I cringed at the volume of his voice. “I try not to go around announcing that.”
“No one would believe it anyway. Not looking at you. When the spell took your father, his skin toughened. He lost his hair. You’ve had none of that.”
“Not yet.”
“Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe you’re not changing.”
“I know that’s what you want. But the crown was created for a specific purpose…” I paused as a young servant boy in the hall scurried by, “to split off the magical abilities of our race into separate lines. That first spell was woven into the auras when they were joined. It makes sense the same thing was done when the eldring spell was crafted. Every time my father accessed the crown’s magic, the residue of that eldring spell leaked out and changed him. Same with me. I’m sorry, Nef’taali, but it is happening.”
“Then why can’t we see it? Why instead do you keeping feeling like them. And you pulled the crown’s power out of Jem almost three years ago. Why is he still changing?”
“I’m guessing, once the transformation reaches a certain point, there’s no stopping it. His course is already set.”
A thoughtful air settled on Jarryd’s battered face as we rounded the corner and headed down another empty hall. “But the original spell hasn’t affected you. Couldn’t it strip your erudite abilities? That’s what it was created for.”
“Maybe the eldring spell is overriding it. But the working that divided the lines and created the crown still exists. And if Jem recovers the remaining two tablets, he’ll know how to shape it. He’ll be able to use that original spell to repower the crown. Or, if he was telling the truth back in the empire, he can return what the First Ones took and make us all erudite.”
“A city full of erudite bent to his will? That’s scary.”
“It’s all scary.”
“I get your father wanting revenge against the other races. Frankly, I’m surprised more Shinree don’t feel the need. But if Jem’s trying to re-establish your people as the prevailing leaders of Mirra’kelan, would he really diminish the magic of his own subjects to power the crown?”
“Look at the First Ones. They feared losing their reign so badly, they created the crown to control the population and retain their supremacy.”
We came out of the corridor at the head of the expansive main staircase. The sleek banister and the spiral-carved spindles attached to it flanked both sides. Running my hand over the polished, wooden railing, I started down the wide, stone steps. Jarryd fell in beside me.
“They were tyrants,” he said, “just like Draken.”
“Yes, but with different motives. Draken is narcissistic to the core. The First Ones believed their actions were for the good of all Shinree. My father’s belief in his vision is equally strong. He was convinced binding souls with Draken would teach him kingship, that an alliance with Langor would bolster our standing as a race. But taking on Draken’s madness corrupted his thoughts, his purpose.”
“He had to know it would happen. You can’t share someone’s insanity and not expect it to alter you.”
“I don’t think Jem comprehended how profoundly it would change him. I’m not sure he even realizes it did. But between Draken’s influence, and Jem’s trips to the past, he considers himself deserving of control. If he makes the rest of us less, he can be more.”
“Weaken those he chooses and empower the rest.” Jarryd nodded in thought. “You know there’s only two ways to go from here.” He was good at cutting to the chase, so I let him. “My personal favorite: let Draken and Jem go at each other and clean up what’s left.”
It was an opinion he’d voiced before. I gave him the same argument as last time. “Langor is in political shambles. Letting them fight would be a swift, one-sided battle not in our favor.”
“Unless you give the Langorians what they want, what they need to fight back. Not much can stand up to a Langorian army when it’s motivated.” Jarryd paused, making sure he had my attention. “Draken has to get out of that bed, Ian. He has to lead his army.”
I lost a step. “You can’t be serious. You, of all people, want me to heal Draken?”
“Gods no. I want you to use a glamour spell and put on Draken’s face.”
My laugh was loud.
Jarryd raised his voice above it. “Your father knows the state of the realms. He isn’t expecting much of a resistance. If you can muster one by posing as Draken, you can push back Jem’s troops long enough to publically hand over the throne to Malaq or Jillyan—or whoever the hell wants the damn thing. Make a big show of it. Make sure no one can question the change in power. Then you step back, Draken quietly disappears, and Langor’s new ruler can kick their troops in the ass however they see fit.”
“That’s…” My amusement died slowly. “Good. Smart. Shrewd.”
“Thanks,” he grinned. “Must be the company I’m keeping.”
He didn’t mean me. My attention had been severely divided lately, and not a lot of it had been given to Jarryd. I hadn’t been rifling through his memories when they came through, either. We’d both been storing away our exchanges in an effort to pretend some sort of discretion. Now, as I reviewed what had been sitting inside me for weeks, I found what he was referring to.
Surprise widened my eyes. “You’ve been playing dice with Krillos and his men? And Jillyan? And that Shinree boy? You’re teaching Gallus how to gamble?”
Jarryd tried not laugh as he defended himself. “Sienn told me to practice picking up small objects. She said it would help rebuild the strength in my fingers.”
Reaching the next floor, I raised a brow. “And you took that to mean dice?”
“Actually, Krillos took it to mean dice. But he managed to get a hold of some ale from those Arullan ships—”
“Something tells me they didn’t just hand it over.”
“I didn’t ask. And after four or five mugs I stopped arguing about the game. Betting with pebbles takes some excitement out of it, but as worked up as that damn pirate gets when he wins, you’d think he was scooping up gold. Anyway, we’ve been throwing around some ideas, trying to find a way to get this done before Jem kills us all.”
“So, you’re mixing with Langorians, discussing military strategy, the history of Shinree magic, and…” Skimming a few more of his memories, I laughed, “Langorian politics? That is one hell of a highbrow dice game, my friend.”
Jarryd chuckled in agreement. As the sound dissolved, a change came over him. Sober intent wafted across the link. “I want him after. If you do it, if you take Draken’s image, when you’re done, I want him.”
I didn’t like the way he’d said that. Or the calm that was in him as he did. “You want him for what, torture?”
“Yes.”
A chill ran across my back. “You’re angry, hurt. I get that. But this isn’t you.”
“And that’s the problem. If this was me, if I’d been more like this all along, I wouldn’t have ended up in prison. I could have kept Jem from taking Lirih. Maybe Neela would never have married Draken. Maybe King Raynan would still be alive.”
Running a hand over my face, I tried to think of a way to say it that would have an impact. “Torture isn’t battle, Nef’taali. It’s a road to somewhere you don’t want to go.”
“You’re wrong. It’s a path to retribution.”
I yanked Jarryd to a fast stop. “It’s sadistic, self-serving brutality and nothing more.”
“You think I care?” I could feel that he didn’t. “You know better than to pull this shit with me, Ian. I have your memories. I know how badly you want to hurt Draken. How you want to hear him scream. He haunted your dreams. Abused you in prison. You want him to suffer. Give him to me, and I promise he will.”
I felt sick. I let go and Jarryd resumed his descent. His pace was hurried. His boots struck the stones stairs with initiative. Mine,
as I started after him a moment later, slid slow and thoughtful off each step as his words sunk deeply in.
My desires against Draken were no secret to anyone. Certainly, not to the one man who knew all the dark spots on my soul. Jarryd knew every wrong I’d committed. Every violent indulgence I’d been given to. But my inclinations weren’t the issue. The real question was: did I have a right to deny Jarryd the very thing I wanted? After what he’d been through, I wasn’t sure protecting him from such wicked things—from anything—was possible anymore.
But I had to try. I’m part of the reason he’s like this. A big part.
One of the scrolls I read recently indicated the importance of spending the first few months of a binding together. It was a transition period as delicate as the initial shaping of a young child’s mind. But the ‘youth’ of our bond had been spent in prison being shaped by deprivation and torture. I was Shinree. My mind was at least built for the process. His wasn’t.
It’s not too late, I thought. It can’t be.
When this is all over, Nef’taali, I can fix this. I can fix you.
Continuing on, I pushed my concerns away before Jarryd identified them. He wasn’t in the mood to listen to my observations on his character. Neither was it the time to have us at odds.
Jarryd was waiting for me at the bottom of the steps. Behind him, a slender table ran along the wall. I imagined its surface once held whatever ornamental items were in pieces on the floor. Only four eldring had made it into the castle. But the beasts weren’t exactly known for treading carefully.
Leaning back against the table, Jarryd crossed ankles and arms. The position reminded me of Malaq, and the moment of his injury replayed in my mind. It wasn’t the first time. I’d relived the instant Malaq lost his eye more than once since waking from my spell. Each time, I was left with the same pinch of guilt tightening my stomach, and the same haunting truth.
If I hadn’t been there, if I hadn’t slipped up and Malaq hadn’t come to aid me—if I hadn’t distracted him—he wouldn’t have missed the eldring running at him. He would have avoided the attack. He would still have his eye and not be lying upstairs with four bloody gouges carved into his face.
But had I merely failed to stop what Fate set in motion? Or had I caused it?
Had my attempt to meddle, my paranoia and fear of seeing my terrible vision come to life, made things worse? Was it arrogant to think I could alter a future that Mirra’kelan seemed to be hurdling toward faster and faster?
But Sienn is alive, I thought, clinging to what was not a small victory. I’d also stopped the eldring before they emptied the island of Shinree. My father would not get his full shipment of cattle.
Yet it wasn’t enough.
Returning again to my unpleasant conversation with future-Malaq, I went over the details, trying to remember what happened right after the eldring raid. Who died next?
Jarryd’s voice ripped me back to the present. “I mentioned two ways to handle this.”
“You did.” I smiled, though I hoped his next idea was less disturbing than impersonating Draken. Jarryd’s plan was cunning. But a level of intimacy came with ‘wearing’ another person’s form. In the time it takes for their essence to merge with yours, you are them. I didn’t want to ever be that close to Draken. Still, I leaned an arm on the banister and buried my reluctance. “Let’s hear it.”
“When Jillyan was conducting her excavation of the ruins, she recovered scrolls, tomes, journals, scraps of rune covered pottery. Your father took over and has unearthed actual buildings from the old empire. If the tablets were in the city when the quake hit, it stands to reason at least some small piece would have been uncovered…unless the tablets were never there.”
Considering it, I nodded as I thought back. “There’s a passage where Tam was contacted by a man claiming to know the tablets’ whereabouts. I haven’t had a chance to read past there, but Jem had been Emperor almost a year at that point. So there can’t be many entries left, but,” I spoke faster as his suggestion gained credence, “if this man had the tablets hidden outside the city, maybe the quake hit before he had a chance to bring them in.”
“Exactly what I was thinking. But hidden where?”
“No idea. My ancestors claimed a lot of ground. But if we’re right, then Jem’s been searching in the wrong place. Everything he’s done—popping in and out of Tam’s life, killing the man’s youngest son, torturing his own—has been for nothing.”
“I can’t imagine what Tam went through. Being invaded, waking up and not knowing what you did the day before. No wonder history paints him as irrational.”
“It definitely affected him. Those pages are full of his obsession with finding ways to keep his ‘visitor’ out. Late in his reign Tam claimed to have perfected a brew that…” the words caught in my throat. Pieces fell into place. “The brew was keeping Jem out. He couldn’t be Tam anymore.”
Jarryd did a double take. “I’m not following.”
“Back in the empire, Jem was fishing for information about the journal. He wants it back. Now I know why. He wants to make that meeting, but he can’t. Not as Tam. But if he had the specifics, say a journal entry detailing time and place, maybe a name… All Jem has to do is inhabit someone else, one of our other ancestors, then find the man with the tablets and waylay him.”
“And we know just how Jem would coax the information out of the poor bastard,” Jarryd frowned. “You need to finish reading and find out who Tam was planning to meet.”
“So that’s your plan number two, going back again to hunt for the tablets? My last trip ended with my host dying and me being lost in a spell for weeks. I’m not anxious for a repeat.”
“But you have the journal. You have information your father doesn’t.”
“Even so, Malaq wouldn’t appreciate me disappearing right now.”
His blue eyes narrowed. “This has nothing to do with Malaq.”
I hesitated before replying. I’d already decided not to drag Jarryd along on my next attempt to infiltrate Jem’s city. But after his talk of Draken, I was even more worried about leaving him alone. “I’m going back tomorrow. I think I have a way in. A few of Jem’s men were taken prisoner today. Borrowing the likeness of one should get me past the wall and give me access to wherever Lirih’s being held.”
“I like it. We’ll go in the morning. In the meantime, you have plenty of hours to return to the empire and find Tam’s contact before Jem does.” Jarryd offered a grin. “We could have this whole war wrapped up in a day.”
Neither of us believed that. “You’re assuming I can even go back. If Tam was drinking obsidian to keep my father out, he might have given it to his sons, too.”
“Okay, but wouldn’t that stop Jem from occupying them as well?”
“It would. But it’s a safe bet that my father knows more names in our ancestral line than I do. All he has to do is pick another.”
Jarryd’s nose crinkled. “Drinking obsidian…? Gods that’s foul.”
“I’m sure. The recipe is mostly powdered stone and some boiled herbs. But according to Tam’s notes, consuming a steady regimen keeps an oracle spell from latching on. Apparently, obsidian shields the inside as well as the out.”
We looked at each other. I didn’t need the link to know Jarryd’s thoughts mirrored my own: I had far more obsidian in me than Tam could ever drink.
“Huh,” he said. “I always wondered why Jem didn’t occupy you like he did Tam. I guess the obsidian the crown put inside you wouldn’t let him.”
“Jem saw into my future once, before I was born. Lirih saw through me, but when I was younger, before I ever touched the Crown of Stones.” I shook my head in amazement. “For years, I cursed Fate for putting these damn marks in my hair. And all along, they might have been protecting me.”
“Well, that’s one mystery solved.” Jarryd gave his one shoul
dered shrug and moved on. “Think you can you do the oracle spell without waking the crown?”
“Probably. Maybe. I don’t know.” My own uncertainty irked me more than his insistence. “I’m still not convinced I want to risk losing the time.”
“You won’t. Sienn can guide you through the spell.”
“Guess you and your gambling buddies have it all worked out.”
Jarryd pushed off the table to stand in front of me. “I know it’s not ideal. Lirih’s absence pulls on you. You hate having this power and not being able to use it. You feel hamstrung. Ineffective.” He made a face at the annoyed look on mine. “Get pissed if you like. But I’m right. As long as you’re worried about these scars, you can’t fight the way you were meant to. So when things get bad, and they will—maybe as soon as tomorrow—because if we actually make it past the wall, Jem won’t just let us back out. And when he doesn’t, you’ll stop worrying about the scars. You’ll cast. The spell will advance. And I’ll be left sharing souls with an eldring.”
“That’s not funny.”
“No kidding. That’s why you need to figure out how to get that damn power out. Stop being a walking volcano waiting for a chance to blow. Then we get Lirih, we take Langor and your father’s new empire. Malaq can sit on his throne and make as many peace accords as he wants.”
I ran an angry hand through my hair. Jarryd’s argument was annoyingly valid, as most of them were. “Okay.” I dropped my hand and blew out an exasperated breath. “I’ll go back to the empire tonight and see what I can find out.” I eyed the exit down the hall. The doors were flanked by two Rellan Guardsmen, stony and frozen. “I told Elayna I’d fetch Sienn. Can you check on those prisoners? See if any of them are healthy enough to wear?”
“Sure.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “I want Lirih back, too. Ian. But I want you in one piece when it’s done. I’ll meet you back at the caves?”
I nodded in agreement and started for the door. The men guarding it watched me approach. They worked hard at staring me down for nearly a minute. Then their less than formidable expressions shifted off me at a sudden noise filtering in from the hall beyond the staircase: the steady rhythm of boots on stone. The steps were numerous and perfectly synchronized.
The Crown of Stones: Magic-Borne Page 11