Lirih screamed. I spun to find her being carried back to her cage, arms and legs restrained by four spelled Langorians. Calculating my remaining enemy’s positions, I plotted a path toward her. I stepped to execute it, and the air changed. The space around me constricted. Wind burst into being. It blew past me, and I glanced at the Shinree door forming behind me. As its edges defined, soldiers ascended the steps. My father’s spell on them was heavy. As they fanned out across the platform, they didn’t even glance at the flames adhered to their comrades.
“Don’t be foolish,” Jem warned. “You’ve shown what you’re capable of. Your point has been made. This is your only option to save her, and yourself.”
“That’s always your first instinct isn’t it, to save yourself?”
“And yours is to die for whatever mutt happens to be tagging along at your heels. Do you think that makes you a hero?”
“No. I think it makes you a selfish son of a bitch.”
Lirih’s cage slammed shut. She threw herself against the bars. Reaching through the iron, screeching in rage, her claws strained to touch flesh, to rip and shred. Death shined in her eyes.
In this moment, she was all animal. There was absolutely nothing left of my daughter.
“Guards,” Jem said sharply, “I’ve asked my son to leave. Make sure he does. And,” he paused to smile, “he can heal himself. There’s no need to be gentle.”
Flaming arms reached for me. Fingers struggled to clamp on. Their heat singed. Scars disintegrated with my flesh and reformed. I pumped more of the ruby through my veins to stifle my nerves and swung into the group of clutching, fiery hands. I severed some. A few of my enemy fell, but that didn’t stop them. The injured grabbed at me as the rest pressed forward. Their encroaching heat was insufferable. Simply moving to evade them was torture on my ruined skin. The pain of my wounds was brutal. I could barely breathe. I was in no shape to fight their superior numbers.
I can’t stop them, I thought. I can’t push them back. I can’t trust my magic.
There was nothing to do but retreat, nowhere to go but through Jem’s open door.
I have to leave.
But running wasn’t defeat. I would be back, and it would end far differently next time. Defeat was leaving her. And accepting that was a far greater agony than the searing grip latching around my ankle as I took a running leap into the black.
TWENTY FIVE
Krillos dropped the charred limb on the bedside table with a thud.
I grunted at him. “Is that necessary?”
“You’re the one who cut it off. Besides,” Krillos shrugged like a ripe body part wasn’t staring me in the face. “It does seem to be a habit of yours.”
“I didn’t cut it off. He had a hold of me. The door closed. Part of him came with me.” I gestured at the crispy hand and the forearm attached to it. “That part.” I flashed Krillos a tight smile. “You really didn’t have to save it.”
“Sure I did. It’s not every day a Shinree comes bursting into Kabri’s courtyard in a rush of flames. The servants are still whispering about it. Couple of them watched your burns heal as you walked away. One claimed he saw the scar reform on your face. Sounds like quite a spectacle.”
“Apparently.” I had no more to offer. I barely recalled the healing spell I threw out as I exited Jem’s door, just the anger that was in me as I cast. In that moment, I’d wanted my body whole for one reason: to go back and kill the son of a bitch.
I had no doubt Sienn would admonish me. Anger should never feed a healer’s spell. But it worked—at the cost of ten chickens, two pigs, and three goats. And though my subconscious aiming of the magic-price in the direction of the castle’s livestock was disconcerting, that worked too.
“Anyway,” he shrugged. “I thought you might want a memento.”
“You’re too kind.”
His responding snicker cut off quick. “Think they’re still burning? The men you turned into bonfires?”
Gods, I hope not. “I have no idea.”
“That was damn ballsy of Jem, marching in here like that. Can we keep it from happening again? Block his doors or something?”
“If there’s a way to block a Shinree door, I don’t know it.”
“Why now? Why hasn’t he showed before?”
“He didn’t need me before.”
Not liking that answer, Krillos frowned in a deep scowl that accentuated the many scars on his face.
Leaving him with whatever unpleasant thoughts he was pondering, I rolled up the scroll in my hand and tossed it across the bed, into the pile with the others. I’d spent the better part of the day reading through whatever information Jillyan had on hornblende. The theory that the stone’s influence affected my scars was easier to swallow than any other alternative. Not surprisingly, I’d found nothing to support the idea.
Getting up in breeches only, I walked over and pushed open the window. The ocean breeze gusted in, sending a chill over my bare chest and chasing the stuffiness from the room. The pine woods below had gone to ash some time ago. A few solitary charred trunks stood tall and lonely. The black posts, reminding me of well-cooked bodies, dotted the misty slope right up to the edge of the city. Buildings streaked with soot and streets empty; what remained of Kabri was a sad, crumbled, gray reminder of better days.
I put my back to it all and sat on the edge of the sill.
Absently fingering the obsidian shard (back where it belonged around my neck), I watched Krillos plop down in one of two chairs by the fire. He helped himself to the fine bottle of wine sitting on the glass topped table in between. The goblet in his hand was equally fine, as was the entire room. My presence no longer a secret in Kabri, Elayna had insisted I stay at the castle. She’d offered the same to the rest of the refugees, but only Jillyan and Jarryd had agreed. Most felt better staying in the caves.
Krillos gestured, and I joined him. I pulled my chair back a bit from the hearth before occupying it. I was done with fire for a while. But the distance didn’t help. I still saw Lirih’s face in the flames.
Running a tight hand through my hair, I voiced what had been living in my gut from the moment I got back. “I can’t believe I left her.”
Krillos replied by pouring me a drink.
I downed a good measure of the wine before moving on. “Where am I with Elek?”
“He hates you.” Krillos talked over my snort. “But I learned a long time ago. Malaq Roarke could sway a Rellan priest into a Langorian whorehouse—with little effort. Elek didn’t stand a chance.”
“So their alliance is solid?”
“As solid as before, I guess.”
There was something in his tone. “You don’t approve.”
Krillos swirled the wine in his cup a moment before answering. “We’re in need of fighting men. Elek has that and more. But if he despises Draken like he claims, why was his original plan to sail into Kael? Elek says it was reconnaissance only, a chance to assess Guidon’s threat level before joining Malaq.”
“You don’t believe him.”
“I think the greedy bastard was looking to sell his fancy weapon to the highest bidder. But you blew Guidon to pieces before his ship even reached Kael. That left Elek with two options: Draken, or Malaq.”
“Even supposing you’re right, Elek had little choice but to switch sides. Even a fool could figure out that lying down beside Malaq is preferable to suffocating under Draken.”
Krillos toasted me with his mug. “Eloquently put, my friend.”
“Any idea how Malaq threw Elek off my scent? He’s plotted my demise for over a decade. It must have been one hell of an incentive to make him look the other way.”
“Sorry, Shinree. It was a discussion held behind locked doors and I was on the wrong side of the wood. What matters is that it’s done. And you,” Krillos pointed at me with the eldring tusks attached to
his stump, “get to keep your head. And defend Langor,” he added with a wide grin. “Damn funny, isn’t it? Both of us fighting for lands we once despised?”
Chuckling to himself, Krillos guzzled his wine. I sipped at mine. We sat in silence a while with him staring at the flames and me trying not to. I didn’t need the reminder. My trip to Ru Jaar’leth had been playing nonstop in my head since I returned. If my father had hornblende hidden in other parts of the city, it was going to make defeating him a hell of a lot more difficult.
Krillos sat his empty cup down hard on the table, catching my attention. “I saw Jillyan this morning. I think you should talk to her. She feels responsible for what happened to Lirih.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Is it? Jillyan discovered the binding spell in the ruins of the empire. She freed Jem and convinced him to link with Draken. We all know what he’s done since.”
“Jillyan isn’t accountable for Jem’s actions.”
“Just like the blame wasn’t yours for all the nasty things Draken got to when his sanity came back? I told you before, Shinree. You don’t get to own all the guilt on this. Many of us have had a hand in the way events have gone down.”
His vagueness didn’t fool me. “You hardly ever talk about him.”
“Draken?” I nodded. Krillos shrugged and glanced away. “I had no illusions when I took my oath. No thoughts of glory. I just wanted out of that damn cell. So I did what he told me. I raided villages. I gutted people. I told myself, after what I’d been through I deserved to live more than them.”
“What changed?”
“I woke up one day and it was all spent; the rage, the pain, the bitterness. All that was left was me…and a whole damn mess of bodies.”
Krillos poured us both more wine. I was still considering my response when he went on.
“That day you and I squared off in Rella. When you cut off my hand,” he threw in, as if I’d forgotten. “You said things to me, about Draken and war, and cowardice.”
“You aren’t a coward, Krillos.”
“There are more sides to bravery than swinging a sword.”
“You’re right. Like knowing when to put it down.” He tipped his drink at me in acknowledgment and I moved onto less personal matters. “When does Malaq plan to move out?”
“Couple of days. According to our scouts, Jem’s forces aren’t exactly hurrying. It’s pretty clear our great Emperor sees Draken as a nuisance at best.”
“How so?”
“Reth was in Langor when Draken fell through that damn door with the crown in his hand and a hole in his chest. He knew Draken’s condition. Yet he didn’t kill him, and he didn’t heal him. Jem left Draken as you made him, hovering in between, knowing Langor would fall into disarray without him.”
“So Jem could come and scoop up the pieces with little resistance.”
“Which is why he’s taking his time; moving his forces slowly overland, making a show of it. Making sure all of Langor knows the Emperor is coming, while their King wastes away unable to protect them. Only,” Krillos leaned forward, “the bastard doesn’t know what’ll be waiting for him. Scouting will show Langor with inferior numbers. But when the battle is imminent, Malaq will move his army in covert and fast through Sienn’s doors. Darkhorne will be far more protected than your father is ready for.”
“What are our numbers?”
“You’d have to snag a Rellan General for an exact count. They don’t share details like that with one of Draken’s former lackeys.”
“I doubt they’d share with a Shinree either.”
“True,” he chuckled. “But it’s not hard to add up. You’ve got the Rellan troops, Elek’s men and his weapons, and the Kaelish.”
“I thought the Kaelish were loyal to Draken.”
“Officially. But with Guidon dead, another’s been eying the throne.”
“Malaq’s step-father,” I said, taking the obvious guess. “I suppose Connoll’s exile lost importance with all the upheaval in the realm. What does he have in the way of men?”
“Mercenaries mostly, but I hear it’s a damn generous force. There’s also a Rellan band of insurgents that’s cropped up out west. Wherever they came from,” he muttered. “Point is, it’s at least enough for you to give the bastard some hell.”
I caught his subtle slip. “You aren’t coming.”
Mouth at the rim, he paused. “Not this time.”
“Good.”
Krillos laughed, nearly choking on his wine. “And here I was thinking you’d miss me.”
“As much as that’s true,” I grinned, “if it goes badly in Langor, you’ll be needed here.”
Our conversation ended as boots struck stone outside my room. With a quick rap, the door opened. Knowing the long, confident strides, I didn’t turn as Malaq entered.
Taking his cue, Krillos sat down his cup and stood. Giving me a look of ‘tread lightly’, he offered a polite, “Your Grace,” to Malaq before closing the door behind him.
Malaq hovered near the recently vacated chair to my right.
“How’s the eye?” I said.
“Still gone.” Malaq came forward and took his seat. The splint was off his wrist. His coloring was decent. His fine attire—deep blue trousers, a white shirt, and black silken waistcoat—indicated he felt well enough to be up and about. The bruising and swelling was absent from his face, as well as the horrible stitching job. Yet, Sienn’s work wasn’t done. Four long stripes of partially healed skin showed through the heavy scruff of his unkempt goatee, and the flesh surrounding the leather patch over his empty socket was still deeply rutted.
Malaq’s other eye was just as dead, considering the utter lack of emotion it held.
“I like the patch,” I said. “It adds that rogue element you’ve been missing.”
“Glad you approve.” Malaq moved the attention off his own face by staring at mine. “So, the rumor is they grow back.”
“Evidently.”
“What do you think it means?”
I shifted in my seat. I didn’t understand any more than he did how it was possible for the magic-scars to reprint themselves on my body. For the patterns and colors to return like nothing had happened. Like the skin they’d adhered to hadn’t been cooked off.
Sienn can’t deny it anymore.
The scars weren’t on the surface of my body. They were a part of it.
“It means,” I said, “the spell is old and strong and it isn’t done with me yet.”
Malaq exposed his thoughts with a slight grimace. It was gone in an instant. “At least we’ve made progress. Elek’s concerns have been addressed. You found Lirih. And you know the information on the crown is hidden at Darkhorne.”
“You like that, don’t you?” I asked, noticing a trace of approval in his tone.
“It does give you more motivation for defending Langor. Besides me asking nicely,” he added with a smile. “Sadly, though, it took becoming an eldring for you to see my plan has merit. Equally unfortunate is how you failed to inform me of the spell’s true nature. It’s a good thing I have a thick skin. With all the secrets you keep, I might start to think you don’t trust me.”
My mood, already shaky, soured instantly. Now I knew why Jarryd had been blocking me since I got back to Kabri. He’d been coming clean to Malaq on my behalf. “How much did he tell you?”
“Everything.”
I doubted that. Jarryd might have taken it upon himself to share anything that might help Malaq in his negotiation with Elek. But if he’d divulged the gritty details of my visit into Kabri’s future, and all we’d lost, Malaq’s temperament would be significantly more unpleasant. Neither had Jarryd revealed what price destroying the crown would cost me—because he didn’t know. As long as he continued to store my memories instead of reviewing them, he’d have no idea about my conversation
with Raan’s mother. Neither was Jarryd privy to what I’d learned in Sienn’s vision. I may have seen it happen, but the memories were hers, not mine. It was an odd anomaly in the spell I was grateful for. It left me to tell Jarryd in my own time what sacrifice was required to cure my people.
A sacrifice, that if I agreed to, would affect us both.
“Your father,” Malaq said unhappily, “took things to a new level by coming here.”
“I should have killed him the minute he stepped through the door.”
“And risk leveling my castle? I think not.”
“Lirih’s life is more important than your castle.”
“I agree. But putting one life above all else is a luxury we can’t afford. Not if we’re going to keep Langor out of Jem’s hands. Which means you need to push through this, Ian. Get your head together and your priorities straight. Many are dependent on your actions.”
My jaw went hard as stone. I wasn’t sure what irked me more; Malaq’s quick assessment of my obligations, or the authority in which he stated them. “I never asked for anyone to depend on me. You built me up. You hailed me as the answer. You said the Crown of Stones could save them, not me.”
“It can. And you are. But this is war.”
“Don’t fucking talk to me about war, Malaq. I’ve seen far more than you.”
“Fair enough.” He fell quiet a moment. “I loved your daughter, Ian. A part of me always will. And I would give anything to rip your father’s head off with my bare hands for what he’s done to her, but…”
“I get it. She’s expendable. We all are.”
“Damn it, that’s not how I see her. That’s not how I see any of you. But what you can’t—or won’t—understand is that I have to consider the welfare of the entire flock, not one sheep.” Seeing my whole body tighten, Malaq flushed. He knew he’d overstepped, but he didn’t apologize. “I deal in the safety and well-being of cities and villages. I’m not allowed to put thousands in jeopardy for one individual. Not without a potential for widespread benefit.”
The Crown of Stones: Magic-Borne Page 22