Her heart raced so furiously it felt as if it might explode, and then she heard the wolf snarl several feet away.
She felt his dismay, his desperation as he shuffled through the hoard without direction.
“Finn, don’t be an idiot! Stay where you are!” she cried.
Bren’s magic was still cracking and popping, sizzling through the air and the static of it made the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck rise. It was dangerous without direction, and someone was going to get caught in the crossfire. Finn, more than likely, she fretted. “Bren, stop!”
Silence, save for the occasional tink and trickle of coin and stone dribbling down the side of the mound.
Once again the drakoren hissed, its laughter like fat sizzling in a fire. A sick and twisted sound that made her guts feel both tangled and fluttery inside her body, she was still shivering from the absent spark of Bren’s magic. The monster knew what it was doing, how to manipulate them with that darkness and fill them with fear. It infiltrated their thoughts, toyed with their minds when they could not see clearly to remind themselves the world beyond that place was still filled with light.
Lorelei was standing again. She barely remembered doing it, but she had at some point and she clutched her blade in her hand again. Fingers twitched, curling tighter around the handle, but no sword could protect her from the drakoren’s next attack.
She felt the edges of its prodding psionic waves invading her mind like spidery fingers that walked across the inside of her skull. It sifted through her thoughts, tossing them around haphazardly, searching for something to terrify her with.
Her sister. Again.
She’d been dreaming the same dream since they’d come into the mountain. Mirien panicking amid a flourish of waves as lightning flashed and the sea tossed her small, screaming body the way children toss a ball back and forth in the garden. Those screams filled her mind, made her ears thump and ache until she lifted both hands to the sides of her head as if she could block out the sound. The sword dropped from her hand with a heavy clank, and she started screaming again, begging and pleading, and when Brendolowyn’s hands found her, the two of them stumbling across unstable ground, he shook her back to herself.
“You can lift this darkness,” he told her.
She couldn’t see him standing right in front of her, but she knew how close he was, how near his face was to hers. That if she brought up a hand she’d touch his cheek and be able to feel his features. The length of his nose, the sharpness of his face and the softness of his lips. “That is your gift, Lorelei. You are the Leth’ein Heilethella! The light!”
“But I don’t know how.”
No one ever told her what to do. The people of Dunvarak called her the Light of Madra; her father said she was the Light of His Light. They’d given her a name, but never told her what she was supposed to do with it. How did she call upon the great light they all believed was inside her?
“I can’t, Bren.” Shaking her head, she insisted, “I don’t know how…”
“You do,” he insisted. “Search inside yourself and you will find the way. It is a part of you.”
“No,” she insisted, trying to back away.
“You have to!”
Brendolowyn did not let go of her, but tightened his grip on her upper-arms, the tips of his fingers digging deep into the fleshy part and forming instant bruises.
She was terrified. She just wanted to be normal. To be a regular person. Not a wolf or some mystical light who could reach across time and save people’s lives. She didn’t want to be the spark of an old god’s life.
She just wanted to be…
“Lorelei, do not be afraid of who you are.”
She could almost make out his face in front of her, the earnest desperation with which he pleaded coming across loud and clear, even though she could not see him at all. Still trembling, she shook her head again and again, confessing in a low murmur, “I don’t even know who I am.”
“Yes, you do,” he insisted. “You are Rognar’s and Ygritte’s daughter, Heidr’s chosen. Your father gave you to the All-Creator, who shaped your body and soul upon the loom of stars, weaving a piece of himself into you so you could right His wrongs.”
She was still murmuring, repeatedly uttering the word, “No,” over and again, but Brendolowyn’s words were truth.
Awareness.
And it stirred something within her. At first it was only fear, but the tremors of it pulsed like another heart inside her body, in the lowest part of her stomach, reverberating outward and spreading great warmth from within her. An otherworldly light began to glow, slow at first, pulsing in small, golden beats. She heard the coins slipping beneath her feet as they lifted off the ground, her body rising upward, floating outward and away from Bren’s still-grasping hand. His fingers slipped, arms dropping at his sides as the light spread from her body to illuminate that dark, hideous place.
The drakoren was stunned, as confused as she was by the breaking of its spell and the growing glow of the most pure and beautiful light emanating from her body. The look on its face denoted surprise, but it did not hold its efforts at bay for long. It struck out at Finn, the wolf charging inward again and darting around the blast of energy shot from the tips of the drakoren’s clawed fingers. He skidded dangerously across the unstable ground beneath his feet.
She could hear Brendolowyn shouting, Finn’s snarling rage cast around the stone walls that housed this, their final battle, but underneath it all she heard a strange, but clear ringing growing louder as she continued to rise into the air and spread light into the unearthly darkness. There was a dull panic inside her that urged her to kick her feet, but she did not. She only rose, higher and higher, the light cast from her glowing body illuminating the cavern completely and granting her strange vantage point over the battle.
She watched on, unable to do much else as the mage shot blue bolts into the drakoren. The monster used its own magic to shield itself, blocking the bolts and sending them back at the mage, who only just lifted his own shield in time to protect himself.
For the first time she truly saw what her friend was capable of, why it was necessary for him to come with them. In their travels together she’d seen him do little more than cast fireballs at orcs and raise barriers around their camp to keep them safe, but there, below her, he was a one-man war machine and the drakoren could barely keep up its defenses against his endless tirade. Combined with the onslaught of the wolf’s repeated attacks, they were wearing it down, destroying it bit by bit.
Distracted by the sound of Finn’s movement, she shot her gaze toward the black wolf, staggering, relentless in his pursuit, and she hoped he felt her fear and heard her silent pleas for him to stay alive. They still had so much to do together, and she could not leave that mountain without him.
Finn shook off every blow, snapping his head back and forth as if trying to dislodge cobwebs of confusion and pain so he could dive back into the fray. His coat shone beautifully in the flickers of magic that combined with the eerie light emanating from her body, and for a moment that light caught his eye and he turned his monstrous head toward her in amazement. The drakoren saw his hesitation and confusion, its scaled lips curling with delight as it brought its clawed hands together and began summoning a dirty ball of sickly green magic. The wolf took a staggering step, drawn into the light emanating from her.
And then it hit her. It was her fault he’d died in all those other cycles. She distracted him, and he let down his guard.
A strange scream erupted from her, but she felt so disconnected from it, as if it came from somewhere outside herself.
“Finn, no…”
The sound caught the drakoren’s attention as well, its hideous, primal stare narrowing into golden slits as the light she emitted devoured every last piece of its accursed darkness.
Brendolowyn took advantage of the distraction, harnessing all of his energy into a swirling mass of magic that crackled blue and white as it grew
in front of him. His shoulders sagged as he drew from the very core of his own life force. He staggered to control it, to direct and move it with outstretched, shaking arms. When he shot it forward it caught the drakoren in its electric blaze and pinned it to the stone wall at its back. It writhed and screamed, smoking and sizzling as its hideous death rang in their ears.
Lorelei tried to bring both hands up to block out the sound, but she couldn’t move her arms, her body was no longer her own to control. The light inside her kept growing, expanding all around her and blinding her with its white-gold brilliance until she could scarcely see the mage collapsing underneath her. The dropping of his body stirred the treasure mound, causing an avalanche of metallic color and revealing to her the very thing they’d come there to find.
The Horns of Llorveth jutted from out, rising to the surface as he fell. They glowed brilliant and pure white in her light, the spiked antlers catching and reflecting it back at her. Inside herself, she felt something familiar stir, something that had always been a part of her even as it lay dormant. The wolf within started to rise, struggling against the restraints that held it at bay. Outstretched hand reaching, she needed to touch the horns but they were so far away.
She willed them to her, desperation shaking her hand as fingers stretched with need to grasp onto the very thing that would finally set her free.
The light inside her continued to grow, spreading, blinding her and making it impossible to see beyond the reach of her own arm. She caught a hint of movement just beyond the tips of her fingers, the black of Brendolowyn’s robes, his arm reaching for the horns. Grasping them in his hand, he wrenched them from the shifting mound of treasure threatening to swallow them up again. Jerking them free with effort, he held them toward her, body stretching until all she needed to do was hold out her hand and she would touch them.
Brendolowyn thrust them forward, straining to reach her and stumbling as she grabbed onto them, crying out, “Llorveth!”
For a single moment, both of them held tight to the horns and then a sudden burst of light shot forth from her body, shaking the hall and the trembling the mountain. Both of them shot backward from the blast, the light exploding into a thousand pieces as she fell into darkness.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
“Please don’t be dead,” he whispered. “Please, please, please don’t be dead. It was supposed to be me, not you.”
Her skin was still warm to the touch, feverish almost and slick with sweat, but she wasn’t breathing. At least he didn’t think she was breathing. He’d lowered his cheek beside her nose and waited for the faint pulse of her life force to rush across his skin, but it never came.
“No,” he refused. “No, no, no.”
Lifting his hand, he scratched through the loose locks of his black hair, fingertips lingering on his scalp. It wasn’t happening. He kept repeating it over and over in his head, but the more he said it, the realer it became.
“No,” he protested again.
They’d come all that way. It was supposed to be him who didn’t make it, and there he was… alive.
Alone.
The dull throb of what felt like half a dozen broken bones coursed through him, but it didn’t matter. The mage was nowhere to be found, and his princess, his Lorelei was…
“No,” he shook his head once more. “Come on, Princess.”
He couldn’t see her face clearly. It was all shadows and darkness, only the faintest stream of light cracking through a break in the stone, but barely illuminating the place. And everything was a blur. When he blinked to try and sharpen her image before him, heat spilled down his face, wetness dripped onto his wrist.
“Please,” he whined, a hoarse whisper of sound that barely disturbed the air. “It’s not supposed to end this way.”
He gathered her limp body against him, drew her into his chest and cradled her as he rocked back and forth where he knelt. Tears streamed down his cheeks, his tight throat itching and aching each time he tried to inhale breath.
Finn didn’t know how much time passed, how long he sat there holding her and sobbing. He kept waiting for her to stir, to come alive in his arms and call him an idiot. That was the last thing he heard her say before it all went wrong.
“Don’t be an idiot.”
Gods, she was right. How could he let this happen? His life before theirs… but they were both gone. The exact opposite of what allegedly happened in all their other attempts to take back the Horns of Llorveth.
He was no hero. It was her destiny, not his.
He didn’t know how he managed to stand without letting go of her. The pain was intense, rolling through him with every limping step. Several times he hitched her upward, repositioned her and shifted his weight until finally he was standing in the middle of the hoard. Step by step, he walked carefully through the treasure, ignoring the sound of coins clinking beneath his feet, the sharp pressure of jewel and metal carving into his arches. He just walked until he reached the tunnel, and then he entered it, passing through the silent passage following his sense of smell toward the scent of fresh air.
He would go back in and look for the mage, but for the moment he just wanted to get out of the mountain, to carry her into the open air and demand the gods give her back.
It occurred to him as he stumbled through the caverns that he was just as he’d been the day he found her. Naked as his naming day, he’d carried her several miles back to Drekne, into the hall where the Council of the Nine threatened to exile him on the spot. He’d been so terrified, not of the council or of being exiled, but of losing her before she’d ever truly been his.
He knew even then she belonged to him… No, that wasn’t quite right. He belonged to her. Yes. The first moment he laid eyes on her, lying broken and bleeding in the field, he knew he belonged to her.
She was a part of him, the other half of his soul and he’d let her die.
He felt… empty.
Finding the passage leading to the sea was easy enough, and it took less time than he expected to follow it. One-handed, he awkwardly carved through the blanket of cobwebs with his sword, still holding onto her as he did, then he pressed on until the sound of the roaring sea was all he could hear and the smell of it overwhelmed him. Every step, the passage grew brighter and brighter until he could see the end of the tunnel, make out the craggy shore and white-crested waves crashing in near the mouth of the cavern.
He moved more quickly, driven by a sudden overwhelming need to feel the sun’s light on his face. He’d likely curse the blasted ball of fire in the sky when he got out there. The senseless All-Creator, who’d given her a task and a purpose, who’d allegedly woven a strand of his own light through her soul. What he wouldn’t give to spit at the sun. How could Heidr let her fall? He didn’t understand.
The tide filled the mouth of the cave, crawling in, sweeping back out. He waded through it in his bare feet, the saltwater itching at his ankles and calves as he splashed forward. Into daylight, he hefted her small body higher and squinted as the sun’s light glittered across the sea. Trekking onward, he did not stop walking until he reached dry land, where he laid her down in the sand and stone and leaned back to look at her again.
She didn’t look dead. His personal definition of death generally involved more blood. She had a few bruises, fingertip marks pressed into her arms. A small scrape beaded blood on her chin, but otherwise she only looked like she was sleeping. All those times he’d spent memorizing her face while she did it, he was an expert on what she looked like when sleeping.
Maybe she was just unconscious, he reasoned. Maybe she’d hit her head and knocked herself out, but why wasn’t she breathing. She was still clutching the Horns of Llorveth in her hand, and when he tried to unclench her fingers they wouldn’t move.
Lowering himself over her, he brushed the hair from her face, leaned inward and kissed her cheek. “Please don’t do this to me, Lore. We had plans. We have to get these horns back to Dunvarak, and we’ve got to look for your
little sister. She’s out there all alone and she needs you. I need you. And the serpent. We need to slay that stupid serpent and stop the cycle from repeating itself.” He lowered his cheek to hers. She still felt warm and soft, as if at any given moment she was going to gasp awake and tell him about the strange dream she had. “We’ve got so many things to do. You have things to do. With me…”
He was crying again. Without shame. Tears spilled down his cheeks and dripped into the sand as he drew back to look her over. Turning his face toward the sky, the air was cold but the sun’s light warmed through him. It made him angry. How dare the sun go on shining?
Dropping his head again, he stared down at her and shook with denial edging on the border of rage.
“Listen to me, Princess,” he started, “I don’t care what it takes. I am not accepting this.” Lifting his face to the heavens again, he called out as if someone might actually hear him. “Do you hear me? I do not accept this! Give her back.” The anger faded from his voice, replaced with a pathetic whine as he added, “Please give her back to me. Please.”
He’d spent so much time dwelling on the inevitability of his dying, moping about how unfair it was going to be to have to die instead of living the life he wanted to with her. He hadn’t thought about her dying, not once. That realization shamed him, flooding his face with so many tears it made his skin feel stiff as the sun shone indifferently on the world below it.
At his back a ray of pure white light danced and glinted off the sea, flickering and skipping unnaturally atop the foaming crests until they carried it to the land. It leaped off when the waves crashed in, skittering across the sand and gathering the light around it as it grew and swelled into a whirling ball.
Rolling to a halt beside her body, it lingered just beneath her feet. Finn couldn’t see through his own tears, but when it rose to hover over her boots, he leaped backward, stunned as it tickled along the tips of her toes. It stretched and expanded, dancing across her ankles, rising over her calves and her knees. Crawling slow along the length of her body, it writhed against her, her pale skin glowing beneath it as it reached toward the top of her head. It contracted so suddenly, sucked inside her as if she’d inhaled through her nose. And then she was choking, her body spasming and flailing as if she’d forgotten how to breathe.
Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) Page 55