Shrouded Sky (The Veils of Lore Book 1)

by A. Akers, Tracy

  Chandra, fueled by an instinct she had never known, swooped to retrieve the dagger that Jhon had dropped. She sprinted toward Tygg to cut his bindings, then realized a guard was closing in at her back. She made a sharp detour and dashed up the dais toward the throne, hoping to lure him further from Tygg, but then she realized the man was no longer in pursuit. She turned to see Ren standing over him, his own sword covered in blood.

  Chandra looked at Ren, who met her gaze, but there was no time for gratitude. She ran down the steps toward Tygg who was still kneeling and bound. Red robes and guards darted in front and around her, forcing her to dodge and duck. Jhon and Orryn were not far, which would probably keep Tygg safe for a time. But Chandra refused to risk his life on probabilities. She sprinted toward him, the adrenalin pumping through her veins like that of a charging lioness. If anyone dared touch him, she would make them regret it.

  Chandra clenched the dagger tighter as another red-robe approached. She had little skill with a weapon, but the power raging through her made her feel invincible.

  The twins were still in combat with the three emissaries. Though outnumbered and slighter in build, the girls were ferocious, like trained warriors in a Kung Fu movie. Ren and one of Pey’s henchmen battled it out at the foot of the throne while bodies of guards and attendants littered the steps below them. The henchman spat obscenities at Ren, enraged in more than the usual sense. Not only was Ren defending the murderer of the Sovereign, but he was fighting against his own military unit, something Chandra had not expected. Her brain reeled at the confusion around her, but her perplexity increased when she heard Jhon scream “No!”, his eyes aimed squarely at Tygg.

  Chandra wheeled to see the Sovereign crawling toward Tygg. A smear of blood marked a slimy path across the tile.

  Chandra fought her way toward him, but as she drew near she was cut off by another attendant seeking to block her way. The servant, though determined, was little match for the fury that spurred Chandra on. She slashed him aside with her dagger, clumsy as it was.

  The Sovereign reached Tygg as he attempted to scrabble away, but her hand shot out like a viper and latched onto his leg. He fell onto his back, hands still bound, as she dragged herself onto him, clawing her way up his legs. Tygg writhed and kicked, but it was no use. The Sovereign’s grip was beyond that of any ordinary woman, especially a dying one. Her chest slid onto his and she drew him into her arms, and it was then that Chandra saw the woman’s arms begin to elongate, wrapping him like a boa constrictor.

  The Sovereign and Tygg were nose to nose, the creature’s hot breath mingling with his. Was it too late? Had she already planted herself in him? Chandra leapt toward them with what felt like superhuman speed, shoving aside anyone who dared step in her path. Her vision was a tunnel of focus, her determination a force to be reckoned with. She reached the Sovereign, grabbed her by the hair and swiped the blade across the creature’s throat.

  Blood spurted onto the floor and across Tygg’s face as the Sovereign expelled a gurgling hiss, then collapsed, dead. Chandra kicked her off of Tygg and dragged him away, barely aware of the din going on around them.

  Tygg lay panting and shaking, his eyes wild with confusion.

  “It’s all right,” Chandra said. She reached down and hurriedly rolled him onto his side, cutting the bindings at his wrists. She helped him to his feet, then spun to defend him, her knife held ready, but the only enemies left standing were those still fighting Orryn, Jhon, and Ren, and the twins who were fully occupied by the equally skilled emissaries.

  Chandra turned to Tygg and realized he was lifting something that looked like a leaf to his lips. But then, from seemingly nowhere, Jhon was upon him. Chandra glanced back to see what had happened to the guard he’d been fighting. He was lying on the ground, his eyes staring blindly at the ceiling. She turned her attention back to Tygg and Jhon, confused by Jhon’s violent attempts to wrestle whatever it was from Tygg’s hand. Tygg, shaken and injured as he was, fought with determination, shoving Jhon back and insisting it had to be done. But Jhon seemed equally motivated, and the two of them were soon rolling on the ground in their struggle for the mysterious leaf.

  “Enough of this!” Orryn shouted behind her. Chandra twisted around to see Pey with a shocked expression on his face, blood gurgling from his chest. He fell onto his back, his skull cracking against the tile.

  Orryn hastened to Chandra’s side, panting with exertion and smelling of sweat and blood. He was still in his Pitch uniform, but the filth that covered him hid all signs of the white he had donned that morning. Even Chandra’s robes were splattered with red.

  Tygg leapt to his feet and ordered Jhon, who was struggling to his knees, to stay back.

  “Tell him he mustn’t do this!” Jhon said to Orryn.

  Orryn looked at his father, then at Tygg, clearly at a loss. His eyes gravitated to what Tygg held, and an understanding formed in his expression. “Tygg,” he said, shock registering in his voice. “Surely you don’t mean to do it.”

  “Tell him I can help him,” Jhon said.

  “No one can help me,” Tygg said. He lifted the leaf to his lips.

  “Father can!” Orryn said.

  Tygg hesitated.

  “I swear it, Tygg. Give him a chance.”

  “I have no choice, Or’n!” Tygg said.

  “I know you think Marcassett has entered you,” Orryn said, stepping toward him, “but it’s possible she didn’t have enough time.”

  “Tygg.” Jhon reached out a hand. “Please, before you do anything rash. Let us at least know for certain.”

  “And if she is in me?” Tygg said. “What then? Will you allow me to do what must be done?”

  “If it is your will,” Jhon said.

  “No!” Chandra said, brushing past Orryn. “I won’t let you do this!”

  Orryn grabbed her by the arm, allowing her to go no further. “Father knows what he’s doing.”

  “Don’t you understand?” she said, shrugging her arm from Orryn’s hold. “Tygg means to kill himself!

  Jhon placed his hands on either side of Tygg’s head, concentrating as Chandra had seen him do before, but then Jhon grabbed Tygg in a bear hug, pressing his body to his.

  “Father, no!” Orryn rushed forward and tried to pull them apart, but Jhon was thoroughly latched onto Tygg, and it was only after a few moments that Orryn was able to force Tygg in one direction and his father in the other.

  Jhon staggered back. “I’m sorry, son,” he said, and shoved the leaf into his mouth.

  A deafening screech sounded from the twins, like a thousand angry hawks had descended into the room. The emissaries, one eye on their opponents, the other darting toward Jhon and the others, hesitated, then continued to fight the twins who now seemed more crazed than before.

  Orryn moved toward his father, but Jhon thrust out a hand. “Stay back!” he commanded. “There must be no physical contact between us.”

  “Father, what have you done?”

  “No,” Chandra whispered.

  “You are free,” Jhon said to Tygg. He sank to one knee.

  “Why? Why did you do this?” Tygg asked, barely able to speak.

  Jhon clutched his chest, his breathing labored. “Because . . . your Qwa t’sei cannot end here, nor can Orryn’s and Chandra’s. Together you must see that the Kee is returned.”

  “Father!” Orryn took a step, then stopped.

  “Returned?” Tygg said. “You mean it is not here?”

  “No,” Jhon said, his voice growing weak. “It must be found, or it will be eternal death . . . for us all. Only Chandra can return it to us . . . for only she knows where it is.”

  Tygg looked at Chandra, aghast. “Is this true?”

  “Yes. But I only recently learned of it,” she said.

  “Where is it?” he demanded.

  “In Sister World.”

  Tygg paled as if all the blood had drained to his feet. “Sister World?”

  The clanking footsteps of
approaching Shield men sounded from a corridor at the far end of the room. The twins, seeing their chance with the reinforcements, whirled away from the emissaries and toward the corridor.

  “Edrea,” Chandra heard Jhon’s fading voice sound in her head. “It’s time. Get out. All of you. Keep her safe.”

  “I will let nothing happen to her,” Edrea said.

  “I know the way,” Ren said. “Follow me.”

  The emissaries did not hesitate, but hastened with him toward Chandra and the others.

  “You know what you must do,” Jhon said when Ren had reached them. “Get them all out of Syddia, and you and Tiersa, too.”

  Ren nodded. He glanced over his shoulder in time to see the guards swarm into the room.

  “There’s . . . no more time,” Jhon said. “Go. Now!”

  Ren motioned them toward the door on the opposite side of the room and sprinted toward it. The emissaries followed, and Tygg and Chandra turned to do the same. But Orryn planted his feet and faced the Shield men.

  “Orryn, please,” Chandra said, grabbing for his hand.

  “I will not leave him here to be butchered!”

  “Son,” Jhon said, now on all fours. He lifted his eyes to him. “They won’t have time for that.”

  A flash of red caught Chandra’s eye and she realized the twins were unfurling toward them. “We have to go!”

  “No,” Orryn said, “I—” But before he could say another word he was being forced toward the door, one arm in the vice-like grip of Gage, the other that of Dar. Tygg was at Orryn’s back, while Chandra shoved them both from the rear, her eyes glancing back at the salivating twins circling in on Jhon, and the guards now charging in their direction.

  The door slammed behind them and Ren slipped his knife through the door’s handle, preventing anyone from the inside opening it, at least not quickly. In a hushed voice he ordered the group to follow him down the hallway toward a tapestry draped across the wall. He pulled it aside and gestured toward a hidden door. Clearly he had not found it by accident.

  “Here,” he said, motioning them in. He grabbed a nearby torch from a bracket, then slipped behind the tapestry, allowing it to drop, and pulled the door closed behind them.

  CHAPTER 31

  The corridor was dark and musty, its stone walls coated with moisture and patches of moss. The torch illuminated the narrow passageway in a flickering glow, not bright, but enough that they could see their feet as well as the visages of those around them. Ren’s expression held brave determination, while the emissaries looked downright murderous. Orryn appeared to be in shock, but Tygg seemed to have returned to his usual feral state. His eyes gleamed in the darkness, and his posture was like that of a stalking cat. As for Chandra, she felt mostly numb. Everything had happened so fast, so violently. Was it possible Jhon was really dead?

  “This tunnel will lead us out of the city,” Ren said, though no one had asked. “It was built generations ago, in case Syddia was attacked and the Sovereign needed a means to escape past the walls. Few know of it.”

  “How did you know of it?” Edrea asked.

  “I didn’t,” Ren replied. “Jhon did.”

  No one said a word.

  As they made their way through the tunnel, Chandra wondered if Jhon could still be alive. Did he know they were safe, that his sacrifice had given them the time they needed? Perhaps if she tried to communicate with him, to tell him they were almost free.

  “Jhon,” she thought loudly, trying with all her might to send her mental voice through the thick walls of the tunnel and into the mind of the man who had offered his life in order to save theirs. “Jhon, can you hear me?”

  “What are you doing?” Edrea demanded, charging into Chandra’s thoughts.

  “I’m trying to see if Jhon is still alive,” Chandra answered.

  “Fool girl!” Edrea said. “Do you not realize if he can hear you, Marcassett can too?”

  “What?”

  “If he is still alive, he will have blocked all images of his consciousness from her. He has the ability to do so, but you, dear girl, do not. Which means—”

  “She could know where we are,” Chandra said, realizing.

  “That, and more.”

  “We have to tell the others.”

  “No,” Edrea insisted. “No one must know you are a Mind Walker, not Orryn, not Tygg. No one, you hear?”

  “But why?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “You sound like my mother,” Chandra said with annoyance.

  “It that such a bad thing?”

  The question caught Chandra off guard, and for the first time in many days she thought of her mother and how much she missed her. “No,” she said quietly. “Not a bad thing at all.”

  “What?” Orryn asked her sharply.

  “Nothing,” Chandra replied, and quickened her pace.

  “Is he all right?” Chandra asked Edrea. “Orryn, I mean.”

  “I do not know. I would have to mind meld with him to reach his thoughts, to know if he is who you hope he is. But even without it I suspect he is not all that he was, or could have been.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Jhon did something to protect you and, well, I guess you might say it took a part of Orryn away.”

  Chandra almost stopped in her tracks. “What do you mean, took a part of him away?”

  Edrea sighed inwardly. “You might as well know it, in the event you have future expectations with Orryn. After you and he consummated your relationship, Orryn begged his father to perform subjugation on him as well as you, and though reluctant to do so, Jhon knew it was the only way to save his son, and you and Tygg along with him.”

  “Subjugation? What’s that?”

  “It’s when a Mind Walker erases certain memories. Once done, it cannot be undone, not like melding which is only temporary. The fact is, Orryn cannot remember what happened between you, nor the feelings of affection that drew him to your arms. Tygg, too, has forgotten much, though Jhon admittedly had limited time to work on him. Your relationship with Tygg was less intimate, of course, but there was a friendship there, and it had to be erased. Jhon made every effort to do so.”

  Chandra felt like she’d been slapped. So they truly did not remember her as she remembered them. “But I remember everything that happened between us,” she said. “If Jhon performed subjugation on me, how is it I still remember?”

  “You did not at first, but you have the gift of Knowing, so were able to break through. As for Orryn, Jhon appears to have left enough that he could work clear of the Pedant inside him. As to how much, no one can say.”

  Before Chandra could respond further, the thundering of boots and the clanking of metal echoed toward them from the corridor at their backs.

  “They’re coming,” Ren said.

  The group picked up their pace through the winding passage, Ren in the lead, torch in hand, the rest struggling to keep up, especially Tygg, whose wounds were beginning to slow him down. But it wasn’t long before Ren shoved open a creaking door, spilling dull daylight into the corridor. They exited through the opening, clawing their way through the tangle of vines that covered the wall.

  “At last they were on the other side. “Block the door,” Ren said hurriedly. He turned toward the forest and let out a low whistle. Mayra emerged from the trees, and from behind her Tiersa sprinted toward Ren, reaching him and leaping into his arms.

  “Praise the Maker, you’re safe,” Tiersa said, half crying and half laughing. She smothered him with kisses.

  Mayra hastened toward them, her eyes sweeping over the battle weary group. “Jhon,” she said hopefully. She looked at Ren, and he looked back, but no words were spoken.

  Orryn reached his mother and drew her into his arms. “Mother,” he said, and held her tight.

  Tiersa covered her mouth with her hands, tears spilling down her cheeks.

  Mayra nodded and withdrew stoically from Orryn’s embrace. “Your father knew th
e risks, as we all did. He would not want us to weep for him, at least not here.”

  Shouts and fists pounded against the inside of the door that Gage and Dar had temporarily braced with a sturdy branch.

  “How many horses were you able to secure?” Ren asked Mayra.

  “Six,” she replied. “Your Shield mount, found near here where you said it would be, and five from our stables. We, along with Bren and Nyal and one other servant, left through the gate that leads to the fisheries. As expected, there were guards posted. I told them I was hosting a banquet for the emissaries tonight, and wanted to make the main course selections myself. I don’t think they suspected anything. They let us through without incident.”

  The door behind them gave a thunk and a loud crack. “They’ll soon be through,” Ren said.

  They headed for the trees and quickly reached the horses. Ren lifted Tiersa onto one, while Mayra mounted another, and Gage and Dar two more. Gage reached a hand to whoever was near, and Chandra approached him, but Ren stepped in front of her. “No, Chandra,” he said. “You’re not coming with us.”

  “What?” she cried.

  “What do you mean she’s not coming with us?” Orryn demanded.

  Another loud bang sounded from the door, accompanied by the muffled shouts of determined guards.

  Ren grabbed Chandra and threw her onto Orryn’s horse. “Jhon left orders,” he said, grabbing the reins and tossing them to her. “And you—” He turned to Orryn. “Are to go with Chandra.”

  “That’s absurd!” Orryn said. “Wherever am I to take her?”

  “You must get her off the island.”

  “What?” Orryn said, echoing Chandra’s previous question.

  “No time for arguments!” Ren said. He glanced toward the wall. “We cannot risk the guards getting their hands on her. Chandra has to retrieve the Kee and according to Jhon she’s the only one who knows where it is.”

  “The Kee?” Edrea said, her eyes darting between them. “That is what this is all about?”

  “But I thought it was here,” Dar said.