A slender man in the crowd stepped forward. Dressed as a manservant, he had at least ten years on me. “Are we being punished because of you? Because of something you did?”
I stiffened. “You’re being punished because of what you are. Just like me.”
“But you did something, out there, in the fight. What did you cast?”
“Nothing you’ve seen before.”
“I know magic,” he bristled. “My grandfather was a soldier.”
“Really?”
“Not pure, like you. But he had the blood.”
“Then so do you. When did you come off the Kayn’l?”
His round chin tightened. “I didn’t come off it.”
I studied him closer. “But you’re lucid.”
“My master is a good man. He treats me well. He’s promised I’ll always have a home as long as I work hard. So I take a little every day to stop the magic, but not enough to steal my mind. All he asks in return is my service.”
That’s different. I wasn’t aware of owners making deals with their slaves. “But he still owns you. That’s not freedom. And even small amounts of Kayn’l can cloud your senses.”
“I am how I have always been,” he shrugged. “And it’s better than the alternative.” The man’s right hand slid inside his trouser pocket. “We know who you are. What they say you can do.”
“And?”
“Most of us left in Kabri are like me. We are…comfortable. We don’t crave independence. And we don’t want to be part of this war.” He inched closer. “We hear your father is taking our kind and forcing us to fight?”
“That’s right.”
“Can you stop him?”
“I’m working on it.”
The man pulled a small vial of dark liquid out of his pocket. “I only have enough for another day. Do you think they will release us soon? I don’t want the sickness.” His wary gaze roamed over the magic-scars painting my body. “I don’t want to look like you. None of us do.”
“I don’t want to look like me, either. What’s your name?”
“Alton.”
“How many spells have you cast, Alton?”
“None. I have no interest in being a murderer.”
“You don’t have to be. There are ways to lessen the risk. Ways to control it if you try.”
“I’m not a fool. You can’t stop the magic once you let it into your blood.”
It’s already there. “You’re missing the full story. But I can tell you, if you want to hear it. And if you want to learn, I can teach you soldiery.”
“I don’t want the sickness,” he said again.
Others murmured in agreement.
The young man who’d first approached me opened his hand. In his palm was the bone needle Sienn had used to sew my wound. With surety, he said, “I can pick the lock with this.” As my brow lifted, he added, “I’m Garek. My owner likes things he can’t afford.”
“Your owner is a thief?”
“He likes to call himself an ‘appropriator’. He thinks it sounds dashing. And less illegal,” Garek grinned. “I’m his apprentice.”
“Apprentice?” I questioned. “Not slave?”
“He never calls me that. He tried to stop the Arullans from taking me, but there were too many.” A wide grin graced Garek’s young features. “The fool is probably trying to bribe my way out right now.”
“Your owner would risk himself for you?”
“We don’t leave each other behind.”
“Interesting.” What Garek described was close to equal treatment, possibly even friendship. “What kind of magic do you have?”
“I don’t use magic to steal. I’m like Alton. I’ve never cast before.”
“So you also take Kayn’l by choice?”
“All my life. I don’t mind it,” Garek shrugged. “I get to travel. I’ve been beyond Mirra’kelan’s shores several times. I was taught to read and write. And,” he threw a couple of mock punches in the air, “I can fight.”
“And pick locks,” I said, causing him to grin. “What about the cravings? With such a small amount of Kayn’l, you’d still feel them.”
“When they get too bad, I just take a little more. It changes me for a while, but it wears off. “
His indifference shocked me as much as his words. “Your owner trusts you to manage your own dosage?”
Garek squinted at my question. “Why wouldn’t he?”
I shook my head. “Is this leniency with slaves something new?”
“It’s been a practice in Kabri for some years now,” the older man, Alton, spoke up. “Though more so since King Raynan died,” he added. “When the city burned many of us lost our owners. We had no place to live, no access to Kayn’l. Slaves with no knowledge of how to survive were wandering the burning streets, dazed and hurt. It was a situation that incited an unofficial softening of the laws.”
“I had no idea. I knew Shinree were liberated and taken from the island, but I never thought about those left behind.”
“Most wouldn’t,” Alton said. “Emperor Reth claims all Shinree who join him will be free. But if he speaks the truth, why send the beasts to take us against our will? And how will he help us with the sickness? If we get it there is no cure.”
It shocked me how little the man knew about being Shinree. Most slaves I’d encountered had been too deep on Kayn’l for conversation or opinions. Not that I’d tried to engage them. Molded by both the Rellans and my mother, I’d grown up believing the danger my kind posed to other races outweighed the needs of our own. I’d accepted the slave laws. I’d rationalized our servitude. No more.
I’d seen the empire. I’d seen us at our best and our worst. I knew what we could become.
They needed to know, too. All of them, I thought, not merely Alton and Garek, not just Sienn, or the Shinree in the caves. My entire race needed what they hadn’t possessed in hundreds of years: hope.
I put a hand on Garek’s shoulder and lowered my voice. “A plan is in the works. If I’m still in the spell when the guards pass out, pick the lock. I want both of you,” I slid a glance at Alton, “to get everyone out.” I stepped in amongst the rest of my cellmates. “Some of us are hiding in the caves on the back of the island. If you want off the Kayn’l for good, if you want to know what it means to be Shinree, go there.”
“Why don’t you blow the door open?” Garek asked. “Kill the guards? I know you can.”
“Just because you can do a thing, doesn’t mean you should.”
He stared a moment. I watched my words settle in. “People say things about you.” I waited then, for him to dive into the usual reciting of my ill deeds. “I think they’re wrong.”
I squinted at him. “You do?”
Garek nodded. “Do what you have to. We’ll take care of the rest.”
I watched the young man walk away; impressed by his confidence and courage. They weren’t traits most associated with my kind. I was even more impressed when my fellow detainees formed a causal line near the bars, blocking me from the view of our inattentive guards.
Watching my kinsmen work together for a common goal, on even such a small task, was heartening. It was a moment that spoke of possibilities.
Optimistic, I returned to the empty cot next to Sienn. I considered opening my link to Jarryd. After my last botched trip landed me inside an eldring, I’d thought it wise to block Jarryd before traveling back into Raan. But aside from wanting to spare him flashes of the quake, or Lady Brielle’atroy’s revelations, Jarryd cared for Sienn. I didn’t want to worry him more than he already was.
Sienn’s bag of stones was tucked inside a hole in the edge of the mattress beneath her. I retrieved it and dumped the contents on the cot beside me. As I sorted through the stones, I wondered what it would be like to eavesdrop on someone else’s vision,
and where I should take her. Future visions were done with a broader focus than journeys to the past. Yet, it helped to have something. A place, a likely or wanted event, some focus to build her vision around. Even a person would do.
Staring at Sienn, unconscious on the cot, temptation stirred to life. Me.
Whether it was my blood, or the crown’s doing, my spells had proven eerily accurate at predicting the future. If I crafted this one around some near event involving us both, it might lend to something interesting. It might not, too. But if what happened between us in the empire would have any future ramifications, I was more than a little curious to find out.
Putting back what I didn’t need, I scooped up the stones in my hand. Celestite, diamond, obsidian (banded with silver), tanzanite, and amethyst; their auras glowed against my skin. Their separate vibrations were distinct, yet harmonized. They wrapped around each other, almost as if they understood: when used in concert, they had but one purpose.
Channeling the five stones, as magic surged through me like a river threatening to blow its banks, my thoughts turned to Raan. His precise, measured way of casting wasn’t mine. Still, I was erudite, too. I’d learned how to tread delicately. But it wasn’t my first instinct, or my first choice. A frontal assault with everything I had was faster. Dousing my body with magic to compensate for a lack of knowledge gave me better odds. It got the job done.
That was the soldier in me.
It makes such perfect sense now...
After Lady Brielle’atroy’s words I understood why the Reth name was synonymous with Death. My innate drive to fight, my urge to lay waste when the magic was flowing, the tendency I shared with my father to go beyond combat and dip into the realm of brutality; if all soldier-born were originally like us, the Ruling House was right to be afraid. Funneling off our hostility and using it to create a race of predatory animals was heavy-handed, but not surprising. Fear had been powering Mirra’kelan for centuries.
I lay down and took Sienn’s hand in mine. As an added measure of focus, I channeled Jarryd’s jade ring. I was unsure what level of energy was required to create a vision for another, but my options for nourishing the spell were limited. With nothing but Shinree nearby, the guards at the end of the hall would be dead before Jillyan’s tainted ale arrived. So be it, I thought.
Killing them wasn’t my goal, but Sienn’s life was far more important to me than theirs.
TWENTY
Riding inside her vision was vastly different from experiencing my own. I was acutely aware of the hot sun on her skin, the prickly sand beneath her knees, the rawness of her throat, the adrenaline and panic. Yet, I felt none of it. Not the anguish causing her screams, nor the ragged breath burning her lungs. I was allowed only to observe as Sienn knelt and cried.
Shinree were all around her. Some, like her, were kneeling. Others were lying on the ground. None seemed able to stand amid the force of the spiraling, colored wind of magic blowing through them. The low-lying gale lapped up the dust, spinning it round and round, obscuring Sienn’s view. All she could see was me, as I stood above and at the center of it all. I was in the eye of the storm. And it was without doubt a storm of my own making.
Standing atop a stone altar, white hair blowing, eyes black with too many colors; visually, I was a force to be reckoned with. Yet my face was etched with pain and my shirt was soaked in blood. My arms shook as I held the Crown of Stones in both hands with a furious grip.
Auras pulsing, the artifact’s brilliance was nearly too bright for Sienn to look upon. Less blinding were the auras fleeing my body. Their glow was darkened by the blood leaving with them, draining from a stab wound in my chest.
Sienn’s emotions, as she watched me, were cycling fast. I could hardly keep up. Her mind held not a scrap of rational thought. She was terrified, anxious, angry, sad, proud and hateful.
A gasp left her dry throat as I threw my head back and screamed. Helplessness clenched her chest as more magic rushed out of me. I was casting, yet it didn’t pass harmlessly from my veins and lift up through my skin. It was breaking free, tearing through my flesh.
Drops of my blood went with it.
The crown, absorbing my offering, vibrated harder. The stones were stretching. A slight space appeared to form between them, but it was hard to tell. The view was too blurred by Sienn’s tears. Still, I understood.
This is it. This is what I have to do.
This is the sacrifice Raan’s mother spoke of, I thought, watching myself fall to my knees. To destroy the Crown of Stones and cure our addiction, I have to die.
I didn’t need to see anymore. Neither did Sienn. Her chest ached to breathe. The sadness moving through her was profound. Assuming my role as her guide, I whispered in her mind.
“Close your eyes. It’s not happening. It’s not real.”
Her emotions were high. She wasn’t listening.
“It’s one path, Sienn. One path in an endless maze of possibility and chance. It’s not definite. Not reality,” I said, wondering which of us I was trying to convince. “Reality is your body in a cell in Kabri. Reality is…he’s still alive. Close your eyes and remember.”
Darkness rushed in. I’d gotten through to her. Sienn had closed her eyes—leaving us both unprepared as a shock of power slammed into her body. A merciless torrent of ice as it hit, a wind of fire as it swept through. She toppled over and the ground rushed up fast.
I tugged at her mind. “It’s all a vision. Remember your reality. Your anchor. Find it. Let it pull you back.”
I sensed her fear abating. Security settled in. Sienn’s presence tightened around my body back in Kabri. It was a death grip. I was her anchor.
She hurried past me in the dark. Tumbling after a moment later, I tried not to panic, to trust she would find her way back. I envisioned the cell around me. I pictured Sienn’s hand in mine.
With a snap my link to her broke. I landed with a jarring thud. The sensation of movement was still on me as I flung open my eyes. The cot beside me was empty. The cell door was slightly ajar. My cellmates were gone. Only she remained, standing at the bars, staring out at the empty hall.
I stood up fast. Forgetting the stones, they tumbled from my grip and clattered to the floor. Sienn spun around at the noise. Eyes damp, she spoke my name like always; as a beautiful, breathless exhale. “Ian.”
The sound pulled at me. I erased the space between us in an instant.
Reaching her, saying nothing, I took Sienn’s face in my hands and kissed her. There was no thought or hesitation. A melding of fear and relief had banished such things. It melted away the cell walls, the war, and the crown. The past and present and our choices there ceased to exist. Life was the taste of her lips and the feel of her slender body. It was the knowledge that—for this single moment—there was no question, no mistrust, no guilt or resentment. There was desire and affection, and surrender.
We fell back against the cell door. It shut with a dangerous clang, and Sienn laughed. I broke off our kiss to listen to the rare, beautiful sound coming out of her.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be.” Staring at her, I smiled. “I should check on the guards. Stay here.”
I opened the door considerably quieter than it closed and crept out. Hearing nothing, I jogged through the dim light of unattended lanterns. I found the guards around the corner. They were sprawled out on the floor with two mugs, a broken pitcher, and a spill of dried ale between them. One had a faint pulse. The other had gray, shriveled skin and dead eyes. I told myself he passed out before my magic claimed him. It was about all the consolation either of us was going to get.
I turned to head back. Sienn was coming toward me. I shook my head at her. “You listen as well as Jarryd.”
Her reply was a slight smile. The expression made me want to kiss her again. But the moment had passed, and I had no idea where it left us, if anyw
here at all.
I gestured back at the cell. Surprisingly, the sting on the back of my neck was gone. “Can you grab Tam’s journal? It’s on the floor between the cots. Absently, I rubbed the gash. The skin felt mended. Had I healed it? I didn’t remember.
Sienn noticed my preoccupation. “What is it?”
“Nothing. Grab the stones, too. You’ll need them for Malaq.”
“Of course. Do you know the way to his room?”
“Jarryd does. He used to run all over this place with Neela when they were kids.”
I waited for Sienn to flinch. My brief, turbulent relationship with Kabri’s former Queen was one of many issues between us. It was a source of resentment for Sienn. It was a whole host of twisted things for me. Yet, my casual mention prompted no obvious change in Sienn’s disposition. It was a development worth mulling over if I had time, though I was more taken aback by Sienn’s failure to mention her vision, or my apparent demise.
I shouldn’t be, I thought. Sienn had learned the hard way not to put faith in visions. By mistakenly divulging to Jem the one happy, future moment she’d glimpsed between us, Sienn had given him the power to exploit it. Since then, she’d clung to logic, seeing oracle spells for what reason insisted they were: a single potential instant in an endless possibility of futures.
I couldn’t do that anymore. Too many of my possibilities had become reality.
Borrowing a shirt and sword from the unconscious guard, as I slipped them on, I wondered as I had before. Were my choices being influenced by my vision of a doomed future, or were my choices bringing it about? If I stopped moving the pieces, would Fate continue to play his game? No matter what path I take, will I always reach the same end?
Becoming an eldring or destroying the crown; I die either way.
TWENTY ONE
Though the stairwell was narrower than Jarryd’s child-mind had perceived, the closed-in smell of the dusty space was exactly as he recalled. The shaft was empty, lit by occasional lanterns affixed to the walls. Each floor held multiple exits, slender doors leading to sequestered corridors that ran behind the walls, granting staff inconspicuous access to various rooms. When we reached the door that Jarryd’s memory said led to the King’s bedchamber, I cracked it slowly. Hearth-cast shadows frolicked upon the walls. Hushed voices were nearby. Recognizing Elayna’s, I pushed the door harder.
The Crown of Stones: Magic-Borne Page 18