Unconsciousness sank its claws into my mind and then there was nothing.
***
“You need to drink some water,” Azren urged.
I was burning up, my body slick with perspiration. Were the herbs working?
“Your body is sweating out the poison. The herbs are helping, but you need to hydrate,” Azren confirmed.
The waterskin ... I needed to get it, but it was on the other side of the cave with my provisions. The slightest movement made my head spin, how the heck was I going to get across the cave?
“Wila, you can do this.”
“Easy for you to say.” My words slurred. “Crap, I sound pissed.”
“Take a deep breath, Wila, and then roll onto your front.”
“Or you could just get the water for me?” I laughed, bitter and harsh, and ended up coughing my guts out for my efforts, because, of course, he wasn’t actually here. He was a figment of my delirious mind. A ghost conjured by my psyche to keep me alive.
“Wila, you need to move,” mind-ghost Azren said.
Rolling onto my front, I began to crawl across the floor. The cave swam, my head bloomed with heat, and my stomach churned, but there was no stopping because phantom Azren was right. Water was life, right?
It took forever, but I made it and collapsed by the pile of dried meat and the pack filled with essentials Jinx had left for me. The skin was half full. Better not drink it all—just a few sips, enough to keep me going. The water was cool and fresh, and—oh, God—I was going to be sick.
“No. Wila, breathe through it.”
Breathe, breathe. Shit, my psyche needed to get some new material. But the advice worked and the nausea subsided. There was no way I’d make it back to the fireside, not just yet. Maybe in a little while. Maybe in a moment ...
AZREN
Something was wrong. A churning in my gut unrelated to my current predicament, unrelated to the blood pooling out of my abdomen and Elora’s manic cackle bouncing off the walls. The spike of panic wasn’t mine. It was Wila’s. The dark stain of dread wasn’t mine; it was my kindred’s. Suddenly, the shackles binding me mattered. The wounds marring my flesh meant something. They meant I was bound, weak, a slave, and a slave could not protect his kindred.
My kindred was in danger. It was a visceral conviction that flooded my blood with the heat of adrenaline and pumped my heart faster. Fire danced over my skin as the glamour I’d been holding on to burned away, and my true form—my Shedim form—was revealed.
“Oh, dear,” Elora said. “Have I broken you?”
I locked eyes with her, an inferno bubbling up inside me. “Take off the shackles and find out.”
For the first time since I’d known Elora, doubt flitted across her perfect, cruel features. She covered it quickly enough with a bored heave, and then dropped her whip on the ground.
“You know what, pet? I think we’re done for today. In fact, we’re done period. The pieces are almost in place. And it’s time to take a trip. A little pilgrimage. And when we get back, if I’m feeling magnanimous, I may let you finally die.” She turned her back on me and began to stride away.
I couldn’t let her walk away without asking, without finding out for sure the purpose of her cruelty, if there even was a purpose. “If you’re going to end me anyway, then tell me why you killed Ivan? Why squash the Treaty? I deserve that much at least for all my years of loyal service.”
She turned back to me, and the manic light in her eyes had died a little. “Yes. You have been loyal. A loyal pet.” She sauntered closer, her booted feet clipping on the hard-packed earth. “Sometimes sacrifices must be made for the greater good, for a brighter future.”
“I don’t understand. How is this a brighter future? How is living a lie better than the truth, better than the peace and equality we could have had?”
“Tell me, Azren? If you were given a glimpse of the future, an arid, dead world of pain and death, if you were shown this and told that one race alone would be responsible for such an outcome, what would you do? What lengths would you go to in order to protect your people?”
“What are you saying? You’re saying you saw the future?”
Her smile was mirthless. “I did more than see it, I felt it. I felt the emptiness and the pain and the horror, and I knew what I had to do. I knew that equality could never be an option between Draconi and Shedim, that the Shedim could never be allowed positions of power, because it would be the Shedim that would one day end this world.” She lifted her chin. “I made the ultimate sacrifice when I slaughtered my scalemate, and I would do it again in a heartbeat to save my people.”
A prophecy? A window into the future? How was that possible? And even if it was, how could she be sure her actions hadn’t set us on the path to destruction anyway. “Maybe you did see that Shedim would cause the end of the world, but how can you be certain that you’re not the one who has created the monsters by enslaving us?”
There was that doubt again, but it was fleeting, hidden too soon, which told me she’d considered this possibility before. “The Shedim are my slaves by their choice.” This time her smile was smug.
Yes, she’d made sure of that with her memory enchantment. She’d taken us under her thumb by manipulating our minds.
“Under Draconi rule, the Shedim will remain subservient,” she continued. “The truth will remain hidden, and you will do no harm. Not without my say-so. Now heal, for soon we travel.” She melted into the shadows.
I sagged against the bloody slabs and focused on healing. I’d been wrong to claim resignation. This would not be my tomb. My kindred deserved better. My kindred deserved to be saved, and the world needed to know what Elora had done.
It was time to fight.
“Oh good, finally,” a deep, disembodied voice said. “I was beginning to think you’d given up hope.”
Where was it coming from? There was nothing here except the screams of the tortured and the insects who crawled in the dark.
“Well, you’re wrong there,” my invisible companion said. “The pit is built on the home of the unseeing. They listen and they wait.”
“Who are you?”
“A prisoner like you.”
A neighboring cell, maybe? But that didn’t make sense. How could I hear him? “How long have you been here?”
“Too long.”
I was going insane, this was the first sign of it. But anything was better than the aching loneliness between Elora’s beatings. If this was a figment of my fractured mind, then so be it. Down in the bowels of the earth my rage was impotent; best to distract myself from all the things I was unable to do, from the conviction that my kindred was in danger and there was not a single action I could take to protect her.
I leaned my head back against the wall. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Orion.”
VALANCE
They were gathering by the fire, probably debating whether to take another slice or two. Who’d have thought that the prince of Draconi would be relegated to meals on wheels ... or in my case, meals in chains.
Fuck Mother and the lead cuff she’d welded to my wrist. Lead was dragon kryptonite, and this close up against my skin it meant shifting to dragon form, and crispy frying the fuckers wasn’t an option. But they’d known that when they’d saved me.
They knew a lot about Draconi territory; they were, after all, the cockroaches of our world. Able to break bone and sinew to slip through cracks, they’d been the thieves of Draconi, and Mother, in her ultimate wisdom, had decreed them banished into the Everdark. Now they wanted out. They wanted to enter Arcana, but from what I’d picked up from stuff they’d said, both to me and each other, the breach allowing them access was a battle zone. Only the strongest made it through. Arcana probably had a bigger Other problem than they realized, because if what these cockroaches were saying was true, only the most powerful Others had made it to Arcana.
Shit, they’d finished with the talking and were headed over. Yep. Wic
ked blade in tow.
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, guys. At this rate, there’ll be nothing left by the time we get to the breach.”
“Just a taste. One taste,” the guy who I’d pegged as the leader said.
Fucker went on about how this was the only way, how they were so sorry. But it was in his eyes, in all their eyes—carnivorous hunger that they’d done well to hide while in Draconi territory. They’d developed a taste for flesh. Specifically, mine, and although I healed faster now that I was almost back to full strength, it still hurt like a bitch when they took a chunk.
He leaned in to slice at my leg. They’d kindly cut away the bottom of my jeans to allow for better access.
“Did you sterilize that blade, huh?” I raised both brows. “You give me an infection and it’s game over.”
He hesitated, and then with a harrumph, headed back to the campfire.
A momentary reprieve, and damn, I could use a bottle of dragon tears about now. Instead I did the only thing that helped when they dug in. I closed my eyes and summoned her face, reaching for the connection between us, testing its strength and knowing that she was okay, alive and well and safe. Except this time the connection was flimsy and weak, a sign that she was sick ... dying.
My eyes snapped open as the blade cut into my flesh. I’d been holding off on this move, waiting for them to get me to the breach before breaking free, because the chains they’d used to bind me were nothing. Not really. But there was no time. Wila needed me, and common sense was no longer in the driver’s seat. My body acted on instinct, lashing out as the chains snapped. Knocking the others back with a roar, and then I was running into the night, their screams of outrage and horror fading behind me.
Wila. I needed to find Wila.
I ran until common sense slipped back behind the wheel, and my feet came to a halt. Shit. Fuck! Where the hell to now? The breach could be anywhere, and now I’d dumped my only way of finding it. I was fucked.
The silver and black landscape stretched out before me, unremarkable but lethal. There were things out there—awful, hungry things that had been warded off by the Others’ fire. Fire they carried with them always. Even then, two had gone scouting and never returned. I’d heard tales of the creatures that called the Everdark their home and was in no hurry to meet them.
I’d need to find flint and wood and build a fire. Maybe find a cave to hole up in. There’d been plenty of those, but the Others who’d held me captive had steered clear. They preferred to sleep under the stars.
Shit, which way?
My step faltered as darkness pooled at my feet. My shadow? No. Wait, this was moving away, rising up until it formed a humanoid form.
I backed up. “Hello, strange shadow man.”
A low chuckle. “I’ve been watching you.”
“Well that’s ... nice.”
“I can help you, for a price.”
Making bargains with strangers wasn’t my thing, but desperate times called for desperate measures. “You know where the breach is?”
“Yes. I can point you in the right direction.”
“What do you want?”
“An answer to a simple question.”
“My general knowledge isn’t so bad. Go ahead.”
“Where is the key?”
The key? Was this some kind of mystical trick question? “Um. The key is within you, my son. Search deep, search long, and you shall find it.”
The shadow man canted his head and then drifted to the left and to the right. “You really don’t know.”
I allowed my shoulders to sag. “No clue.”
“And you are the dragon liege heir?”
“She burned out my eyes and exiled me. A little extreme in my opinion, a simple cutting me out of the will would have sufficed, but no, she had to make a point.”
He threw back his head and laughed and laughed and then laughed some more.
“You know, you’re great for a guy’s self-confidence.”
His laughter cut off abruptly, and his shadow face glared at me with deep pockets of darkness where the eyes would be. “Your mother is a wily one, a clever one. But we will find it. We will find it, and we will take it, and we will use it for our own.”
“The key?”
“Yes. The key that manipulates minds will serve a new purpose. It will open a metaphysical door. It will bring back our commander, and we will rule supreme.”
Attention piqued, I took a step toward the creature. “Tell me what you know about this key.”
He made a sound of derision. “Everything that you do not, it seems. The key is what divides your people. It is what gives Elora her power. But it does not belong to her. She cannot hide it forever. We will find it.”
“And you are?”
“The first. The guardians. We are the shades.”
My scalp prickled. “The shades? As in the creatures who sealed the Draconi, Shedim, and Others into a supernatural prison?”
“We served blindly. But not anymore. Now, we will be free.”
I let out a bark of laughter. “Wait, let me just get this straight. You got locked up too?”
If a shadow could bristle, he’d be a porcupine. “Not all of us. Many of us escaped, we hid in pockets of darkness, and we waited for his eyes to wander. They did so soon enough. Soon enough, he was gone, and now it is our time to liberate our brothers.”
“And you think this key will help you do that?”
“If it can change history in the minds of thousands, then it will open a door.”
“And what does this key look like?”
Silence.
“Well, good luck with that. Sorry I couldn’t help, but you know, in the interests of not being a petty arsehole, you could just point me in the right direction.”
“It’s a four-day trek.”
His speech up until now had been succinct and pretty fanatical but lacked passion. It was almost as if he was doing it by rote.
“You don’t really give a shit about the key, do you?”
“What? Of course I do. The key is all.” He glanced about.
I rolled my eyes. “There is no one else within listening distance. Just you and me, pal. So, will you show me the way or not?”
He sighed. “I’ll take you to the breach on one condition.”
Here it was, the real reason he’d appeared to me. “Go on.”
“You take me with you.”
“Through the breach?”
“Yes.”
“Why can’t you just go through yourself?”
“I’m not strong enough,” he admitted. “I’d need to be latched on to someone’s shadow to pass, someone powerful.”
And he needed my consent. “Just a ride. No funny business, no staying latched on?”
“You have my word.”
There was sincerity in his tone, but to be honest, even if there hadn’t been, he was my only hope to getting back to Wila, so ... “You have a deal. Now lead the way.”
Chapter 14
I woke to darkness, skin cool and head clear for the first time in what felt like forever, but it wasn’t a gentle awakening. It was a sudden, gut-wrenching, heart-pounding awakening, the kind where your body is telling you there’s danger and that you’re not alone.
Sometime, while I’d been unconscious, the fire had died, leaving me in almost pitch-black darkness with just enough gray moonlight to allow my night vision to kick in. Night vision I was now using to scan my surroundings, because the whoosh of blood in my ears told me there was something in here with me, and common sense told me that after the beating I’d taken from the toxin I’d accidentally ingested, if whatever was in here attacked, I was fucked.
Azren was gone, slipping into the back of my mind. He’d done his job, he’d kept me alive, and now my psyche had nudged me awake with a sharp claw to do the rest. Sudden movements would alert the thing, whatever it was, that I was awake. Although what kind of creature watched its prey sleep. Unless ... Unless it wasn’t that k
ind of predator.
My stomach turned. Jinx had warned me about the wanderers—men and women who hunted for sport. They had no interest in getting out of the Everdark. This was their home. They hunted in packs, but once they found their prey, they chose one to make the pick-up. Victims were used for food, sex, and other unsavory things. A denizen I could deal with, but a wanderer ...
The crunch of boots across the cave and the snuffle of breath had my hackles rising. My body tensed, ready to react. Lie still. Wait for it to get close and then attack it. Something swept over me and inky darkness blinded me.
“It’s awake. A female, I think.” The voice was smooth and low in timbre.
The clink of flint and the flare of fire followed the observation, but my heart was beating too hard to focus.
“We mean you no harm,” the fire starter said. “Just needed somewhere to lie low.”
My heart squeezed tight in my chest and tears burned the back of my throat. Fuck this shit. Fuck this poison, messing with me again. I was probably still unconscious. This was a dream, a fucked-up, toxin-induced dream, because that voice was one I’d been aching to hear.
“Do you understand me? I mean you no harm,” he said again. “My friend and I are just trying to get to the breach.”
Fuck it. May as well play along. “Convenient of you to walk into my cave then, Valance.” I pushed myself into a sitting position, looking across the cave to find his chiseled face, bathed in orange hues from the flames, staring back at me in stunned silence. “I’ve been looking for you.” I even threw in a cocky smile. What now, psyche?
His mouth dropped open and then he stood slowly, his chest rising and falling rapidly. “Wila? Is that you?”
Man, my psyche was good. “In the flesh, Dragon Boy.”
And then he was bridging the distance between us, hauling me into his arms and squeezing the life out of me. Squeezing ... Wait, he was holding me. We were touching. Oh, God. Oh, God. This was real.
My eyes stung and a dry sob tore from my throat. “You’re here. You’re really fucking here.”
He pushed me away from him. “What are you doing here?” There was real anger in his voice. “Dammit, Wila. Are you insane?”
Chronicles of Arcana (The complete collection books 1-4) Page 49