“Jaydan?”
He forced his eyes open a sliver and looked around. He was on a bed, in a room. Beyond that he couldn’t be certain. But he recognized the faces that looked at his from the bedside, one large and smiling, the other tiny and grinning just as wide. Wonderful, he thought.
He managed to wiggle into a reclined position against the headboard, and his eyes adjusted to the ambient light, though the edges of his vision were still clad in pulsating shadows.
“You still hearing voices?” Sachihiro asked after a moment.
Jaydan’s mouth felt dry, so he merely nodded until he was able to work some saliva into it. “Rhadiourgia.”
“Probably not a good idea to give it a name,” Sachihiro said.
Jaydan squinted at the man and sighed. “That is his name.” He fumbled at his vest. His fingers were raw and blistered. So were his arms. He tried not to think about the rest of his injuries. If the pain was any indication, he didn’t want to know. He found the small box and held it out to Sachihiro.
He took it, his face screwed up in confusion, not far from his usual expression. Jaydan tried to laugh, but coughed in pain instead.
Sachihiro opened the box and read the letter. Time seemed to hang suspended. Finally, he folded it back into the box and handed it to Jaydan.
“Think it’s true?”
Jaydan’s eyes narrowed. “My father would not lie like that. And I never told them about the voice. You’re the only one who knows.” His eyes shot to Erlen. The sprite flew above Sachihiro in tight circles, pausing every now and again to stab his sword at some unseen threat.
“Don’t worry ‘bout ol’ Dragontamer,” Sachihiro said.
Jaydan wasn’t worried. He was just… tired.
“We’re leaving soon,” Sachihiro said, and looked out the window. “Midday. I think that’s soon.”
Jaydan glanced at the small window on the far side of the room. It was still dark beyond the portal. He grimaced as his memories sorted themselves out, but he couldn’t force himself to care.
“So, what’d ya roll?” Sachihiro asked with his usual lopsided smile. Part of Jaydan hated the man. Nothing seemed to trouble him.
“Four,” Jaydan said.
“Damn. What happens on five?”
“Worse, I suppose.”
“And the skull?”
“Well, I’m not expecting a cache of gold to fall from the sky.”
Sachihiro scratched at his ear. “Damn,” he said again.
“It’s not often I agree with you, but that’s about the sum of it.”
Jaydan’s hand went to the pocket that held the small die and letter. It had been a worthy experiment, and lucky, all things considered, but he had no intention of using the die again. Though he wasn’t about to say that aloud for Rhadiourgia to hear. Not until he knew more about the thing that had taunted him since birth. Having discovered he wasn’t crazy was quite possibly the worst news he could have gotten concerning the subject. He had long ago accepted just that. He didn’t like the idea of something he couldn’t control.
“Care for a tune?”
Jaydan frowned at Sachihiro and shook his head, grimacing. Even that hurt. “Last thing I need right now is to hear another bawdy tavern tune or ale-driven dragon tale. I’d like to get better, not worse.”
Sachihiro feigned offense, but didn’t play. Instead, he traced his fingers along the runes carved into the body of the instrument. Jaydan had been meaning to talk with him about it, but there hadn’t seemed to be a good time. His mind fled to Woodhaerst for a moment, and he winced. They hadn’t even had time to grieve. Or say goodbye. He had a hard time imagining Sachihiro with tears in his eyes.
“Your uncle ever tell you how to use that thing?” he asked.
“He didn’t even like me looking at it. To tell ya the truth, I feel a little bad ‘bout takin’ it.”
“I think they’re supposed to help channel magic when you can’t use your body or mind.” The very idea of having such a need repulsed Jaydan. If one couldn’t use magic on their own then they weren’t worthy of it. But something stopped him from saying it aloud.
“I know. You told me before, and I know you think runes are silly. But it did something back in Woodhaerst, though damned if I know what it was or how to do it again. When I tried, all I got was Squirrel.” He nodded at the instrument and Jaydan noticed for the first time a tiny furred head sticking up from between the strings.
“You conjured a squirrel?”
“Birthed him, really. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Jaydan shrugged. They both knew he would in fact understand, but Sachihiro didn’t seem to want to tell and Jaydan didn’t care enough to ask. “And you named it Squirrel?”
“Yep. Suits him, don’t you think?”
Jaydan rolled his eyes and Sachihiro laughed.
“Now there’s the Jaydan I know.”
Jaydan nodded as much as he could with the pain. He wasn’t entirely sure how he had channeled so much without dying. He had always had a penchant for healing magic, but to turn it into elemental energy was something he only dreamed of. He tried at every opportunity to turn his gift into something more than wound-knitting, but had found only limited success. Most experiments ended with no effect. Or with his arm stuck in a door. He still didn’t know how he had gotten out of that one. Surely he hadn’t caused the door to vanish.
“I haven’t tried any charm with it yet. Think maybe it’d enhance charms?” Sachihiro asked, a wicked gleam in his eyes.
Jaydan matched the look. “Yes. And before you think it, no.”
Sachihiro smiled wider and ran a hand over his instrument. “But if it makes my charms stronger…”
“You do remember the last time you tried to charm him, right?” It had been one of the few injuries Jaydan could do nothing for.
Sachihiro’s smile vanished and he shifted atop his stool. “I still can’t believe how far up there he got it.”
The pair of friends locked eyes and laughed as they hadn’t in quite some time. Pain raced along every inch of Jaydan’s body, but he couldn’t stop. All the emotions of the past few days came out in one dramatic wash of laughter.
Sachihiro fell out of his seat and rolled on the ground, miming the dramatics of being attacked by an angry elf with a fistful of pinecones.
When the laughter faded and Sachihiro righted himself, the pair stumbled into another story of past antics. Then they remembered another. And another. Stories and laughter melded in a way that part of Jaydan knew they both needed. Their journey was far from over, but there was no past to go back to. There was only a future. And even that seemed in doubt. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t spend a few moments recalling the time Sachihiro had gotten his head stuck in a keg of spoiled cider. And it didn’t mean they couldn’t laugh despite all they had lost. Sometimes Jaydan forgot that. Perhaps that was why he kept Sachihiro around.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
THE SKY WAS still dark when they left the safety of Lilacoris’s warded quarters. But the storm had faded to distant rumbles and dull flashes of color that Alexander thought could merely be in his mind. Echoes of memories he’d rather leave behind.
Adelaide had his hand, but she hadn’t spoken since waking. He wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than the way she had first come to. She didn’t seem to have any recollection of having screamed those things. And she looked truly perplexed when Alexander thanked her for using her magic to protect them. She had eaten before they left, at least, but wouldn’t look at anyone directly, always staring off at an angle, seemingly at nothing.
A heaviness weighed on Alexander every time he looked at her. He felt he had failed her and vowed to be better. Something told him he had to be, that she was important. But his memory was still just as hazy as hers. Every time he shut his eyes he was falling again, plummeting through the black air, toward a bottom that never came. Sachihiro was fascinated by it, but it seemed to cause Tannyl to trust him even le
ss. He kept catching the elf eyeing him anytime they were near one another. Alexander wanted to trust him, he truly did, but something told him he was a danger. And with Adelaide at his side, danger was one thing he would not abide.
“The docks are just a quick jaunt through the gardens and out a side gate,” Lilacoris said as the group stepped into the gloom.
They had not encountered any creatures in the halls that led from the castle, but Alexander found the silence even more troubling. It hid just as much as the shadows.
“Keep close,” Tannyl said, stepping away from the towering citadel and into the perfectly manicured rose garden.
Even in the tenseness of the situation, Alexander took a moment to take in the awe of the garden that stretched out for hundreds of feet before them. Every petal was in the perfect place. Every row cut through the bushes was precise and sharp. It created a maze of beauty, but as every Farmer knew, thorns hid within. His father liked to say that roses and people were much the same in that regard; a pairing of beauty and pain. Elegance or danger depending on where you looked. And where you touched.
Lilacoris followed at Tannyl’s side in the lead, talking in hushed tones like they were the oldest of friends. Alexander and Adelaide kept their distance, but came next. Sachihiro and Jaydan brought up the rear, accompanied by the Dragontamer and Sachihiro’s strange new pet squirrel. Alexander didn’t dare look back. He couldn’t bear to see Jaydan hobbling along in such pain. The second vow he made after waking was to pay the man back. He just didn’t know how.
“It smells so nice,” Adelaide said once they were deep in the garden.
Alexander tried to hide the relief at hearing her tiny voice, but could feel the tension melt from his muscles. Suddenly, the air didn’t seem as dark. He squeezed her hand.
“Yes it does,” he agreed.
He stopped and carefully picked a particularly perfect rose with petals of pink and red. With skilled hands, he broke off the thorns and slid the flower into Adelaide’s hair, just above her elven ear.
“Now you can smell just as nice,” he said.
She only stared back, still avoiding eye contact. Then she frowned.
“I’m sorry,” Alexander gushed, realizing his offense. “I didn’t mean that you smelled bad or anything. Because you don’t. I just…”
Her frown vanished and her eyes went wide, still looking somewhere else. Panic seized Alexander’s heart and forced the blood from it in a single pulse. He turned to follow her gaze. Nothing but roses greeted his eyes. To his right, far ahead, he could hear Tannyl and Lilacoris, still walking together in private conversation. Sachihiro and Jaydan approached. He could hear Erlen in the middle of an animated story. But nothing else.
He turned back to Adelaide. Her eyes were still wide and her hands were shaking.
“Addy, hon, are you all right?”
“I can see them,” she said.
Alexander surveyed the roses again. “What do you see?”
Her eyes shifted and locked on his. It sent a chill down to his toes. “The shadowed ones,” she said.
“Come on, ladies,” Sachihiro said, having caught up. “Stop sniffing the roses and keep moving. Jaydan here needs his nap. He’s getting cranky.”
“Oh, shove it, Sach,” Jaydan said, but there was no heart in it.
Alexander held up a hand to silence the pair. “Something’s not right,” he said.
“Yeah, first it was day with no night and now it’s night with no day,” Sachihiro said, crossing his thick arms. “Not to mention shadow dragons, Spawn, whatever they are, and a murderous bitch in a black dress.”
“Alexander,” Adelaide said slowly.
“Yeah?”
“We need to run now.”
Dark shapes exploded from the roses on both sides of the wide path. Teeth snapped and claws cut the air, driving for the group of battered travelers. In the gloom, it was impossible to know how many, and Alexander could see only teeth and burning eyes. The beauty of the roses vanished and they were left facing only thorns.
“Great idea, kid,” Sachihiro said as he broke into a run, dragging Jaydan alongside him, hopping to keep up. Alexander scooped Adelaide up in mid stride and bolted as well.
“Tannyl! Lilacoris!” he bellowed to the night.
He didn’t hear a response, and hoped they were far enough ahead to be safe. He dared a quick glance over his shoulder. The path behind them was gone. The creatures spilled out of the roses at the spot they had just left and gave chase as a single entity. He swung his head back around, squeezed Adelaide tight against his chest, and ran harder. The way ahead seemed clear. Sachihiro and Jaydan were just ahead, but it didn’t look like Jaydan would be able to keep the pace for long.
Alexander’s foot caught something and his body hurtled forward. His arms went out, sending Adelaide into a rough roll. For a moment, he flashed back to the peak of the citadel, falling to jagged stone. He hit the ground with his face and the memory vanished. The taste of grass and soil filled his mouth, but his hands were already pawing at the path. He had to protect her.
“Addy!” he shouted, coming to his hands and knees.
She lay on the ground a dozen steps away. She was staring past him, eyes wide, mouth screaming something he couldn’t hear. Sachihiro and Jaydan stopped and turned, but he waved at them as he turned to face the enemy. “Grab Addy and keep going,” he shouted.
The creatures were nearly upon him. He freed his glaive from his back and stood, waiting. His eyes narrowed, picking out the individuals in the swarm. Able to discern each creature took away some of Alexander’s fear. Or perhaps it was the desperation with which he sought to guard Adelaide and the others. In the moment before they collided he heard her yelling his name. He hoped that Sachihiro and Jaydan had gotten to her. He hoped they would cover her eyes.
Two creatures closed the remaining stride between them and launched into the air. Alexander moved to meet them, glaive coming up in a flash of steel. He twisted, spun, and struck. He felt the impact as he cut them in two. He had completed the stroke and was running at the others before the transected bodies hit the ground behind him. He had never moved so quickly. He hadn’t even known he’d struck.
He plunged into the mass of writhing black and was surrounded in an instant. Golden light flared from somewhere, casting them in an ethereal glow. It banished the tendrils of black mist, revealing the twisted gray forms for what they were. Skin pulled tight over stunted skeletons, eyes hollow, and jaws hanging wide. He felled three more and was twisting at a fourth before his mind caught up. The light was emanating from his glaive, transforming it into a bladed torch. He sensed movement at his back and sent a creature sprawling with a staunch kick, not needing to look to know it had landed solidly. His glaive cut a quick X into a creature, the golden image seared in his vision for a moment.
He was stronger and faster than all of them. The mass hesitated for a moment. Alexander shifted the glaive to one hand and held it at his side, an extension of his arm. Energy pulsed from the blade as well as from the corners of his vision. They were exposed and vulnerable to his sight. He goaded them with his free hand, but didn’t wait for a response. He charged at the nearest group, thrusting into the chest of one and quickly kneeling to sever the legs of another. He shot upward, catching a snarling jaw with his fist. Its neck snapped audibly and the creature was dead before it landed.
His blade was a searing flame among the shadows and his mind saw everything his eyes could not. He became a tempest, spinning in tight loops, faster and faster, until the golden blade was a blur and the sounds of death became a distant hum. Something told him it had only lasted a few brief moments. It told him it was over, and he finished in a half crouch, his fury waning quickly. Carnage littered the ground all around him, the gray corpses quietly smoldering.
“Damn, Alexander,” Sachihiro said from nearby.
Adelaide seized him around the neck, squeezing tightly. He allowed the embrace, but then stood, surveying the night.<
br />
“More are coming,” he said, though he didn’t understand how he knew. “Let’s go.”
No one argued, and they fled as fast as Jaydan could move. Alexander carried Adelaide despite her protesting. He ignored her tiny fists. It was his duty to protect her. No matter the cost.
Tannyl and Lilacoris were waiting at the edge of the garden. Two creatures lay dead at their feet. “Everyone all right?” Lilacoris asked.
“Fine, but we need to keep going,” Alexander said firmly. “I can feel—”
His mind saw it before his eyes did. But it didn’t take long for everyone to notice the mountain of flesh that entered the space between the garden and the rocky edge of Paladrix. Even at a distance, Alexander knew it was nearly twice his height and was heavy with corded muscle. The giant roared in their direction, bellowing a primal challenge.
“Krigtor,” Lilacoris said with reverence.
“You know that thing?” Sachihiro asked, drawing his sword.
Tannyl cursed. “I knew I recognize him before,” he said. “Krigtor the Most Tall. I knew his father, Brantor.”
Lilacoris nodded. “He rules the Artic Realm.”
“Oh, so he’s on our side?” Sachihiro asked hopefully.
“No,” Alexander and Tannyl said in unison.
The elf nocked an arrow and drew it back, aiming at the giant. “I’m sorry, Lilacoris, but the Krigtor you knew is dead.”
“I know,” she said softly.
Jaydan shifted and pointed behind the group. “Uh, I think we’re about to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
Alexander didn’t need to turn to know what was coming. He could hear the shrieks and knew their numbers had grown.
“Looks like some of them bigger ones are coming too,” Sachihiro said. “Shades.”
There were four of them, Alexander knew, but didn’t say it aloud. It wouldn’t change anything.
“My ship is just past there,” Lilacoris said, pointing directly at Krigtor. The giant stomped a heavy foot but remained in place, waiting.
The Girl With Red Hair (The Last War Saga Book 1) Page 17