Call of Kythshire (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 1)

by Missy Sheldrake

  “Tell us what to do,” Shush whispers quickly as he gestures for Ember to go before him through the hole.

  “Not so fast,” a soft voice hisses, and an elegant hand closes around Shush. From my place at the threshold, I can see Viala kneeling before the curtain which has closed to conceal Rian's hole in the wall. She squeezes Shush tightly in her fist, watching him with wild eyes.

  “Who are you talking to, pretty little windy?” She jeers at him, taking one wing in each hand to pull them slowly apart. “Where are your lovely friends?” Shush squeezes his eyes shut, his face twisting in pain. “I won’t hurt them, I only wish to learn from them,” she purrs. “Have they left? Do you know how to leave? I wish to leave,” she whispers, ducking as another spray of rubble crashes through the room. “I promise I’ll be good. Show me how to get out?”

  “You’re...hurting...me...” Shush whimpers, and Viala loosens her hold.

  “That wicked man, he struck me. He hurt me,” she says, reaching up to the bruise on her cheek. “Take me with you on the wind, back to Sunteri. I don’t want to know anything anymore. I just want to go home.” She leans against the wall, pressing her face into the curtain.

  Outside, the battle rages on, the floor of the keep shaking and rumbling as Iren pounds at the walls, crumbling them. I watch Viala’s back straighten slowly, her chin raise, her eyes slide to the side, to the wall where Rian hovers just beyond the curtain.

  “He’s here,” she whispers, squeezing Shush mercilessly. “Isn’t he?” Her eyes go wide and she tosses Shush aside. “I feel him. He’s here!

  “You thief!” Viala screams as the floor quakes and bits of the ceiling shower down over her. “You took everything from me, everything!” She thrusts the curtain to the side and reaches through the opening to claw blindly at Rian’s face, but he steps out of her reach.

  “Where are you?” she screams again, and though she’s looking right at him, she can’t see him. Shush dives through to our side just as Rian sweeps his hand across the hole in the wall, solidifying it. Viala is smart enough to pull her hand back before she’s caught. In a rage, she pushes herself up from the floor and charges straight at me. I step aside just as she stumbles over the threshold. The shadow ward fizzles away with a loud crackle, and the collective cry from the Sorcerers the moment she crosses through is deafening.

  “The ward!” they all scream in unison as the doorway shimmers and the magic fades. Oblivious to her folly, Viala spins on the landing, searching for Rian. We are still safely hidden in the Half-Realm. Over her shoulder I watch as Gorgen comes to hover in the gaping ruin of the wall. In a fury, he grasps Viala roughly by the throat.

  “Worthless cur,” he growls as he drags her back through the rubble. “Ornis was wrong. You’re not worth keeping around, even if you are nice to look at.” Viala’s eyes go wide as she pleads and grasps at the old man’s hands.

  He lifts her up at the edge of the broken balcony floor and I watch in horror as he unceremoniously tosses her over the edge. Her terrified screams echo over the rumble of the battle outside until they finally end in a sickening thud. I take a step back, shocked by his callousness, and bump into Rian. When I turn to look at him, his face is drained of color. He’s just as appalled as I am.

  “The mirror,” he croaks, more within his wits than I am as he nods through the door. “The wards are down.” Outside, Iren’s attacks have slowed. I steal a glance out of the gaping hole as we charge through to the mirror and see the Crag’s great stone form hunched over, just outside. At first I’m afraid they’ve managed to damage it, but it straightens after it scoops something from the rubble.

  “Your wickedness shall not go unpunished.” Debris rains down again as Iren’s voice sends vibrations through the weakened stone above us.

  “The mirror, Azi!” Rian’s cry tears my attention away from the scene. I charge into the room and raise my sword, and drive it through the wooden backing of the looking glass. What happens next catches me completely off guard. The room begins to spin around me as the mirror shatters. Shards of glass burst from the other side and time seems to slow as they drift around me like snowflakes. My sword is caught fast in the frame, which radiates powerful streams of magic.

  I hear only silence as I watch the sparkling energy encase my blade and creep across the hilt. Magic erupts around me in slow motion as the shattered mirror holds my weapon in its grip. I’m vaguely aware of the fight, but my concern is with my sword. Flitt hovers before me. She’s shouting something into my face, but I can’t hear her. Lightning streaks past my shoulder from the balcony side, and it’s blocked by a spray of red embers. I see Rian in the corner of my eye shouting, throwing spells.

  It’s as if I’m in another place and time, watching the battle rage around me but hearing none of it. Then they are on me. The wind fairies dive at my hands, wrenching my fingers, loosening my grip on my sword as the mirror’s unleashed magic crawls up to the hilt. I fight them. I don’t want to let it go. This sword was made by my father, a gift of love, a reward for hard work. I can’t lose it.

  One of the fairies is caught by the magic and pulled into the now whirling vortex where the mirror once stood. Still, the others work to free my grip as the energy creeps closer. I realize the fight is lost as I watch the single, brave little fairy swirling away into the unknown. As much as I love my sword, I can't allow the fae to be taken. I let the weapon slip from my fingers and lunge for the terrified creature to scoop it out of the vortex’s hold. As my sword spins away, I throw myself away from it and the raging thunder of the battle around me pounds my senses. As soon as we're clear, the fairy squirms from my hand and darts to safety. Rian screams an incantation above me and the power of his spell clashes with one flung from across the room by Gorgen, who charges us both.

  I find my feet and put myself between him and Rian as they exchange another round of spells, but Gorgen bests him, sending him sprawling into a heap of stone at the far end of the room. Relentless, he surges toward Rian again. I charge the old man in a fury, my arms raised as though my sword is still with me. When I bring them down something solidifies against my palms and as I close my hands around it, the ice sword streaks between us leaving a sizzle of steam thick in the air. Gorgen stumbles backward over a fallen beam and I take the opening. I expect to be met with some ward of protection or spell of shielding, but whatever he might have had on him has long been broken.

  The sword slices cleanly through the front of his robes, sizzling as the chill of the blade meets his warm flesh. It’s a killing blow, one that I’ve practiced a hundred times on the dummies in the yard. Clean and quick and merciful. Kinder than he deserves. His eyes go wide and distant, and by the time I pull the sword free, his life has left him. I turn away and lower my weapon, and Flitt stares at me in wide-eyed silence. As our eyes meet, I wonder fleetingly if she sees me differently now. Can we still be friends, now that I’ve killed someone? She’s the first to look away, flying off to help the fairy who had been caught in the vortex.

  “Go quickly, now’s your chance! All of you, back home! Go, go!” she cries, shooing them. Shaken, I turn to Rian who has recovered from his fall. He doesn’t seem harmed, but our reprieve is a short one. Ornis and Emris’ attention is drawn from the battle outside to the fading whirlpool of magic that is slowing where the mirror once stood. One by one the wind fairies shimmer and dart past them through the gaping hole in the wall, off to Kythshire. Now, as the two Sorcerers approach, only Shush, Flitt, and Ember remain with us in the keep. I’m unsure whether the Sorcerers can see us at first, but if they can they don’t seem to be interested in us at all. Instead they watch in horror as the vortex shrinks further and further until it is no more, and the broken frame of the mirror crashes to the cracked floor. Enraged, Emris turns to Ornis.

  “See what your laziness has cost us!” he screams, thrusting his arms outward in a blast of orange flame that sends Ornis careening across the room. Above us, the ceiling rumbles and cracks. My instinct tells me
to run, but instead Rian and I cling to each other, rooted to the spot, unable to look away as the enraged Sorcerers lock in a furious battle.

  Ornis raises his arms and the pile of rubble around him collects into the form of a giant fist, which thrusts at Emris with impossible speed and force. Emris cries out and a powerful whirlwind swirls from his hand, breaking the fist to bits and sending chunks of stone in a spray across the room as swift as arrows. I step in front of Rian as we’re pelted with them, shielding him with my armor. Rian whispers a spell and I feel us fade into the Half-Realm again.

  Ornis is not so fortunate. One of the stones pierces his cheek. Another drives through his chest, leaving a blood-soaked stain that pools quickly, darkening the red velvet. Enraged, Ornis summons again, this time collecting broken shards of glass from the mirror in a shimmering ball before him. Emris is too quick for him, though. He sends a burst of dark matter careening toward the ball and it explodes in Ornis’s direction, shredding his skin as easily as his fine robes. I turn away and bury my face into Rian’s chest at the gruesome sight as Ornis screams in agony, and again the ceiling cracks.

  "It's going to cave," Rian grips my wrists and pulls me to the door, but not quickly enough. A final deafening rumble sends the ceiling collapsing down on us. Rian calls out a quick incantation and throws his arms wide, and a circle of glowing white energy encases us. Massive chunks of the ceiling and thick supporting beams bounce and roll off the field with crash, creating a billowing cloud of dust beyond his magical wall. The ceiling is gone now, and sunlight streams in above us.

  "Flitt!" I cry as I press my hands against the glass-like surface. "Shush! Ember!" I squint out into the dust, desperate to catch a glimpse of any one them, but it's no use. I can't see a thing, and the battle has gone eerily still and silent. Then, the tiniest sound echoes in our bubble: a sneeze, right at my shoulder.

  "We're okay!" Flitt chirps happily, sneezing again. Beside her, Shush nods enthusiastically.

  "Thank you for saving my little ones," he says to Rian in his usual rushed whisper. Rian has just enough time to nod before Iren's voice sets the floor rumbling again.

  "Six there were, now three remain," it echoes across the one remaining wall. "Emris of Devniban. Sekrin, Defiler of Life. Majniver of the Desert Stone. You will not cross into our lands. Return to your own lands, depleted and wasted. Begone or forfeit your lives." Rian and I press ourselves against the invisible wall and peer out into the ruins. Our little bubble is framed by the arched doorway as we stand just outside on the landing above the spiral stairwell.

  "Emris survived this?" Rian breathes as the dust slowly begins to settle. There is only one wall left standing after the ceiling's collapse, and the floor has also crumbled so that it slopes down into the mountainside. Outside, the stone fairies line the edge of the rubble, shoulder-to-shoulder with their golems. Ember bobs at the center of them all as they peer warily up, her own golem nearly double the size of the rest.

  "How," the Sorcerer's voice comes in a wail from somewhere nearby, carried on the mountain wind that now whips through the battered keep, "how did it go so wrong, so quickly?" I search the piles of stone to see his frail form clambering over a wide beam. He reaches to the other side of it and pulls a limp hand to his chest. "Ornis, my friend," he says thickly, "how did this happen?" He presses the bloodied hand to his cheek, and I blink in disbelief as Ornis's wide apparition rises up from the rubble beside him. He bends to Emris's ear and raises a hand that's merely a wisp of energy as he speaks. We can't hear his words, but beside me I feel Rian go rigid as the spirit points in our direction.

  "Oh, no. Spiritspeak. Get ready," he murmurs to me as Emris' expression changes slowly from despair to fury.

  "Rian Eldinae!" The elder Sorcerer roars as Ornis fades away. "Show yourself!" He levitates to drift over the rubble. "What have you done? Ornis was my friend!" he howls with lament. "What have you made me do? Unforgivable and yet," his fury wanes slightly as he slows, his tone growing almost reverent, "yet brilliant. Rian Eldinae," he continues to search, at one point breezing right past us. "Your talents are wasted in Cerion. Brilliant, brilliant. I never even suspected...never saw it." He laughs a little manically.

  "Rian, what's he talking about?" I whisper. "What did you do?" He glances at me and looks away, but not before I note the fear in his eyes. "Rian?"

  "I didn't think it would really work. I didn't know it would go that far. They were so worked up..." He trails off as Emris picks up his pace, throwing spells left and right in his frantic effort to reveal us. He's growing tired, I can tell. Even in his anger his shoulders are hunched, his eyes drooping. "Ornis didn't attack him," Rian whispers. "I did. Or rather, I compelled Ornis to."

  "What?" I stare at him in disbelief.

  "He was furious. His mind was weak and clouded with anger. I controlled him. I attacked Emris through him. I didn't think it would work. A Sorcerer, fiftieth circle at least! I didn't think I had the power." His eyes flash with a frightening wildness, and I'm so shocked that I don't even know how to respond. It doesn't matter, though, because in that moment one of Emris' aimless Revealers strikes the force field, causing a crackle of energy to cascade to the floor as it's broken. Emris's eyes light with triumph and he casts the spell again. Before we can react, the air shimmers around us, and I know that the Revealer has taken. He can see us now.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Dark Decisions

  With Emris hovering this close to us, the intricate design of the Mark on his completely blackened skin is striking. It covers his wrinkled face like a shroud, and coats his scalp beneath his white hair. It is so deeply etched into him that the skin is raised and purplish, like a fresh scar. His dark eyes are nearly indiscernible as they trace over Rian and then turn to me. Flitt and Shush have ducked behind my shoulder, and I angle myself protectively between them and the Sorcerer as he glares at us with pure hatred.

  "Leave the young ones," Iren booms from outside. "It is not too late, Emris of Devniban. Begone to Sunteri, never to return, and your misdeeds here shall be forgotten."

  Emris doesn't acknowledge Iren. He takes in my armor, the braid at my shoulder, the empty harness that once held my sword. His mouth curves up into a wicked smile. "Azaeli the Protector," he laughs and moves closer. "So slight, so full of heart and yet," he pauses, his awful black eyes boring into me. "Yet not so pure as you were before you entered these walls." I recall my ice sword sliding into Gorgen and fight the shudder that threatens my disciplined stance.

  "Bound by blood to a promise made by ancestors long dead," he hisses his disapproval. "Yet it is an oath easily broken, Azaeli. You need but to declare your defiance, and you shall be released." He tilts his head to the side sympathetically. "Oh, did no one tell you that? Secrets, secrets and deception. Even Rian kept what he knew from you, did he not?"

  "You dare--" Rian growls, snapping Emris' attention away from me.

  "And Rian Eldinae, Protégé of Gaethon, next in line for greatness at Cerion's pathetic Academy," Emris sneers. "Surely you see now that you are capable of so much more." He moves closer to Rian, examining him like some impressive artifact. "Power, stripped from one, given to another, amplified by the fae themselves. How," he laughs with slight amazement, "how are you managing to contain it? How have you not yet gone mad with the ecstasy of it?" Rian says nothing in reply, his expression a mix of defiance and distaste. "We can learn from each other, you and I," Emris offers gently. "Together, all of it could be ours."

  "Do not heed him, Rian Eldinae," Iren's voice rumbles over us. "He would have you destroy all that you love. Emris of Devniban, twice I have warned you, and twice you have ignored my words. Hear me now. You shall be utterly destroyed, your threats against our lands ceased forever."

  "Empty words," Emris laughs as he shouts his reply to Iren. "You are confined to the mountain, you great rock, and I am not within your precious borders now. You saw to that when you destroyed these walls. And so you are powerless to touch me." His eyes glint at Rian. "Yo
u and I," he whispers hungrily, "will have no such limitations on our power when Kythshire is ours."

  "When Rian says Cerion," Flitt's voice echoes in my mind, "duck." I glance at Rian and note the familiar mischievous gleam in his eye. Something spectacular and most likely dangerous is about to happen. He doesn't want to give it away, though, and so his gaze remains locked with Emris'. The Sorcerer seems to take his expression to mean that Rian is actually considering his offer.

  "Your callous pride will be your demise." Iren booms from the mountainside. "You will not survive this day, Emris of Devniban."

  Emris leans closer to Rian. "Imagine the power you could unleash." Rian swallows, his fingers crackling with chaotic energy fighting to burst forth. Emris eyes his hands. "Imagine the sweet release. Have you ever fought against a mountain spirit, boy?" Rian, in response, risks a shake of his head.

  "We don't have them in Cerion."

  It happens in an instant. I duck down as Flitt instructed, and her colorful light bursts forth with a power so dazzling it makes my eyes sting. I squeeze them shut and brace myself as a commanding voice blasts across me from beside her. At first I'm stunned because I've only ever heard him whisper, but Shush's voice begins like a zephyr and slowly grows to a hurricane, all in the time it takes for my knees to hit the ground.

  "You have been warned three times. You are not welcome here! I DELIVER YOU TO IREN OF THE MOUNTAIN TO MEET YOUR FATE!" Shush howls. Rian and I clap our hands to our ears and huddle together as the rubble blows around us, careening against the walls, swirling in a way that reminds me so much of the shadow cyclones. Flitt's blinding prisms dim as Emris is caught up in a mighty torrent, and I squint to watch the Sorcerer fight and struggle in vain within Shush's whirlwind. Dust and rock and rubble are kicked up violently as he's carried to the edge of the keep and across the border into Kythshire with Shush following behind, blowing great gusts ahead of him to guide the swirling force.