Ean turned a determined look over his shoulder, solidified his shield, and flung his sword into the static field.
Energy exploded. Air exploded. Light itself exploded.
Ean dove for the marble floor, thinking, dissolve. He cast the intention broadly.
Perhaps too broadly, for he plunged in a downward rush amid a waterfall of marble dust and hit the floor of the level below with a painful expulsion of breath. His fifth strand shield wavered, and he nearly lost his hold on the fourth-strand shield protecting his mind from Darshan’s merciless bombardment, but as his breath was gingerly inching its way back into bruised lungs, Ean managed to reaffix both shields firmly in place. Dazed, he pushed up to hands and knees.
Showers of marble sand were pouring down along the edges of the room as the floor above continued dissolving. Across the chamber, veiled by voluminous clouds of marble dust, the Marquiin was bending over Nadia. The two of them appeared wraithlike and indistinct in the shifting air, amalgams of shadows.
With a blood haze still clouding vision and judgment both, Ean spotted Pelas just rising and threw his intent as a spear. The fifth caught Pelas in the chest and flung him backwards into a column.
An instant later, Ean was atop him.
“Stop!”
Ean barely registered Nadia’s desperate cry or her hands dragging at his shoulders and arms. He knew only the feeling of his fingers closing around Pelas’s throat, and the fathomless apology in the immortal’s gaze.
With wrath reigning absolute, reason abandoned Ean for safer pastures; thus, nothing stood to impede him as he searched for Pelas’s life pattern. Not even Pelas. He lay still beneath Ean’s clenching hands, unresisting; his gaze swore, I will not harm you.
Ean’s replied remorselessly, Then you will die.
He found Pelas’s life pattern and started pulling.
***
When Nadia found her bearings again, she was lying in a cavernous chamber. Pillars carved with patterns supported a groin-vaulted ceiling—at least what part of the ceiling wasn’t showering down in cascades of fine marble sand.
Nadia pushed up to sitting and tried to find her breath but only ended up choking on the fog of dust clouding the room. A moment later, Caspar appeared out of the unbreathable haze. His silk robe was torn, his dark hair wore a layer of ashen dust, and his cheek was bleeding, but he otherwise seemed whole.
He squatted beside her and helped her to sit up. “Are you all right, Nadia?”
She took hold of his arm and with his help, found her feet. Then she heard a grunted exhale and turned to see Pelas sliding down a column. An instant later, Ean appeared on top of him and with his hands around his throat.
A razor of terror sliced through Nadia. “Stop!” She grabbed Casper’s arm and hauled him after her. “Ean—you don’t understand!”
She threw herself atop Ean and tried to pull him off of Pelas. Casper also grabbed the prince, but he must’ve held the fifth, for neither of them could budge him from his terrible work.
Nadia perceived two pillars of light, one growing brighter while the other dimmed. She turned a desperate look at Pelas that he might take action himself, but he merely lay still beneath Ean, holding the prince’s gaze while his face reddened, as if accepting of this torturous penance.
Frantic, Nadia tried to reach Ean with the fourth—she even tried compulsion—but she couldn’t penetrate the prince’s mental shield. Finally, she clung to Ean’s form, crying madly, saying anything she could think of to get through to him. The idea that Tanis might lose Pelas…it was unconscionable.
“Please,” Nadia sobbed in the last, “he’s bound to Tanis!”
***
Pelas felt himself being unmade…filaments of his own construction becoming unwoven…innate threads pulled out of cohesion. He rather feared if he looked down he’d no longer see his feet; yet he knew this dismantling wasn’t so linear. The threads of form that bound him into that shell were part of a pattern that had a beginning and an end. Ean was unworking it from both directions.
I will not harm you.
He’d meant this sentiment, invoked it in his gaze. He wouldn’t harm another being who was important to Tanis.
Had he known Isabel was Tanis’s mother, he would’ve driven daggers into his own hands—pinned himself to the stone wall of that tower—before harming her.
Whether or not Ean knew that he’d been—was…is?—Tanis’s father; whether or not Tanis even knew it, Pelas had worked out this truth. If being unmade would atone for what he’d done, if his deconstruction would ameliorate the pain he’d caused Ean and Tanis, if it would open a path to eventual absolution, Pelas would endure it.
Even to the end?
He had to ask himself this. There was a very real chance Ean would succeed in this endeavor if he did nothing to stop him. Already his vision was blackening at the edges, already he felt his anchors on this world beginning to drag. This shell could exist without breath for a long time, but he couldn’t keep himself bound into form in Alorin without it. What would happen if the prince unworked the shell that anchored him to this plane?
I’ll have to find my way into the realm again. Construct a new shell.
He’d managed it once, but the hole he’d used all those centuries ago had been plugged by T’khendar’s bulk. He’d surmised that much from the pieces of truth Isabel had shared with him, and from the sure certainty that his brother Rinokh would’ve found his way back by now if the route had still been open.
Then I’ll have to use the void. It would take some time—weeks, even months he dreaded losing—but now that he knew Alorin so intimately, at the very least he could find his way back into the realm via the formless dimension of Shadow…
Even as he had the thought, he saw it—the enormity of Isabel and Björn’s plan, their nearly incomprehensible foresight. His amazement in this recognition even dampened the pain of Ean’s working and gave Pelas a renewed clarity of thought.
They knew we could come back via Shadow.
Rinokh might already have accomplished it if he’d known how to navigate Shadow’s void as adroitly as Darshan, Shail and Pelas.
That Björn van Gelderan in his wisdom had seen this truth already, Pelas had no doubt. That he’d included the possibility in his plans, even prepared for it…
Oh, Tanis…your uncle might be the most brilliant man to ever walk the Realms of Light.
It seemed fitting somehow that this might become his last thought in that shell.
As his vision went dark around the edges, Pelas wondered how quickly and closely he could pattern a second shell to resemble the first. He wondered if Tanis would recognize him…
***
Ean—you don’t understand!
The words echoed in Ean’s head, spoken by three voices as one: Nadia, Sebastian, Isabel…all those voices of reason sheltered within the confines of his mental shield, protected from Darshan’s relentless bombardment, witnessing Ean’s requital and Pelas’s deserts.
He wondered why they weren’t cheering him on.
Sebastian’s voice chastised, Isabel sacrificed your love to bind Pelas to Alorin’s welfare, and here you are killing her sacrifice.
And Isabel all too clearly said, Do not be quick to judge, Ean. Her warning stabbed painfully, a hook of momentary recollection that yanked him up from the depths of rage.
Ean lifted his head above the water just as Nadia cried desperately, “He’s bound to Tanis—and Tanis to him!”
These words struck him like a spear.
For a moment, all breath ceased and Ean stared, stunned and unseeing, only hearing Nadia’s words resounding in his head.
Pelas is bound to Tanis, and Tanis to him?
Ean felt Pelas’s life pattern slipping from his grasp.
In his mind’s eye, he looked down to find his hands bloodied with elae, just like the Enemy’s dagger as he’d ripped it from Arion’s chest. Ean shoved away from Pelas and fell back on his hands, suddenly repulsed by wh
at he’d nearly done. He turned a horrified look at Nadia. “They’re bound?” His voice scraped its way out of his throat.
Nadia sucked in a shuddering sob and fell across Pelas. She pressed her ear to his chest and looked up at Ean with tears streaming through the dust on her cheeks. “They worked the Unbreakable Bond!”
Ean felt sick. “Tanis is bound to a Malorin’athgul?” It seemed impossible, wrong.
Nadia cupped Pelas’s face with a trembling hand. “Pelas bound himself to Tanis’s path.” She smoothed a strand of hair back from the Malorin’athgul’s forehead and then looked up desperately at Ean. “He swore to protect him. They’re bond brothers now.”
Ean covered his face with both hands.
The Unbreakable Bond.
Too well he understood that working. He wanted to say this changed nothing…but it changed everything.
He dropped his hands and looked around the milky darkness, saw at last the destruction he’d wrought in the name of vengeance, and felt sickened by it. Had he kept his anger in check, they might’ve already escaped.
…The Citadel fell because my brother felt too deeply…
Ean clenched his jaw. Ever Isabel’s rationality roped him to a post to be flayed by the lash of reason. He hung there now, strapped in the bounds of his own conscience, bleeding remorse. Yet through the astringent clarity of mortification, Ean finally admitted an understanding that he’d been refusing to accept: if Pelas was bound to Tanis, and by extension to Alorin itself, then they had a Malorin’athgul on their team…a vortice capable of bending Cephrael’s will, weighting Balance in their favor.
Ean knew to the depths of his soul that Tanis would not have bound himself to anyone unworthy. The zanthyr assuredly would not have allowed such to occur.
Shocked by the truths he was finally seeing, Ean surged back to Pelas, laid his forehead against the Malorin’athgul’s, and sought with his mind the selfsame pattern he’d a moment ago tried to unmake.
That time examining it instead of merely attempting to unravel it, Ean saw that Pelas’s life pattern was badly frayed—the coat of a pauper, not a prince. Ean wielded the first strand into him, yet using that ephemeral, creative energy to smooth Pelas’s life pattern proved as effective as polishing granite with a feather.
Regret gripped Ean. He couldn’t fathom how he could’ve caused Pelas’s life pattern to so deteriorate in so short a time. Sitting back on his heels to ponder this confusion, a simple truth struck him: he couldn’t have caused it. Pelas must’ve already been in a debilitated condition before coming to Tambarré.
And you’ve certainly made things no better.
As guilt’s vise tightened around his chest, Ean tried to think of—
At once the answer became apparent. He drew upon the fifth strand and funneled great pulses of it into Pelas’s life pattern, though the effort drained him to the point of dizziness.
And then, at last, Pelas opened his eyes.
Nadia let out a little cry and flung her arms around him.
Pelas slowly wrapped his arms around the princess in return, but his eyes sought Ean’s, and as they met, his gaze held a grave foreboding. “Darshan is coming.”
***
Nadia turned a fast look between Pelas and Ean, the latter of whom was lifting a tense stare towards the dissolved ceiling and the chamber above.
“He’s coming for me,” Ean murmured.
“Don’t be so certain.” Pelas gave a pained exhale. Nadia moved quickly to help him sit up.
Ean looked bemusedly back to him. “But he’s your brother.”
Pelas put a hand on Nadia’s arm with a meaningful look. She got to her feet and then helped him find his. It disturbed her to feel his body shaking, to realize his weakened condition.
Pelas slowly straightened and lifted his gaze overhead, brow furrowed, as if already seeing Darshan standing above them. “Since I escaped from the tower where Darshan had imprisoned me—believing my power lost and under compulsion to harm your Isabel—my brother and I haven’t been on the best of terms.” He rolled his shoulders and gave a sort of wince. “I’m not on amiable terms with any of my brothers, actually.”
“And whose fault is that?” Darshan’s deep voice volleyed out of the dim recesses of the chamber, striking arrows of alarm into Nadia.
Ean spun a look to Pelas, but Pelas was already staring past him at a form congealing out of the darkness.
Darshan emerged from the milling, dust-filled shadows as a star birthing from a nebula’s core. Seeing him again, Nadia felt breathless. There was just something so overpowering about him.
She flicked her gaze between Pelas and a very tense Ean, fervently hoping one of them was envisioning a way to get them out of there, because she was wholly out of ideas. And Darshan…it was almost impossible to think within the gravity of his attention.
Darshan looked Pelas over and did not appear at all pleased by what he saw. “What in Chaos happened to you?”
Pelas drew Nadia closer against him. “Revenants.”
“Revenants.” Darshan’s tone speared in accusation. “This was Shail’s solution for containing you?” His dark eyes scanned Pelas as if to find some rebuttal for his claim. “I find it difficult to believe Shail would tread a path of such depravity.”
“I find it difficult to believe you find it difficult to believe.” Derision honed Pelas’s tone to a fine point. “Nothing is beyond Shail. You should know that by now.”
“As you should know better than to let him ensnare you in Shadow.”
Pelas’s gaze was arctic. “Sage advice as always, Darshan.”
Darshan’s eyes viewed the entire space while he twirled a dark scepter at his side. He shifted a razor gaze to the prince. “And you, Ean val Lorian? You’re running out of stone to unmake. End these futile efforts of resistance and submit to me.”
Ean was standing with his hands balled into fists and his shoulders as taut as the rest of his stance. “Why should I do that?” His words came out through clenched teeth.
Nadia’s mouth fell open. He’s resisting Darshan’s compulsion! How strong a wielder must he be?
Pelas observed the charged energy amassing between his brother and Ean and stiffened. “Darshan—”
“Stay out of this, Pelas.” Darshan swung his scepter at his side but kept his eyes pinned darkly on the prince. “The anticipation of our reckoning is something you should be savoring right now.”
Nadia felt icy air suddenly all around her and realized Pelas had summoned deyjiin.
No—oh please, no! Pelas was so weakened, she feared he wouldn’t survive a confrontation with his brother.
Likewise apparently sensing Pelas drawing upon his power, Darshan turned him a perilous look of warning.
“Pelas, don’t.” Ean emphasized his communication with a pointed stare. The prince looked haggard and grim, but his grey eyes held such determination that Nadia felt a measure of hope again.
Pelas met Ean’s gaze in return and…Nadia couldn’t decipher half of what passed between them—clearly they had their own history together—but she did understand when Ean’s gaze said clearly, Get them out of here.
And Pelas’s in return demanded, You’d better live through this.
It was only an instant, this interchange of glances and thoughts, yet Darshan perceived it too. He pointed his scepter at Pelas, and a beam of violet-silver light erupted from its tip.
Pelas sucked in his breath and launched away from Nadia, towards the beam. He caught it in his fist just as a net of deyjiin curtained down. Pelas threw up his other hand and held the net open while its edges sought each other as if to close in a trap. The force exerted by the pulsing net pushed Pelas backwards across the dusty stone.
“Run, Nadia,” he growled through clenched teeth.
She stared at him in shock, her mind a sudden blank. Run? Run where?
Caspar appeared at Pelas’s side.
Pelas glared at him. “You cannot—”
But Casp
ar ignored him and grabbed the net. As his hands closed around the lines of deyjiin, he sucked in a fierce and tremulous gasp. Nadia felt him take immediate shelter in her mind. Caspar turned a strained look to Pelas with the net’s light casting frightful shadows across his face and asked through gritted teeth, “What do…we do…now?”
The net contracted violently, pulsing with an eerie, silver-violet glow as it tried to close around them.
Caspar fell to one knee.
Nadia pressed both hands to her mouth and inhaled a shuddering breath just short of a sob.
Something whisked past her in a fury of wind.
She followed its fast flight with her gaze and watched Ean grab whatever it was out of the air. He lowered it to shoulder height, leveled at Darshan.
The prince had summoned his blade.
***
To Ean, the path before him seemed to split—nay, it fractured into shards of future. Myriad confusing and conflicting threads spiraled haphazardly into uncertain consequence.
The moment Pelas summoned his power, Ean made a decision that planted his feet firmly on one of those paths.
“Pelas, don’t.” Ean shot him a telling stare, and though he felt threadbare himself, he made sure his gaze conveyed his intent: Get them out of here.
At first Pelas resisted—Ean saw a grave protest in his gaze, but Pelas was in no condition to fight his brother. Ean knew this. Pelas knew this. Probably even Darshan knew it.
Ean was exhausted, but at least his life pattern remained whole. Pelas, on the other hand, was a glass pedestal webbed with fractures. The least weight would shatter him. Ean made the words in his gaze clear: You have no choice.
Pelas knew better than to argue, though he appeared less than pleased about it. His returning gaze said in no uncertain text: You’d better live through this.
Ean intended to. He still had the lifeforce at his command to help him—or so he fervently hoped. It bothered him how difficult it was proving to hold the fifth now; that elemental strand was becoming as willful as the pull of gravity or the implacable ebbing of the tide.
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