A Soul For Atonement (The Soulbearer Series Book 4)

by Crista McHugh

  Callix rubbed his thumb over his ancestor’s face and wondered if he would’ve done the same. His mother was a member of one of the strongest elvan bloodlines in the empire, and he’d been specifically bred to carry on the family tradition of containing the god of chaos. Quertus believed the elvan blood would slow the eventual madness, and Callix’s earliest memories included learning spells to protect the Soulbearer and contain the malicious soul inside.

  But all that changed when a knight was accused of murdering his best friend. Even though Dev was found innocent, he still asked for punishment. And the Mages Council, knowing Callix’s reluctance to carry on the family tradition, sentenced him to become the Soulbearer’s Protector.

  The thing Callix had loathed as long as he could remember had been lifted from him.

  Only now, it hung from his neck like a millstone.

  And there was only one way to be free of it.

  Ivis, give me strength. I’m going to need it.

  Chapter 10

  Arden tucked the last of her things into her pack and glanced at the afternoon sun. With a little bit of luck, she might make it through the pass before nightfall. She’d already wasted too much of the day recovering from Sazi’s spell. She knew where the stone was, and she had even less time to find it.

  “Come along, Cinder,” she said to the wolf perched on her bed with his tongue hanging out of his mouth.

  He hopped down and followed, acting completely unconcerned that this would be his last night in a warm bed for the foreseeable future. His tail wagged as though they were going to hunt rabbits, not search for a portal to another realm. And he certainly didn’t seem to be aware of how dangerous this mission had become.

  But Arden knew. The awareness that slowed her steps as they descended the stairs made it difficult to look her father in the eye when she reached him. This could be the last time she saw him, and the overflowing emotions in her heart failed to reach her throat. When words failed, she flung her arms around him and said, “Thank you, Father.”

  He drew in a sharp breath, then returned her hug with even greater intensity. “I wish I could go with you, Arden.”

  “I understand.” She let go of him and pointed to her head. “He’s going to be pissed off, though.”

  “I’m sure.” Varrik gestured to his study. “I’d like to show you one thing before you go.”

  When they entered, the first thing she noticed was Sazi stretching her shiny, dark wings. Then she noticed the oval-shaped mass that rippled where the wall should’ve been. “What did you do?”

  “I spent most of the night creating a portal that will take you to the place where Syd was captured,” Varrik replied, rubbing his hand through his hair.

  So that explained the dark circles under his eyes this morning. “And how long will it be active?”

  “I’m afraid this one will close as soon as you and Sazi pass through it. The distance is too great for my magic to keep it open much longer than that.”

  All at once, the mission didn’t seem so impossible. The portal easily shaved a week off their travel, granting her more time to search for the entrance to the Realm of Chaos.

  That is, if she could convince Loku to show her where it was. She hesitated to release him from his confinement as long as her father was within striking distance. But once they were in the Ornathian kingdom, would he cooperate? Or would he thwart her at every turn?

  “We do not have much time, Soulbearer.” Sazi maneuvered a pack past her wings and onto her muscular shoulders. “I can feel the portal starting to close.”

  “Wait,” a man said from the hallway. Callix ran through the doorway wearing a traveling cloak and carrying a pack whose contents threatened to spill out. “Is there room for one more?”

  Arden opened her mouth to say there wasn’t, but her father silenced her by placing his hand on her shoulder.

  “So you decided to live up to your potential?” he asked his apprentice.

  “More like make sure chaos doesn’t take over.” He nodded to Arden. “This one can’t be trusted.”

  Magic prickled along her arms like a thousand tiny flames. “We don’t need him.”

  Callix leveled his gaze on her and gave a cocky smile. “Are you so certain of that, Soulbearer? I’m well versed in Gravarian lore, as well as skilled in both magic and combat.”

  She closed the space between them, not caring that she had to lift her face to continue the staredown. “Then let me put it another way. I don’t want you coming along.”

  “You wound me, madam,” he said, covering his heart with his hand and wearing an exaggerated look of pain on his face.

  Warning bells went off in the back of her mind. From the moment she set foot in Lothmore Palace last year, he’d been her sullen shadow. Always watching her. Always suspicious she’d use her power to help the Milorian family wrestle control from his. Always ready to find some fault in her and let her know she was unworthy to be the Soulbearer.

  And now he was not only volunteering to help her, but lightening his normal seething hatred of her with a healthy dose of sarcasm.

  She turned to her father for assistance. “Tell him we don’t need him.”

  “On the contrary, I think you do for all the reasons he listed.”

  “But he hates me.” Fury burned in her cheeks. “Just last night, he whacked me over the head. I’d spend more time wondering when he was going to stab me in the back than looking for the Blood of Lireal.”

  In a remote corner of her mind, a familiar presence rattled the spell that confined Loku, reminding her of his presence even though she couldn’t hear his words.

  Time to get her known ally to weigh in. “Sazi, what do you think?”

  Sazi looked at Callix first, then Varrik, and finally Arden. “I think he should accompany us.”

  “Sweet Lady Moon, are you all mad?”

  “If anyone’s in danger of madness, it’s you, Soulbearer.” Callix gave her a smirk and secured his belongings. “Shall we?”

  Arden dropped her pack and crossed her arms. “There’s something you three are keeping from me, isn’t there? A reason why he would suddenly offer to come along?”

  They all exchanged wordless glances that confirmed her suspicions.

  “Fine. If you won’t tell me why, then I’ll have to ask the one person who will tell me the truth.”

  “Don’t.” Callix grabbed her forearm and sent a wave of reinforcing magic straight to the confinement spell. “He’s lied to you before, and he’ll do it again.”

  “As opposed to you?”

  Something flickered across his face. A split second of doubt, of remorse, of vulnerability. It happened so quickly, she couldn’t pin down the cause, but there was more to Callix than she’d first assumed.

  “Please, Arden, if you trust your father and Sazi, then trust their judgment.”

  His voice rang with a certain rawness that surprised her. She’d been prepared to tell him to piss off, but now those heated words lay frozen in her throat.

  “Hurry,” Sazi urged, “before it closes.”

  Arden studied Callix a second longer, looking for any clue as to why his attitude changed, but found none. She picked her pack up and nodded to Sazi. “Let’s go.”

  Sazi went through the portal first, followed by Callix.

  Arden cast one more glance toward her father. “Ask Lady Luck to send us a miracle or two.”

  “If anyone can do this, it’s you,” Varrik replied with a solemn smile. “Be safe.”

  Be safe. The same words Dev had said to her when she spoke to him the other night. She clasped her hand around her pendant and took a deep breath. “Okay, Cinder, here we go.”

  The wolf stayed pressed against her leg as they entered the portal. The only other time she’d ever passed through one was when Dev had created one through the wall that separated their rooms in Trivinus. Walking through that one was like walking through a spider’s web. The magic clung to her skin like a gossamer film that f
aded within a second.

  This portal was an entirely different experience, which she could only attribute to the distance it spanned. Her vision blurred in a rainbow of colors, all flying past her at dizzying speeds. The ground beneath her feet dropped, followed by her stomach. Her body careened out of control, propelled forward by some unseen force. And just when she thought she was rushing headfirst toward her death, the ground solidified under her feet, and she pitched forward into a pair of strong arms.

  “Careful, Soulbearer,” Callix warned. “It takes a few seconds to get your bearing, and we don’t want you falling off the mountain.”

  Her vision cleared to reveal the steep drop off in front of her. She backed away and pushed his arms off. “I suppose I should thank you.”

  He shrugged and shifted the weight of his pack. “So this is where Syd was found?”

  Sazi nodded and pointed to a small crevice in the cliff wall. “There.”

  The space was small enough for Arden to squeeze into and provided some shelter from the icy winds that blasted down from the surrounding snow-covered peaks. “When he was captured, did he say anything that might give us a clue to the gate’s location?”

  Reluctance seemed to slow Sazi’s response, and she averted her gaze. “By the time we found him, he was fully consumed by the madness.”

  Arden didn’t need to hear any more. She’d seen what happened to a Soulbearer when the madness struck and knew what fate eventually awaited her. “Had he shown any signs before he stole the relic?”

  Another downward side glance. “Mild signs, yes.”

  “But nothing like the full-blown insanity.” Arden drew in a deep breath and let it out. This didn’t bode well at all. She’d only been there in dreams and had returned to reality unscathed, but dreams were different than reality. If Syd’s trip to Chaos accelerated his madness, what would it do to her?

  “Is that why you showed me the location, Loku? To lure me into your realm so you can toy with my mind?”

  The strained presence made himself known, but no other response came.

  “So if he was found here, then we should probably continue toward the Temple of Lireal.” Callix brushed by them and took the lead.

  As the sun set behind the mountains, the gusty winds bloomed into a full-blown storm. Tiny shards of ice bit into Arden’s exposed skin, and her breath billowed out in front of her in clouds of white. Snow gathered around her feet, growing deeper and deeper with each passing mile along the narrow mountain road. Her fingers and toes burned at first and then grew numb.

  Callix paused and turned to them, frost caking his cloak. “We should find shelter until it ends.”

  Sazi nodded, her dress whirling around her bare arms. Unlike Arden and Callix, she seemed immune to the cold. “Stay here.”

  She unfurled her wings, and with a few powerful flaps, she was up in the sky and hidden by the swirling snow.

  Callix came closer and pushed her back against the cliff wall, blocking some of the wind with his body. “Are you staying warm enough?”

  “For now.” She buried her hands in Cinder’s warm fur and welcomed the painful sting that signaled the thaw. It was far better than trying to figure out Callix’s sudden concern for her well-being.

  Sazi returned several minutes later, her usual grace hampered by the storm that made her stumble as she landed. “There is a cave not too far from here.”

  Arden’s legs felt twice their weight as she took the first few steps. She lowered her head and focused on the rapidly disappearing imprints in the snow in front of her, careful to follow the same path Sazi had cut for them. Fatigue heightened the numbing cold that sapped her energy. But just when she wondered if she had enough in her to take another step, Sazi pulled her into a dark cavern.

  Arden’s chattering teeth made it twice as difficult to say, “Cinder, light up.”

  The fire wolf moved away from her side and burst into flames. The fire danced along his fur, but he sat there with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth as though he were waiting for her to throw him a bone.

  She came as close as she dared and held her hands above him. Heat flooded her pale skin as it flowed through her insides.

  Callix joined her and did the same. “I’d forgotten he could do that.”

  “He has his uses.” She gave the wolf a smile and made a mental note to give him an extra treat once her fingers were nimble enough to fetch it from her pack.

  Sazi strolled past them, searching the remote corners of the cave. Her brow furrowed with worry as she pressed her hand against the walls. “It is deep, but there does not appear to be any occupants other than us.”

  “Good, because I have no desire to wrestle a bear in order to keep from freezing to death,” Callix said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

  “It is not the bears you should worry about here, Callix.” Sazi came closer, her dark eyes dancing with amusement. “It is the dragons.”

  He rolled his eyes. “There are no dragons. They were driven out centuries ago by my ancestors.”

  “So you think.”

  “Have you actually seen one?”

  Sazi shook her head. “We do not bother them, and they do not bother us, but I have seen evidence of their hunts.”

  His eyes widened a little at Sazi’s response, but his arrogant smirk returned. “You shouldn’t scare the Soulbearer like that.”

  “The Soulbearer is wise enough not to dismiss the possibility so easily.” Although her words seemed light, she cast another worried glance into the dark shadows behind her. She looked like she’d rather brave the storm than linger here.

  “At this point, I don’t care if there are a dozen dragons in this cave.” Arden’s legs buckled, no longer supported by the stiff cold, and she pulled a blanket from her pack along with a strip of dried meat for Cinder. “I just want to stay warm long enough to take a nap.”

  “That is the first reasonable thing I’ve ever heard from you.” Callix settled down on the other side of Cinder and wrapped his cloak around himself. “Maybe you haven’t succumbed to the madness after all.”

  A retaliatory spell sizzled in her aching fingers, but she diverted her energy to reach out for Dev. With the pendant in her hand, she called out his name in her mind, sensing the connection to him almost instantly.

  “Dev, are you keeping warm in the storm?”

  “How did you know about the storm?” There was a weariness to his words that tore at her heart and made her miss him all the more.

  “We’re in the Ornathian lands, not too far from where Syd was found.”

  “‘We?’ Who’s with you?”

  “Sazi, Cinder.” She paused to gauge how he would respond when she added, “and Callix.”

  A stretch of anxiety-provoking silence followed, but at last, Dev said, “Stay with them, Arden. They will protect you.”

  Part of her wanted to scream that he was her Protector, the only one she wanted, but she pushed that thought aside to say, “I will find it, Dev. I promise.”

  The connection then fizzled as sleep claimed her.

  Chapter 11

  “Wake up, my little Soulbearer, before they keep you from finding what you seek.”

  Arden bolted up, her chest heaving from the remnants of her dream. She couldn’t remember the details, only Loku’s warning that kept playing over and over again in her mind.

  From the deepest recesses of her consciousness, the chaos god rattled against his cage, far more intrusive than the other times he’d been contained. She glanced around the cave. Cinder slept beside her, his fur glowing like hot coals and casting deep shadows from the dim light it produced. Sazi slept sitting up with one wing covering her face, while Callix slept on the hard ground across from her.

  No one to catch her releasing Loku. No one to stop her from trying to pry a little more information from him.

  She summoned enough magic to reconfine him, if necessary, and slowly lifted the spell Sazi had cast on her. “Behave, or you’re go
ing right back in.”

  “Who are you to order a god?” he snapped back.

  “Your Soulbearer, remember?” She eased off a few more layers of the restraints. “What are you so anxious to tell me?”

  “Why should I tell you anything at all?” Loku replied with an indignant sniff.

  “Fine, if you’re going to be that way…” She started casting another confinement spell.

  “No, wait! Please, don’t be a fool,” he pleaded. “I do have something to tell you. A great many things, actually.”

  “Then enough with the games.”

  “As you wish, my little Soulbearer. First off, you are wise to suspect Callix. He’s not what he seems.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Second, that was very clever of you to figure out where Syd and I had hidden the Blood of Lireal.”

  “You couldn’t have been more obvious if you’d tried.”

  “Oh, but I was trying to be obvious. I want you to come and find it.” Laughter filled her mind until a spell slammed into the center of her chest and silenced it.

  Arden looked up to find Callix sitting across from her with a ball of magic forming in the center of his palm. “Do I need to hit you again?”

  “No, once was quite enough.” She gathered her own magic and hurled at him, only to have it collide and fizzle out against his shields. “Why did you attack me?”

  Callix let the ball of magic roll along his fingers, his gaze never leaving her. “Why did you release him?”

  “Because he was trying to warn me about you.” She balled her blanket up and shoved it into her pack. So much for sleep.

  “Enough, you two.” Sazi rose to her feet and towered over them, the corners of her mouth angling down in a frown. “Did you release Loku from his confines?”

  Arden chewed on her bottom lip and wondered if there was a way to avoid the question. “He was trying to deliver an urgent message to me.”