The Bonded: The Allseer Trilogy Book I

by Kaitlyn Rouhier

  “They aren’t safe here anymore. They’ve never been safe.”

  “Who isn’t safe? Damn it, Tomias, what are you talking about?”

  “I’m sorry, Trista. It’s all clicking into place… I can’t even focus.”

  Trista shook her head. “You’re tired. You need rest. I don’t know what’s happened to you, but you aren’t making sense.”

  He grabbed her wrists, pulled her close until her face was mere inches from his own. She looked frightened and he knew that if he didn’t convince her within the next few moments, she was likely to beat him over the head with a frying pan. “I spoke with Nyson tonight. I went by myself, I needed to find out what would happen to my students. I needed to know. He gave me a key to a box…and Allseer be damned… It isn’t real. It’s never been real. The Darkness, the war… none of it’s real.”

  Trista looked like he’d just reached out and slapped her across the face. Her eyes narrowed, her mouth dropped open and she pulled out of his grasp. “Did Fenir hit your head? What is wrong with you? You’ve gone absolutely mad.”

  “It is mad. Why do you think I’m an absolute disaster right now?”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “I’ve never been more serious. Trista, I’m signing my life away by telling you this. And when I tell my brother…when I tell Kirheen… and Garild, I’ll be sealing my fate. But I can’t let Nyson keep hiding behind this…this…lie. I can’t let this go on another minute.”

  She’d stopped walking and turned towards him, her hand rising to cover her mouth. “Allseer…you are serious. No…that can’t be. I’ve seen…”

  “We never have, Trista. We never have because it doesn’t exist.”

  “The Darkness…”

  “It isn’t real.”

  Chapter 23

  A scream, haunting in the sorrow it carried, reverberated through the Circle of Rest. When Tomias heard it, when he recognized that sound, it sent chills up his arms. He peered out the window, watching as Isa was dragged from her home by Burk and Grant. Her feet flailed as she tried to break away from their grip, her scream filled with enough grief that it no longer sounded human.

  Such a thing could only mean one thing; Ian had passed.

  Official word spread soon after. He’d died of a sickness, the lie swallowed by all, but whispers of the truth existed none the less. People knew the truth but none were willing to openly call the Union Master out on his lie. Not a soul was willing to accuse Herzin for the crime she’d committed. No one was willing to say that she was a murderer.

  Kirheen still remained a thrall of her own mind. Her seizures had become less frequent, her rest more peaceful, but her mind was still guarded, an impenetrable wall that he couldn’t find a way through no matter how hard he tried.

  Feeling defeated he reached out towards her, wrapping her hand in his own. He stroked it with his thumb as if to comfort her, but the truth was he was only comforting himself. This was it. One final attempt to break through her mind. If he failed now, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to live with the guilt.

  They were running out of time and the trial was to take place the next morning. He either broke through now or lost all hope of saving his students. Trista sat in a chair at the far side of the room, visibly upset by the events of the past few days. She stared out the window solemnly, flipping a small vial of liquid end over end, the purple substance within sloshing back and forth as she did. Fenir stood at her side, sullen and angry.

  “Trista, it’s time.”

  Her eyes snapped to his, her hand stopping and closing around the vial. Standing, she approached the bed side and tilted Kirheen’s face towards her. Tomias gently lifted her up, holding her while Trista dumped the contents of the vial in her mouth and forced her to swallow it. It was a massive dose of a mind altering plant, meant to break open the mind and make using powers easier. It was highly frowned upon.

  It was also their last hope. Trista stepped back, letting the bottle slip from her fingers. It fell to the floor with a small clink and she sat back on the bed opposite them, resting her elbows on her knees. She would wait and watch, though there would be little she could do if things went wrong. Tomias dug in his pocket and procured his own vial, making sure to sit down before downing the contents.

  “Careful, brother. Make sure you come back to us.”

  “Well, here goes nothing.” A sickly sweet taste coated his tongue. The effects were almost immediate. He suddenly felt very drowsy and his eyes rolled back. The last thing he remembered was sliding off the chair onto the floor. When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in the world he knew.

  He stood at the edge of a forest, a clearing laid out before him. The clearing was green and lush and the breeze whispering through the trees pushed him forward. He went willingly, enjoying the feel of the sunshine and the grass tickling his bare feet. A few paces ahead of him, a girl lay in the grass on her side, her back to him. Her hair was long and ashen and it splayed out behind her like a waterfall. He smiled as he realized it was Kirheen. He ran towards her, swooping down to surprise her. He grabbed her shoulder and rolled her towards him and the illusion shattered.

  Her eyes were frozen in terror and black goo dripped down her face as if they were tears. Her mouth was open and wide, her teeth stained black. As he pulled his hands away in terror, black strings attached to his hand, forming a bond between him and Kirheen. The grass around them melted away, leaving behind hard, unforgiving earth that was scorched black. Pools of black tar bubbled around them, making disgusting slurping noises as bubbles popped at the surface. The air was filled with terrified screams and he wanted so badly to drown them all out. He stood, stumbling back away from Kirheen. Finding his feet, he shambled off into the distance, hoping to reach the other side of the clearing. The tree line had disappeared and any avenue of escape was lost to him. There were more bodies along the way and each one he turned over was Kirheen. He saw her everywhere. The body half lying in a pool of sludge was Kirheen. The body torn and ravaged shared her storm colored eyes. Everywhere was ashen hair and pale skin tainted and corrupted by the Darkness.

  When he was finally ready to give up, he saw something alive and moving up ahead. Like the corpses he had seen, this one too shared the ashen hair of Kirheen, but she was so frail and thin, rocking back and forth in front of another corpse he couldn’t yet see. Before he could reach her, she turned towards him. Her boney finger reached out, pointed at him accusingly. “You killed him,” she croaked. “This is all your fault! All of this… You did this.” She moaned, inky tears tracing lines down her pale skin. She wailed as he approached and her rocking resumed.

  On the ground before her was a pale figure, lean and tall and masculine. He had white hair, his dark eyes open and alive with accusations despite the fact that he was very much dead. For a moment, Tomias thought it himself, imagined it was his corpse lying there. But there was something different about the face, something off. And then he realized it was his twin, Fenir. A dagger had been plunged through his heart and the veins around the wound had turned black.

  Collapsing to his knees, he went to grab his twin and he fell apart in his hands, his body melting away into the black sludge that coated everything. He began to cry, all hope leaving his body. He curled up in the spot where his brother had been, letting all feeling bleed from his body.

  He wasn’t sure how long he stayed that way. Time passed slowly in such a place. Seconds felt like hours, hours like days. He was awoken by a gentle touch and when he opened his eyes, Kirheen stood over him. She was wearing blindingly white robes, the edges stained with black. Despite the corruption around her, she looked clean and unsoiled.

  “What are you doing there,” she asked, genuinely curious. He blinked, thinking her a mirage, some sort of strange apparition that would disappear if he moved too quickly. She remained where she was, arms crossed over her chest. “You don’t belong here.”

  Tomias laughed in disbelief, pulling himself up out of the sludg
e. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you. You’re alive!”

  “I never died,” she said, tilting her head to the side, an eyebrow raised at the curiosity of his statement. “Why are you here? You need to leave. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I came to find you, to help you escape this place. You’re trapped in your mind. We need to get you out.”

  Kirheen looked at him as if he’d been bludgeoned over the head and lost all his sense. “We can’t leave! There isn’t anywhere to go. The Darkness is here and we must push it back. We’re all that’s left. If we don’t do something, if the corruption anchors itself here, all will be lost. I need your help!”

  Trapped in her own mind, she’d completely lost sense of what was real and what was her dream. In her mind, she really was fighting the Darkness. She was simply doing what they’d always trained her to do. Only the Darkness wasn’t real. He didn’t have much hope of convincing Kirheen of that fact, not when all of her senses were telling her that what she was seeing was real.

  “Kirheen, everyone is in terrible danger. All of those left need you to return. You need to get back to Sanctuary. If you stay here, they’ll all die.”

  Her expression shifted to one of concern. “But I can’t leave this place. Not yet. There is so much to do, so much…” She began to wander off, as if pulled by some call he could not hear. Before she got too far, he reached forward, grabbing her arm gently. He left a black stain on her robe.

  She looked at him over her shoulder, her eyes angry. “I have to get back to my work.”

  “And that work…it isn’t here,” he said calmly, meeting her eyes. “Look around you, Kir. Look closely. Does any of this look real to you? Does any of this feel right? You aren’t meant to be here. You need to wake up. Come back with me and help me save your friends. They need you!”

  She considered his words, turning away from him to scan the horizon. She tilted her head again, questioning that which surrounded her. “You are real, aren’t you? I’ve been trapped here so long. I forget....”

  “You can be free now. All you need to do is wake up.”

  “I can be free of this place? I can leave the Darkness?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded and closed her eyes. Suddenly the ground gave way beneath their feet and he was startled awake, gasping for air as he sat upright. Trista leapt back from him, giving him space while he reoriented to his surroundings. He was drenched in sweat, his robes soaked through. He staggered to his feet, using the chair to aid him. Wavering, he stumbled towards the bed, towards Kirheen. He watched her face intently, waiting for any sign of movement. Breath held, heart hammering away, he sat in anticipation. There was a flutter of eyelids and her gray eyes met his. He cried, bending down and pulling her into a hug. She hesitated at first, her expression one of complete and utter confusion. Despite the oddity of the situation, she returned the hug, patting him on the back. Breaking away from the hug, he held her shoulders and pushed her back away from him.

  She was a bit more beat up than she’d appeared to him in the dream, but she was there none the less. Real and alive and tangible. “You’re alive,” he sputtered and he couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear.

  Her laugh was a soft, pained thing. The action hurt her but she allowed it to happen none the less. She smiled and then said softly, “I never died.”

  Chapter 24

  Garild was angry, a sensation that was entirely new and foreign to him. His entire life he had been calm, following the rules and instructions he’d been told without the slightest resistance. He’d never felt anything like it, a spark so hot it burned holes in his heart. He could think of nothing else but the anger. Didn’t want to think of anything else.

  Tomias had explained everything to him and the world he’d known had been flipped upside down. He’d believed in nothing but lies. His powers meant nothing, his bond meant nothing, his faith in their cause… all lies. And what could he do about it? Running away wasn’t an option he even wanted to entertain, despite Tomias’ assurance that the plan was for them to do just that if it came down to it. He found he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to run from this. If being forced to work away his days was what he would have to do, then he was willing to submit to such a thing. Pretending the lie still existed was better than what he was currently feeling.

  In the other room, Tomias and Trista were preparing to wake Kirheen. She’d been trapped in her own head, so damaged and broken that many believed she’d never return again. She may have been alive, but stuck in such a state wasn’t really living. For her sake, he hoped they succeeded, but he didn’t plan on being around if they did.

  A servant came for him in the early hours of the morning. He was alone in the front room, the others occupied with the task at hand. It was easy to slip out the front door, easy to disappear without having to say goodbye. He took one final look at their home, feeling a deep sense of sadness and loss settling over his soul. The world he’d known was slipping through his fingers. Everything he’d ever wanted rested in that house and now he was leaving it behind.

  The servant that led him was a middle aged woman. Her auburn hair was cut to her shoulders and she wore a simple white robe. She didn’t speak a word as they made their way towards the Temple of Trials. She didn’t seem to show any emotions at all.

  As he studied her, he began to think of all the other servants he’d seen over the years. He’d always thought them so dedicated, so focused on their work that they could hardly be disturbed. Looking at this woman now, he began to see how odd they were. These were supposed to be people like them, people that weren’t powerful enough for whatever Nyson had planned. They were still supposed to act like people and yet it was almost as if they were nothing more than husks, bumbling about from task to task with little regard for anything else.

  “Are you alright,” he asked the woman.

  She didn’t falter in her steps, didn’t even seem to register that he’d spoken. She just kept moving, keeping the same steady gait she’d used since they’d left his home. He asked her again, louder this time. Again he was greeted with silence. It wasn’t as if she were simply ignoring him. There was no suppression of her facial expressions, no hardness of her gaze to say she’d been told not to talk to him. He simply didn’t exist in her world. It made him uncomfortable, as if the person he walked alongside wasn’t entirely human.

  They passed under the great wraith wood tree forming the Temple of Union. It loomed over him, casting spidery shadows across his face. It was where he’d undergone the Ritual of Union, where he’d felt his heart flutter when he’d learned he was to be bonded with Kirheen. It was strange to think it held no meaning anymore. It felt like a life time ago, a part of his life becoming nothing but a fuzzy memory.

  He’d been lucky to never have set foot in the Temple of Trials. The dedication he’d shown throughout his youth had kept him far away from the doors that stood before him now. The temple sat on the northern end of the village, a long singular building much like the hall they ate at every day. Though it had no physical differences from that familiar hall, the mere sight of it filled him with an unexplained dread.

  The servant pushed open a door and ushered him through. The temple had high ceilings and was well lit by rows of windows that ran the length of the hall. It was simply furnished, with a row of chairs set to the left hand side of the room and a raised platform in the back. On this raised platform sat a long table and sitting behind that table was the Union Master himself. Herzin sat to his right, her green eyes critical.

  It was only when he met her eyes that he felt the first flicker of fear catch fire in his heart. He’d seen her power, knew the damage she could cause. He only hoped his cooperation would save him the pain Kirheen had endured.

  As the servant led him to a chair on the left hand side of the room, he realized one of those chairs was already occupied. He’d missed her at first glance, so small and fragile she looked. It was as if a touch would shatter her. Isa glan
ced up at him, her raven hair lackluster and her blue eyes ringed in red. He could envision himself swimming in those eyes, drowning in the pools of pain that they held. She looked away, curling further into herself.

  They called her name first. She rose from her seat, eyes glued to the floor. She seemed to limp more than walk to her destination, her arms wrapped about herself as she trudged her way before those that would judge her. It hurt to look at her, to see her falling apart at the seams. There was nothing he could do, no comfort he could offer to make things better.

  Nyson leaned forward, his elbows propped on the table. “Isa, I regret that things have come to this point. You have suffered greatly these past few days and it hurts me to see you suffer so. The crime of your bond mate has been felt throughout all of Sanctuary, and his passing has shaken us all. As such, we would like to extend to you a chance to rest, a chance to work and heal away from this place. We want to give you a chance to let your mind heal so you can finally face the Darkness. Do you accept our offer?”

  There was a sinking feeling in his stomach at the mention of the Darkness. It was one thing to know the Darkness wasn’t real and quite another to hear it lied about so convincingly. On any other occasion, he probably would have petitioned, but what could he do now? He’d committed to this, lie or no lie.

  Isa nodded her head, accepting the terms of their agreement. It was only when Herzin rose and walked down the steps that she showed any hesitation. Herzin stood before her, looking down at her with an expression of genuine sadness. Something changed in Isa, a flicker of emotion rippling the pools of grief in her eyes. She raised her head, meeting the gaze of the Judge of Trials. “Murderer. This is your fault.” The words left her as if she were simply stating a fact. There was no anger in her words, no malice. Grief had consumed those emotions, left her an empty shell.