by K. A. Linde
A giant wolflike creature with razor-sharp fangs and menacing gold eyes.
The Indres within.
Conjuring Ahlvie had brought both forms but separate. As if they couldn’t exist together on the spiritual plane, but they also couldn’t exist apart.
It was Ahlvie’s smile that nearly made her break down when he was finally fully formed.
“It’s you,” she breathed.
He stepped forward, throwing his arms around her. “I knew that you could do it.”
She laughed. “I haven’t done anything. I’ve just brought you to the spiritual plane.”
“That’s something.”
“Yes, but the Indres is still here.”
She gestured to it, and Ahlvie frowned.
“Can’t you just…kill it?”
She rocked back. “I don’t think so. I think it would kill you, too. At least, I can’t untangle the two of you in the physical sense. What happens here is permanent.”
“But you can figure it out, right?”
“I hope so,” she said, biting her lip. “The most important part is that…it’s really you. Is everything you told me back there true? Now that you’re not in Malysa’s influence.”
“You can be sure that I’m not when I’m here?” he asked uncertainly.
“Definitely. The Indres has the shade of darkness. I can practically feel her presence on the beast.” The thing growled at her then. And she just narrowed her eyes and threw up a shield. “I’m stronger than you here.”
The beast growled again and threw itself at the pair. But she had trapped it. It was much easier to do that here than it was in her physical form. She could control anything here. Manipulate it to her liking. It wasn’t even real magic in the spiritual plane, just a projection of it. The beast began pacing as if trying to find a way to get to her, but she knew that it could not.
“And there is not the darkness on me?” he asked.
“Your eyes are even brown. I think this is the two sides of your existence.”
“Then, yes, everything I said was true. I think I can keep her out, but I don’t know if it will be forever. Just as long as she doesn’t force the transformation again.”
“Do you think that, if you shifted yourself, she could still reach you?”
He stared back at the beast, the thing that had caged him these past months. “I’m afraid to try. I would think yes.”
“So…you can’t shift.”
“It’s not always…voluntary.”
Cyrene bit her lip and considered that. “Let me see what I can do.”
And so she tried everything she had ever thought of and some things that she hadn’t. She worked on the beast, trying to find a way to sever it from Ahlvie altogether. To rid him of the thing living under his skin. But it was ingrained there. She could separate the spirit but not the physical forms.
He had been bitten so young. The venom had grown with him. He was as much Indres as he was Ahlvie. Anytime she tried to separate one from the other, she could sense both of them dying. It was impossible.
She conjured a chair and sank down into it. She could feel the exertion getting to her. The weight of it all. She’d need a lot of food after this. It was always worse after she used her energy in the spiritual plane. As if she couldn’t tell how much she was really using in reality.
“I think it’s hopeless, Cyrene,” Ahlvie said. “Maybe you should just kill me.”
She snapped her attention to him. “Don’t say that. We will figure this out.”
“This is who I am. I’ve accepted that. Maybe…maybe you should, too.”
“And would you say that to Avoca?” she demanded.
He winced. “Of course not.”
“Then don’t say it to me. Because I would have to be the one to deliver that news to her. She would never forgive me for not trying everything possible.”
“You are waning, Cyrene. You can’t keep going at it like this. It will weaken you, and you need your full strength against Malysa.”
“Fine. Then I’ll rest, and we’ll try this again. And again.”
“What if this is what she wanted?” Ahlvie reasoned. “What if she knew that, if she let me go, I’d be a distraction from your real mission?”
Cyrene paused and hated how that made sense. “We can afford a day or two.”
“Can you?”
“What do you know that you’re not telling me?”
“It’s nothing that I know for certain. Just what I have a sense of. I think she’s also finished with whatever she’s been working on. She doesn’t confide in anyone but Merrick. He was her first creation, and if she trusts anyone, it’s him. He was traveling between Aurum and the Haeven Mountains…and there was a renewed sense of urgency.”
Cyrene’s heart faltered for a minute. She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t even close to ready. She needed more time.
He must have seen the panic on her face. “That’s why we can’t waste time on me.”
“We’ll figure this out, Ahlvie. We leave no man behind.”
He was silent for a moment before he said, “I’m no man.”
She pressed her hand to his chest, where his heart was beating fast. “You are still in there, and I will not let her steal you from me. I don’t give up. And I won’t give up on you.”
39
The Bones
Ahlvie awoke at the same time that Cyrene stepped back into reality.
“That was awful,” Ahlvie groaned, rolling over and promptly throwing up on the stone floor.
She was parched and starving. “Water,” she gasped.
Dean rushed forward, bringing forward a flagon of water. “Here. Drink this.”
She gulped it down as if she had just walked three days through the Fallen Desert without a drop of water. He pushed some bread and cheese into her hands, and it wasn’t until she had eaten every last crumb that she lay back down in relief. Pulling someone else in with her was much more difficult than going in herself.
Dean brought food and water to Ahlvie but then quickly returned to her side. “What happened in there? You were under for half a day.”
Cyrene shot up with wide eyes. “What? It felt like only an hour at most.”
“Time doesn’t always work the same in the spiritual plane you once told me.”
“How is Sarielle?” she gasped, turning to her dragon.
I have been better, Sarielle said. Malysa attempted to intrude. You were under so long, and that awareness you pulled in with you, it is connected to her. She kept trying to discover its presence.
“My apologies. I did not realize that was happening. When I drew Ahlvie in, I could see the split of his existence. I could talk to the real Ahlvie and also see the darkness of Malysa’s taint on the Indres. That must have been what she was reacting to.”
I will need to replenish reserves before we do that again, Sarielle told her.
“Of course. Though I do not know if we will be doing it again. There’s no way to separate him from the Indres. They are one and the same even if they are two different spiritual entities. They are entwined.”
“So, what do we do?” Dean asked.
Cyrene shook her head. “I don’t know. If he shifts, then Malysa can access him. Even an involuntary shift will trigger it. Just having the Indres available on the spiritual plane brought her attention on us. And we can’t force him to stay in that shield forever. I don’t even know if it will prevent the shift. We’ve just been hoping.”
Dean crossed his arms and frowned at the problem. “What if we just keep him from shifting?”
“How do you propose to do that?”
“What if you’re looking at the problem from the wrong angle? Instead of trying to sever the Indres from him or get rid of Malysa’s influence, you just try to prevent the shift. If she can only see through the Indres and not Ahlvie, then preventing the mechanism to access him would keep her out, right?”
Cyrene slowly rose to her feet. She hadn’t considered that.
; “It doesn’t solve the ultimate problem,” she said. “If he’s near Malysa again, she could always undo anything that we have done.”
“Temporary solution is better than no solution?” Dean offered.
“Are you sure preventing the shift is possible?” Ahlvie asked from the floor. “I mean…isn’t that still a component of who I am?”
“Yes, but it’s just the trigger point. We wouldn’t actually be cutting off the Indres within. Just stopping him from taking control,” she explained.
“Right. So, you’d still have the beast knocking at the door, but it’d be locked, so he couldn’t open it,” Dean said.
Cyrene stared at Ahlvie with a sigh. “I still…don’t really know how to do that. Plus, I’m tapped. I could sleep for three days straight, and we still have to do that last thing.” She tiptoed around her words just in case Ahlvie wasn’t quite Ahlvie. “I can work on it, but I don’t even know how the shift actually works. Where it comes from. There are so many variables.”
Dean frowned. “True. Why don’t you get some sleep, and I’ll consider the issue?”
“No, we have to do that last thing.”
Dean stepped closer to her. His eyes full of concern. “You cannot step into that city without your body rested and rejuvenated. You need to sleep, and you need to eat more. Sarielle also needs to rest. Let Halcyon and I deal with logistics for once.”
Cyrene could hardly stand at that point, so she was in no room to argue. Dean promised to watch over Ahlvie after he guided her to a pallet he had made up while she was under.
“We have to figure out what to do about him,” Cyrene whispered as she rolled onto her side.
Dean pressed a kiss into her hair. “We will.”
“Not just for me.”
“I know,” he said gravely.
“Avoca will never forgive me if I bring him to the army without a cure. And she’ll never forgive me if I had a chance to bring him back and I didn’t.”
“I know. Let me work on it. I know this is crazy to consider, but you don’t have to do everything.”
“I don’t delegate well,” she said with a small smile.
“I know that, too. Now, get some sleep.”
Cyrene slept for nearly as long as she had been under. But, after eating as much food as her dragon, she felt rejuvenated. Not a hundred percent but close.
She changed into fresh clothes and then moved into the main area of the mountain where Dean stood with Ahlvie. “Any luck?”
Dean turned toward her with a frown. “You’re up.”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“I feel like I’m back in Kinkadia,” Ahlvie grumbled. “Not that I loved being Malysa’s puppet and seeing disaster through the beast’s eyes, but I don’t like being a science project either.”
Cyrene sighed. “Yeah, well, we have to figure something out.”
“I’m going to keep trying,” Dean said.
“I’m just going to run the other errand,” she said with a raised eyebrow.
Dean strode across the room and pulled her away. “You can’t go alone.”
“And we can’t leave Ahlvie here.”
“We can leave the dragons.”
“I know that Sarielle and Halcyon are more than capable, but I need you to look after him. To keep trying to figure it out. This is going to be a quick mission. In and out, and I’ll be back before you miss me.”
He shot her a look that said he hadn’t been born yesterday. “It’s you, Cyrene. Nothing ever goes as planned.”
“You said I was bad at delegating. I’m delegating Ahlvie to your responsibility,” she said with a smug smile.
“Sometimes, you’re insufferable. You know that, right?”
“Obviously.”
“Come back to me in one piece, okay?”
She nodded. “That’s the plan.”
Cyrene hurried toward the portal before he convinced her otherwise. She repositioned the talisman and then directed it toward the opening. The great portal shimmered iridescently before opening to an underground cellar. She stepped through and looked hopefully. Orden had said he would wait here if all had gone well.
But of course, he was not here.
She shut the portal behind her, lit a Doma flame, and investigated the large room. Even knowing that Bienco had flooded and the city had been built on top of the older city, it was surprising to see the portal essentially underground.
She made a slow circuit around the room. It was pretty normal, all things considered. Food stores, wine, a few barrels of what looked to be Biencan gin. She frowned and retreated to the portal. There, tucked under a bucket, was a slip of paper. Aha!
She picked it up from where Orden had clearly left it and read.
* * *
C—
* * *
It didn’t go as planned.
Staying at Birdie’s place while I wait for you.
* * *
—Orden
* * *
Cyrene grumbled under her breath. Of course he was staying with Birdie in the most disreputable part of the city of sin. Well, she didn’t have much of a choice. She stuffed the letter in her pocket along with the coin and then trekked carefully out of the cellar. It opened up to an enormous kitchen. But not large enough for a castle. It must have just been a nobleman of some sort. She received a few strange looks for her clothing, which was still the white in the Byern style. Hardly fitting for hot and humid Bienco. But no one questioned her as she hurried toward the exit.
When she was on the streets, she saw the next obstacle. “Creator,” she breathed.
A storm was coming in off of the coast as strong as almost anything she had ever dealt with. She had no chance of halting its progress. Which meant she had only two options. Head back to the portal or race to Birdie’s and hope they could get out in time.
Cyrene took off at a run. Luckily, the storm had also cleared the streets, so she didn’t have to explain her haste or muscle through a crowd of street parties. Bienco was known for the debauchery that occurred on their streets at night. But not tonight.
She turned the corner that she thought led to Birdie’s house and then cursed when she found it was a dead end. A map would have been nice for him to leave. She had only been to see the mystic once, and it had been nearly a year ago.
She backtracked and tried the next route. She hit three more dead ends when the rain began. She cursed viciously and then thankfully stumbled upon the correct street. The rain went from a gentle mist to shattering intensity in the span of a few minutes. And, by the time she was banging on the door to Birdie’s place, she was soaked through.
The door burst open, and Orden’s towering figure appeared. “Creator, girl, get inside!”
Cyrene pushed her way into the small house and shivered from head to toe at her sodden clothing. “Good to see you, too,” she muttered through chattering teeth.
“I thought you’d have been here weeks ago, and you would have missed the storm entirely.”
“Just my luck,” she muttered.
Orden grabbed a cloak and threw it around her shoulders, but it did basically nothing.
“We…need…to go,” she told him, wringing out her long, dark hair.
“Go? In this? There’s no way we would make it back. We’ve seen that thing rolling in for days. Everyone predicted flooding and headed for higher ground.”
“We could use the portal coin.”
He frowned. “You know Vera said to only use it from the portal doors themselves if at all possible. They’re more stable.”
Cyrene groaned. “Fine. Why are you still here?”
“Birdie said it wouldn’t flood here.”
Cyrene just tried to wring some more water out of her skirts. “Well, she’d know, I guess. Still, we have a bigger problem to deal with.”
“The beast,” Birdie said, appearing in the common room. She was incredibly short and hunched over with rheumy, unseeing eyes. She had a bundle in her hands
and set it down on the table. She was Gwynora’s grandmother and easily one of the most interesting people Cyrene had met on her travels. She was blind but could read auras and knew if someone had Doma magic. A very useful skill indeed.
“The beast?” Orden asked. His eyes shot to Cyrene. “Ahlvie?”
“Yes, he’s back, and we’re trying to fix him. I left him with Dean back in the Pass. That’s why it’s kind of urgent that we make it back tonight.”
Birdie tapped the bundle. “You won’t make it back tonight. I knew you’d get caught in the storm. I think these are about your size. Gwynora left them behind. Go change out of those clothes, and I’ll dry them for you.”
“I’d listen to her,” Orden said. “Then we’ll talk about what’s going on with Ahlvie. Seems we’re stuck here until this passes.”
Cyrene sighed. Then she took the bundle with a murmured, “Thank you.”
She changed quickly. The clothes nearly did fit. Gwynora was taller than her, so the skirts hung long. But she could knot them, and that was good enough for now. Her clothing would be dry tomorrow.
“So, Ahlvie,” Cyrene said when she returned to the common room, “he’s under Malysa’s influence, but he’s figured out how to shift back to himself. But, if he returns to the Indres form, then she can control him again. Dean and I are working on stopping him from shifting or dampening her influence or something. So far, nothing has worked.”
“We can’t bring him back to camp if Malysa can still get to him,” Orden said.
“I know. It’d be too dangerous. But I just don’t know how to fix him.”
Birdie shuffled forward with a rather familiar leather pouch. “Come, come. The bones will tell you what you need to know.”
Cyrene skeptically looked at Orden.
He just shrugged. “That’s how we found our way across the ocean.”
“I guess so.” She just remembered how Gwynora had said that her grandmother had already known that she had crossed the ocean. That it wasn’t a real reading. But really, it was worth a try. Nothing else had worked.