He took her in his arms and held her tight. Iniru was in a dark mood. Being angry and off alone, away from him and everyone else…that wasn’t good for her. Mentally, she still hadn’t fully recovered from dying. Probably she wouldn’t until they were back home safe and had a few months to rest. As if that would ever happen.
“I love you, Niru.”
He felt terrible, not telling her the truth about being married. But that could wait until they were away from here. He didn’t want to alienate her. Because she was right, death was a possibility for all of them. Every moment mattered.
“Maybe tomorrow you can talk to Kurine and—”
“I don’t want to talk about Kurine.”
“But—”
“When we get free of this place, I will reassess what I think about her.” Her eyes narrowed, and she grinned devilishly. “For that matter, I’ll reassess how things are with you.”
He gulped. That wasn’t going to go well when she learned the truth about the brands. “That…that seems fair enough.”
She climbed into the bed. He moved to shut off the lantern, but she stopped him. “Read to me.”
She had never requested that before. “Okay, sure.”
He crawled onto the sleeping mat and grabbed the book. She snuggled in beside him.
“What’s it about?” she asked.
“A group of bandits who took over the Kingdom of Rust in Pawan Kor. It’s pretty exciting.”
Or at least, he had thought it was exciting. She fell asleep in his arms before he even reached the fifth chapter. He set the book aside, then stroked her hair.
“I don’t want to lose anyone,” he whispered into the night, “but I especially can’t lose you. I don’t think I could live in a world without you in it.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
After a week of blissful rest, with more than ample food and play, Turesobei returned to the Workshop with a heavy heart. He dreaded having to work with the heart stones. But more than anything, he was afraid he would never figure a way out of this that wouldn’t allow the Blood King to get free. Throughout his vacation, even while spending time with his friends as they recovered, that fear had hung over him.
A fierce, orange-eyed Lord Gyoroe met him at the door to the Inner Sanctum. “After careful consideration of your difficulty in bonding with the heart stones, it occurred to me that you may lack the proper motivation to succeed. So I have devised a method that will help you better understand sacrifice while keeping you motivated at the same time.”
Turesobei swallowed and braced himself for the coming blow.
“Every day, until you succeed in bonding with the stones, I will torture one of your companions.”
“What?!”
“You will select which one.”
“I won't!”
He grinned sinisterly. “You will, because the alternative is that I torture all of them.”
Heart pounding with anger, Turesobei clenched his fists. The Mark of the Storm Dragon burned on his cheek. After all they had done for him, this was how he was going to treat them?
“Yes, apprentice?” Lord Gyoroe asked.
He desperately wanted to lash out…but there was no point. He couldn’t win. Through gritted teeth, Turesobei replied, “I'm ready to work, master. But give me one more chance before you start using torture. Please. I’ve had a week of rest. Maybe I can do it now.”
The scarlet and orange dimmed within his eyes. They flickered blue a moment, then purple. “You have one more chance.”
Over the next twenty hours, Turesobei tried, as hard as he could, to connect with the heart stones, thinking on every aspect of sacrifice he could imagine. But that didn’t get him anywhere. In fact, the closer he got to connecting with the stones, the more uncomfortable he became. The stones had been created using the worst sorts of blood magic, and the attempted connections disgusted him.
Intellectually, Turesobei grasped killing someone and using their blood for power, but he couldn’t understand it at a deeper, emotional level. He had never sought power in his life—of any kind. He had power, both political and magical, as his birthright, and he'd gotten a lot more by sacrificing himself when he destroyed the Storm Dragon’s Heart. But self-sacrifice was nowhere within the nature of the heart stones, and understanding it was never going to get him closer to connecting to them.
Taking only a few breaks for tea, he worked all through the night without success.
An hour after dawn, an orange-eyed Blood King said, “It is clear to me that you are getting nowhere. It is time for a little motivation.”
Chapter Sixty
The servants assembled Turesobei’s non-magical companions in a line in the courtyard. Hannya, Motekeru, and Lu Bei looked on anxiously. Kurine immediately headed toward him, but Lord Gyoroe ordered her back.
“Sobei, what's happening?” she asked.
The orange and scarlet-eyed Lord Gyoroe answered.
“Since my apprentice is failing to grasp the higher arts I am teaching, I have prepared a motivational lesson. Turesobei will select one of you, and each day, until he learns how to connect to the heart stones, I will torture that person.”
Expressions of horror rippled across his companions’ faces.
“Apprentice, if you have not decided already, you may take a few moments to think it over. Of course, you could choose not to make a decision, in which case, I will regretfully torture everyone.”
Turesobei swelled with pride as he scanned his companions. Though shock still lingered in their eyes, they stood erect with brave expressions. They were all ready to face the torture, no matter who he chose. But how could he possibly make such a choice?
He couldn't torture his little sister. He just couldn't.
And Zaiporo was still suffering from the loss of his hand.
Awasa was unstable. It had taken several sleep spells from Hannya to get her back in control of her mind after the Fire Realm. Torturing her might be a bad idea.
Iniru was tough, but had she fully recovered from her experience in the Shadowland? He didn't think so.
Kurine was probably the toughest one of them. What she'd done in the Shadowland was nothing short of amazing. She was the obvious choice. Except, though he knew she would understand why, he feared that she would think he didn’t love her enough. And besides, how could he let the Blood King torture his wife?
Of course, if everyone was tortured, he wouldn’t have to make this horrible decision. He wouldn’t have to single anyone out. But then five people would suffer instead of one….
“It is time to decide,” Lord Gyoroe said, “unless you want me to torture everyone.”
It would make things easier if he could rotate the burden between them. “Do I get to select a different one each day?”
“You do not.”
Turesobei groaned. So much for that idea. He looked at each of his friends in turn. A familiar defiance glinted in Iniru's eyes. She was volunteering, and his heart swelled in response. Despite everything, she was amazing. But he wasn’t sure that was a good idea.
Instead, he looked into Awasa’s eyes. She had been inside his mind. She knew, without a doubt, exactly how much she meant to him. And she had proven resilient, despite the madness within her. She could probably handle it. She nodded at him ever so slightly.
Cursing his fate, Turesobei stepped up to Awasa and kissed her on the cheek. “I'm sorry.”
“I understand,” she said bravely.
The Blood King drew the bronze spell strip and cast the spell. Awasa cried out and fell to the ground, shrieking and screaming and moaning pitifully. And even though he’d had no choice, Turesobei knew that it was still his fault. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to run. Most of all, he wanted to kill the Blood King.
Everyone backed away from Awasa’s writhing body. Enashoma stepped into Zaiporo's arms and tucked her face into his shoulder. Obviously, they didn’t want to watch, and they all wanted to leave, but they would never abandon Awasa.
> Motekeru’s fiery eyes were locked on the Blood King. Turesobei had no doubt as to what he was thinking.
After about ten minutes, Awasa began to beg for the pain to stop. That made Turesobei feel even worse. He knelt on the ground nearby. Occasionally, as she convulsed, Awasa’s eyes would meet his. In them he saw nothing but pain.
After what seemed an eternity, Hannya stepped up to the Blood King. “Beloved, it has been half an hour.”
The Blood King’s eyes shifted from orange to violet, then he released the spell.
Whimpering and gasping for breath, Awasa curled into a tight ball. Turesobei reached out to her, but Lord Gyoroe stepped in between them.
“You do not comfort a sacrificial victim. The pain you gave to her was comfort to others. You must live with that. Now come, you have more work to do.”
As Turesobei looked back, he saw Kurine and the others comforting Awasa. He hoped she would be okay. He hoped she would forgive him.
Chapter Sixty-One
As Turesobei knelt in the Inner Sanctum, Lord Gyoroe said, “Get it right, and you will never have to repeat that experience.”
Turesobei spent several minutes trying to focus his mind and calm his emotions, but it was no use. After what Lord Gyoroe had made him do, there was no way he could get himself in the right frame of mind for magical study. Everything inside of him was still reeling.
But if he didn’t do something….
To his mind came the image of Awasa thrashing on the ground…tears streaming from her eyes…moans peeling from her lips. That would happen again, over and over. And eventually, if that didn’t work the Blood King would devise something nastier.
He might even kill someone. He didn’t need the whole team anymore. A jolt of terror raced through Turesobei. That would undoubtably be the next step in teaching him sacrifice. He wouldn’t have to choose someone to be tortured. He’d have to choose someone to die.
In a fit of desperate abandon, Turesobei telepathically and incoherently screamed his rage at both the active heart stones he had acquired from the realms and the passive ones that had always resided in the Nexus. Since the Autumn stones had always seemed more sympathetic to him, he instinctively targeted them.
Normally, all the stones ignored him. This time, however, the passive cylinder for Autumn responded. It wasn’t a deep connection. It was merely the psychic equivalent of bowing to one another upon meeting. But even that startled Turesobei so much that he unintentionally broke off the connection.
Lord Gyoroe raised an eyebrow. “Problem?”
Turesobei shook his head. “I almost had it.”
“Try again.”
Maintaining his angry frustration, he attempted to connect to just the active stone…but got nothing. Next he attempted just the passive cylinder. A response came through, a very weak one, and he couldn’t manage anything deeper. Finally Turesobei tried to connect with the heart stones of the Spring Realm. Only the passive cylinder responded, and the connection faded out after a few moments.
He sank back, catching his breath, and considered how the passive stones had responded to him while the active stones had not.
“Did you use the same kind of sacrifice for each cylinder in a pair?”
“I did not,” Lord Gyoroe replied. “The cylinders with passive polarity were created by sacrificing willing followers. The active heart stones were created through forced blood sacrifices. Does that help you in some way?”
“It might,” Turesobei responded curtly. He couldn’t look at the Blood King. He was still too angry for that. “Right now, only the passive cylinders are responding to me.”
“I do not see why it would matter, but I am pleased that you are finally having some success.”
Why would the passive stones respond to him now when they wouldn’t just hours ago? What had changed? It wasn’t his effort, and it certainly wasn’t his focus, which was still shaken.
“Master, when you say the passive stones were created through the sacrifice of willing followers, did you select them or did they volunteer?”
“I did not need all of the many who volunteered, so I selected those I deemed most appropriate.”
Turesobei nodded. That explained it. Those stones had been created in a manner that was similar to Turesobei selecting Awasa, although the intentions were obviously different.
Turesobei took a deep breath. While trying to suppress the revulsion he still felt about selecting Awasa, Turesobei thought about their last battle in the Fire Realm. What if all of his friends had volunteered to dive down into the lava pool on what was certain to be a suicide mission? And then, what if he had chosen one of them?
Pretending he was the kind of person who could make such a choice, he imagined nominating them, one by one, to dive down into the lava pool, until the mission was completed, even though he knew the attempt would kill them. It wasn’t easy to imagine his friends and lovers dying that way, but he tried hard to do so, and without thinking of it as nothing more than simple murder.
Before he could even attempt to reach out to the Autumn stones, the passive one unexpectedly opened up to him. A deep telepathic bond easily, and disturbingly, formed between him and the Autumn heart stone.
And though he knew it couldn’t have a mind of its own, he would’ve sworn there was an alien consciousness buried deep within that passive cylinder.
Turesobei steeled his courage. Now he had to take that connection deeper and truly bond with the stone. It was no different than connecting telepathically to Awasa or Hannya—at least, that’s what he tried to convince himself.
He opened his mind to the passive Autumn heart stone and sent a trickle of his own kenja toward it.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Almost instantly, his consciousness expanded…beyond the room…then beyond the Nexus itself. While his tiny, fragile body remained kneeling on the floor of the Inner Sanctum, his mind floated free, adrift in the time stream, looking down upon all the realms, not just Autumn.
Connections swiftly formed between himself and the other passive stones. With each new connection, his mind journeyed through the corresponding realm. Hours passed…days…weeks, maybe even months, as he became a storm raging across the Summer Realm…a panther prowling through the Realm of Forests, stalking its prey…a drift of snow blowing across the Ancient Cold and Deep…a quake shaking the mountains of the Fire Realm…a brisk wind rattling rust-colored leaves from the trees of the Land Ever Dying…a green shoot bursting from the rich soil of the Spring Realm…a geyser projecting steam up into the sky of the Realm of Clouds…and a languid wave caressing a rocky coastline in the Sea Realm.
The power coursing through him was intoxicating, and he had no desire to be free of it. He was content to live out his entire life, perhaps all eternity, in this state.
A hand touched his shoulder, yanking his consciousness back into his body—in the present—in the Nexus.
Turesobei cried out as every nerve in his body was alight with energy. He gasped for breath, staring at the Blood King.
“How…how much time…has passed?”
“An hour, perhaps two.”
“That's all?!”
“Indeed, it is.”
“But…that can’t be. I could feel days passing as nothing more than heartbeats.”
“Amazing, is it not?” Lord Gyoroe said, grinning. “Remember, perception is always a complex matter. Just because you consciously experience the passage of time, that does not mean time has actually passed for you here.”
Numbly, Turesobei nodded in agreement as he tried to make sense of it all.
The Blood King’s eyes shifted from emerald to orange. “I knew you simply needed proper motivation.” Then they changed to palest blue. “Go have some dinner and rest. Tomorrow morning, we will seek out our origins.”
“Wait, don't you need me to connect with all of the heart stones?”
“Connecting with the passive stones is sufficient. Besides, I do not think you have it in you to
take on the active ones.”
“I still don't understand how this helps.”
“I have explained this several times now. Either you do not believe me, or you simply cannot understand.”
“I paid attention, master. But I want to be certain I understand. I don’t want to mess anything up.”
Lord Gyoroe’s eyes shifted to emeralds as he lectured. “I need more than massive amounts of kenja to assure my success. I need your willpower and consciousness with me as I ghost backward in time to observe our origins. Not only will that make it so that you can provide a critical boost of energy exactly when it is most needed, but having the strength of two minds along on the journey should amplify the distance we can ghost back through time. Plus, it will increase the clarity of what we see.”
“And Hannya cannot perform that role because she is not good at teleporting like I am.”
“Correct. But her role is no less important to our success. She will sustain our bodies, provide additional energy, and anchor us to the present.”
Turesobei didn’t want to consider what would happen if Hannya capriciously decided to stop anchoring them halfway through the attempt. He looked back to the heart stones, and a spark of fear flickered through him.
“I'm not sure I'll be able to do this again tomorrow. Can we make the attempt now—while I'm confident I can do my part?”
Lord Gyoroe nodded appreciatively. “Very well. Give me half an hour to prepare.”
Chapter Sixty-Three
Hannya entered the Inner Sanctum, snapping Turesobei out of the meditative state he’d entered, a state he’d chosen because it kept him from thinking about the alien heart stones or Awasa being tortured. Lord Gyoroe still hadn’t returned.
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