Groggy, sprawled out across the length of the beast, the feel of his tusk scraping the side of my neck got me moving. I chopped at the arms trying to come around me. Steel bit into hide, fur, and then bone. Howls of his agony filled my ears. His teeth gnashed at the back of my head. Feeling the white hot pain of penetration, I escaped the beast’s thrashing grasp, shifted my weight, and pushed a blade through his neck. Blood overflowed the hole. A smaller stream left the puncture wound on the back of my head.
Someone called my name. I looked up and Malaq was on approach. Having seen me go down, he was coming to my aid. His gray eyes were locked on me. He didn’t see the eldring running in from the side.
I cried out a warning. It went unheard. And the beast rammed into Malaq.
Shooting to my feet, I watched Natalia fly from his hand. The sword dropped to the sand a moment before he did. The eldring’s arm drew back. His claws came down on Malaq’s position. But too many obstacles were in between. I couldn’t see where the talons made contact, just the resulting spray of red.
I shouldered my way forward, slicing through everything in my path. Krillos was coming in fast from the other direction. The anguish carved into his scarred face and the ferocity of his strikes, said I wasn’t the only one who’d witnessed Malaq’s fall.
Releasing a growl, I threw aside the last body between us. I managed a split second glimpse of Malaq’s face soaked in blood. Then Krillos dropped beside him and blocked my view.
The clamor seemed to ease for a breath. In the hush, I heard Krillos issue a relieved gasp. Alive, I thought.
But that only meant one thing. It happened exactly like my vision said.
I’d changed nothing.
I took a step toward Malaq. Krillos looked up to meet my eyes. His went wide. He shouted, “Down!” and I dived to the wet sand. Driving my sword up, I pierced the extended arm of the beast above me. Startled, he lurched past, and I hacked into his backward knees. My strikes were merciless. Three dropped him to my level. The eldring collapsed beside me, and I seized his furry head, brought my blade down hard, and severed it. Hearing movement, I rose and swung the head in my hand—cords dangling, tapped blood flying in a wide arc—and smacked it across the face of the eldring leaping at me. Tusks cracked and went sailing. Krillos vaulted onto the beast’s back. He plunged his sword into its neck and rode the limp body to the ground.
Countless more were on the beach. But with the immediate threat extinguished, we had a moment. I used it without trepidation. “Order a retreat.”
Panting, his body soaked in gore, Krillos glared at me. “What?”
“Signal a withdrawal. All they want is the Shinree.” With a disgusted look at the eldring head still in my grip, I tossed it, and gestured at the caves behind him. “The eldring won’t leave until they have what they came for. And if you keep standing in their way, they’ll keep killing you. It’s bordering on a bloodbath now, Krillos. Order a retreat.”
“This isn’t your call.”
“My magic, my call.”
Krillos quelled his reply with grinding teeth. But the indignation on his scarred face hit me just right, and I wanted him to argue. I wanted an excuse to tear into him—with magic, with claws I didn’t have. The pulse pounding at his neck drew my eyes.
The crunch of sand under so many feet was deafening.
No… Not now. Not here, I thought, struggling to ignore my escalating senses.
The stench of blood I was wading in was too strong. It was stifling. Paralyzing.
“You don’t have to,” Krillos said, and his words dimmed the aroma. The worry in his eyes blocked out the rest. He knew casting a spell this large would almost certainly earn me more scars. But while his concern and friendship was appreciated, I couldn’t stand by and do nothing.
“I’m not going to let them take my people.” I grabbed one of the many Rellan soldiers swooping in to protect the King. My hold on his arm was fierce, my tone more so. “Do you know the face of the King’s sister, Jillyan?”
The young man cringed, like he wholeheartedly believed whatever stories came with the wanted posters hanging in the city taverns. But with Krillos at my side, and authority in my voice, he bent. “Yes, I know her.”
“Then find her. Knock her out and carry her if you have to, but get her and everyone else off this beach” I released him and he ran.
Soldiers lifted an unconscious Malaq up from the ground. As Krillos fled with them, he shot me a strange glance. I knew he was wondering why I’d given Malaq no attention. But I had no time to explain, to confess that when I told Krillos of my six year trip into Kabri’s future, I’d glossed over the details. I hadn’t told him eldring claws had cut down one side of Malaq’s face and taken his eye. Or that Sienn would fall before she had time to fix it. I hadn’t told Krillos his own end was coming when my father executed him and Jillyan on his city wall, or that Jarryd’s came shortly after.
For weeks, I’d tried to set it aside, to convince myself it was as logic dictated: just a vision. But the future I’d vowed so desperately to prevent was happening now.
I turned to watch the Rellan troops pulling out. Their absence, laying bare the depth of the massacre, revealed a beach strewn with torn flesh, severed limbs, and scattered organs. A few eldring had squatted to feast, gnawing on broken bones and handfuls of entrails. Most simply stood and watched the Rellans depart. The parameters of their mission had clearly been ingrained by my father: fight only those that fought back.
With one side of the conflict gone, the heavy air stilled. The creatures came together, regrouping as any army would. Some stragglers spotted me. Their reaction was unmistakable. One lone man stood between them and their target, and what to do with me, was bouncing around in their collective mind. As the thought rose in importance, more eldring turned my way. One after another, they came to a sudden halt. Keen noses twitched, appraising me. Heads tilted in thought as memories were surveyed. Recognition came in the form of grinding, snapping jaws; a threat I had no intention of heeding. Realizing this, the whole lot of them dropped to all fours. Powerful legs lifted and fell in unison as they crept forward in a deliberate, confident prowl.
I’d faced packs of eldring before, but this was a herd. No matter my resolute stance, or the knowledge that I was armed with the Crown of Stones, watching hundreds of slobbering predators capable of stripping the meat from my bones slinking toward me, was scary as hell.
Fully aware how acutely they smelled fear, I did my best to shed the emotion and hold my ground. My hope was to appeal to their sense of survival. The eldring understood my intent (if not my words). I hoped my recent dive into their minds would grant me a decent shot of convincing them to turn back. They had a good deal of what they came for, anyway. A number of full longboats were already in the water, making their way to the bobbing ships. If I could reach the eldring mind, no more men or beasts had to die.
I sheathed my sword. I kept my breathing steady and made no threatening moves. A few licked their lips in a disturbing manner, but many had their heads cocked to the side like I confused them. They didn’t understand what they once were. They couldn’t grasp that I was becoming like them. They only knew I was different. I’d touched their minds. I saw them in a way no one else did.
That has to mean something.
Their curiosity grew as they drew closer. I made eye contact with several of the beasts and they responded with the repetitious, throaty sounds of their language. The noises rippled back through the herd as they swarmed around me. A new layer of sweat broke on my skin, but I kept position. Yielding to my developing, animal-like perceptions, I allowed myself to sense the eldring as acutely as they sensed me. I felt the heat radiating off their stained pelts. I smelled the carrion on their breath and the salt on their fur. Air rushed through their lungs faster than the winter winds in Langor. Their hearts beat with intensity. It was a strong rhythm that exuded ass
urance and anticipation.
I chose my first words, something I hoped might grab their attention. I opened my mouth to speak—and the entire herd broke into a run. They weren’t afraid. They weren’t attacking. It was more like they didn’t see me, like they were told to ignore me. Their charge, as they sped by, mere inches away, was full of power. Innumerable clawed hands and feet churned up the blood-soaked pebbly ground into a thick cloud. Not a single eldring touched me. I still had to fight to keep to my feet from the sheer force of the stampede.
The front of the herd hit the base of the mountain. The mass of bodies ascended incredibly fast, crawling up the rocks, crawling over each other. Making out individual forms became impossible. The eldring were an enormous rolling, dark wave ascending the slope. Those who lost footing bounced off, hit the ground, and didn’t get back up. The rest didn’t hesitate. They gave no thought to the dead or their potential for joining them.
As the edge of the wave poured into the cave mouth, I shut my link to Jarryd, and pulled in all I had. My sense of the eldring vanished. There was merely the frigid fire in my veins and the pain of too much pleasure nipping at my nerves. Color swirled in my eyes and bled up through my skin. Auras fused and whipped, rotating and blossoming like a building storm. They begged for dominion and I gave it. I released my grip on the reins for the first time since the raid on our camp, and I did so eagerly. Bowing to magic’s might, forfeiting my discipline and control. Surrendering to the swirling upsurge of vibrant energy; I languished in its embrace, trying to recall when I’d last channeled freely. When I’d last permitted myself such relief, letting the pangs of hunger and restraint drown beneath the hot, wet kiss of magic snaking over my skin.
The sensation flicked at my thoughts, brushing them away, making it hard to remember anything, let alone how long I’d been living in my prison of deprivation.
It felt like forever.
The notion of my reward, of my impending satisfaction, quickened my breath as I stared up at the ridge. Eldring had already made it inside. I had no idea how many.
With a prayer that I wasn’t too late, I made my wishes clear as I expelled the crown’s magic. It left me in a long, sensual rush. Color burst from my skin and claimed my eyes. Rapture seized my body. Gratification drove me to my knees. A swell of auras remained behind, rippling over me, healing the damage my body had sustained in the fight. My existing scars prickled with heat as a fresh set scored into the flesh of my back and left leg. I cried out as they curled and burned, snaking their way across my skin.
My sight resumed. Weakness kept me down, winded and kneeling on the sand, watching the auras I’d released spin over the eldring in a tempest of throbbing, misty hues. As the magical whirlwind dissipated, like smoke thinned by a stiff breeze, it took fur and hide with it, stripping the eldring down to meat. Muscles, veins, and organs wilted. Bones weakened, separated, and dissolved into ash. One by one, those dead on the beach, those scaling the mountainside—all the invading eldring on Kabri, living and dead—returned to the land, reverting to the forms from which they’d been so selfishly resurrected.
Their dust blew serenely around me in the breeze. It was likely the closest thing to peace many of them had ever known.
TWELVE
Elayna pushed up from Malaq’s bedside. Exhaustion stilted her movements. Her normal waves hung limp. Face drawn, it brightened some with expectation at noticing I’d entered the room. Leaving the trellised sleeping area, she passed the smoldering hearth and the set of rich mahogany chairs that ringed the flames. As she walked in front of the metal-framed mirror that spanned half the wall, Elayna caught a glimpse of herself in the glass. She paused, squinting at the old blood smeared across the worry lines on her forehead. I thought she might rub the red away, but instead she resumed her approach with renewed purpose.
We met in the center of the room. The demand in her voice was clear. “He’s getting worse. Where is she?”
“She’ll be here soon,” I promised. “Sienn was one of the few healers to survive the attack.” Thank the gods. “She’s stretched thin.”
“And what of you? I know erudite can heal.”
“I don’t have the skill for a wound like this. Not without employing the crown or a drastic spell. And the last thing Malaq wants is to swap souls with me.”
“Not even temporarily? Not even to save his life?”
“The bleeding has stopped. He’ll be all right.”
“All right? Have you looked at him?” She knew I hadn’t. “He lost an eye, Ian.”
“But not his life. Malaq is fit and healthy. He will endure.”
“And what of those beyond help? Do we even have a number yet? Suffering so many casualties, when we need every man...” Her hands went to her hair. She pushed the errant strands back with a slow, frustrated tug, as if needing to clench her fists on something.
“Chances are some of your casualties were my doing, not theirs. It wasn’t exactly a small spell.” I declined to say more. Elayna understood the price of my magic. But she didn’t need to know the scars it cost me. Nor that reversing my father’s complex resurrection spell had been disturbingly easy, almost intuitive. “You’re anxious,” I said, laying a momentary hand on her arm. “It’s understandable. You have strong feelings for Malaq.”
“I never intended to.” Elayna’s attention drifted to the far wall where Jarryd stood talking quietly with Jillyan. “When I left Darkhorne, I thought I left my heart behind in that cell. Those first days out were so hard. I couldn’t breathe. Jarryd filled my thoughts, my nightmares. I would never have agreed to marry if not for the life growing inside me. I couldn’t let it be born in Langor, even if it meant leaving Jarryd behind.” Elayna shook her head. Melancholy glazed her eyes. “I thought what I felt for him was love. But after a time, I realized it was…”
“Need,” I guessed. “I know it well.”
“As do I now.”
“You and Jarryd became essential for each other’s survival. You needed each other to keep going. Once something like that is engrained in you, it’s hard to shake.”
“I didn’t want to shake it. Not at first. I didn’t want to betray what we had.” Elayna crossed her arms. Abruptly uncrossing them, she shoved up her long, flowing sleeves with an agitated breath. “I tried not to care for Malaq Roarke.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “Me too.”
A grin broke through her distress. She grabbed my hands and squeezed them. “Go to Sienn. Tell her to hurry. Please? In this moment, I’m finding time to be much heavier than a sword.”
Elayna left me and returned to Malaq’s side. As she sat on the edge of the bed, I recalled my own long ago vigil over Malaq’s ailing form. Most of it was a blur. I hadn’t been in the best shape after taking both our lives in an attempt to save him from my father’s shadow spell. I’d been so unsure of my magic then. Not understanding I was an erudite, only that my abilities were changing. I’d been casting on instinct and prayer; afraid of what might happen if I embraced what was in me. Now, I knew exactly what would happen.
And I should be more afraid than I am.
Jillyan’s hand rested on my shoulder. “I will stay with him.”
“Shouldn’t you get back to the caves?”
“Something tells me, after today, our little group is no longer in hiding. Besides, you need rest. There are empty rooms nearby. I can wake you if his condition changes.”
“I passed out for a while after killing the eldring, Jillyan. I’m fine.”
“Lapsing into unconsciousness after a spell is not sleep.”
“I said I’m fine.”
She dropped her hand. “Of course.”
“I’m sorry.” I turned to look at her. Jillyan had yet to clean up from the battle. Her leather breeches were torn. Her bodice was stained. Dirt and blood covered nearly every inch of her. She was beautiful. “You need a bath.”
“I’m not the only one,” she said, brushing sand off my cheek. “Join me? There must be at least one new scar hidden under all that bothersome clothing. We can find it together.”
Jillyan was shameless, but effective; as the smile she’d been after crept out of me. “Later. Krillos is organizing men to clear the streets.”
“You may have stopped the eldring, but enemy soldiers might still be on the island.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“I’m not concerned with your well-being, Shinree. Only with the mess you leave behind in your wake.” Jillyan took her sly grin and went to join her sister-in-law by the bed.
On my way out I grabbed Jarryd and brought him with me. We walked a few steps down the hall before I spoke. “You okay?”
We walked a few more before he answered. “I’ll live.”
It was a cavalier reply, but Jarryd knew my query wasn’t about cuts and bruises. It wasn’t even about Elayna. Though he’d spent little time in her presence, their interactions were at least polite, if not poignant. I was more concerned how this was our first time in the castle since Neela’s funeral, and we’d both overheard Elayna with her maid: Jarryd’s infant son was on this very floor. The conflict that knowledge sparked in him was palpable.
Did he indulge and see the child? Did he stay true to his convictions and walk out the door? The ramifications of both scenarios were eating away at him. Being able to sense my feelings on the matter wasn’t helping, either. My daughter was grown by the time we met. I couldn’t help but think Jarryd was throwing away a gift I never had.
“So what’s next?” he said, shoving aside his dilemma and redirecting us both. “Your father came damn close to emptying the island of Shinree. He’s about to march on Langor and Draken can’t oppose him because there’s a perpetual, rotting hole in his chest. You can’t oppose him, or you’ll turn into an eldring faster than you are.”
The Crown of Stones: Magic-Borne Page 10