“You weren’t bonded very long.”
“No, but even when I was his apprentice he seemed more coherent.”
“You weren’t with him all the time. Why do you think he disappeared for days on end?”
Her lips parted. She had not realized that was the reason. Isiilde had always assumed that he’d been busy with other things.
“This is his life, and it’s been like that for a very long time.”
Isiilde tilted her head, thinking. “Maybe so, but when we were bonded, and even before, it seemed like I could reach him—pull him back from wherever he went.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Oenghus kicked at a rock, sending it flying off into the night. It was a powerful kick, and the dull thud was lost in the desert. “Speaking of that, are you sure that you’re not erm... still bonded?”
“You don’t think I’d notice something like that?”
“Maybe not. There’s no connection at all?” Her father looked down at her, face obscured by shadow, but his eyes were bright as sapphires.
“Our bond was...” She hesitated, searching for a word that fit. “Untangled, I suppose.”
Oenghus did not speak, but she could sense him brooding.
“What is it?” she pressed.
Oenghus looked towards the silver moon. His shoulders seemed to sag for a moment, and then he straightened. “Er, well, sometimes a bond can be erm... dormant.”
Her father looked as uncomfortable as the time she had asked how babies got in a woman’s stomach. He had thrust her towards Morigan, and promptly left.
“Tell me what you know,” she demanded.
“It’s not so simple, a bond that is. Granted, if it’s forced, then it’s like a collar.”
Isiilde felt sick, but swallowed it down. “Yes,” she said tightly.
“But your mother... she could control her bond. Shape it, maybe. I don’t really know, but I think it was her age.”
“How old was she?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Before she could ask more, he continued. “She could choose who she gave her bond to, and could keep it intact when she wanted. I think a bond, for some nymphs, is like love—no matter what happens, it never goes away. Take Morigan and me.”
Throughout the years, Morigan, although constantly busy at the infirmary, had always been a part of her life. And although Isiilde knew that her father and Morigan had taken multiple Oaths and had had children together, their relationship had always puzzled her.
“I assumed she got tired of you.”
“Of course she got tired of me. What sane woman wouldn’t?”
“You still love each other, then?”
“I still love her dearly, and she loves me. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for others. Nuthaanians aren’t like the other races. We have a uhm... broader view of love.”
“And the mating habits of rabbits,” Marsais called over his shoulder. It seemed he had returned to the present.
Oenghus stepped forward and shoved him. He stumbled, but Rivan righted the seer. Isiilde bristled. She did not want to be interrupted, not now. She slowed, falling behind the group, and her father followed suit, until they were out of earshot.
“That’s how the other races view us,” her father conceded. “We’re not like most who only take one Oath at a time. Men are just the peckerheads who spread the seed, but a woman is the soil. Without her, every man dies. That’s why a woman can have as many Oathbound as she wants in Nuthaan.”
“How many Oathbound does Morigan have? She never leaves her infirmary.”
“Aye, well, she had a rough time in the Fell Wastes.” He tugged savagely on his beard. “We both did. And then you came along and... well, it’s complicated,” he sighed. “What I’m trying to get at is that I love her, and she loves me; we come and go as we please, but the love is still there. It’s just not urgent.”
“I think I’d know if I were still bonded to Marsais.”
Oenghus shrugged. His hand strayed to the hilt of the falchion thrust through his belt. He had scavenged it from the Fomorri nomads. The blade, even as large and curved as it was, looked odd on the hulking warrior. The jaw bone slung over his back looked far more appropriate.
Oenghus fell silent. He was, she sensed, brooding again.
“Was that how your bond with my mother was?” she finally asked.
“Aye, the bond would fade in and out, but it was always there. Didn’t matter when—” He caught himself. “When the Emperor bedded her.”
She narrowed her eyes. There was something he wasn’t telling her. A whole lot of something. The nymph pressed the matter, but her father remained tight-lipped, until at last, he stomped away, moving to the front of the line. There he stayed, far ahead of the others. Alone, walking in a pool of silver moonlight.
Chapter Thirty-One
Marsais walked in a maze of memory. His footsteps whispered, thrown like breaths in a fog, muffled in his own ears. The hallway was dark; the ash thick.
He touched a gouge in the stone, tracing its path. Claw marks. At his careful touch, the stone flaked off, swirling in the air, clouding his vision.
Marsais frowned at the marks. The ocean that drifted over his head did not penetrate this corridor. It was all shadow and haze, and clogged with ash.
Stone did not turn to ash, his thoughts whispered.
He frowned, gazing down his body. He wore a white robe, stained with blood, and his feet were black with soot, marred by time and age. He curled his toes in the ash. The ground was warm.
Marsais squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to wake. Once, he could walk the maze as he pleased, and leave when he desired. But not now. Marsais was only a shadow, a phantom drifting in ruin.
He pressed his palm against the crumbling wall. The stone vibrated, and his heart quickened, pounding against his ears like a drum. Steeling his shoulders, he walked into the deepening darkness.
This was the ancient’s realm: all of Time. Why was the maze darkening? The ash, the soot, the crumbling walls—he was dying.
The seer hesitated at a juncture. The path split: right, and another turned left. He went left. An endless line of doors stretched down the hallway.
The first door was plain: teak with a simple, rusted lock. He trailed his fingers over the old wood. The smell of pine and gentle fire filled his senses. The memory inside the door beckoned, but he walked on to the next. Splintered wood lay at the threshold, and when he looked inside, everything was ashy ruin.
Marsais swallowed down the urge to lie down and weep. He quickened his pace, walking past the other doors, the other memories, not daring to touch their surface.
“The past is as hard to chart as the future,” he whispered, words that he had once spoken to a nymph. Those words were never more true than now. His past was crumbling, his mind was in ruin; Time was unraveling. The seer was lost in a maze of his own making.
He thought of Isiilde and her fire, and the force of chaos that had bred her. Was that the nymph’s purpose—to burn the threads of time? Marsais had no answers.
He glanced up, daring to look in the ocean’s reflection. The dead floated there. He shook the vision from his eyes, and hurried on, turning left. It seemed the right way. Marsais chuckled at the thought, and somewhere, a madman laughed too. The sound bounced from stone to stone. It unnerved him. But he was alone. Wasn’t he?
His heart galloped, and the flesh over that organ burned. Another hallway, more doors. The corridors became a blur. He turned a corner and stopped.
A metal door waited at the end of a long hallway.
Marsais looked back, through the maze, trying to remember where he was. He did not know, but he did not like that door. It was a chained, monstrous, iron thing covered with locks. He stepped backwards. But that was, as always, a mistake.
The floor opened up, and he fell through the ash. He landed with a bone-jarring thud. Coughing, Marsais put an arm over his mouth, trying not to breathe in the choking air. He staggered to his
feet and fell against the wall, searching the haze. He looked up. The ocean still drifted above, but this time, his reflection stared back. It wasn’t a vision, but his true reflection. That was good.
An echoing bang brought him around. He spun and his throat went dry. A single door stood at the end of the corridor. It was draped in shadow. Marsais walked through the wreckage, edging towards this strange new door. There was no handle, but it whispered, not with memory but of the future.
The scar across his chest throbbed, and against his will, his feet answered. Rubble and stone, and great chunks from the wall crowded the floor, poking through the ash. He side-stepped the collapse, and stopped in front of the door.
Marsais closed his eyes, took a breath, and forced himself to look. Shadows clung to the door like a shroud. Beneath that veil, claw marks marred its surface. He traced a finger over the gouges, and the door bulged with a thud that knocked him back a step. He retreated another step, and reached into his robe pocket. Fingers curled tightly over the three small discs, and he brought the artifacts out into the maze. Bright light flooded the corridor, shedding light onto the door.
The wood warped and rippled, pulsing like a heartbeat. Dark ichor ran from the seams, and the coppery scent of blood filled his senses. It pooled on the floor, reaching towards his bare feet. He took another step back, and another, timed with the thuds and knocks. Marsais turned and fled.
He turned left.
The hallways of Time were a blur, and he walked briskly past countless forgotten moments, until his heart slowed. The prickle of eyes touched his neck and footsteps whispered to his own. He was not alone.
Slowly, he looked over his shoulder. A snatch of shadow detached itself from the wall. Two pinpricks of ice stared back. His mind shouted Reaper, but his instincts disagreed.
“Who are you?” he asked instead.
“I saw you die.” It was a rasping, damaged sound, but underneath the pain was the voice of a girl.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“I have seen many deaths,” he replied.
“I have only seen one.”
“Ah.” Such a simple sound for the profound. The single syllable had gotten him through worse.
“You don’t know who I am?” she asked.
“Should I?”
“We’ve met before.”
“Have we?”
“Yes.”
“I see.” And he did. “Time,” he gestured at the ceiling, “is an ocean—one moment brushing against the next. This is a moment. One that still does not answer my question: who are you?”
“You named me yourself, Marsais,” the girl replied, taking a step forward. The shadows seemed to open like a cloak and fall behind her. Light touched inky scales. “I am the bird over the sea.”
“Impossible,” he breathed.
The girl-creature smiled, revealing pearlescent fangs. “As you see, it is not.”
A sound cut through the maze, a grinding, ear-rending scrape. Pain shook his bones. Marsais clutched his ears and fear entered the girl-creature’s glowing blue eyes. “Go!” she hissed, and then darted away, swift as a bird.
Marsais sprinted after her. The hallways shook, the ocean trembled, and the ground rippled as if it too were trying to run.
His scar burned, robbing him of breath, and the pain dropped him to his knees. As he gasped, darkness washed over him, and sound. A grating scrape, a steady gait of crashing steps.
Marsais looked back, and the darkness spewed a nightmare from its depths. Claw and shadow, and screeching heads. He scrambled from hands and knees to feet, and ran. He turned left.
The Nightmare turned right, its cloak reaching towards him with a snap of teeth. He did not know where he ran, or for how long, but he did run until his ribs ached and his breath came in panting gasps. Eventually, the sound died and the quaking stopped. Marsais stumbled, falling against a firm surface.
In the aftermath of horror, he heard a whisper. It touched his fingers. His head snapped up, and his eyes grew wide, finding the chained metal door that was covered in locks and misery.
No, he thought desperately, not here, not now. He had fled this memory.
The whispers grew, the iron bulged, revealing screaming faces in the metal. Time snapped, dragging him inside. The entire realm quaked. Mountains fell, castles collapsed, and the ground swallowed it all. He lay in ruin.
“Father!” a desperate scream jarred him awake. Marsais was being shaken, not by the earth, but by a frightened girl. “You can’t leave. I’ve stopped the bleeding. You can’t go. Not yet. Please.”
His heart responded to that voice and he forced his eyes open. He blinked at the face that hovered over him—his daughter. Tears streaked her ash-covered cheeks. He tried to comfort her, tried to speak reassuring words, but his body was so very distant.
The shaking stopped, and she touched his cheek with a bloody hand. His head fell to the side. A pair of fingers filled his vision. Lifeless, still, caught in the act of reaching. A face came into focus next. He knew that face, and he reached towards the dead woman—his Oathbound. But a broad, scalding brand touched his chest and a multitude of screams took flight.
They came from his own throat.
Marsais screamed. His body arched, and his back bent like a bow with his head and heels anchored to the earth. Time let go of him, and he collapsed.
“Marsais,” the voice soothed his mind. A cool hand rested on his chest, buried under robes, pressed flat against his flesh. He blinked. An ethereal face framed by fire stared back. It was not the girl from memory—not the scaled one nor the frightened one, but a nymph.
“Who?” Talking was difficult. His swollen tongue bumped against his teeth.
“Isiilde.”
The name was familiar. He squeezed his eyes shut, searching the crumbling maze of his mind. Future and past clamored, all mixed up and turned over, jumbled like the ruins of his home after the Shattering.
Moisture leaked from his eyes, burning a path down his cheeks.
“We’re in Fomorri,” the voice said softly. So soothing, that voice—so melodious. “We are not bonded. We are traveling to Finnow’s Spire.”
How did he know that voice? A door clicked open, and a memory stepped into the light.
“Isiilde,” he rasped. He placed a hand over hers, anchoring himself in the present. Not altogether sure he wanted to know the where or when, he squinted at his surroundings. There were no ruins, no ash, no lifeless shell of his once Oathbound. No dead children nor a beautiful daughter who would die all too slowly.
Marsais lay in the shade, in the shadow of a boulder. A ring of watchful soldiers stood in the sun, having abandoned their shade to escape the raving lunatic. He closed his eyes, feeling cool sand beneath his back. He was lying in a trench.
“How like a grave,” he murmured.
“Aye, well, I was about to bury you and leave. Scream any louder and you’ll bring a horde on us.” A giant of a man spat in the sand.
“Oenghus.”
“No, I’m your bloody mother. On your feet, Scarecrow. We need to move.”
Scarecrow. Now there was a name he remembered. A scarecrow stood unmoving against time and seasons, guarding his field from greedy pillagers while crops grew and died beneath his eyes. Yes, a fitting name, for a scarecrow stood apart from time.
A woman knelt by his side. Her eyes were caring, and her face weathered. She put a strong hand behind his head, and pressed a waterskin to his parched lips. It tasted like sand.
He struggled upwards, and took the skin in his own hands, drinking greedily. It gave him time to remember the woman’s name. “Thank you, Acacia.”
Another door opened, and he stepped fully into the moment.
“Oh, yes, of course.” They had been walking for days, and had far more ahead. He stood too quickly, and nearly toppled.
Oenghus caught his arm in an iron grip. “Get on a bloody camel, or I’ll knock you out and toss you over it.”
&n
bsp; Marsais did not have the energy to argue.
A boy nudged the camel’s knee, and it knelt. He could not remember the boy’s name, but he hoped it would come to him soon.
Marsais climbed on top the animal, settling himself between saddlebags and supplies. By the time the camel stood, he was lost again, racing through a maze of doors, of memories and visions; searching past, present and future for any morsel of knowledge that might explain the girl-creature and her nightmare.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Camels were not smooth mounts. Isiilde felt as if she were walking on stilts over uneven ground. She supposed the camels were. Spot stank as much as Red, but then everyone did: sweat, musk, and unwashed bodies. It did not help that she sat on the pillaged Fomorrian goods. Everything had been rubbed with sand, but an underlying stench of rot lingered in the back of her throat.
Isiilde buried her nose against Marsais’ back. She did not mind his smell. He slumped in front of her, weak and exhausted. If she let go, he was sure to slide right off and fall to the ground. Not that he would notice. Her palm rested against the flesh over his heart—over that horrible scar. His heart no longer galloped, but he was still as distant as the mountains. Isiilde was not the only one concerned. Oenghus and Rivan walked on either side of her camel, ready to catch the seer if he should slip.
She turned her gaze towards their goal. The mountains on the horizon wavered beneath the sun, as they had every day since their group left the coast. The mountain range looked like some giant hand had taken a sword to its tips, leaving table-like cliffs.
“Is he heavy?” Rivan’s worry broke through her thoughts. “I could switch if you need to rest.” Concern was plain in his eyes.
Even Acacia glanced back from time to time. Marsais’ screams had been beyond nightmarish—anguish had echoed across the sands. While the soldiers had thought him bitten by a scorpion, the rest of them knew better. As his body had arched, his grey eyes were gone, replaced with the milky white that spoke of a vision. Isiilde had demanded that the soldiers step back, and tried to shield his convulsing body with her own, but there was no privacy in this barrenness.
The Broken God (Legends of Fyrsta Book 3) Page 20