Zail howled as a gleaming stake drove through its black heart. A second one punched through its right eye. Pissed now, Zail ripped the meat puppet formerly known as Shade and flung it at a tree.
But his ex-friend’s final act of bravery gave Sarn an idea. He palmed the only edge he possessed. Yanking the cord over his head, Sarn held the finger-long white crystal in his left hand. Harder than diamond, the crystal shined with the ferocity of the sun at midday. He drove its point into the creature’s neck, and the thing exploded in a shower of black sparks. No longer supported by anything, the two halves of the walking stick fell to the ground. It was too short to use as a crutch now.
Sarn dropped the cord around his neck and the pendant settled over his heart where such a gift belonged. Exhaustion mauled Sarn, and he collapsed. Pushing up to his hands and knees, he crawled to where Shade had fallen.
Blood leaked from misshapen lips, and Shade’s chest rose and fell with difficulty. His ex-friend was dying. Taking Shade’s hand in his, Sarn removed the glove and squeezed. This time, the magic allowed the skin contact without complaint.
“I just wanted you—”
“You wanted me all to yourself. I know. So does everyone who sees me. It's the fucking magic’s doing, and I hate it. It wrecks everything.”
Shade glanced away confirming his suspicion. “I love you—wanted you to love me.”
Sarn squeezed his ex-friend’s hand again. “I did love you just not the way you wanted. Don't look so surprised. I don't make deals with gang lords for just anyone.” And the deal would bite him in the ass one day soon. But he'd worry about it tomorrow.
“It refused to make me beautiful. It said beauty alone wouldn't win you over. Told me you'd need proof of my love.” Shade coughed up blood, and it rolled down to stain his ex-friend's gray robes.
Dread leaned hard on Sarn. Something still felt undone. “What did you do?”
But he already knew. The cabochon with the Seeker’s symbol incised on it flashed through his mind. Motion drew his gaze to the ghosts, and the ground dropped out from under Sarn.
“Shade? What did you do?” Sarn shook his one-time friend when no answer came.
Shade’s miserable eyes tracked him, and his ex-friend laid a bloody hand against his cheek. His magic lay quiet and allowed the touch since Shade's passenger had fled.
“Shade answer me, please. I need to know what you did so I can undo it.”
Shade’s scarred head turned away and then back. Tearing black eyes met his emerald ones, caught, held and their gazes locked. Magic rose in a tide washing over and through Sarn firming the connection. Images blossomed, but there was no sound, scent or feeling beyond an overwhelming urgency.
The black cabochon hung on a cord around a fellow’s bull neck. Wearing a skeptical expression on his bearded face, he listened to Shade's proposal. Behind the man, the river Nirthal sparkled in the midday sun.
Shade’s hand slid around to the back of Sarn's neck and exerted pressure on it. But Sarn was lost in the gaze lock and oblivious to everything outside it.
The scene cut to a group of people in a clearing all dressed in sturdy boots and clothes meant for hiking. Some of the hikers sat on the grass snacking while a couple sunned themselves on a pair of boulders. Two women stood talking to Shade. As one spread white powder on a plate for Shade to test its potency, a child darted past. Smiling, he played a game with an older boy who must have been his brother.
It was the ghost child and seeing him alive in Shade’s memory tore the veil of Sarn’s sanity in two. Lips touched his, and Sarn tasted blood as he broke the gaze lock. Sarn shoved himself away from Shade and the enormity of what his ex-friend had done.
“Why did you do it?” His voice shook from the shock crashing his world down around him. Sarn wiped Shade’s blood from his lips.
“To give you what you want most in the world.” Shade coughed and spat up more blood.
How could thirteen ghosts give him a family? Sarn sat there stunned. “But I have what I want most—a family. My son gave it to me.”
“No, you want to get rid of the magic, and it will. All you need to do is walk into it. The spell will do the rest.”
“No, it won’t. It’s gone Shade. I destroyed it.”
But Shade didn’t hear him. His ex-friend’s eyes had glazed over. Death stilled the ungloved hand grasping after his.
Tears scalded a path down Sarn’s face. Why the hell was he crying? Shade deserved scorn, but he had no anger left only sorrow. A cold hand froze his shaking shoulder. Sarn looked through tears at the ghost of a child who would never grow up. The other ghosts stayed a respectful distance away allowing him space to grieve.
“I don’t know what to do.”
The creature had gone, but treachery and murder still tainted this place. It made Sarn’s skin crawl and his soul sick. Milling ghosts kept catching his eyes. They too waited for something to happen. Where do the dead go when their lives have ended?
“How do I fix this?” Sarn asked the enchanted trees clustered around him. Their bark bore scars under the unnatural frost covering their boles. The ice crystals resisted melting despite the rising temperature. Without the creature and its foul magery, the night's warmth was seeping back in.
While the trees kept their counsel, random snatches of things floated back to Sarn. The blind man had said circles represented a great chain of being, of life itself. The Seekers’ totem had broken rings to signify the death they meted out. But there was more to this. Everything he'd experienced in the last three days had fit into this mystery. What pieces did he have left? Circles. The breaking of the portal-spell-thing had wiped out the last set he’d drawn.
Sarn met the hopeful eyes of the ghost boy, and he started drawing. Without lifting his finger, he curved the line from the border inward. As he worked, Sarn saw what had bugged him. There was a pattern in everything and Shade's actions had disrupted it. Each time he bent the line to begin another circle, he fixed its pattern and reconnected it to the forest. The creature had severed this clearing from life's fabric. Sarn drew one hundred forty-three more circles with one continuous line. The dead child looked on as he worked.
When Sarn had finished, he slumped against a tree and touched the outer ring. White light spilled from his fingers into the design, making it shine. The wind whispered a phrase—eam’maya rayar.
Every muscle in Sarn’s body pulled taut as magic poured into the working imbuing it with purpose. Each circle became a radiant brand burning out the taint left by black magic. Enchanted trees straightened stretching their limbs higher into the beckoning sky. The wind’s murmurs clarified as its echoes died away. Two words hung in the quiet, naming him, eam’maya rayar—curse breaker.
Sarn glanced at Shade's crumpled body. Not even magic could give life to the dead. A tear welled up, but he blinked it away. He could break down later. Before the drugs, Shade had been a protector, a mentor, and then a friend. At fourteen, Shade had been his whole world. But there had always been a firm line drawn by abuse. Another tear tracked down Sarn’s cheek.
Light pierced the canopy and stabbed the sky, pulling his mind out of the past. Magic connected the earth to a rippling heaven and whatever lay beyond that starry predawn expanse. Sarn shuddered and focused on things he could understand like that lone pinecone by his boot and its mundanity anchored him.
The living world was complicated enough. If there were other worlds, they should leave him in peace. He wanted no part of them.
Trees moved aside making a hole, and Sarn felt her gaze before he saw her light-chased bark. As the Queen of All trees regarded him, her crown shined. One of her gleaming branches touched the outer ring igniting it with her refulgence and her scars melted away. She was once again whole and vital.
Thirteen ghosts gravitated to her pure radiance. Murderers mixed with the slain as they passed into the column of light spanning from earth to heaven. With a sigh, they floated toward whatever came after life.
Only
the Ghost Boy remained. “You survive because you have to,” he said, or maybe Sarn imagined the piping voice so like his son’s.
After one last glance and a freezing hug, the Ghost Boy vanished into the light. A flash half blinded Sarn, and the white magic receded into the shimmering pattern on the ground. The Queen of All Trees dipped a gleaming root into the pattern and changed it.
Images sprouted in Sarn’s mind before he could see how she'd altered things. A mixed group of people walked. The dead child, alive in this rendering, looked up and up at the megalithic trees dwarfing him. A man jumped out and snatched at a pack a woman carried. Her headscarf ripped free as she struggled to retain her property. Scared but wanting to help, the boy willed the rocks to rise and pummel the man.
A hail of stones flew at the woman’s attacker, but by now others had joined him. A rock struck the first man coldcocking him and ending the struggle. The rest dropped to the ground when another woman backhanded the child, sending him flying. His head cracked against a tree.
Sarn saw the moment recognition turned to murder. The bull-necked man wearing the Seeker's token picked up a rock and bashed the boy’s head in. The shocked green eyes of the child dimmed as a branch swung down and stabbed his killer through the heart. Flailing about to dislodge the body, it had sent him tumbling to land at his comrades’ feet.
Sarn shut his eyes against the barrage of images. But they played on recounting the retaliation which had killed the child’s family. When the last body hit the ground, Sarn expected the images to leave him. But the Queen of All Trees had one more revelation.
Sarn buried his face in his hands as a gray-robed figure picked through the carnage. Shade kicked corpses aside until his ex-friend found a leather scrip. After withdrawing a wood box from it, Shade opened it and inhaled the aliel powder.
Tears sizzled as they drowned the magic. Unlike the green magic of earth, white magic had no issues with water. So Sarn’s eyes continued to pump out silver light.
He’d been wrong about everything and right too. Those fools had killed the boy because of his eyes and because the child had killed their leader. What a tangled mess this all was. No wonder the ghosts had been trapped on this plane upsetting the natural order. But had he just made things right or further screwed up a wrong?
The light died away leaving Sarn hurting, drained and battered by the night's events. Fourteen lives wasted for nothing. His gaze fell on Shade’s mangled body, and tears stung his eyes anew.
Running feet pounded the earth—two sets and they belonged to the Rangers. The Queen of All Trees touched his shoulder, dimming the images. As her light enfolded him, his thoughts winged back to his cave where his son slept. In his mind’s eye, Ran roused, rubbed his eyes with one arm and strangled his stuff bear with the other. Ran opened his mouth, but the image faded before the child got a word out. No matter, his silent summons tugged at Sarn’s heart. His darling boy wanted another adventure.
Chapter 31
Nolo punched the tree blocking his path and kicked its neighbor. He wanted to throw his head back and howl his frustration to the setting moon. Trees hemmed him in. Why were they preventing him from continuing? What game were those enchanted monoliths playing?
“Let me pass goddamn you.” He kicked another tree, but it stood firm leaving no space between their massive trunks.
“Enough, you won't convince them to stand aside by hitting them.” Jerlo refrained from violence as he studied their predicament with impassive eyes.
“We have to find a way through. Sarn is in there alone.”
“And the Kid’s probably fine.”
“We don't know if he is.” Nolo turned in a circle but other than his boss, he saw more trees crowding around them the longer they stood there.
“Yes, we do. They wouldn't be standing around impersonating a fence if the Kid was in any real danger. You said so yourself the Queen of All Trees has a vested interest in him. And this is her doing.” Jerlo gestured to their leafy jailors.
Nolo glared at his boss. “What are you saying?”
“Isn't it obvious? They want a little quality time with the brat.”
“You mean they want the Kid to do something.” And the something likely involved magic since this was an enchanted forest.
Jerlo gave him a pained nod.
Good, the commander disliked the situation as much as he did. Nolo took another turn around their shrinking cell. Trailing a hand along their boles as he walked, he failed to pick up any clues about their plans. “Doesn't their interest concern you?”
Jerlo threw him an aggrieved look. “Of course, it does. I'm responsible for the brat.”
“We have to do something. We can't just stand here.”
“What choice do we have?”
None and Nolo knew it much as he hated to admit it. The next move was theirs. He transferred his glare to the behemoths jailing him. The wind whispered through their branches, and it carried the suggestion of a name—eam’maya rayar.
In his heart, Nolo knew the wind had called Sarn. His skin tingled as magic electrified the air. White light exploded, shooting a sparkling column into the sky connecting earth and heaven. Hold on Sarn. I'm coming as soon as these things get out of my way. Just as he finished thinking that, the light cut off and the trees parted. Nolo exchanged a worried look with his boss then broke into a run.
Sarn roused as fingers explored the bruise on his shoulder. He must have dozed off. Or had the Queen of All Trees sent him to sleep? Her radiance had receded, but she remained close by, and her gaze was a soothing balm on his hurting heart.
“Sit still I need to make sure you’re alright.” Nolo cursed as Sarn winced away from his ministrations. “You need to see a healer about this and your ankle.” Nolo gestured to the swollen ball lodged in Sarn's boot.
Sarn shook his head. “No healers.” Exhaustion slurred his speech, making it necessary to repeat his assertion.
Nolo ignored his protest. Always prepared, the Ranger produced a roll of gauze from his pocket and half of his former crutch to use as a splint. “Hold still I need to immobilize that ankle.”
Sarn wanted to object but avoiding a trip to the infirmary had to take priority. “I don’t like healers.” The thought of a healer touching him made Sarn shudder.
"I know. You've made your opinion about them clear over the years, but you're going to see one. And, you’re going to do whatever he tells you." Nolo loosened the laces on Sarn's boot.
"I won't go." Sarn squeezed his eyes closed. He sounded like his son. Time for a subject change, he could continue this argument later. Or he could just disappear the instant they dismissed him. The boot came off jarring his ankle, and he grimaced as pain stabbed the joint.
"You'll do whatever I tell you to do." Nolo explored the sprain with gentle fingers checking for broken bones. "I'll brace it and wrap it, but you can't walk on that ankle until the swelling goes down."
Sarn nodded. He'd have to plan an outing for tomorrow involving little to no walking. Meaning, he'd have to find a safe way to entertain his son in the Lower Quarters. Ran would not be happy about that. Sarn recalled his idea of creating a safe play area and reviewed the materials he had on hand. Nope, not enough to make a start, damn there went plan A.
"Hold this here," Nolo said lining up the walking stick's two pieces on either side of Sarn's ankle.
"Can't you just strap it in place with the bandages?" Remembering Shade’s last stand, Sarn threw the sticks across the clearing as a tear slid down his cheek. Damn you Shade.
Turning a gray cloth in his hands, the commander approached. "What happened here?"
Sarn recognized it as part of Shade's headdress. A second tear joined the first, and he dashed it away with his hand. When Sarn scanned the clearing, he found only disturbed earth and leaves. There was no sign of Shade’s body. For a moment, hope rose. Shade, the drug addict, would have bolted the moment the Rangers showed up. But not the Shade who'd tried to protect him from Hadrovel's cruelt
y.
And it was the old Shade he missed, but that Shade had died five or six years back when the creature known as Zail had moved in. He could still feel those cooling eyes as he’d closed them. This time, Shade was gone for good.
"Shade tipped you off about the smugglers and the aliel powder."
"You knew Shade." Not a question, just a statement of fact. Jerlo squatted down studying Sarn.
What did the man see? Could the commander tell he was seconds from breaking apart? "Shade was the first friend I made here. The drugs came later." Sarn swallowed, but grief had solidified into a lump in his throat. "You told me to drop it because of an ongoing investigation, a joint operation with the guards, right?"
Nolo checked his work and tied off the bandage before answering. "Yes, because it didn't concern you. The illegal drug trade is our problem, not yours." He nodded to Sarn's ankle. "Did I strap it too tight or do I need to tighten it? Tell me if it's cutting off blood flow."
Sarn shook his head after testing it and pulled his boot back on. "It's okay."
“Now it's your turn," Jerlo bit off the word 'Kid,' but it hung between them because that’s how they’d always see him. "How'd you get mixed up in this? What happened here?” Jerlo's interest focused on the disturbed earth.
"A drug deal went sour, and thirteen people died."
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Sarn wished he’d listened to his masters and dropped the whole thing. Only the Queen of All Trees knew what would have happened if Zail had completed its spell. Sarn winced as Nolo manhandled his arm into place and shoved the end of the gauze into his hand.
"Hold still. I need to bandage that arm. I don’t think it’s broken, but the bruise likely goes to bone."
"What are these?" Jerlo pointed to the circles. He held a cube of white lumir, and it silvered the dirt the same way the Queen of All Trees had, but she’d used more lumens. Brows beetling, Jerlo dragged a line through the circles erasing them.
Curse Breaker: Books 1-4 Page 43