“Mother!” her daughter shouted and ran to her.
“My beautiful asha!” Ni’ola lifted Baht into the air and spun her in a circle before putting her down. “Where is your father?”
Baht pulled on her wrist, leading her toward the back door of the longhut. “He is with Wahn’le and Pan’le. They are training. Grandfather is with them.”
Ni’ola frowned at the thought of her sons training for war, especially with their grandfather Pai’le. The boys revered him and loved to listen to his stories, but he was always too loud and boisterous, too full of pride. His stories would get the boys killed if they ever tried to live up to the feats he described.
She’d lived with the Ti’yak for two dozen years and had been married to Kahn’le, her second husband, for sixteen of them, but the Esharii’s single-minded pursuit of fighting still made her recoil inside. She understood and followed the edicts of Eisha Ryn, and she believed with all her heart that they were necessary to prepare the people for what must one day come, yet she found it difficult to embrace the warfare and death that came with those edicts. It went beyond the fear all mothers have for their children, back to the small shards of her childhood memories that remained and to the loss of her first husband.
Always the sword and the spear. It would be so until the Sko’dran came and the Esharii defeated the gray demons.
Baht led her to the back door that opened to the practice yard. The doorway filled with a shimmering light she could not see through. She knew this light. It would take her away. She tried to stop, but Baht still held her wrist and pulled her forward into . . .
* * *
—
. . . battle.
Fire arced from the smoke in front of Ni’ola and splashed into the ranks of Esharii warriors to her right. She couldn’t afford to spend the energy she held in her tan’tari to protect them, even though her forearms shone bright with power. Men and women shrieked their defiance at Tomu’s army until they perished from the flames. Arrow, rock, and spear followed, and scores more fell crushed and pierced. Yet still her people held. They had no choice. There was nowhere left to go.
Around her, the once dense forests and fertile fields of the Esharii homelands were gone, replaced with ash and soot. Only the occasional blackened stump rose up in defiance to proclaim what had once thrived here, and the destruction stretched for a thousand steads north to the mountains—and beyond. For all Ni’ola knew, her former homeland lay just as desolate after the gray demons’ defeat of the Church of Man. Wherever Tomu’s army marched, no life remained. Behind her, the Najalii was a fetid quagmire of dead animals and rotting vegetation. Despite a thousand sacrifices, the Fallen God Parron did not have the power to wake and fight his ancient enemy.
A deafening thunder built up, shaking the ground beneath her. From the smoke a line of horsemen appeared, stretching farther than she could see to either direction. They charged with long, steel-tipped lances held out before them, and a sea of footmen followed behind. She recognized the red-caped spearmen of Thae, the black coats of the swordsmen of Mirlond, and so many others besides them. All the lands of the Covenant were represented in the horde that charged toward her people, and among them rode the gray demons, urging the army forward with blazing swords held high. The enemy held nothing back in the final attack against Parron’s resting place. The lancers would shatter the Esharii, and the footmen who followed would cut the survivors of the charge to pieces.
But the Esharii were not done fighting.
Ni’ola raised her arms and pulled in the strength of the Ti’yak, adding it to the power she’d saved for this moment. All members of the Ti’yak tribe were her pachna now, and so it was for the other tribes. She was one of seven new enta’esk okulu, the spirit-warrior for her tribe.
Ni’ola released the torrent of power she held within her and sent it to the creatures below the earth—into the worms and ants, into boring beetles and larvae, into anything that remained alive below the charred surface. The power she forced into the creatures could not be contained by their small forms. For a stretch two hundred paces wide, the earth below the horsemen heaved upward and exploded. Horses screamed and died with their riders. Down the line of Esharii, the other spirit-warriors followed her example. Six more explosions erupted below the riders, and hundreds more horsemen died.
It was not enough to stop the charge.
Ni’ola pulled in more power—so much she nearly lost control. At the last instant before the power burned her away, she lowered her hands. Howling winds screamed and buffeted the riders. Men tumbled from saddles or were blinded by the ash the wind carried.
The charge slowed but did not stop. For every rider that fell, two more took their place. They were less than fifty paces away—close enough to make out the determination on their faces. Tomu lived behind their eyes, and they would never break and run.
Ni’ola pointed at a rider before her, and a line of fire burst from her fingertips. It burned through the rider’s chest and took another behind him. Both men toppled from their saddles. She did it again and again. There was no shortage of targets, but her strength dwindled. She could only pull so much from her people, or they would be too weak to fight. She had done as much as she could against the horsemen. Now it was the people’s turn to fight.
The charge slammed into the Esharii line, spears and lances splintering in a staccato that was interspersed with battle cries and screams. Where the horsemen held together, they bowled through the line, trampling all in their path. In other places the Esharii warriors held, and the horsemen were pulled from their mounts and hacked to death by heavy Arillian blades.
In front of her, the gray demons swarmed toward her and the other spirit-warriors like iron filings to lodestones. At least ten angled toward her through the mass of footmen who came next. She could not stop so many. The Draegorans’ powers had grown a hundredfold with Tomu’s awakening. One leveled his sword toward her, and fire shot from the blade.
Ni’ola raised her hands defensively, and the flames hit a wall of air in front of her. She felt a second attack join the first and then a third. Spirit-fire sprayed out around the wall and turned the tribesmen beside her to ash. The attack forced the wall back toward her, and Ni’ola’s feet slid in the dirt, pushed back with it. She drew more power from around her, and for a moment, the wall held.
More Draegorans joined the attack. Her shield flickered, threatening to shatter. She glanced back, looking desperately for a place that might protect her. Instead of the low hills and lake that should have been behind her, she saw a glowing square of light, and the Draegorans pushed her toward it.
It must be a trap.
She redoubled her efforts. Her shield held, but she still slid hand-by-hand closer to the wall behind her. Her shoulder reached it. She felt nothing—no pain and no resistance. It was not a Draegoran trap. It was—
Her shield failed and she was thrown backward through the air, tumbling and landing . . .
* * *
—
. . . on her side in the grass next to Riam with her clothes strung over the nearby fountain in the courtyard. They lay side by side, and he drew her into an embrace and kissed her with the eagerness of too much wine and too little patience. The rough hair of his chest tickled her breasts, and the warmth of his skin in contrast to the cool, night air sent a shiver down her body. She pushed back one side of his long dark hair, revealing the wolf on his neck, and stroked the rough stubble along his jaw. His tongue teased along the edges of her lips while a hand roamed down her back till it cupped one of her bare cheeks. She responded by grinding her hips against him. His shaft swelled in response.
Riam groaned and withdrew from the kiss. His mouth slid along her jawline to her ear. “I’m so glad you came back,” he whispered. “I blamed myself for years . . .”
She placed her hand over his mouth. “Shhh . . .”
He coul
d not see the sneer that formed in response to his lies. All he cared for was her body. She was merely something new to him—something exotic he could possess as a toy for a time and discard. It had to be this way.
While his embrace had sent a shiver through her body, it was a purely physical response to the vileness of Tomu’s spirit that suffused his touch and Tomu’s foul scent that rose above the cinnamon oil he wore—or perhaps the shiver had come from her eagerness for her true task this night. It was not his touch, she told herself. It could not be.
After days of letting him defile her body and pretending to enjoy it, tonight his life, and the lives of all the Draegorans on this cursed island would be taken. While he seduced her, the Sko’dran and five hundred warriors, the strongest from across the tribes, swam for the island, smuggled north by Arillian ships and their Church of Man allies. Hers would be the first strike in the attack, killing the kyden of the Wolves.
Once Riam was dead, she would get her tan’tari back from Ky’lem. She felt far more vulnerable without the crystals than she did nude in the courtyard surrounded by her enemies, but the plan wouldn’t have worked if she still carried them. The Draegorans would never have believed her story of escaping and returning if they knew she was linked to the tan’tari of an okulu’tan.
Ni’ola glanced up. The moon neared its summit.
She pushed Riam over to his back and straddled him. His hands moved to the outside of her thighs and then down to guide himself into her, but she brushed him away and did not let him enter. That time was behind her and she would not allow this final indignity on the night that would be her victory. Instead, she slid herself back and forth along his length. He would die wanting and panting like a dog, a slave to his passion just as all Draegorans were slaves to Tomu.
He squeezed at her breasts as she continued to work him beneath her. His breathing grew labored, and he moaned with the heat of desire to finish.
Ni’ola’s breath grew ragged along with his. Warmth flowed up from where she ground along him, creating an ache within her. She wanted him inside her—wanted him.
I am not a slave to this. I will not betray my people.
She looked to the clothes nearby, where her knife lay hidden, but she did not reach for it or cease her movements upon him. If anything, they became more frantic.
Sweat glistened on the curves and ridges of Riam’s body below her. The smell of cinnamon drowned out her thoughts. His hands found the sides of her waist and she could hold back no longer.
Instead of the knife, she found herself reaching for him. She lifted herself and he slid into her, filling her, making them one. She closed her eyes, savoring the feel of him deep inside her.
An alarm bell rang out in the night and was quickly followed by the shouts of men.
Riam sat up, his head whipping left and right as he searched for danger. He twisted his body and pulled away from her.
“No!” Ni’ola shouted. She dove for the knife and fumbled with her clothes to retrieve it. Once she had it, she spun around toward Riam.
It was too late. He buttoned his breeches with one hand and shook the scabbard from his sword with the other.
He raised an eyebrow, yet he did not look angry—the opposite. “If whatever is out there gets this far, I doubt that knife will do you any good.” He walked confidently to her, wrapped his free arm around her and, pulling her up onto her toes, kissed her passionately. This time, there was nothing teasing about his tongue.
The smell of cinnamon filled Ni’ola’s head once more. Her blood pounded. She still wanted him. Strike now!
Her knife hand dropped slowly to her side.
He withdrew from the kiss and sat her on the fountain. “I’ll return from dealing with whatever this is before you have time to clothe yourself,” he said and was gone.
Ni’ola put her hands to her face and wept for the first time since she’d met with the old spirit-walker in her youth. She had failed the people and herself. Shame filled her.
Beside her, the pool shimmered. She wiped the tears from her face. She remembered something about the light . . . something important.
She reached for it and snatched her hand back before touching it. There was great pain on the other side of the light. He was dying.
“Ky’lem.” She said the name softly. But how can that be? He is here with the other warriors, attacking the Draegorans. She could feel his presence through the bond. His heart raced, but his thoughts were calm. It was as if there were two Ky’lems—one here in the world and another in the light.
The feeling came again—filled with desperate, agonizing pain, as if the skin of Ky’lem’s body had been torn away. Ni’ola’s fingers whitened where they gripped the fountain’s edge.
She reached for the light again, but hesitated short of touching it. What if this was a trap? Did Riam know her true plan this night? Had he only pretended and this was some game he played?
A third cry of pain came, and it didn’t matter. Ky’lem needed her. She had no choice but to go to his aid. She dove into the fountain, her mind reaching for him, and . . .
* * *
—
. . . sat up to blood and chaos on the shore of the Najalii. The world was hazy and dark, filled with snarls and howls. She didn’t understand how she’d come to be at the sacred lake. Her body felt wrong and her mind jumbled, as if waking abruptly from a long night’s sleep with tangled thoughts—only worse. Fragments from a hundred shattered dreams and lives spun through her mind, and she struggled to match this place to one of them. She groped for one to cling to, anything to anchor her to the world around her, but they all felt correct and wrong at the same time. She could not hold them all. There were too many. She lost herself among them, her mind scattering like the memories.
Then she found one—Ky’lem fighting a corpse in a cave. She clung to the memory like a lifeline until she found another—Ky’lem sitting next to her. A third came after—Ky’lem flying through the air by the bank of a river. One by one, she sorted the scattered pieces of herself, rebuilding her life. The memories that did not belong dissolved and faded. One came pressing over the others so strongly she nearly lost all she’d built.
Ky’lem needs me. He is dying.
She felt for him through the bond, but he wasn’t there—replaced by a hollow void. She prayed to Sollus she hadn’t arrived too late.
Wait . . . arrived from where? They’d been building a raft, days from the Najalii. She fastened herself to the memory and let it lead her along until she saw Pai’le swinging the tree limb for her head. Like turning on a lamp, the realization of who and where she was coalesced. I am Nola. All the other memories that threatened to overwhelm her faded, and the world fell into place around her.
Two mergols fought only paces away. The beasts roared and struck at one another—talons slashing and feet kicking. One with a missing ear pinned the other on its back and slashed furiously at its head. The one beneath barely kept the attacks away from its face. From somewhere, she had a faint memory of this—more of a feeling that she should remember it—as if she’d dreamed the scene in front of her but could not recall the details. It makes no sense. I’ve never been to the lake of life, and I’ve never seen a mergol.
She had no time to wonder at the strangeness of it all. The two beasts rolled toward her and stopped just short of crushing her beneath them. She dove away from the creatures and stumbled toward the water of the lake. Her body felt gangly and unbalanced. Mergols didn’t swim, and if she could get out into the water far enough, she would be safe.
The stark white of bone caught her eye. A mangled body lay in a heap near the shoreline.
“No!” she screamed.
It was Ky’lem, or what was left of him. It was impossible for something so maimed to be alive. Deep gouges ran along his back, and the white lines of his exposed ribs were what had caught her attention. The damage
did not stop there. Wide punctures wrapped around to his side, and a section of his insides hung out in a loop that glistened wet in the starlight. His leg was twisted to an impossible angle, with the muscles of his thigh torn worse than his back. And the blood . . . there was so much blood.
The sight of such vast injuries hit her in the stomach like a stone, taking the wind from her lungs. She dropped to her knees beside him, choking back a sob. Don’t be dead. You are not supposed to be dead. Tears fell from her lashes and ran down her cheeks. This is wrong.
His chest moved.
He breathes!
Tears of despair became tears of hope. I will save him. I treated worse holding the mountain passes against Tomu’s army.
She shook her head. What mountain passes?
The memory had come from those discarded and lost. Am I going crazy?
It did not matter. The knowledge of how to save him was there. She needed her tan’tari. She looked to her wrists for the slight bulges along the inside of her forearms and froze. The okulu’tan hadn’t set them. I have not been tested yet. I am still Nola.
Behind her came a roar of triumph. One-ear stood above the still form of the other beast. It lifted its face to the stars and pounded its massive chest, announcing its victory to the forest.
Nola opened her hand. There were the crystals, glowing red in her palm. She hesitated. If I embrace them now to save Ky’lem, there will be no going back. There will never be another chance to escape the Esharii. I will be Ni’ola. The thought came from deep within her, and she knew the truth of it, although she could not have explained it. This was a central branch in the paths. She could save Ky’lem or run away and escape back to her homeland, but she could not do both.
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