Lera of Lunos

by Alex Lidell

  “Now,” River orders, as if I have any control over the power pulsing in my chest.

  Yet, something inside me obeys. Power thuds through me—my own power—and chaos cedes a tiny slice of ground to control. I would smile if every piece of my heart wasn’t breaking for what’s about to happen. My thrashing magic winds itself up for a blow. The very air in the room grows heavy, as if riding the edge of lightning. Then, it all snaps like a whip.

  Two of the marble pillars collapse at once, whole chunks of the ceiling crashing down on qoru and fae and pews alike. In the middle of the floor, a crevice similar to the one I made in the arena is already starting to open. The force of the impact knocks me back, the moss softening my fall. As promised, Tye’s shield saves me from the worst of the falling debris.

  Voices rise into the air, the qoru’s screams carrying an otherworldly anger. Pain. Griorgi shouts something I don’t bother trying to make out.

  Gripping my magic, I lash the world with it again. This second burst collapses the right side of the room, bringing down a dense cluster of qoru. A piece of ceiling strikes Tye hard enough that he falls limp, the shield around me disappearing. The shield caging Coal and Shade is gone as well, the two males now sprawled many paces away from each other.

  Only River is conscious still, crouching in the moss-free island in the front of the nave.

  He won’t survive the next clash of magic. None of us will. Ice fills my blood.

  Groans and screeches of anger fill the air as qoru struggle to find their footing. I’ve lost track of Jawrar and Griorgi in the second blast, but I know they’re out there still, rallying their offenses.

  The magic inside me thrashes again, showing me the path of the final destruction with a focused, intelligent hunger. The shock wave will come from the left this time, destroying what remains of the temple’s pillars. Once the supports fall, the stone ceiling will crumble, the dome’s weight too great for even Jawrar’s dark shields. Either here in the Gloom, or up in the Light.

  I can’t do it.

  Yet I can’t halt it either.

  My gaze meets River’s, his gray eyes understanding, conveying his love and strength and sorrow. The magic inside me builds to a tsunami, every bit of it on the verge of breaking through and shattering us all forever—

  Every bit but a small stream of power that the blue-purple moss I lie on leeches through the gash over my fractured wrist. The magic’s pressure releases slightly, the edge of its insanity softening as the moss laps it up like a cat sipping cream. For just an instant that feels like a lifetime, I watch it in wonder.

  The velvet moss drinks from my echoed magic. Thirstily, yes, but not viciously.

  It takes without malice. It just is. Like the forgiving sands beneath Tye’s horizontal bar, the moss is the Gloom’s great buffer, keeping the magic in check. In balance.

  No wonder the moss is growing before our very eyes now—it’s sprouting in response to the influx of magic that Griorgi’s portal has summoned, the blue-purple strands trying to absorb the extra power and return the Gloom to balance.

  My hand closes around a clump of moss, its tendrils caressing my skin. Velvet and thick as a tiger’s fur. The only living thing native to the Gloom.

  “You aren’t a parasite at all,” I whisper to the moss, the realization trickling through my blood. “You are a symbiont, aren’t you?”

  The moss encircles my bleeding wrist, lapping more and more of my magic as it gains strength. With some of the power siphoned away, I can breathe again. At least for a little while. I draw a shuddering breath, a new plan settling over me. One that will let my males live.

  “Brace yourself,” I order River. With no time to wait for his nod, I grasp the growling dark-brown cord of his earth magic and jam its tip into the floor. The resulting quake is violent enough to knock everyone off their feet without destroying the temple, stars be thanked.

  With the magic’s pressure momentarily relieved, all the cords of power inside me are finally malleable. Obedient to my command.

  Euphoria washes over me as the magic I’ve only battled and endured thus far suddenly opens an inviting hand. The uncomfortable sparks under my skin turn to a pleasurable tickle; the pressure in my ears, behind my eyes, turns to a soft, massaging warmth. The phantom keening in my ears turns into an orchestra, its glorious music already filling my soul. Awaiting my direction.

  Stars. I could exist in this instant forever.

  Except I can’t. To get rid of the corruption that Griorgi and Jawrar brought into Lunos’s Gloom, the moss needs to be allowed to do its job. But it needs to work faster. Much, much faster. Which means all the magic still growing stronger inside me must be given over to it, the Gloom’s blue guardian.

  Working quickly, I entwine the four cords of the males’ magic together, for the first time truly braiding the strands into one mighty weave. Into a single new cord whose power is unequal to any known in Lunos.

  I fumble around on the ground, wrapping my fingers around a piece of sharp marble debris.

  “What are you doing?” Ten paces away, a groaning Griorgi struggles to his knees, his dazed eyes somehow full of both hate and the same abstract curiosity I’ve seen in Autumn’s. “I know you are behind the magic’s assault. Will you give it up to attack us with a sharp stone?”

  “I’ve worked out the one disadvantage of your immortality,” I tell him, my hand tightening around the shard, bracing for what must be done. We thought I needed to gather power to triumph over Mors. In truth, I need to give it away. “Immortals can’t live without magic.” Twisting toward River, I raise my voice, shouting one final order to my quint commander. “Get the quint off the moss.”

  My words are still ringing from the walls when I plunge the stone dagger deep into my vein and slice, gifting the strongest magic in Lunos to the Gloom’s soft blue sentinel. “Do what you do best, my friend,” I whisper to the moss, my mind already fuzzy from blood loss. “Balance the Gloom free of Griorgi’s corruption.”

  32

  River

  River screamed as blood gushed from Leralynn’s arm. Scrambling to his feet, he sprinted for her, heedless of the shackles that would yank him back. Yet it wasn’t shackles that stopped him two steps into the run. It was moss.

  Ankle high only a moment earlier, the blue parasite suddenly sprouted into a thick violet forest, a glowing, sponge-like mass towering above his head, creating a wall around his circle of stone. The strands touching River’s bare hands burned with liquid fire so painful that he jerked back, panting wildly.

  What the bloody stars just happened?

  One moment, they’d been an instant from certain death. The two lashes of Leralynn’s power had weakened the temple, the inevitable third one certain to finish it off. River knew it. So did Leralynn. River had seen as much in her eyes. Jawrar and Griorgi had known it too, the former disappearing into the Subgloom while the latter surveyed the crumbles of his promised empire with wide-eyed fury.

  And it was crumbled. Leralynn’s initial blow had cracked the floor, destroying the rune that the king had spent so much time perfecting. The portal of liquid darkness was slowly shrinking, with no more qoru entering this world. Half the monsters already here were pinned beneath fallen chunks of ceiling and pillar. Another moment and they too would have died, buried beneath the temple’s dome.

  River had been ready for the end. Had been ready ever since closing those Mors-forged cuffs over his own wrists. Stars knew he’d tried, had reached out with his magic just to let the cuffs crush him, to try to keep his blood from Griorgi’s hands. But the king had been too intelligent for such antics, and the things he’d done to Coal and Shade to gain River’s compliance . . . Yes. River had been more than ready, regretting only his inability to touch Leralynn one last time.

  He had found her gaze though. Held it as she readied for the final blow . . .

  And sliced open her arm instead.

  River turned in a circle. The five-pace-wide space around him
was bare but for the remains of the rune and the slowly shrinking portal. Beyond that, he saw nothing. His space was an island in a sea of purple.

  A very unpleasant sea, judging from the screams of agony coming from within it.

  Get the quint off the moss.

  River gasped, understanding finally filling him. Leralynn had given up her magic to the moss, turning the small, annoying snowball of a parasite into a deadly avalanche strong enough to smother all the magic in the temple’s Gloom. Magic without which none of the immortal beings could survive, much less step into the Light.

  The brush of moss against River’s palm had been flaming agony. With their lack of clothes and deeper, darker magic, the qoru would melt to the bone. It was brilliant. Leralynn was brilliant.

  His heart pulsed with pain, remembering the gush of scarlet blood from her arm—knowing he’d never forget it as long as he lived. But there was no time for that now.

  Get the quint off the moss. Get to Leralynn.

  River circled again, looking for a weapon. For anything he might use to forge a path through the purple sea.

  The moss to River’s left shifted, a large figure clawing free of it and dropping to its knees. “River,” Griorgi panted, reaching for him.

  Ice crackled along River’s spine. Ignoring Griorgi’s outstretched hand, he ripped off the sword strapped to the king’s back and used the blade’s point to raise the male’s face toward him. Dark-brown hair, gray eyes, a scar visible beneath red, blistered skin. What must have once been a gash along the male’s shoulder was melted shut. River took it all in, waiting for the wave of hate and fury that would make this final blow so much sweeter.

  All River felt was the weight of agony-filled eyes.

  Bloody stars. The tip of his sword lowered.

  A croak escaped Griorgi’s throat. “You want to kill me, colt, but you can’t, can you?” He coughed, spitting out blood. “That was always your weakness. Siding with the lame instead of the mighty.”

  “You are right.” River let his blade clink to the stone. Waited for Griorgi’s triumphant smile. And kicked the king right into the closing portal, giving the liquid darkness one last treat before the veil between Lunos and Mors shut once more. “You’ll do better amongst your own kind, Father,” River said into nothingness, the shackles around his wrists crumbling like bits of overdried clay.

  “River!” Coal’s voice. Brimming with pain. Coming from the depths of the purple sea. “River. Where are you?”

  “Here.” Grabbing his father’s sword, River hacked a path in the direction of Coal’s call.

  The two met several paces later, Coal stumbling free from the singeing mass. Unslinging Shade’s barely conscious body from his shoulder, Coal laid the shifter carefully on the circle of clear stone then braced his hands on his thighs, catching pain-filled breaths.

  Burns covered both males’ exposed skin, though Coal seemed better for wear. Like Leralynn, whose mortal body needed no magic of its own, Coal’s body, too, had a different relationship with magic. The oddity that saved his life as a slave in Mors seemed to be giving him some protection against the moss’s drain now. “Lera?” Coal gasped. “Tye?”

  River jerked his chin at the moss, straining to hear either of their voices.

  Nothing.

  “Leralynn!” Coal shouted.

  Sword in hand, River turned in a circle, trying to mark the spot he’d last seen the girl. With the moss taller than his head, he could see no landmarks. Bloody black-filled hell. “Tye! Leralynn!” he hollered, over and over, until finally a whimpering sound too high to be one of the qoru’s croaking voices caught his ear. Heart jumping, River forged a path toward the whimper, his blade cutting into the occasional howling qoru whose melting body got in the way. Just a few steps away now. One. A savage blow and . . .

  Xane slithered out of the moss, red-blond hair plastered to his burned face.

  Swallowing a curse, River grabbed the back of the prince’s tunic and tossed him the rest of the way to the moss-free refuge. Too long. It was taking too long. “Can either of you step back into the Light?” River demanded, his own magic too drained for that small feat.

  Coal and Xane both shook their heads.

  River growled and turned back to the glowing moss wall, hot panic thudding through his veins. He was just about to hack along randomly when his quint bond strained, the pain doubling him in two. Coal and Shade gasped beside him, Shade rising to one elbow, his face bloodless.

  No. A frighteningly familiar sensation raced through River’s veins, the darkness threatening to stop his pulse altogether. “Leralynn! Tye!” His voice grew desperate, nothing like the commander he was supposed to be. The pain in the bond grew, like one of his own limbs being torn off his body, as the invisible tether ripped. Just as it had a decade earlier, when the quint lost Kai. “Leralynn! Tye!”

  The purple forest shook as if under siege, a great tiger leaping through the moss. Perhaps the animal’s fur provided protection. Or else the pain of the bond’s tear had overshadowed all else. Either way, when Tye’s tiger rushed into the clearing to deposit Leralynn’s limp form onto the stone, River’s world finally shattered.

  Light flashed and Tye dropped to his knees, his sobs an echo to Shade’s fierce howl and Coal’s soul-ripping silence. River swayed, searching in vain for movement in the girl’s chest, his ears straining for a heartbeat that wouldn’t come. Couldn’t come.

  For Leralynn was dead.

  33

  Tye

  Lera was dead. Tye’s mate was dead, lying limp on the cold stone, her skin ashen from blood loss. So much blood loss that the puncture wounds Tye’s tiger made dragging her tiny body here did not even bleed. In the end, it hadn’t been the qoru that killed her, but rather the lass herself, sacrificing her life to let the males keep theirs.

  “Lera.” Salt streaked down Tye’s face as he dropped to his knees beside her, his body pulsing with emptiness and agony. No. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Tye’s tiger purred, the animal desperate to offer what comfort he could. Tye could hear the tiger now, but Lera’s loss snuffed all joy from that. From life.

  No. Tye had found his mate. He could not lose her. The stars could not do that.

  Kneeling beside Tye, Shade laid his hand on the lass’s, summoning strength from stars knew where. The silver of Shade’s healing magic cocooned the girl’s body. Glowed once. Faltered. Then slithered away like a sheet, the male shaking his head. A moment later, a bright light flashed and Shade’s wolf curled up next to Lera’s body, whimpering.

  River loomed over them all, unspeaking—but not unfeeling. Tye could feel the tortured pain rolling off him in waves, see it in his wide gray eyes.

  “My magic.” Pushing Shade’s wolf aside roughly, Coal took the shifter’s place, pulling Lera toward him. The warrior was so large beside her that Tye couldn’t understand how the two ever sparred. How Coal could face her on the sands, knowing how easily she could fall. Hurt herself. Die. Then he understood that it was Lera’s spirit that made her seem to take up more space in life, her flashing eyes and quick laugh and stupid, ceaseless bravery.

  Tilting Lera’s head back, Coal locked his mouth over hers.

  Tye’s chest tightened in scant hope, his heart quickening. Yes. Coal. The magic that the dark warrior evoked in Lera turned inward just like his, giving her the strength and healing gifts of the immortal male. “Come, lass,” Tye whispered, watching Coal’s mouth cover Lera’s cold lips. “Answer Coal’s challenge and I’ll never begrudge you a single moment you spend with this bastard. I’ll even stop stealing if you want me to. Anything. Just fight.”

  A heartbeat passed. An eternity. More.

  Coal’s face lifted from Lera’s, his blue eyes glistening with unshed tears. Twisting violently, the warrior slammed his fist into the stone floor hard enough to fracture bones.

  Tye’s throat closed, sobs he could not control choking him. When he could finally force air down his throat, the scent of lilac came
with it. The moss itself smelled of it, as if paying homage. In the Gloom, where nothing smelled or tasted how it should, Leralynn’s lilac scent filled the air.

  His face wet, Tye stumbled to the wall of moss, pulling a whole armful into his hands. The flaming pain it sent along his skin was welcome. Returning to Lera’s side, he laid the bouquet on her chest, closing the lass’s arms over the strands. “She thought it was pretty.” His voice was thick, his vision blurring. “She liked it. And it . . .” He couldn’t finish, his hands falling limply to his sides.

  For a moment, they all looked on, silent. There was nothing more they could do.

  “Your moss is wilting,” Xane’s voice announced from beyond Tye’s world.

  Rage flared through Tye’s blood. Twisting around, he grabbed the cowering princeling by the neck, pulling him upright. Tye’s fist cocked back. Of all the things the wee bastard had said and done, this was the last line Tye would let him cross.

  Xane raised his hands, warding off the blow. “The moss absorbs magic,” he croaked, speaking as quickly as Tye’s grip on his neck allowed. “If it’s wilting, the magic is going somewhere.”

  Tye’s fist paused. “What the bloody hell are you babbling about now?”

  Xane motioned to his neck, gasping when Tye released the hold. “I may not be the athlete or warrior or military strategist that Blaze bloody wants, but I do know some things.” Stepping toward the wall of purple moss, Xane took a fortifying breath and ripped off a small clump. “Look,” he said, showing it to Tye.

  Tye stared at the moss. The exact same moss that it was a moment earlier, coiled strands of phosphorescent purple. “I’ll kill you.”

  Xane shook his head. “Look at the moss you put on Lera.”

  Tye glanced over. River and Coal looked too, crouching closer to Lera’s body. Even Shade’s wolf raised his head. The lush bouquet that Tye had laid on his Lilac Girl’s chest was now dull and limp.