but Druce’s hands remained clenched on my shoulders.

  From overhead, the heavy sounds of a giant hitting the ground came to my ears, muffled by the rock between us. The first giant’s body fell over the side of the precipice.

  Soon, the second followed.

  The tears were flowing in earnest now, stinging my eyes as they washed away the grit of weeks of travel. Not far away now, blurry in my vision, my friends ascended the last steps.

  And the last of Druce’s village walked to his death, leaving only the leader and myself now. He spun me around as the sounds of the third giant losing his life rang out.

  “You must stay here,” he said, glaring. No tears betrayed him, only sadness mixed with pride as enormous as his frame told the story in his eyes. “If you follow, he will kill you, too, and we will need you to aid in his destruction. Do you understand?”

  I stared at the ground, unable to comprehend what he was about to do. What they all had done. He put one heavy hand beneath my chin and wrenched my face upward.

  “Will you do as I command?” he asked. It was no longer an order, but a request.

  I did not answer, and when he released my face, my head fell back down, staring at my feet, unable to think clearly anymore.

  “Erod, when he came back to us, spoke of you as our champion,” he said. “He told us that a man would one day arrive here in the Fold who would free us of the evil that has poisoned these lands. Do well by our sacrifice, Aster Wood.”

  I barely felt it when his hands left my shoulders. I didn’t look up again until he had already made it nearly to the top of the stairs.

  I couldn’t let him do this. I just couldn’t. We could do it without him, without all of them having to die.

  I sprang from the overhang, taking the steps two at a time.

  “Druce!” I shouted. “Wait!”

  His form reached the final step and turned to meet the monster who had so wronged him and his people. He was speaking, but I couldn’t hear. The Corentin was laughing, a vague sound barely audible over the pulsing of blood in my ears. I moved faster. And when my head breached the top step, I turned, staff in hand, ready to fight for this one last giant, determined to save at least him.

  A cracking sound. Druce’s body, contorted, the look on his face surprised, even though his inevitable death must have been no surprise at all. And then he fell. With one wave of the Corentin’s bone-sharp arm, his body was tossed away over the side of the mountain along with all the other dead.

  Chapter 30

  “NO!” I yelled.

  I rounded on the beast that had taken so much from us all. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the last pedestal was here beneath our feet, the great symbol carved into the precipice of the mountain.

  Though everything was happening at lightning speed, time seemed to slow down.

  He had turned his back toward the staircase, toward me, and stood now with his arms outstretched above his head, his fingers making that same stroking motion Jade’s had just minutes ago.

  He was drawing the planet towards us. Just as he had done thousands of years ago.

  Earth loomed large in the sky, as big as ten suns now. Soon it would be close enough for him to leap to it, perhaps without even needing a link to do so.

  “The champion joins me,” came his voice, high and cracked, betraying his years with its age.

  Though he was clearly addressing me, he did not turn to face me. I tried hard to think of all the victories we had seen up until this point. Finding the Book of Leveling. Jade being broken free of him by Erod. Leveling the planets. The giants, whose fires were now extinguished, who had shrugged off the last of his possession. And though Earth loomed larger with each passing second, hope for the future filled me. The staff, fueled by the hope I felt, slipped easily through my hands. I held it up and aimed.

  I took everything I had, every good feeling, every time I had felt I was headed in the right direction, and I unleashed them all. The bolt that came from the staff hit him, and though I was not surprised to see he had a force field around him as the others had, the power of the blow knocked him forward a few steps.

  This time when he spoke, there was acid in his voice.

  “You stupid child,” he said, rounding on me.

  With his turn my bolt of power was extinguished. I raised the staff again, ready to attack, but the sight of the being in front of me was so raw, so barbaric, that I was distracted, unable to look away.

  He stood across from me, those hands working furiously now in my direction. I fought the desire to turn, to see whatever it was that he was summoning behind me. But I don’t think I could’ve turned away. Not really.

  He was a tall man, though he was not so simple a being as a man now. His robes hung down around him, the sheerest of fabrics, fluttering with the force of air coming down upon us from Earth looming above. I was surprised that they didn’t sound like paper blowing in the wind.

  And his hands. They were like a skeleton’s. I couldn’t even tell if any flesh hung off his bones, they were so thin. And with long, pointed fingernails that hinted of a penchant for torture.

  But his face was the most terrifying of all. Here I saw that he did have skin, of a sort at least, covering him. But his eyes were deep set, sunken into the sockets, and as he smiled at me I saw his teeth were nearly as sharp as his nails. As I watched him working those fingers, his face seemed to undulate, like looking at someone beneath a pool of water. One moment you saw the beast, the creature seeking to destroy us all. And the next, the simple features of an ordinary man would come out, so fast, just a flash, and then disappear again beneath the monster’s mask.

  “Aster!” came the shriek of Jade’s voice.

  I couldn’t take my eyes away from his, though, the darkest black with the occasional flicker of blue. It was only when those eyes looked to my side that I realized what was about to happen. I ducked as a torrent of boulders hurdled over my head.

  I expected him to scream with rage. Instead, he only laughed.

  “You cannot duck away from your death, Aster,” he said, speaking to me as if I were an old friend. “You have resisted me these past months, but not today.”

  A strange sensation started around the corners of my skull, almost as if water were trickling down my scalp. I was forcibly reminded of my dreams of fighting off the master’s power, refusing to be taken as Jade had been, as Father had been. As so many others had been. I pushed it away instinctively with my mind, just as one might push down panic in a crisis. The feeling remained though, and as I stood there staring into those cold, black eyes, I felt the cold tendrils begin to slide down my neck.

  “Ah, you are not so strong when you come face to face with your master, are you?” he mocked.

  I clawed at my throat as if I would be able to grip onto the arms of the thing that encircled my neck. But there was nothing for me to grasp there, just bare skin.

  The feeling was inside.

  “Aster, don’t let him take you!” Jade cried, just making the top step. It was enough to distract him, and he turned his attention to her instead.

  “And you,” he snarled. “The little darling of the kingdom. Your giant friend came to take you away, but I see that he is not with you now. Tell me, did you mind it when he died? Oh, yes, I know about what happened in the woods.�
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  “Get out of my head, master,” she growled, her fists clenched at her sides. “Or shall I call you Jared?”

  “Ha!” he said, his tone light. “So you have discovered the secret! Well, I must admit that it brings me joy to finally get credit for the work I have done all these years. Always hiding in the shadows … it lent itself to the mystique I had created. Not showing myself, nobody knowing who I really was, has created more reverence for my position over time. But I admit, it is rather nice that you know. Shame that you won’t be able to spread the word. That Jared of Riverstone has been with them this entire time.”

  Jade’s face had twisted into a mask of pain. I looked between the two of them and realized what must be happening.

  “No!” I yelled. “Leave her alone!”

  I released a jet of power from the staff. He caught it easily in one hand as if he were catching a delicate flower.

  But it distracted him enough, and Jade fell to her knees, weak from his efforts.

  “Neither of you will be able to resist me here,” he cooed. “The little children of the kingdom. You are just as vile as my own offspring was.”

  I felt the cold start again at the top of my forehead. But this time I thought I knew how I might fight it off. After all, my hope, when it surfaced, was the thing that had brought me the greatest power of all. I relaxed my body and imagined Father’s face, his eyes intact and finally free of the Corentin’s possession, those eyes recognizing me for what I was. His son.

  In an instant the cold retreated. The Corentin’s face twisted into an angry grimace.

  “You may try,” he said, an edge to his voice now that hadn’t been there a moment before. “But you will fail to resist me for long.”

  He raised his fingers up again. But this time when the cold began, it was lighter, more like a mist of spray. I imagined Jade, back home in her castle, now filled with friends and light.

  And the Corentin backed away, his face shocked.

  “You can’t take me,” I said, stepping forward, filling with confidence and even more hope than before. “Can you?”

  I understood that what I was saying was true, then. Hadn’t it been so with the dreams? Hadn’t I always escaped his grasp? And even now, face to face with the monster, he was proven unable to control my mind.

  But I shouldn’t have been so arrogant in that moment. I was mocking him now. I should have known better.

  His jolt of power surprised me, knocking me squarely in the chest and throwing me back against the stone. Suddenly my injuries from earlier came back to my attention full force. Sounds became muffled again. Jade screaming. Shouts from men close by. Was it Kiron? Father?

  When I opened my eyes I saw both Kiron and Finian facing off against the Corentin with their disks. From behind them Father tried, in vain it seemed, to wrestle the powerful shield from around him, but whatever protected the Corentin seemed unbreachable. The jets of light that came from the disks bounced off him and scattered like fireworks in all directions.

  I rolled to my side and saw Jade, her hands gripping her head as she writhed against the stone. Her eyes were shut tight, but when I touched her shoulders, she opened them for just a moment.

  And what I saw there made my breath catch and hold in my chest.

  Black was fighting to take over. The normal green fought from the outside, pushing the black away. But the green was losing the battle fast, and I knew what that meant.

  “Jade, no!” I yelled.

  But too late.

  Her body relaxed, and in that moment I knew that she had been taken once more. Her eyes opened slowly, and a wicked smile curled upon her lips. She rose to her feet, an effortless motion, leaving me lying on the ground like a broken toy.

  The monster spoke with a maddening superiority.

  “Yes, without her big friend to repel my power, there is no hope to save her from herself. She is weak. She is all but powerless beneath my touch.”

  Finian and Kiron looked back and forth from me and Jade, and then back to their target again. They weren’t making any headway at all with their efforts.

  “Go on, girl,” he said, motioning to Jade.

  I stared around, suddenly panicking again. On all sides of us stones were rising up into the air. Her hands rose, too, and I felt sure that the next move she made would release a torrent of rocks like bullets.

  And there was nothing I could do about it.

  The rocks came at us, pummeling Kiron and Finian, whose bodies shook and fell from the volley of attacks.

  But not me.

  In the instant that she released the weapons, I rose to my feet and slammed the staff into the rock. The resulting crack sent the mountain shaking, and the Corentin’s face once again became a grimace of surprise. The magic in the staff had protected me, had encircled me just as his own had. They could not touch me.

  I stood in awe of my own power, and before I could move again, before I realized what was happening, the Corentin moved to Kiron and rolled him off the side of the precipice.

  No.

  I ran for him, forgetting my magic.

  And my shield went down.

  This time Jade’s stones made contact, and I fell just as the others had, hitting the ground hard.

  He moved to Finian next, rolling him off the surface just like Kiron, just like all those giants before. Had they managed to do what they set out to? Had their sacrifice been enough to weaken him?

  Father was lying face up on the ground, weirdly immobilized while the others around him went down from attack.

  “Father,” I said, my voice a croak. “Father, help us.”

  His brow furrowed.

  Was my dad still in there at all? Or was he completely gone now, his essence extinguished by the Corentin’s evil? I remembered Cait walking to Father and taking his hand, determined and resolute that he was good on the inside. I remembered Father’s joy as he rediscovered the wonders of these worlds. And his concern for me, something that had grown over these past weeks to resemble love.

  “Father,” I said. “Help me.”

  Slowly, painfully, he rolled to one side. He seemed injured, and yet his body had taken no blows from the volley of rocks.

  “Look at you, the little boy,” the beast went on. “It does not even require magic to take you down. Her magic throws the rocks, yes, but in the end they are only rocks. You are as vulnerable as a babe without his mother.”

  I tried to block out the sound of his voice. I was sure he would go on like this as long as he felt he had an audience.

  Father crawled to his knees. Together, and only together, maybe we could do this.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.

  His blank sockets stared as though trying to tell me something, trying to get me to understand. What? His plan? His mind?

  He made a slight gesture with his hands, and suddenly I understood. He had the same idea in mind as I did.

  Together.

  I rolled over onto my stomach, keeping the staff in my hands the entire time.

  Together.

  I could not rise. My legs were not reliable enough to bear my weight. So instead I sat, the staff pointed at Jared with the only strength I had left.

  And Father rose.

  As he stood before Jared, the Corentin, he moved his hands together, making that opening gesture that had been the downfall of the Coyle’s defenses.

  And the Corentin felt it this time. His face changed from smirk to panic in an instant.

  “Girl!” he yelled.

  Jade looked around, watching her master, not yet realizing that another attack of stone was needed.

  Jared took several steps back, trying to regain his stature. But it was no use. No matter how many times he brandished his claw-like fingers, no matter how hard he tried to concentrate, his power was simply gone. Extinguished.

  Father turned back, just for a moment, a smile of triumph lighting his face.

  Hope surged up in me as I unleashed th
e greatest bolt yet, the most magic my young body had ever released. It struck the Corentin full in the chest. His body froze, then shook. His hands fell from their defensive positions, now grasping the air as if he were falling.

  The bolt from my staff flickered and faded, and I lay, spent, on the stone. Then, in a fraction of a second, all of my hopes were dashed from me.

  Father was running full force at Jared, colliding with him in a giant shower of sparks. Together they moved, Father embracing him as though he were a long lost friend.

  And they fell.

  Chapter 31

  I scrambled for the side of the precipice, seeing that on this, the far side of the rock, a cliff stretched out all the way down into the farthest reaches of the mountain.

  It was the crack that had fractured it. First from Jared’s power. Then from mine.

  They fell, down and down, Father never losing his grip around the Corentin’s body. He screamed, trying to fight him off, his hands trying desperately to regain their lost power. For his was gone, just as my own. He would die the same way as any man. Without magic. Without power.

  And Father…

  They plunged downward, ever downward. I watched them until they fell into the dark reaches of the mountain.

  For longer than I could tell, minutes, hours, I watched the blackness, half expecting Father to emerge, somehow held up by the same magic that had cushioned him in the Shattered Mountains.

  But he didn’t come back. He didn’t float back up to me.

  It was only as the sun finally began to rise that I moved away from the cliff. I curled up into myself, ignoring the great wind whipping all around me. I didn’t care if Jade attacked. She could go ahead and do away with me, just he had wanted her to do.