Scion’s Sacrifice (The Guardians of Light Book 3)

by R. Michael Card

  “Which it may,” Olinda said with a sigh. “You heard what the girl said, not all of them may survive.” She shook her head. “I’ve already brought that boy back from death’s door once.”

  “For which he and I, and Senia are eternally grateful, High Sister,” Elia said.

  “Also,” Ullanine went on, “if we follow that formula, then it would seem that Wyllea’s man might also be another of those to go.”

  Elia arched a brow. “I don’t see him being much help. He’s only just starting his training. He has a long way to go before he’d be ready for such a quest.”

  “Yet from what I hear, he and Wyllea would die for each other as well and are not likely to go anywhere without the other.”

  Elia had to agree. “True.”

  “This leaves only the dark one,” Olinda said.

  “Yes, he or she is the mystery.” Ullanine’s gaze turned to the fire.

  Elia had a thought. “Though if we follow the pattern, then it would be the man who loves your multi-talent,” Elia said to Olinda.

  “Cassine?” Olinda seemed surprised. “She has no man in her life. She is a devoted and dedicated Daughter of Ehlani and as far as I know she’s never even known the touch of a man.”

  Elia grimaced. That hope had died quickly.

  “And so,” Ullanine said, “the question remains, who is this dark one?”

  Elia stopped her pacing. “Who indeed?”

  Chapter 1

  Cassine’s hope of escape vanished. She yelled for help, but her voice was drowned out amidst the din of combat and the screams of the dying all around her. The Blacklord’s armies swelled around the keep in yet another night raid. She couldn’t be heard and she wouldn’t be seen. A magical darkness shrouded her and her captor, the Blacklord’s son, as he made his way across the bailey of St. Antin Abbey toward the outer wall.

  He’d captured her only moments before as she’d tended to him in the dungeons of the Abbey. He’d snapped the chains attaching him to the wall as if they’d been strings. He still wore the magical manacles that kept him from accessing his Scion-Weapon and its magic, but he was a strong multi-talent on top of his scion abilities. No one had suspected this. Only she knew. Being a multi-talent herself, she was one of the few who could see the magic within him.

  He held her close in front of him. He only needed one arm, great muscles pressing against her like a vice, wrapped around her ribcage just below her breasts. His other hand, kept close by the manacles, rested on her hip. Her feet didn’t even touch the ground. Her arms were pinned, yet she could kick and thrash her head, but this seemed to affect him little.

  Her heart thundered in her chest, blood boiling with an intense desire to be free of this man. But she wasn’t scared, not yet. If she could find a way to escape while still within the confines of St. Antin she doubted he’d come back for her. She wasn’t that important a person.

  Physically she wasn’t strong, but her talent with earth magic was significant and that affected the body. She stopped moving for a moment as she pumped everything she had into strengthening herself. Then she pushed away from him with all her earth-talent enhanced strength. With any normal man she would have easily pried her way out of his grip, but this was no normal man. His arm around her flexed as she tried to escape and she succeeded only in freeing one arm before he yanked her back, tight to him. His earth talent was amazing! A moment later he’d caught her free arm and was pinning it to her side once again.

  “You are a feisty one aren’t you?” A deep baritone rumbled from within him.

  Her stomach clenched in panic, blood pounding in her ears. She was losing time, but she had so much more at her disposal than just her earth-talent.

  Unable to see through the darkness around her, Cassine sent out her life-sense. There were many others around, dashing through the bailey or lying too still as their life-essence faded. Yet she found it hard to sense those nearby as her life-sense was half-blinded by her captor’s brilliant bloom of life energy. No wonder he’d been able to overpower her earth-talent enhanced strength. He was a potent individual, powerful in many respects, physically for sure, but the pure power of spirit within him was like a beacon in the night. This shook her to her core and nearly overwhelmed her. She doubted any of her magic would affect him. He was simply far too powerful.

  Her strongest talent was with water and soul magic, but there was little that could do to him, except dishearten him perhaps. She tried to push at his soul, making him doubt himself, uncertain. Yet she found his soul to be an inky, oily place which disgusted her.

  He hesitated for just a moment, her effects on him clear, but his determination to escape was too strong and he was moving again a moment later.

  Her thoughts danced, frantic. Her heart raced, trapped in her chest like she was trapped in this man’s arms. His pure life energy would give him away in an instant to any who were looking for it, but no one else here, even either of the scions, could see life as she could. Cassine’s life-sense was an ability of water and soul. It was enhanced by her link to fire and spirit as well as to earth and the physical body, but she doubted anyone else could see things the same way. If Senia was nearby she might become aware of this man’s spirit, which was incredibly strong, but Senia was likely out beyond the walls fighting, and it might be too late by the time she caught up with them.

  Cassine’s terror bloomed into a black cloud of doubt and fear. She now felt what she’d been trying to make him feel. How could she ever hope to escape this man?

  “Please,” she tried one last time. “Don’t do this. I know there’s good in you.” She had seen it. His soul might have been a twisted, dark thing, but mixed into the warped wounds was more than one strand of empathy, of kindness. They might not be large, nor many, but they were there.

  “There is no good in me,” he growled, his voice a low, deep and husky.

  “Perhaps you can’t see it, but I can.”

  He tightened his grip on her, his free hand moving up to grasp her throat, choking her. “Speak of this again and you’ll know how evil I am.”

  Despite his words, he released her neck. He could have killed her, yet he hadn’t.

  He crouched and leapt. They were close to the walls. The life-essences of those in the bailey stopped abruptly. She felt the rush of warm wind on her face, tousling her long hair.

  His leap took them well above the fifty-foot walls, the life essences of those on the wall sinking farther and farther below them.

  She’d hoped he wouldn’t take her this far, that he’d discard her before this, but he hadn’t. She had to do something quickly or she’d be neck deep in the Blacklord’s armies. He alone was bad enough, but there were other mages serving the Blacklord as well and she’d have little hope once she was in amidst all of that magic. She trembled, yet still some core of strength within her sought for a way out, something to save her.

  She couldn’t affect him, so she needed to do something else, but what?

  There was one thing.

  She’d only ever done it once before and that had been by accident nearly twenty years ago as a child.

  Yet she knew it was possible and she remembered how it had felt, the memory ingrained into her being. It took all elements and a great deal of power. She had no idea if it would work, but it was her only hope, the only magic she could think of to free herself. Desperation pushed her. She had to try, even if she had no clue what would happen. She knew only if she stayed with this man she couldn’t imagine a worse fate.

  She tried to calm herself as he began his descent, gathering her energies. First, she drew upon water, her most significant talent. She felt her own blood, the liquid life within her as well as the aura that was her soul. These were like her hands or face, so well known to her as to be taken for granted. Then she gathered her strength in earth, her second strongest talent, the ability to heal, which had gotten her into the Daughters of Ehlani. She used the knowledge of the body to strengthen her muscles and harden her
self for what was to come. Next was fire and spirit, closer to soul than mind, but still not a strong element for her. She reached out with her spirit to a distant place, sensing the world around her, knowing the feel of all things, as spirit was the element that created and connected all things. Finally air, her weakest element and connected to the mind. She calmed her thoughts, ready now for the extreme effort she needed to push herself out of her own being, taking mind, body, soul and spirit with her to another place in an instant.

  The only problem was, she couldn’t control where she went.

  She felt the tearing of the fabric of reality as she pushed herself to some other, distant place. Her body would have been torn apart if not for the earth magic she’d pushed into it. There was disorientation and pain. It was incredibly intense, but only for an instant. There was a cry, from whom, she didn’t know, she was a being of magic at the moment and the needs and sensations of her body were distant. She floated free, detached, in all places at once and none. The sensation lasted a mere heartbeat and yet stretched for an eternity, one breath drawn out for what seemed like hours.

  She landed, feeling solid earth under her feet. She’d done it. Her soul elated, celebrated. She was free!

  Snapping out of the trance she’d needed to teleport herself, she came to her senses despite her entire being: body, soul, mind, and spirit, feeling drained and weak.

  Instantly she realized something had gone wrong.

  When she’d done this as a child, she’d been alone. This time, she hadn’t been, and somehow she’d taken her captor with her.

  By all the Gods, no!

  Yet even as her heart sank, his grip loosened and released. He fell to the ground behind her with a heavy thud. She wanted to run away, to cry out with joy, but with her own weakness she couldn’t do anything but collapse to her knees. She sat there for a moment, still trying desperately to get up, away from this place and that man.

  There was no strength in her however. She doubled over onto her hands.

  Perhaps she could crawl.

  Instead, she found herself taking several long, deep breaths to keep from blacking out. It wasn’t enough. She sank to the ground as everything slowly went dark.

  For a moment, her mind still functioned before unconsciousness took her. One thought circled in her mind: she lay in some unknown place with her captor still close by. The Gods must hate her.

  Chapter 2

  Davar woke in a rush.

  He sat up, knowing something was wrong and trying to bring himself to alertness, but his entire body hurt and his head spun with the effort. A thousand soldiers marched in time in his skull, pounding his thoughts to mist. He opened his eyes only to have light stab into them, burning. He brought his hands, still bound by the manacles that cut him off from his Scion-Blade, to his forehead and shut his eyes.

  What in all the blazes of the Void had happened?

  He’d been in the middle of jumping over the walls of St. Antin when…

  Well, he had no idea what had happened.

  He tried tentatively opening his eyes again. This time he blinked away the stabbing pain forcing himself to look at what was around him and it was clear he was nowhere near St. Antin Abbey.

  It was dawn. He was high up on the side of a mountain, able to see the sun far to the east cresting the curve of the world. But everything was wrong. The sun was too far north for Hallania and the land around these mountains was thick forest, nothing like the lands around Maalkin’s Rise. He had no clue where he was or how he’d gotten here. He recalled a sensation like a giant hand trying to rend him in all directions at once. He’d pushed his earth magic to its limits, barely quick enough to resist being torn apart, but it had drained him and sent him reeling.

  He stood, or at least tried to, but his legs wouldn’t support him, weak as a kitten. So he continued to massage his forehead as he took in his surroundings. To the east high hills and deep gorges, mostly covered in thick forest, rolled away from the mountain plateau on which he sat. The north held a steep mountainside jutting up to a high, snow-capped peak. This definitely wasn’t Maalkin’s Rise. There was no snow on those mountains except in winter. Also, Maalkin’s Rise had much more rounded tops than the jagged, pointed spikes of this stretch of mountains. To the west, the plateau rose slowly and narrowed into a crevice between two steep slopes. To the south was a low, sparsely forested hill with higher mountains beyond it.

  The woman he’d captured lay nearby so whatever had happened to him had happened to her as well. His gaze lingered on her: the way the sun caught her hair and turned it to gold, the lush curves of her body, the exposed slender ankle in a delicate stocking, the peaceful face. It reminded him of…

  Someone…

  Who…?

  It was a very faint memory — or was it a memory at all? It was some image of a woman captured in his mind. His mother? He’d never known his mother. He’d been told he had no mother, that he’d been created by his father’s magic alone. He wasn’t sure if he believed that. The Blacklord rarely told the truth, even to his own son, preferring to bend all things to reflect his dark view of the world.

  Thinking of his father reminded him he was outside the enchantment of the abbey walls. He should be able to hear and feel his father in his mind, and yet…

  There was something, but it was so faint as to be hardly there at all. It was like a whisper that was just too far away to hear. He knew someone was trying to speak to him, but knew not what they said. He must be far to the west, farther from his father than he’d ever been. This gave him a suspicion of where he was, probably the Silver Mountains. He couldn’t be sure, but it was a reasonable guess.

  He tried to remember the maps he’d studied of the world. How far away were the Silver Mountains? How long would it take him, moving as fast as he could, to get back east? He estimated at least a week, probably closer to two.

  Knowing this did little to improve his mood. The resounding silence he’d felt in the dungeons of St. Antin consumed him once more. A profound loss and emptiness echoed through his soul. He didn’t know what to do with such a feeling. A great anger swelled and bellowed within him.

  It gave him the strength to stand.

  A part of him knew his anger would be of little use in figuring a way out of this mess. Yet each breath he drew in to quell it only fanned the flames of his distemper to a bonfire. He clenched his jaw, feeling his muscles tense and bunch.

  Why was this happening to him?

  Looking at the prone figure on the ground, he knew she had to be involved somehow. He took out his anger on her, kicking her backside. His strength was such that he sent her rolling several feet away. “Wake up!”

  As angry as he was the kick still sent him off balance and he staggered to one side nearly falling. He was still drained from resisting… whatever it was that had brought them here.

  The woman stirred, but didn’t wake. Whatever had put them here had hit her harder. That didn’t surprise him. His abilities were exceptional, far beyond mere mortals, even scions. It had taken two scions to bring him in after all.

  He stalked over to her, each step stronger, then kicked her again harder. This time she lifted off the ground before landing with a thump and a groan.

  Her eyes fluttered open, but only for a moment before closing again. She muttered something intelligible and rolled over.

  He was tempted to just leave her, but something compelled him to wake her. She needed to know how angry he was. The more he thought about it the more he was sure this was her fault. She might look like some woman of his dreams, but right now he was simply too frustrated to leave her be.

  He got down on one knee next to her. He raised his hands, balled together to bash her across the face, but paused. Her face was nothing short of angelic. It would be a shame to break and bruise such beauty.

  Had he really just thought that? His mind must be addled. What did it matter what she looked like? She was infuriating even in her sleep and needed to be punished!r />
  He screamed and brought his fists down hard. They sunk deep into the ground above her head. He raised them again, this time sure he would hit her, but they froze, trembling with frustration and rage. It probably wouldn’t wake her anyway. He’d probably hit her too hard and knock her out again or kill her.

  So he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, yelling at her. “Wake up, wench!”

  She let out a long low groan, followed by another one. He stopped his assault and sat back with a grim smile. Now she’d know his wrath!

  Her eyes opened slowly, long lashes fluttering like butterfly wings revealing her soft brown eyes which shone like pools of gold in the newly risen sun.

  By all the Gods! Those eyes pulled at him, drew him in, held him.

  He shook that off, his anger resuming. “What did you do?”

  She seemed to come fully awake, actually seeing him. Her eyes flashed with defiance and she rolled away from him, coming smoothly to her feet. She was quick, lithe and graceful, like a dancer. Yet once standing she had to steady herself, waving and wobbling a bit, arms out to balance herself. She seemed just as weak as he was.

  Once steady, she winced and rubbed her rump. “Did you kick me?”

  “No.”

  She glared at him.

  He gave her a cruel smile.

  “You did kick me.”

  “Tell me what you did. Where are we?”

  She glared at him, lips tight. Her breast rose and fell with quick breaths, showing off the lush curves hidden by her dress. Now that she was standing, he noticed she was tall for a woman. Her figure was well rounded and full, not like some of the waifs he’d bedded in brothels. Her face was round with well-defined cheeks, a slender nose, and full lips. Her eyes shone like the sun, full of fire at the moment. Then there was her hair, long and straight, golden and flowing like a field of ripe wheat swaying in the wind. She would make an excellent match for him. His anger began to fade as arousal built within him.

  He shook his head. Why couldn’t he remain mad at her? Why did her mere presence keep distracting him? He was starting to question why he’d even bothered to bring her out of the dungeons. It seemed more and more like that had been a mistake.