walker saga 06 - dronish

by Jaymin Eve

  Chapter 11

  I’d felt power before. The half-Walker females were intensely powerful in their own right, and together we packed a mammoth punch. But all of that was nothing compared to the energy from the Crais sun. My well filled, overflowed, and then the burning started to char me from the inside out.

  Over and over the agonizing pain scorched me, threatening to burst free from my body. I could feel my outer shell straining. My eyes were closed, but I felt the cracks breaking across my skin. I was going to resemble one of the Seventines’ victims.

  I felt myself hit the rock-hard ground. Even in my pained state I somehow knew I was back on the surface. But I had no idea how I had got there. Probably Brace.

  “Abby!”

  Screaming surrounded me, but there was too much going on inside for me to take in the outer world.

  “Connect to us.”

  Most of these words were lost in the swelling of heat that filled me. Instinctively I knew I was dying. My body was reaching the end of its capabilities to take the pressure. It was too much, and the destructive force when it blew from me was going to be phenomenal. My only fear was that I would kill everyone around me with the explosion.

  “Red.”

  Brace reached me like no other ever could. My eyes flew open and, judging from the shock and horror on the faces around me, I looked exactly how I felt. Bad. Very bad.

  “Connect to the half-Walkers; share the power.”

  I finally understood what they’d been saying. I gritted my teeth and, reaching through the burning, found my tether and flung it free. The connection was as easy as always. It was as if we were designed to share power. Voices flooded my head, and there was a slight ease on my shell. Some of the burning shifted around, spreading into the others. But it was still too much for us. One by one they started to scream. Even the stoic warrior Delane couldn’t contain herself.

  Great! Now, instead of killing only me, I was going to destroy us all. I needed to pull it back, but I couldn’t sever the cords. The strength of the power between us was too much. It had molded a strong powerful bond that would be broken by no one.

  You have to release the power, Sapha moaned in between her shrieks. Send it back.

  Could I do that? Send it back into the sun. I needed to talk to Brace, I needed him in my head. But there was no way right then. I couldn’t speak; the power rode me too hard. How could I ask him what I needed? A thought filtered into my head. There was one way where communication was effortless.

  The melding bond.

  My hand trembled as I lifted it to the globe that hung on my necklace. I was damning my father by doing this, but if I didn’t we were all going to die, and then I was damning everyone in all the worlds. I needed Brace’s help, and this was the only way to do this.

  Brace was at my side. Well, as close as he could be without my inner sun energy crisping him.

  “Red, what are you doing …” His words trailed off as I flicked the clasp and let the moonstale light flood free.

  I don’t know if it was because so much power filled me, or if it was my memory of the last melding bond, but the force of our connection dropped me to my knees. Something that the freaking energy of a sun hadn’t done.

  The rush of Brace’s signature power smashed into me, his energy washing along the walls of every part of my body. Every cell responded, my heart and lungs swelled, as if for the first time they were beating and breathing again. Until this moment I hadn’t realized the true extent of my inner fatigue; the strength of gods and warriors flooded my being.

  The bond had been broken for long enough now that I’d become used to the sensation of being half myself, half a soul, half a power. It wasn’t until we joined again that I realized the loss I’d had, the intense strength of a soul complete.

  Red. Baby … Brace’s voice broke. I’ve missed you. Damn, I’ve missed you.

  There was no time for a real reunion right then, but later, if we survived this moment, I was going to relive this force of emotion. Examine every single memory of our re-melding. Right then I might have cracks littering my skin, but on the inside the cracks were gone. I was whole again. Of course, now we had to all not die so I had time to remember these moments.

  The shrieks of the other half-Walkers eased slightly as Brace absorbed a little more of the sun’s energy. In fact, his strength almost equaled that of all of us half-Walkers. The man was intensely powerful.

  Can I shoot this power back into the Crais sun? I asked him rapidly.

  He hesitated slightly before answering. No, the shell of the sun was destroyed when the Seventine ruptured the tether. If you release this amount of energy, we’ll most likely rip Crais apart.

  His voice was shaky, the power starting to beat at him.

  What do we do then? It’s going to kill us all.

  I tried to keep the panic from my voice; I wasn’t very successful. My skin stretched again. I could feel more cracks littering across it, and I wasn’t the only one. Blood rained down from all of the girls, spattering from the fissures on our skins. Time was running out.

  What about Dronish? Sapha was the one who spoke up, and I realized then that the half-Walker girls could hear my conversations with Brace. It was as if he were part of our tethering now.

  Her words resonated through all of us. We still have a sun and moons that are in need of power. You could bring life to the world again.

  I thought you wanted it destroyed, Fury barked out.

  Sapha laughed without humor. I’m not so selfish that I would see two worlds fall when we could save both. Whether it is the Walker half of me that feels this way, I need to be a better individual than my mother and the rest of the Drones. I need to do something that matters.

  If I hadn’t been about to be ripped into a gazillion pieces I’d have been proud right then. But all my energy was focused on surviving the next ten minutes of this life.

  How will we get to Dronish? Ria asked. I can’t concentrate long enough to find a tether.

  I’ll open a doorway and take you all. Brace’s power washed over me. But that means I’ll have to pull back some of the energy that’s sharing the sun’s burden.

  There was more than one groan at those words. Right then I wondered if we could survive the loss of his presence. We were barely hanging on even with Brace’s help.

  I sucked in deeply, tension and panic riding me as I waited. His presence left us. The screams started in earnest. And yes, I was totally one of the ones shrieking my head off. The pain was intense as my well continued to filter the power around.

  “Hang on, girls.” Brace was close. “Stay with me, baby Red,” he whispered.

  I would have replied, but I was too busy dying.

  I barely noticed as my feet left the ground, and then we were in a doorway. Somehow, inside the vacuum the energy of the sun lessened, as if the lack of gravity was lifting the power from us also. Lending a helping hand in carrying the burden.

  Then we were on the other side. The darkness and cold bit into my bare skin, but with a sun heating us from the inside out, it would be impossible to freeze. Brace connected with me again, and the relief was instant as the energy diversified.

  Okay, now we need to find the center line of Dronish. Which would be almost impossible in normal circumstances, but carrying this energy will lead us right there.

  It had taken the Seventine a long time to find the center on Crais. But I still wasn’t sure how this was going to be different.

  Send your golden tether out. Search for the coldest place on Dronish. Brace was talking and his instructions didn’t fill me with confidence.

  I decided to simply try. No harm in that. Unless of course I took too long. Then we’d all be dead.

  No pressure.

  My golden cord was filled with the power of the sun. I mentally sent it from my body, willing it to find the coldest spot that needed the warmth. It zoomed away, and we struggled to hold on while we waited. It seemed to take forever, and then even l
onger as it weaved, swerved, and seeped into the nooks of Dronish. One by one we fell to our knees, except for Brace, but judging by the pale nature of his normally tawny skin, he was struggling. I ended up on my hands and knees. If the tether didn’t find something soon, my face would be pressed into the parched and rocky ground.

  It’s not working. I was starting to get desperate. I’m just going to release the energy into Dronish and hope that it’ll fill those places which are dead or dying from lack of power.

  Brace answered immediately. If you can give it any more time, Red, you need to hold on. What you propose will most likely blow this world apart and kill everyone. Energy needs a direction; it needs to know where to go, and on this scale I’ve no idea what that undirected power will do.

  I knew what he was telling me: it could destroy more than just Dronish. It could tear apart the fabric of this entire star-system.

  I wish we’d been able to use this power to lock away the Seventine or lalunas, Delane said, and it was the exact thought I’d had more than once. But it had happened too rapidly. There’d been no time to think or plan. At that thought my tether started to slow. How strange. I could tell that it was like a gazillion miles away from me, but it seemed as if it was still beside me.

  Its movements continued to slow. Something had captured its attention. I decided now was the time to follow its length. Without pause, I brought our group to the tether. It was easy, instantaneous. We had so much power within us that without any effort I moved seven people. Most probably I could have traced us to Dronish earlier, but I’d been unable to form a clear picture in my head, so we might have ended up somewhere we didn’t want to go.

  You found it, Abby. Brace’s love wrapped around me, his warmth adding to the heat already baking my insides. The center line is here, but shit … what’s happened to it?

  I opened my senses, the same way I had on Crais, and could see the line running high into the black sky. The very sky which was devoid of stars, suns, and with only a sliver of moon. The Crais line had been solid, thick, and strong. Dronish’s was weak and tattered, similar to the tethers of the dark mountains. As if so much damage had ripped through this world that it was close to dying itself. Dronish was a land on its last hope.

  Do I just direct the energy toward the line? I hoped Brace had a clue.

  I don’t know. This is the domain of the conduit, and only you can make this happen.

  Not helpful, thanks. Oh, well, I can’t expect him to know everything.

  I sucked in deeply, pushing past the pain and exhaustion. All of us were still on our hands and knees, unable to stand or fight against the power any longer.

  I swear this is what dying a slow, painful death by torture feels like. Fury’s voice held an ounce of its usual strong and bold presence.

  I couldn’t blast the power from us – there was too much, spread around all seven of us. And the pain too great. Instead I started at a slow trickle, urging the power into the tattered line. It moved in small increments, but somehow as it gathered momentum, more and more started to burst free.

  It still took a long agonizing time, and I hoped like hell we never had to do anything like this again. As the well inside me emptied, I reached for more of the hot, burning power, sucking it from the girls.

  Last was Brace. He wouldn’t let me take his share until everyone else was depleted, so he was the one to suffer the longest. Not that I could tell. He wore a stoic face that even Que would have been proud of, and the former Abernath princeps had been a crazy-ass-megalomaniac-sociopath.

  Eventually my mate opened the bond between us, and let the last of the burning energy free.

  Thank you, Brace.

  I relished the fact I could speak in his head again. It was as if I’d been cut off from all of my senses and hadn’t even realized. Now I was whole again. The pain which had plagued my ragged soul was finally lifted.

  I love you, Red. I. Love. You.

  He said it over and over. I knew he was also overwhelmed by the emotion between us and, as the last of that power drained from me, I dragged myself over to him and fell into his arms.

  “I love you too.” I was crying, the tears leaving tracks along my skin and falling to the parched ground.

  I wasn’t the only one.

  From where I lay in my mate’s arms, I could see the half-Walker girls. Most of them had more emotion on their faces than I’d ever seen before. Even Delane and Sapha. Fury and Talina were full-on bawling. I’d have laughed, but I was too overwhelmed.

  “You guys are like the golden couple, literally,” Fury choked out between sobs.

  The golden tethers that were part of our sacred melding had shot all around the place again, lighting up the freezing darkness that was Dronish.

  I’d forgotten about the center line, completely consumed with the love around me. So I wasn’t paying attention to what was happening to the sky and world around us.

  Light started a slow ebbing stream across the blackness that had been the sky. Tendrils started from the center line and flowed through the air. I wasn’t cold, wrapped in the arms of my hot-ass man, but I’d noticed the other girls shivering. Then, as the warmth followed the light, their shivers subsided. The cracks on our skin started to slowly fill in again, taking longer than usual, but thankfully still healing. I barely noticed the pain, but the slow heal was like an itchy sandpaper coating my skin.

  Sapha’s red eyes were wide. “I can’t believe it.” She spun in circles, trying to see everything in one go. “The energy has returned to Dronish. The sun burns and the moons live.”

  She was right. There was now a very large and hot sun sitting to the left of the sky. And six moons scattered in the foreground of the sun’s path, only just visible in the bright light.

  Is it too much to ask that we have five minutes to focus on the bond? Brace’s words were a cross between resigned and pissed-off.

  Five? I teased. I’m going to need longer than five minutes to focus on this bond.

  Not only were emotions flooding through me, but there was this tingly heat which had started at the top of my head and was slowly working its way down my body. A tingly heat that had everything to do with the bond and everything to do with the hard planes of muscle and warm skin that was pressed to me. It had been a long time without Brace, and I wanted all of him right then.

  He laughed. Stop thinking about that, Red, or you and I will be secluded in our snow cabin for days, weeks … maybe months. And the worlds can fix them damn selves.

  I sucked in a deep breath. He was right. I needed to focus. We needed to finish this with the lalunas, because I couldn’t leave Josian as their prisoner. Who knew what was happening in there, how they were messing with his mind? I had to save my dad.

  You have no idea how much it pisses me off that we can’t just hole up right now. I pushed back my curls.

  Sometimes I wanted to stamp my feet and curse at the world for everything it was taking from me.

  It’s almost over, baby. And then we’ll have so much time, an eternity.

  I knew Brace was right, but it didn’t annoy me any less. Plus there was this teeny, tiny part of me that worried we wouldn’t win. I was confident, but not stupid. The Seventine were damn powerful, and there were so many factors leading up to the convergence; well, who the hell knew which way it would go?

  I was distracted from these thoughts as I finally focused on the land laid out before us. Dronish. A world which had been dark, cold, and dying. Now it was alive again. But it was strange to observe an environment almost completely devoid of life. It was as if a lava field had flowed across the land, coating and covering everything. The shapes of life were still there: mountains, trees, houses. But it was petrified into large black blobs. Blobs which were rock-hard now. It was almost a land of statues, a frozen moment of a world that used to exist.

  Sapha rushed to my side.

  I’d noticed earlier that she’d been watching Brace and me with more than curiosity in her gaze. It s
eemed as if the driving emotion in the depthless red eyes was longing. Desire. She wanted what we had here. True love. A bond greater than anything that had or would ever exist in these worlds.

  Right then she was dancing on the spot next to us, clearly not wanting to interrupt, but something had driven her to cross the space and stand at our side.

  I pulled away from the Abernath princeps. Reluctantly. Very, very reluctantly. I could hear his chuckle in my head, and just having him back where he belonged was better than any gift.

  “What’s up, Sapha?”

  Her eyes widened at my choice of words. I guessed she didn’t understand the context.

  “Sorry, I mean, is something wrong? Are you okay?”

  She nodded a few times. “We need to go to Arotia. The Drones are in danger.”

  I didn’t question her. I trusted my half-Walker girls, and I knew the reason would be important. I held out my hand and she barely even hesitated before placing hers into the open palm. We were making progress. Brace linked to my other side and the rest of the females fell in line. Without hesitation I traced our large group to the outer region of the barrier-lined city.

  The screams were the first thing that registered in my brain. My eyes took a few more seconds to catch up. Drones were everywhere, curled up, crouching under any cover they could find. It was lucky they mostly wore thick sheets, because, clearly, the sun hurt them.

  Ria had her hands threaded through her gorgeous chestnut hair. “What’s wrong with them?” Vines were starting to spring free, as she swung her head from side to side, and for the first time I noticed the small black dots which flew off her hair plants.

  Were they seeds? Was Ria actually creating new life-growth? Maybe her power could help to restore some of that which had been lost from Dronish.

  Sapha started to run, yelling as she went. “Drones are night dwellers. The sun burns them.”

  There were at least fifty of her people outside of the gates, and as we followed her path I gasped at the angry red burns littering their translucent skin. Basically any place where they weren’t covered by their black sheets had been severely toasted.