Cursing my own stupidity, I threw myself against the wall and felt my way along it, back to the exit. Blind and choking, stumbling like the town drunk through the corridor, I finally tumbled out onto the slab and collapsed. I was hoping the night air would provide relief. But, lost in the thick, grainy cloud that followed me, I was still wheezing. I still couldn’t see.
Feeling rain hit the top of my head, I lay back. I opened my mouth gratefully. It was a light shower, little more than a drizzle, but bit-by-bit, the sheath of dirt rinsed off my skin and washed out of my eyes. Gradually, the breeze dispersed the brown fog and the air started to clear. I stopped coughing and hacking, and it was suddenly very quiet.
Too quiet, I thought. There was no way he was dead.
Hauling myself up with a groan, I went back in. The air in the passage tasted like mud. Up ahead, I could make out traces of Reth’s conjured fire glowing again. It led me through the remaining stir of dust to a mass of rubble in the center of the cave.
I turned, side to side, looking for Neela. She was still where I left her, on the ground, her naked body covered in sand. She stirred, and I released the breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. Her eyes opened. For just a moment, there was clear encouragement in her gaze. Then it went blank and her eyes closed again.
She was alive. But not for long, I thought grimly. I was just getting started.
Refocusing myself, I looked back at the pile of debris. It was large, sufficient enough to crush a normal man beyond recognition.
I wasn’t kidding myself though. My father was far from normal.
Throwing a fraction of the agate into the fire, as it made contact the temperature in the room spiked. Sparks flew and bounced from the core. Pulsing, writhing tongues of orange and gold burst up in a glittering flash. Licking the crumbling ceiling, the flames liquefied what they touched, sending steaming globules of molten rock to drop in a sizzling ring all around the blaze.
Forcing the flames back down, I stripped the heat I created. I pushed it underground, held it there, and let the pressure build. I let the temperature swell.
When I couldn’t hold onto it anymore, I hurled it out through the ground and released it.
I aimed it perfectly. I could tell, because my father started screaming when the cave floor beneath him began to melt.
As his muffled shrieks continued to bleed out through the rock, I absorbed the diamond, the garnet, and the kyanite, and struck him again. This time, I went with a different kind of spell. One that in my father’s own, twisted way, he would have been proud of: I made him face his worst fears. I brought them to life in his mind, and the noise that came out of him was a kind of racking, brutal cry that a man should never be made to produce.
It was unbearable to listen to. Never had I thought it possible to be stripped raw by sound alone. But the despair, the absolute terror; it gored straight through me. It echoed like an endless accusation through the dusty cave. And somewhere in the din of my father’s anguish, under the weight of his desolate screams, I felt myself losing everything—courage, purpose, my hunger for vengeance in Neela’s name, the armor of Jarryd and Sienn’s souls. The belief in what I was doing.
My resolve had felt stitched together as it was. Now, it was unraveling.
One thing bolstered me to stand my ground, and I clung to it.
It was always the same, one thing. The painful truth of that wasn’t lost on me. I just couldn’t think about that now. I was too busy leaching off the energy of the Crown of Stones. Amassing inside Reth, its power was overflowing into the air. I could feel it pulsing. I could taste it, unbridled and deliciously unchecked. It was an ocean up against the little dribble I was wielding, and I was jealous.
Even secondhand the crown’s power was amazing. And wrong, I thought.
Something’s wrong.
He’s not screaming anymore.
A flurry of rocks flew off my father’s chest. He sat up and a heavy layer of silt slid away from his burned body. Still smoldering, his head turned in my direction. He caught sight of me and a low, monstrous sound issued from his seared mouth. It was followed by a wide spill of blood. More oozed out of the wet blisters that blighted his head, chest and arms. It seeped from around the strips of scalded meat hanging off his face; bright, red trails against cooked, black skin.
“You…” he shook a bony finger at me. “You have been keeping secrets from me, L’tarian. I don’t like being deceived.”
I grunted. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”
There was a spike in the crown’s power. A breath later, the remaining debris exploded off him in a violent blast of airborne rubble. Dust and pebbles pelted me. I ducked and covered my head as the cloud blew past, into the passageway, and outside.
Warily, I stood back up. Waving at the thick air, through long, painful blinks, I watched my father come through the haze. His breeches were torn and charred. His multihued gaze shone eerily against peeling, crisp flesh. A glimpse of jawbone gleamed in the firelight as he opened his dried lips to speak. “You are impressive though,” he smiled, his pleased voice rough. “It should have taken months of training with an erudite for you to manipulate rock and fire like that.”
I declined to explain my link to Sienn. “Guess I’m a natural.”
Reth’s smile flattened. “You still have much to learn. Such as this…”
His eyes closed. He shuddered, and a film of magic rose up from his wrecked body. Enveloping him, the auras shifted and coalesced into a solid sheet of rolling energy. As the mass adhered to his body, Reth’s spasms worsened. I couldn’t tell if it was from pain or pleasure, but while he jerked this way and that, underneath the sleeve of magic, the blood began drying up and flaking away. Blisters healed closed. Dead skin shriveled and shed, fluttering to the ground like last winter’s leaves. New, colored flesh formed in its wake.
When my father was restored to the same vile state as before, the wrapping of magic fragmented and broke into tendrils. They looped around his body, flashing and coiling a moment, before sinking back inside.
“A soldier capable of healing himself would be a formidable foe,” Reth said, smiling again. “I can show you how it’s done.” He came closer.
Recoiling, I drew the sword off my back. “Stay away.”
“I really don’t want to hurt you, L’tarian.”
“Since when?”
“Regrettable things have been said and done. But it’s not too late to put them behind us.”
“They’ll be behind us when you’re dead.”
Reth’s stained face softened. A look of longing gripped his swirling eyes. “You know, I held you once. You were so small. You fit right here.” He put his hands out and cupped them. “I had so many plans for you then, for us. I imagined us close. Inseparable. I would teach you, and you would look up to me. Worship me. Need me.” He stared at his empty hands. Then he dropped them, as if the emptiness was too much. “I know you yearn for my affection, my guidance. I know you need me.”
“Like hell I do.”
“What you said before, about me being capable of caring for you. I am,” he swore adamantly. “I can be. Just tell me that it isn’t too late. That you want to be a family—that you need me. Just say it. SAY IT!” he screamed. The veins on his discolored face bulged in rage, and I smiled inwardly.
I’d found his weakness. It wasn’t power, like I thought. It was me.
I lowered my sword. I gave my father uncompromising eyes, and said bluntly, “Prove it. Renounce Draken. Use the crown’s power to rebuild what you’ve destroyed. Make restitution for what you have done. Then be rid of it. Walk away from magic. If you do that, if you prove that you mean it…if you chose me, then we can leave this land together. We can be a family, like we both want. Like we should have been.”
Shock held his mouth slack as Reth stared at me a long moment. Then he broke our gaze with a nervous laugh. “What of the future? What of our people?”
“This isn’t the way.”
�
�Then what is?”
“I don’t have a solution. But we can try to find one.”
“I can’t abandon them,” he insisted. “I won’t.”
“And I don’t want you to. But you have to send the power back. Letting it live in you like this, it’s affecting your body, your mind. Please. Father,” I said, as sincerely as I could, “it’s hurting you. Let it go.” I searched his eyes, looking for a speck of surrender beneath the magic, a glimmer of sanity—anything. “Do this for me.”
“You wouldn’t ask if you knew how it felt. But you don’t. You can’t,” he said, with a short, desperate laugh. “You have no idea what I have. What I’d be giving up. You can’t imagine how this feels!” he shouted, thumping his chest. “Your concept of satisfaction is far too limited. Too ordinary,” he said disdainfully. “The most pleasure you can imagine is a bottle in your mouth and Aylagar’s little girl down on her knees.”
“You son of a bitch. I’m fucking trying here!” I shouted. “But you have to give me something. Anything.”
“I am.” Reth reached out. He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I’m offering you the safety and security that only a father can give his son. A chance to reclaim what was denied us. To take back the years we lost. I’m offering my love, L’tarian. Isn’t that what every child wants? Isn’t that what you want?”
He was a coldhearted, crazy bastard, but his words still made my throat constrict. The pain in his stare set mine to aching. The weight of his touch on my arm was a lifeline, inviting me to cling to the notion that everything would fall into place if we were together.
It was a nice thought. If only I couldn’t see through his heartfelt plea as easily as his marred skin. “Okay.” Nodding, I swallowed. “If you want me to accept you, to understand what you’re giving up, then show me. Make me see what I’m missing.”
“What are you saying?”
“I need to feel it.”
Reth gave me an intrigued, sideways glance. “You’ve thought about it, haven’t you? You’ve wondered what it’s like to host the crown’s magic as I do. You want it.”
“I don’t want it,” I said, my protest a little too strong. “I’m…intrigued.”
“There’s no need to be embarrassed, son. You’re a Reth. It’s natural for you to covet power.” I didn’t deny it and his smile swelled with fatherly pride. “Perhaps just a little then? A taste, to satisfy your curiosity?”
Running a hand over my face, I forced a heavy dose of anxiety into my voice. “Yeah, sure.” I let some eagerness slip in. “Just a little.”
“Of course.” Reth squeezed my shoulder. I felt a surge of energy and the cloth of my shirt dissolved beneath his hand. “I must warn you though, son. After this, restraint might not come so easy.” He sneered in challenge. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
I was pretty sure I’d rather face a pack of eldring with a spoon, but I met his arrogant stare anyway. “Do it.”
FIFTY TWO
I was lost, weightless. The cave swam in blinding color. An unending explosion hammered through my veins. It thundered beneath my skin, making my muscles twitch and throb, burning me from the inside out.
Reth’s voice as he watched me endure was husky and shameless. “You like it,” he said. “You like it very much.” His fingers pressed harder. Enormous power rode along my nerves.
“Gods….” I clung to him, gasping. I thought my heart would burst from my chest. Then I thought it wouldn’t matter if it did; no boundary could contain me. Not even my own body. I had no limits. I was more than I’d ever been—more focused and aware, more alive.
“Now do you understand?” he laughed.
“The crown…it never felt like this before. The vibrations are…” I didn’t know how to describe it. “This isn’t channeling. It’s something else, something deeper.”
“Yes,” he purred in earnest. “And once the crown is joined with the piece around your neck, the power can be stronger, the pleasure greater. It can be endless.”
A shock of fear ran through me at how badly I wanted that.
But Neela’s army was positioned across the water. Her people were hiding in their homes, holding out hope that someone would save them. Jarryd was waiting anxiously for my signal. If I didn’t give it, his belief in me would be forever shaken. The trust he so blindly put in me would be gone and I couldn’t squander that.
I placed a hand on top of my father’s. Centering on the energy passing through his fingers and down into my shoulder, I tracked the flow backwards out of me and into him. I was searching for a beginning, a source. I couldn’t find one. The vibrations weren’t issuing from a central location in my father’s body. They were everywhere, pumping through his entire system. Tissue, blood, bone, organs, they were all infused with magic.
A portion of the obsidian may have merged with me, but the wealth of the entire crown was becoming a part of him. It was changing him. Into what, I couldn’t imagine. I was afraid I would find out though if I indulged too much. Already, with what little I had in me, I could feel the power saturating and distorting my senses. It was potent and persuasive, insinuating itself like a disease, contaminating the most basic functions until I suddenly lost all awareness of my limbs. My heart, that was pounding a moment before, no longer existed. I couldn’t feel my lungs working. I was a raging sea of pure energy.
I didn’t understand how Reth could accomplish anything in such a state. I couldn’t for much longer. I have to make a move, now. Before I can’t.
“That’s enough for now.” Reth tried to slip his hand out from under mine. When I held on, he laughed. “Don’t be greedy.”
“More,” I grunted.
Worry touched his voice. “It’s time to let go, son.”
I latched on tighter. I pulled at the stream. Reth tried to hold back, but the crown knew me. And as I heaved swiftly and ravenously at our shared font of power, the tide poured in. Massive waves of magic rolled out from his hand, down through my shoulder, and into my body. Rapidly, the auras moved within me, spreading, polluting. They were struggling to take me over. Like an infection.
One I had to purge from us both.
“L’tarian!” Reth was panicking now. “You need to stop.” Snarling, he pushed and clawed at me. I gripped him harder.
Crushing his hand beneath mine, I dipped into Sienn’s spells. I selected one meant to cleanse the body of contaminants and focused it on the magic inside my father. I asked the spell to see the crown’s auras as an invader, an illness; a fatal threat to his physical wellbeing. Then, harnessing every smattering of power I had at my disposal, I whittled my focus. I refused to let in a stray thought or a grain of emotion. I had one, single purpose, one goal. To remove the parasite inhabiting my father’s body.
I cast.
Hardly a breath went by before he flinched. “What are you doing?”
“Curing you.” Slowly at first, and then faster, as if siphoning poison from a vein, I drew the countless swirling, snaking streams of colored energy out through his mottled skin.
Reth’s body began to twitch. “L’tarian, no,” he begged. “Please. You can’t take this from me—you can’t.” He grabbed at me frantically. Horror thinned his voice. “Stop this. Stop it now!” His multihued eyes grew large and damp. They grew larger as the magic began burrowing out faster, and from more than just his hand. Tiny exit wounds were appearing all over his stained body.
The same was happening to me as the auras found refuge. But the pinpricks of blood seeping out of me didn’t matter. Reth’s screams didn’t matter. Neither did the little jolts of pain, or the knowledge that I had fallen to his level. I was too gorged with magic, too bathed in pleasure.
“You tricked me!” he bellowed. “You had no intention of standing by me!”
“Aren’t you proud?” I grinned. “You wanted me like this. Willing to destroy my own flesh and blood, able to do what I must whatever the risk. You wanted me a Reth, cruel and despicable, manipulative, and devious. So
here I am, you goddamn, son of a bitch—here I am!” I shouted, shaking him. “Do you like it?”
Shrinking some, he scrambled. “Maybe there’s still time. Maybe Neela’s still alive. If you go to her—”
“Turn my back so you can crawl away? I don’t think so.”
“But she needs you!”
“She’s dead!” I hollered back.
“Shouldn’t you make sure? In the dreams you swore to protect her. Remember?” he pushed me. “Remember how badly you wanted to save her?”
“What I remember, is you making me watch her suffer.” I heaved him closer. “But you fucked up, Jem. You took it too far. Somewhere in all the twisted crap you put in my head, avenging her must have become more important than having her, because right now…all I can think of is tearing you apart.” With a merciless yank, I grabbed hold of the last of the crown’s magic and drained him dry. I took everything. Every residual drop that the crown put inside my father, I took for myself; leaving him shuddering and gasping with his white eyes rolling back in his head.
There was no more magic in him. No more fight. He was sobbing, teetering. He was helpless. But that wasn’t good enough.
“I’ve pictured this moment for weeks,” I said, glancing down at the weapon still in my hand. “I imagined what I’d say. How it would feel.” I looked at Reth. “I thought it would be harder.” Raising my sword, I drove the blade through his chest. The shock in his white eyes said it was the last thing in the world he expected.
It was for me too. I’d laid bare his deepest desire and then crushed it, just like he would have. And I had no remorse, no pain over what I’d done. I had only the sensations pulsing through me, and the knowledge that I was teetering on the edge of being profoundly dangerous. Of being like him, I thought.
The notion tempered me instantly.
In one long, agonizing burst, I sent all the magic back to its various sources, all at once. The void it left behind was devastating.
Weak, worn and empty, I threw Reth off me. The sword pulled out of him and I dropped it. The weapon felt too heavy to hold, my grasp of it too slippery; slickened by the amount of his blood on my hands.
The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price Page 44