Soo Kai followed my gaze. “I do what I do for them.”
She said nothing more, but picked up her pace slightly as we moved into another tunnel. Her small dragon pet alighted on her shoulder as we headed into the darkness, and it puffed its cheeks out, emitting a glow that illuminated our path. This tunnel was not short like the one at the entrance to the caves. It burrowed deep into the rock and down, until I felt sure that we would reach the pulsing molten heart of the earth. And then we went further.
The journey took an hour or more it seemed and then, abruptly, the tunnel opened into another large cavern. Soo Kai had not spoken the whole time, only looked back once or twice to ensure I was keeping up. After the dim lighting and the silence, I almost stumbled when we stepped into the round, high-ceilinged room. It was not as big as the previous cavern, but it was still a good acre in size. I cast my eyes about for my mother, but she wasn’t there.
What did catch my eye was the large white dragon that sat on the far side of the cavern. He blended in with the white of the stone walls, except for his eyes which glowed a deep brown. Something in his gaze seemed almost human.
“What is this place?” I asked in a hushed tone.
“We call it the Hall of Memories,” Soo Kai said, and her own tone held a reverent quality. “But it’s not the location that’s important. It’s the being who resides here.” She pointed to the dragon. “His name is Lycanth and he is the last of his kind, a breed of dragon that holds the memories of a race.”
I stared up at the huge white dragon and he stared back. It felt like he could read my thoughts. My soul, even.
“Lycanth keeps the memories of the Dragon Clan, and with that a good bit of the other hunt clans, too.”
“How long will he live?” I asked. Lycanth and Soo Kai both tensed, and I realized the dragon could definitely understand what I was saying. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.”
Soo Kai’s posture relaxed slightly. “Dragons typically live several thousand years. But once he is gone, our memories will be gone, too.”
“You don’t keep history books or anything?”
She shook her head. “That is not our way.”
I looked around the cavern, and I looked into the dragon’s eyes, and I contemplated the passage of time, the things it had seen. Beneath my boots it seemed I could feel the throb of the earth, the spinning of the universe.
“I’m not going to show you our whole history—that would take ages—but I want to show you the Hunter’s War,” Soo Kai said. “How the war changed us all.”
She looked up at Lycanth and the dragon’s brown eyes went hazy, becoming a pale milky color. A rushing sound filled the room and a breeze began to blow around and around. The air thickened and grew warm, and as it did, a fog formed. But it was no ordinary fog. It prickled with magic and with emotion. A range of feelings washed through me, none of which were mine. Throat-strangling fear, crushing sorrow, happiness bigger than an ocean, and rage. Rage that burned my heart and my lungs and the backs of my eyes. Rage that colored everything I saw.
And then the fog cleared abruptly as if someone had clapped their hands, and images shone in the air above me, clear as a movie projection.
Kyatae, with the sun shining. Hunters on the beach with children and dragons. People fishing, doing laundry, weaving thatch for the roofs of the cottages that dotted the hills beyond the cliffs. The stag, grazing on the cliffs above the gray waves. Soo Kai, much younger, her black hair like a raven’s wing, kissing a handsome man on the mouth. The two of them hugging a young girl in between them, hoisting her into the sky. A simple life, a happy life.
Then it all changed in a swirl of color and new images appeared. A lush paradise of rolling green and dazzling lakes and high-off mountains that sang of adventure and glory. Golden forests and gardens of exotic flowers that stretched for miles. All of the Hunters together feasting at long tables in an emerald field, an impossibly turquoise sky stretching out forever.
But it was a deception. From under the rich soil and the perfect green grass rose monsters with massive fangs and razor-sharp claws. Chaos as the party drew their weapons, unsure what was happening or who was responsible. Turning on each other as their fragile truce shattered in the face of this terrible threat. Hunters cut down by the evil creatures, Hunters cut down by each other. Blood running across the table with the silver platters and the cups of mead and the fine pastries. Screams splitting the impossible blue sky. The smell of bile and terror and churned earth.
I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. Because it wasn’t just images. I was there. I could feel every emotion, every sensory detail. My mother was there, fighting like mad, her belly round with baby, with me. And my father, at her side. Titus as well, and someone standing afar. It had to be Nyrio, the traitor, Titus’s half-brother. He stood apart from it, and he just watched.
Soo Kai was there, too, and I watched as first her husband and then her little girl were cut down by the same monster. I felt her heart-wrenching, soul-destroying agony. I held them in my arms, felt their blood pour hot across my lap, saw their eyes, the life gone from them. Felt the tilt of everything that was and everything that would be, the inevitableness, the ending.
I didn’t notice at first when the memories faded away. I sat there in the heavy silence, my arms wrapped around myself, my face wet with tears.
Soo Kai waited several minutes before she spoke. “Now you know. It’s a painful and horrible truth, but it’s why we are what we are today. Why I am what I am. And why I must do the things I do.”
“I don’t know how you can endure watching that all over again,” I said, a shudder moving through me.
Soo Kai shot me a sad smile. “It’s nothing worse than the dreams that visit me every night.” She let that sink in, and then she said, “So. This brings us to why I brought you here.”
I looked up at her expectantly. My heart pumped loudly in my chest.
“Nyrio was the worst sort of person. A power-hungry maniac that couldn’t even be direct in his attack. He used the guise of peace, of unity, to destroy us. Both physically and at our core. The last thread of hope and trust the Hunters had was murdered that day, along with nearly a hundred people.” Soo Kai’s eyes grew dangerous as she spoke, her words spiked with venom. “Casseroux is even worse.”
“I never met Nyrio, but I can certainly attest that Casseroux is a sadistic psycho,” I said.
Soo Kai’s eyes bored into mine. “Then we’re in agreement that he must be stopped.”
I nodded. “That much we can agree on.”
“I will do anything to protect my people from another slaughter,” she said. “I was the only adult in my clan to survive the Hunter’s massacre. There are those that have now come of age, but it was up to me and me alone for a long time. That’s why I sought Skye, and the Artifex.”
She paused, and something bright and terrible burned in her gaze. “That’s why I need you, Evr, to join me. Me, and the Timekeeper.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I felt like I was going to choke. “The Timekeeper? You’re joining with the Timekeeper?”
“To defeat Casseroux. It’s our only chance,” Soo Kai said.
“It’s—it’s insanity,” I said, my words coming out breathy.
“What would be insanity is to sit back and let Casseroux pick us off one by one. Because I assure you that’s what he’s doing. The Hunters are a threat to him, to his power. He’s always been envious of that, but now he’s using you as an excuse to control us. He won’t stop there.”
My head felt like it was going to explode. “But the Timekeeper is no better! They’re both terrifying.”
“The Timekeeper has assured me my own realm, where no one can harm my people. That’s a good deal better than what Casseroux has offered, which is enslavement or imprisonment.”
“He tells nothing but lies,” I hissed. “The Timekeeper is the master of manipulation. I mean, he turned me into the Artifex when he’d promised
to disable it! What do you think he’s going to do with your little bargain? And how is he going to create you your own realm when he’s stuck in his own?”
“That’s where you come in,” Soo Kai said.
I stared at her, not able to form a coherent response.
“With the Artifex,” she continued, “You can release him, and he can help us defeat Casseroux.”
“There is no way I’m ever going to help release him,” I said slowly, shaking my head back and forth. “You have to know I would never…”
“I actually don’t know you that intimately, Evryn. But what I do know about you is that you were willing to endure a dragon fire bond with me to find your mother. Willing to leave your clan behind. And then, you very cunningly trapped me and one of my warriors in different realms to get out of your agreement.” Soo Kai’s flame-colored eyes held mine with a manic intensity. “So, what little I do know of you tells me that you, like me, are willing to do whatever it takes to get what you’re after. Tell me, Evryn, do you want to be hunted by Casseroux for the rest of your life?”
“No,” I said. “But let’s come up with another idea to stop him. I was already planning it when you summoned me here.”
“Oh?” She raised her eyebrows. “What kind of plan did you come up with?”
I made a growling sound in my throat. “I hadn’t figured it out yet. But I will. Without the Timekeeper.”
Soo Kai took a deep breath and let it out. “The problem with your suggestion is that even if I agreed with you, which I don’t, I am bound to do a favor for the Timekeeper.”
“What is the favor?” I asked, dread compressing my heart into a cold metal pit.
“Do you know what keeps the Timekeeper trapped in his realm?”
“A spell,” I said.
“Yes, but the spell was cast over a thousand years ago, and most of the wizards and witches that cast it are dead now. When a witch or wizard dies, so do all of the spells they cast when living.” She held up a finger. “Unless they store the magic cast by the spell in a vault.”
“A vault?”
“Yes, a vault specifically for the preservation of spells.” Soo Kai’s little dragon started nipping at her ear and she swatted it away. “The vault that holds the spell that keeps the Timekeeper imprisoned is in the biggest magical vault there is, which happens to be beneath Ellsmer.”
“Ellsmer? I was just there.”
Soo Kai nodded.
“So, why do you need me? Just sneak into the vault and destroy the spell,” I said. The sense of anxiety I’d felt before continued to grow.
“It’s impossible to get into the vault uninvited,” Soo Kai said. “It has the best possible security: magic. There’s no getting around it.” She paused. “No, I’m afraid we have to do something a bit more extreme. We must use the Artifex to destroy the vault.”
I reared back as if she’d struck me. “Are you nuts? I don’t even know how to use the thing, let alone use it with that kind of precision.”
“The Timekeeper has given me instructions. And a controller, of sorts.”
“Instructions on how to use the weapon that lives inside of me?”
She nodded, a sharp jerk of her chin.
“But what if we accidentally cause a collapse? Injure or kill people?”
“That would be most unfortunate,” Soo Kai said without emotion. “But it must be done. I owe him a favor, we need him to defeat Casseroux. End of story. The only question that remains is whether you are going to help willingly or unwillingly.”
“This is madness.” My blood felt like acid in my veins and my breath came in shallow, panicked gulps. “Don’t do this, Soo Kai.”
Soo Kai raised a hand in the air and snapped her fingers. Four Hunters entered the cavern from a tunnel behind Lycanth I hadn’t even noticed before. They dragged my mother between them.
“Leave her out of this, Soo Kai!” I shrieked.
I went for my bow, but two of the Hunters split off and rushed me. I hit the cavern floor hard and my bow skittered into the shadows near the wall. Stars popped behind my eyes and I tried for my daggers, but I was yanked roughly to my feet, patted down, and relieved of my weapons.
“Evr!” My mother cried, but she couldn’t do anything with her hands bound behind her back and two warriors flanking her.
Soo Kai walked slowly to stand before me. “I’m going to ask you one more time. Join me, join the Timekeeper. Let’s not make this unpleasant.”
“There are other ways,” I said, my eyes pleading.
“Not that guarantee my people won’t be slaughtered by another Nyrio,” she said softly. “I told you—I’ll do anything to ensure that doesn’t happen.”
“And I won’t endanger tens of thousands of lives to release an evil being into the world.”
Soo Kai nodded, once. “I wish it hadn’t come to this. I really do.”
And she turned, pulling a dagger from her belt, and slit my mother’s throat.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The last thing I saw was the bright blue of my mother’s eyes before everything disintegrated. A scream tore from my throat like a living thing, echoing around the cavern. Blood spilled onto the white rock. The dragon reared back, his wings beating the air.
And the Artifex exploded inside of me.
Raw, deadly power launched in every direction. Whether I maintained physical form in those moments, I would never know. My body was far outside of my awareness, irrelevant. I existed only as energy and magic, savage and brutal.
Some part of me became aware of Soo Kai holding a small, glowing ball before her, which she moved her fingers over. I felt something then; probably the only reason I even noticed her. Something wrapped around my wild power and focused it, and images began to flow in my mind, images of Ellsmer.
It felt as if I were some giant shadowy specter flying high above the city. I hovered for a moment and then was forced down, or pulled rather, like a magnet. It was a feeling somewhat like the Call, a honing, a drive, inevitable and single-minded. The magic and the searing power that I had become aimed like a missile for a spot directly in the center of Ellsmer.
Then, I knew nothing but blinding heat and rage and light.
Chapter Thirty
A bird chirped not far from my ear.
It took a while for the sound to filter through the fog of my dreams, and a while more for me to determine the source of the sound, and a while after that before I felt enough sensation in my limbs to move.
My surroundings were not familiar. The floor beneath me was cold, dark stone, and the walls matched. A large wooden door was set in the far wall, which was in spitting distance. The whole space was maybe ten by ten. In the door a small square of metal was set near the top. No furniture. And the bird, the bird that had woken me and then vanished, had sat in a tiny window above me. The window had steel bars across it.
I was in a prison cell.
Panic rose in my chest, and then the memories. I leaned over and vomited on the floor, which was difficult with my wrists bound in glowing rope. My mother, dead by Soo Kai’s hand. The Artifex activated by my rage and sorrow. Soo Kai somehow controlling me, and then Ellsmer… I had destroyed Ellsmer. I didn’t remember the final moments, but I knew it with a certainty that burned my soul.
I had killed thousands, possibly tens of thousands.
My stomach turned and I threw up again.
I don’t know how long I laid there, my cheek on the cold stone floor, before Casseroux came. I didn’t look up when I heard the metal at the top of the door slide open, felt his gaze upon me. The door opened a moment later with a loud creak of rusty hinges. His footsteps paused as he took in the vomit, my fetal position on the floor.
“I’ll send someone to clean that up. It smells in here.” His whispery voice slid up my spine like a snake and made the room feel even colder.
Casseroux walked around so that he stood directly in my line of sight. I watched the tips of his shiny black boots for several
moments before I pushed myself up onto my elbows.
“Do you remember what happened?” he asked. His expression held utmost condescension.
I didn’t have the strength to try to lie. There was no point anyway. “Not everything. Soo Kai killed my mother. Then she used some sort of device to focus the Artifex and…” I had to pause a moment. “Is Ellsmer…?”
“Annihilated? Nearly.” He looked down at his fingers as if contemplating a manicure. “The death toll is around 11,000 I’m told. The body count is still rising.”
I leaned over and threw up again, though there was nothing to come out this time but stomach acid. My stomach cramped and convulsed as I leaned over the floor helplessly, and Casseroux waited with a patient smile.
“You see, this is why you should have turned yourself in sooner,” he said when I was still again. “I’m not sure what possessed you to escape after Skye. If you’d come back, your mother would likely still be alive. Hunters really are a rebellious bunch.”
I could barely lift my head, but I straightened and looked him in the eye. “Burn in hell, motherfucker. You know who the real villain is here.”
Casseroux giggled. “Oh, my. Well. Let’s see, what’s next? There will be a trial, of course, though I can tell you now you’ll be sentenced to death.”
“And Soo Kai? What of her crimes?” I said through the wreckage of my throat.
“Well, you were found at the edge of Ellsmer, unconscious. It’s a convenient story that Soo Kai killed your mother and forced you to murder all those innocent people. I’m afraid there are no witnesses to corroborate that.” He laced his fingers together in front of him and shrugged.
“How long was I unconscious? Has the Timekeeper made an appearance yet?”
Casseroux stilled. “The Timekeeper?”
“You don’t know, do you?” I held his eyes, and he returned a blank stare. “The Timekeeper has escaped. That’s why they wanted me to destroy Ellsmer. The magical vault that held the spell containing him to his realm was there, and now it’s gone. He and Soo Kai have formed an alliance to destroy you.”
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