by Spurrier, Jo
Sierra swung the axe.
Epilogue
While the last rippling flames died away, Sierra dropped to her knees at Isidro’s side, pulled off her wet shirt and pressed it to the deep gashes across his chest.
Isidro couldn’t speak — he could barely think — the last of his strength had gone into catching Kell’s wrist to hold him still for that final blow. Between the pain in his arm and the deep chill spreading through him, he had no reserves left.
Rasten staggered to his feet, staring down at the corpse. Kell was still twitching, his eyes wide open and sightless, lips forming a soundless curse. The axe had bitten deep, and Sierra had struck him square-on — it had cut right through the centre of his forehead and then lodged with the edge of the blade buried in his face. The body shook and spasmed as Kell breathed his last, and Rasten stood motionless and fixated as the final gasps grew weaker, and the body fell still.
Then Isidro felt ripples spreading through the lines of force woven through the tunnels. Those enchantments had been bound to Kell, he realised, destined to fail only at his death. As his mind and will unravelled in those final moments, so did the power bound into the stones.
With his good hand, Isidro grabbed for Sierra’s wrist. ‘Sirri,’ he gasped. ‘The stones, the power — can you feel that?’
She gave him a look of confusion, but Rasten’s head snapped up. ‘He’s right. I can feel it coming.’
The last of his words were drowned out as the final threads of power snapped and came loose. He heard the roar beginning in the distance, like a raging torrent after the dam has burst.
Sierra reached out to Rasten just as the jet of flame hit, and the pair cast a shield to cover them all, the brilliant blue mixed with the ruddy glow. Isidro could do nothing but lie back and watch the storm of power writhe above his head while Sierra and Rasten bowed low beneath the beating flames.
It lasted for an age. Isidro counted past two hundred before the blast died back, leaving the stone around them heated like the walls of an oven. With sweat beading on his face, Isidro fumbled for Sierra’s hand, and saw her wince as he found it, clumsy and shaking at the last of his reserves. She wore a breast-band wrapped firmly across her chest, fashioned from a bit of scavenged cloth, and her fingertips were torn and bloody from clinging to the rough walls of the flooded passage. Still, she wrapped her bruised and bleeding fingers around his hand and drained the pain away with a touch.
As Isidro let his eyes drift closed, he felt Rasten stand. ‘Rasten,’ Sierra said, with such a note of worry in her voice that Isidro forced his eyes open again.
Rasten turned back to the body lying sprawled on the yellow earth, the skin red and scorched, the clothes charred and flickering with flame.
He set his boot against Kell’s face and took hold of the axe, wrenching it free with a grunt, and Isidro felt Sierra’s power rise with the pain that came from muscles and skin torn by the falling rocks.
With a roar Rasten swung the axe, then raised it again and again, hacking at Kell’s head until all that remained was a ruin of red flesh and yellow bone, utterly unrecognisable as human. Then he turned to the rest of the corpse, with an incoherent cry of rage and pain, while Sierra called his name over and over.
Finally, he abandoned the axe, dropping it carelessly by his feet, and drew his belt-knife instead. Dropping to his knees beside the body, Rasten sank the knife between Kell’s legs.
Sierra drew a sharp breath. ‘Here,’ she said, taking Isidro’s good hand and placing it on the damp cloth. ‘Press on this.’ She stood and circled cautiously around until she was facing Rasten. ‘Rasten, look at me. Do you know me?’
He raised his face to her, tears pouring down his cheeks, the knife still held in one gory hand. ‘I … Sirri —’
She took his face in her battered hands, and wiped the wetness away with her thumb. ‘It’s over, Rasten, it’s over, you’re free. We’re all free.’
Rasten looked down at the corpse, and slowly, the knife fell from his bloody fingers. Then he buried his face in her shoulder, and sobbed.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Lyn, Deonie, Stephanie and Chren for patience and forbearance with eleventh-hour rewrites.
Thanks to Jade for being an invaluable resource on matters medical.
Thanks again to Toby and Katie for answering questions variously on fight scenes and babies.
Thanks to all my beta readers, who keep me on the right track.
About the Author
Jo Spurrier was born in 1980 and has a Bachelor of Science, but turned to writing because people tend to get upset when scientists make things up.
Her interests include knitting, spinning, cooking and research. She lives in Adelaide and spends a lot of time daydreaming about snow.
Other Books by Jo Spurrier
CHILDREN OF THE BLACK SUN TRILOGY
Winter Be My Shield (Book One)
Black Sun Light My Way (Book Two)
Copyright
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2013
This edition published in 2013
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Jo Spurrier 2013
The right of Jo Spurrier to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Spurrier, Jo.
Black sun light my way / Jo Spurrier.
ISBN: 978 0 7322 9254 6 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978 0 7304 9290 0 (epub)
Spurrier, Jo. Children of the black sun trilogy 2.
Magic – Fiction.
Supernatural – Fiction.
A823.4
Cover design by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover images: Figure by Gordon Wiltsie/Getty Images; all other images by shutterstock.com
Map by Jo Spurrier
Author photograph by Simon Ankor