Exiles & Empire

by Cheryl S Mackey

  The air temperature dropped. Ivo’s breath fogged the air.

  A spike of fear wedged itself somewhere in the center of Ivo’s heart. His gaze darted between Rodon, Emaranthe, and Jaeger.

  Enemy. Lover. Brother.

  His breathing snagged as he studied the faces of Gabaran and Sesti, both betrayed by Ishelene and Immortality. What was family when it could so easily, cruelly, be re-made?

  The world of relationships was a tricky web if you were an immortal. If re-incarnated you had no choice of your next body, your next lifetime. Mothers found themselves to suddenly be sisters to the still mortal. Brothers could become uncle or nephew. The Four did not think on the fabric of their spell or what it would mean to the lives of everyone.

  He shuddered. Those troubling thoughts would have to wait.

  He surged to his feet and reached for his sword. It whispered in the shadows as he moved to join the three approaching Rodon.

  Except, he moved too slowly. Shadows are always much faster. Before he could take two steps in their direction Rodon turned.

  Ivo saw a blur of black hair and blue eyes. A glint of steel.

  Jaeger’s guttural cry shattered the breathless silence at the same time.

  “No! Sesti!”

  Sesti burst forward, arm raised, dagger high.

  Rodon spun and struck in one smooth, practiced, lunge.

  The golden tip of the spear drove into Sesti’s unprotected middle and out her back in a slippery, bloody punch.

  Her battle cry choked into silence. Her eyes widened in disbelief as she came to a sudden halt. Blood spilled from her lips as her body folded in on itself and the dagger clattered to the ground.

  Ivo could only watch in horror, his own shout joining the other’s.

  He rocketed forward, sword raised.

  Gabaran’s starlit gaze flared white hot as he lunged forward to grab Sesti. Emaranthe’s hoarse scream rose above all, a piercing wail of denial. She reached for her sister as flames fueled by anguish raced along her outstretched arms to envelope her.

  Ivo’s sword came down on the shaft of the spear as Gabaran and Emaranthe reached her. Jaeger appeared out of nowhere, shoved them aside, and grabbed Sesti to his body.

  His keening wail muffled the snap of the heavy wooden shaft, but nothing could ever muffle the wet thump of them collapsing to the ground. His shaking hands twisted the shattered spear shaft from her back and let it fall into a spreading puddle of blood before clutching her limp body to him.

  It would be a sight and sound that Ivo would never forget.

  Rodon’s snarl of rage jerked Ivo away from the heartbreaking sight of his little brother hugging the unmoving woman to his body, tears turned to rivulets of ice on his ashen face. Jaeger rocked her, his soft sobs lost in the melee.

  Rage burned the edges of Ivo’s vision. He turned, sword raised again, as Gabaran tackled Rodon. They tumbled across the clearing toward Ishelene in a tangle of roars and fists.

  The empress just stood there, eyes wide and empty on her daughter’s unmoving body.

  Ivo made to join Gabaran, when something made him halt. A hiss. A soft gasp. Heeled boots clicking on stone. Then splashing through mud and blood.

  He turned, a cold fear gripping his heart and squeezing.

  Alarandia stood facing him in front of the giant stone portal, Emaranthe dangling in a vise like grip and held high by her slender, pale throat. Again. The Necromancer’s other hand hovered just beside Emaranthe’s left cheek, cradling a ball of roiling death smoke.

  Something inside Ivo snapped. It felt like his heart breaking in two.

  Golden brown eyes never left his face.

  He staggered a step toward her. He didn’t care if everyone saw his anguish, his fear, his pain.

  “Release her!” he roared. The sounds of battle behind him were nothing. Emaranthe was everything.

  “Not yet, warrior.” Alarandia’s sneer of manic glee didn’t quite reach her eyes. Pale with ill disguised panic, she glanced over at the chaotic scene filling the small clearing. “I will get my final payment. From Rodon.”

  Lightning cracked. A blast of thunder. Blinded and deafened, everyone ducked to hide their eyes and ears but Jaeger and Emaranthe. They were beyond feeling now, Ivo realized.

  Ivo regained his wits and blinked past the dark spots crowding his vision. His heart hammered as Emaranthe twisted in the Necromancer’s grip, heedless of the gruesome spell roiling inches from her skin. Fire swirled in her gaze and then surged from her body in a wave of heat.

  The blast flung the necromancer’s arms aside. The spell splashed against the base of the portal stone and sizzled. Alarandia stumbled backwards toward the edge of the cliff, and collapsed in a graceless heap. Her screeches added to the cries of rage and anguish filling the clearing.

  Emaranthe landed on her knees with a hiss of pain. She scrambled toward the rock and slapped her hands over the sizzling, disintegrating, edge. She held tight, her instant scream of agony punctuating a second crack of thunder.

  “Emaranthe!” Ivo dodged Rodon’s spear by a thread. He spun to meet it with his shield. The crack of energy knocked him backwards, his roar cut off by the unforgiving ground.

  Gabaran lunged in front of Ivo with a hoarse shout, drawing Rodon’s attention. He knocked and aimed his black bow and arrows at the Dro-Aconi. They passed through him, doing no more damage than the wind to smoke. Rodon slashed at him, the spear a blur of motion. Gabaran dodged again, and the pair squared off again near the center of the clearing.

  A green ribbon of light crept along the ground and split into several shimmering branches. Ivo stepped away from it. He did not want to feel a healing power that would not save them all.

  The green tendrils slipped and folded around the unmoving bundle wrapped in Jaeger’s shaking arms. Nothing happened. Jaeger remained senseless to the battle and Jadeth’s futile attempts. The green faded as Rodon stomped at it, a deadly dance woven between a spear and Gabaran’s wrath.

  A shimmer of light crept behind the battling pair and silently slipped in to join. Twin blades reflected the dying sunlight and cold metal as they slid and slashed. No blood darkened the blades, as the enemy moved with the smoke and shadows where they could not.

  Ivo stumbled to his feet, his attention caught between Emaranthe and his brother. Sesti remained still and lifeless, as did Jaeger’s gaze.

  Emaranthe shuddered and fell back. Her soft cry cut through Ivo’s dazed mind, but a surge of energy blasted him aside once more. He rolled, spitting dirt and leaves, and crept to his knees, but froze, his gaze locked on Emaranthe across the clearing.

  Her gaze, now large and haunted, stared to Ivo’s left. Horror, pure terror, reflected in her beautiful brown eyes, all signs of her inner fire gone.

  Ivo stumbled to his feet transfixed.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Gone was a recognizable Rodon. He rose high on towering legs of shadows and darkness. Lightning branched out to form legs, arms, and hands. His torso whirled and merged with embers stoking dark and twisted flames. His face was but a twisted suggestion of wraithlike shadow and smoke. Black, empty eyes of pure evil and a mouth that spoke like thunder was all that was left of him.

  Stormwarden.

  The very creature that had Emaranthe had seen in her nightmares, in the last moments of a prior lifetime. Ivo resisted the urge to retreat from the monster that was now fully in control. Behind the towering, twisted evil, Gabaran and Dehil paced with stunned awe. Ishelene stood behind them, her face blank of any emotion. Numbed.

  The Dro-Aconi spoke with rumbles of thunder and centuries of rage.

  Give me the map!

  Gabaran howled over the peals clapping the darkening sky.

  “Never! Your time is here done, Rodon.”

  Thunder rumbled. A humorless chuckle rode the chest pounding vibrations.

  “You are a fool.” The Dro-Aconi’s voice seemed nearly like the old Rodon. He turned and crossed the clearing toward Alara
ndia and Emaranthe in one step that cleared Jaeger’s huddled form and buckled the ground as it landed. Lightning crackled and surged with the movement, and the ember stoked black flames popped and swirled.

  Gabaran charged forward, his bow raised. He crashed to his knees, and slid beneath one outstretched leg and released an arrow. The sound it made echoed the thump of Ivo’s heart against his ribs. He held his breath. The black arrow pierced the smoky, lightning laced leg and sailed away off the edge of the cliff.

  The rumbling chuckle shook the clearing again.

  Something red and green rocketed across the clearing. A blur of metal blended with a ribbon of green. Jadeth’s war cry shattered the silence. She swung with the massive war hammer at Rodon’s knees. It connected in a shower of sparks, making the nearest leg stagger. Instantly, triumph became terror when lightning surged and crackled back along the hammer head and down the handle. Jadeth’s screech matched Alarandia’s and the war hammer hit the dirt moments before Jadeth’s ass did. She curled into a ball with a groan, the hammer out of reach for a brief second. It vanished and Jadeth glanced over at Ivo with a grimace before gaining her feet and reaching for it again with a snarl.

  Ivo rushed forward to take her place, sword raised. Dehil’s shimmering wake barreled toward the towering monster from the other side, an enraged roar joining the chaos.

  Gabaran joined Ivo’s attack, his bared teeth and empty hands the only weapons he had left. The twin pinpoints of light had dimmed with crushing grief and dark anger.

  “I’d stop right there, my little Immortals.”

  Ivo stumbled at the words, his heart seizing. The three of them skidded to a halt in mute horror beside the unmoving figures of Jaeger and Sesti.

  Through the monster’s nearly opaque torso, he watched lightning laced fingers close around Emaranthe and pull her away from the stone. The Stormwarden straightened and brandished his prize high in the air.

  The other arm whipped out and slammed into Alarandia. Her screams followed her off the cliff.

  “Your payment, Necromancer,” he said.

  Cold, chilling fear closed Ivo’s throat as the Stormwarden’s fingers squeezed.

  Emaranthe’s cry of pain cut off. Her struggles ceased. The haunted look turned to stark fear.

  “Let her go!” Ivo bellowed. It was echoed by Gabaran and Jadeth.

  Jaeger staggered to his feet, his face void of emotion, his blue eyes frozen solid. He cradled Sesti against his chest, his hauberk now more red than not. Her long, silky smooth black hair draped over his shoulder tangled on the frigid wind. A fine rivulet of blood beneath her nose was the only color on her cold, beautiful face.

  Ishelene darted forward and pulled her dead daughter from Jaeger’s arms with a wail that shook Ivo to the core.

  So much asked of them. Too much. Too much death. Too much pain.

  Jaeger’s arms fell to his sides. He didn’t react other than to ignore another teardrop as it froze on his grief and rage hardened face.

  “Give me the map, or she dies.” Rodon shook Emaranthe to make his point. She winced visibly, and Ivo’s heart nearly stopped. The long edge of her indigo cloak, wedged with her in the terrible lightning shaped hands, began to smolder. Wrinkles of concentration knit her brow and beads of sweat dotted her freckled nose. Hope flared for the briefest moment but it battled with fear as the embers faded and drifted away on the wind.

  Rodon’s black, soulless gaze found his. A sneer split his monstrous face further.

  “I don’t ask for much, Ivo son of Veriuc, do I?” he mocked. “Your ability to control the wind won’t help her. It will only stoke my fire.”

  Ivo shook with rage. His jaw flexed and he glared up at the towering Dro-Aconi. He saw the truth in the words. There at the center of whatever Rodon had become, embers of black churned with flames made of shadow. He risked making the monster stronger.

  “I want the map.” The Dro-Aconi lifted Emaranthe higher and tipped her to one side. The charred cloak billowed out along with her hair he held her nearly upside down.

  Her brown eyes flared white hot for a brief second, but vanished when she winced with pain again. Lightning danced along one giant finger, shocking her. Her body stiffened, her mouth wide in a silent cry.

  Gabaran fell to his knees. He didn’t notice that he knelt in his niece’s blood.

  Tears dimmed his gaze.

  Ivo’s heart hammered against his ribs.

  The map.

  Emaranthe.

  He held his breath as the large Elf reached into the folds of his dark cloak and pulled the tiny scrap of parchment free. His large, scarred hand shook so hard it crinkled audibly.

  “Gabaran,” Ivo croaked out, gutted. He staggered toward his friend. Jadeth flinched and dropped her chin to her chest with a sob.

  “Take it,” Gabaran said. “Take it.”

  Ivo tensed, every muscle in his body screamed for him to move. To act. To stop it all. Right. Now.

  To his shock, the Dro-Aconi’s monstrous form transformed, became the Immortal version of Rodon they knew just a bit, just enough to become solid, to reach for the scrap of paper with his unoccupied hand.

  He felt, rather than saw the surge of energy erupt from Emaranthe. Heat waves warped the air seconds before a tide of fire swept along the lightning laced half of Rodon’s partially transformed body.

  The blast lit up the dusky twilight. A surge of heat and roiling flames licked the sky inches above their heads. Mere moments later a molten shockwave laced with the guttural rumble of thunder and crackle of embers threw everyone backwards.

  Ivo landed on his back and tumbled bonelessly for a moment before slamming to halt against a tree at the edge of the clearing. Dizzy and disoriented, he stared up at the monster that was the Dro-Aconi. He watched, helpless, as Rodon toppled backwards between the spires of rock with Emaranthe in the hand made of lightning, and the tiny map clutched in the other.

  The arm made of lightning slammed into the stone. It cracked and crumbled beneath the sudden weight. Little lights flashed in warning. Sparks shocked and popped.

  ***

  Emaranthe struggled against the lightning-made fingers and lunged for the crumbling stone with a hoarse cry. She clawed her fingers into a crack in the rock as gravity dragged her through the portal in a cruel slow fall. A flash of fire burned beneath her palm. The stone whirred to life, the tiny lights and sparks popping. Tendrils of smoke slipped from behind her fingers and the stench of scorched flesh turned her stomach.

  She felt the flare of heat and static as the portal erupted open behind her. It flickered. Swirled in a static laced fog. It sharpened, and then flickered again between a myriad of unfamiliar scenes. Gravity dragged her hand along the stone inch by inch and the monstrous fingers around her middle spasmed, forcing air from her lungs. Her grip lost, she turned, her gaze on the creature holding her. A memory intruded, unbidden.

  Flames writhed in skeletal hands.

  Eyes burned black.

  Lightning scorched the sky, filling it with the rank stench of death.

  Hide. Need to hide. He will find me!

  Something else was moving with the storm as well. I could feel it in the wind—a warmth, a fire, a hunger–

  Death.

  The weight of gravity. The stinging agony of being caged in lightning. The creeping burn.

  It was all too familiar.

  But not the same.

  She struggled against the weightless, helpless feeling of falling forever. A faint light encased her, brightening her tilted and fading view of everyone in the clearing.

  Tears blurred their familiar and beloved faces, the looks of terror, fear, and rage a jagged spike of pain as they slipped away from her. So much pain.

  Her gaze caught Ivo’s. His ashen face reflected her terror, anguish, grief. Love.

  “Find what we seek, Ivo,” Emaranthe whispered. The wind would carry her words to him. “I know you will find me! I love you!”

  Everything shimmered
and blackened.

  ***

  Ivo’s heart seized at her whispered plea.

  “Emaranthe! No!”

  He heard her whisper on the wind.

  I love you.

  Rodon and Emaranthe vanished. The image inside continued to flicker between a star studded black sky and the silhouette of an unfamiliar mountain top. It hitched and froze with a final spark and tendril of smoke.

  Ivo bellowed, anguish turning his voice raw and wild. He stared at the space between the broken stones, disbelief crinkling the corners of his eyes and making them sting. The world blurred. His shaking fingers clawed into the ground as he lunged to his feet.

  Emaranthe…was gone.

  Silence and emptiness was all that remained.

  Something cold touched his face. Something wet. At first it came as a gentle plop. Then a few more. Then a solid, steady fall that didn’t at first register in his dazed mind.

  Rain. A hard, pouring, rain of grief, rage, and fear. He fell to his knees.

  Eyes closed, Ivo turned his face to the sky. Raindrops pelted his skin like cold, hard, shards of glass. Like tears.

  His heart, already torn in two, twisted again, when he recognized what the rain meant.

  He didn’t have to turn to see. He knew.

  But he did, anyways.

  Jaeger knelt in the center of the clearing, his broad shoulders hunched and shaking with sobs. A bare hand, trembling violently, hovered over the sodden spell book dropped carelessly in a dirty puddle before him.

  “Jaeger, no,” Ivo croaked. The pouring rain drowned his words. Behind his brother, a ring of faces lost in the gray, wet, haze watched, pale and shaken, wordless.

  Jadeth sank to her knees, her hair a scarlet slash of color in the grayness, her gaze empty and lost. Behind her, Dehil stood motionless, his focus on Jadeth alone, his face hard and stricken. Gabaran…Gabaran stood with his back to them all, his face to the empty portal, stiff and unyielding.