The grey amarach delivered Kherron a sweeping bow, arms spread wide as the rounded tops of his fully extended wings pointed almost directly at Kherron’s chest. Then Fehl straightened, gave an almost imperceptible nod, and vanished within that brilliant flash found only in the coming and going of immortals.
“Do they think you a complete idiot?” Lorraii spat.
The words took Kherron by surprise, as did the venomous loathing dripping from them. At first he hesitated, confused by her apparent defense of his capabilities, then looked over his shoulder to shoot her a questioning glance.
“He did not say a thing we don’t already know,” she said, gesturing toward the place Fehl had just stood and farther toward the Amneas coast, now so close at hand. “Of course they want to stop you. They want to stop everyone.”
No, it was not a direct exclamation of support on her part, but Kherron had learned the woman’s most surprising compliments came wrapped in biting remarks dripping with disdain. He regarded her for a moment, then shrugged and turned back toward the road to complete the final leg of their journey. The others fell in line behind him, as if the visit from the amarach guardian had never happened. What more was there to say?
A FEW HOURS LATER AND still quite before midday, an unexpected pocket of unnatural and unsettling impossibility greeted them. Kherron did of course come upon it first, noticing immediately the absence of the salty air to which his senses had grown accustomed a few hours before. The wind blowing down from the Bladeshales vanished in an instant, and not even Kherron’s own breath seemed to stir the achingly still air. Then he realized he could not breathe—at least, his chest tightened and burned with his next inhale, disorienting him in quite the same way as the violet-tinged mists of the void but instead filling him with a harrowing lightness, as if he might float away.
Steeling himself against the unrecognizable sensations, he turned around to see all three of his companions had stopped, lined up together as if they stood against a wall he could not see. He opened his mouth to call out a warning, but he still could not find his breath or even his voice.
Then the world trembled beneath him, and the last thing he saw with complete clarity was the scowl Lorraii employed to mask her shock and Kayu’s eyes flashing wide. Kherron lurched where he stood, then felt himself dragged down the road at a nauseating speed. The world blurred past him—gnarled black trees flickering like leaves; the sandy clay of the earth churning into one dark, indiscernible mass; huge black outcroppings of harsh rock thundering by—and he could not tell if the thumping in his ears was from the speed of flying past these things or the raging of his own heartbeat.
It lasted only seconds, and then it was over. Kherron stumbled forward with a gasping breath, which came now as easily as it always should have. A blast of icy, salt-thickened air hit him full in the face and made him gasp again, pressing his clothes tightly against his body and whipping his cloak out behind him. He ignored the roaring crash puncturing what had just been complete silence and instead whirled around again to see what had become of the rest of his party. They were gone.
Chapter 27
When he faced east once more, the sight filled his belly with a whirring anxiety. It seemed some force he did not know had either wished him to hasten his approach or had fortuitously and without sentience stumbled upon the man it had quite suddenly delivered to the doorstep of Deeprock Spire.
The age-old fortress loomed ahead of him, starkly contrasted against the grey-washed sky but entirely fitting amidst its surroundings. Waves crashed against the black cliffs of the Amneas coast, and a gull cried from overhead, piercing the roar of the raging sea with its singular, screeching voice. It might have taken him ten minutes to walk from where he stood in the sodden, muddy earth to the huge iron doors standing entry into the place he’d sought for what felt like many lifetimes. But he did not have the chance to begin such a march toward the end.
All around him, brilliant white streaks of light blazed into existence on the narrow road ahead, on the salt-stained earth around him, in the sky between this newcomer and the rising spires of mist-darkened stone. Amarach in a multitude of different-colored wings burst into existence along the Amneas coast, all clad in the same glistening armor, breast plates and helms and sharpened blades glinting beneath a sun that did not shine here. They drifted everywhere, as if immobilized by the surprise of his sudden arrival. Then the first careened toward him, shrieking a battle cry in a language Kherron did not know, and that seemed to spur the entire world back into action once more.
Had Kherron made it here at any other time—had he not been plucked from the Sylthurst, shackled by the Roaming People, thrust into the void to break himself until he rose—the battle for which these amarach had apparently prepared themselves might have ended right there. But Kherron had since been named a Blood of the Veil, and while he had not fought like this before—most definitely not against a legion of immortals—he did know how to ask the Veil to aid him. The Sky Metal dagger hung from the black leather scabbard at his waist, but the natural world around him provided everything he needed.
That first amarach was almost upon him, her open mouth twisted in defiant fury, and Kherron raised his hand. A pillar of black mud and packed sand shot from the ground at his feet, springing at the amarach like a striking snake before batting her away. More winged forms hurtled toward him while still others flashed into existence to block his attackers’ path, and while he recognized the immortals Fehl had mentioned were now here to keep the way clear for him, it was impossible to tell friend from foe amidst the streaks of light and the buffeting wings and the identical armor on every single one of them.
An immortal with ice-blue eyes sprang at him from the side, and Kherron brought his raised arm down again. A fist of frigid, salty air plummeted from the sky, unseen until it knocked the amarach from the air and crushed him against the ground, burying him in the mud. A golden glow lifted amidst the spray of wet earth, then flickered and was snuffed out.
Kherron whirled when another amarach flashed into existence beside him, but the glow of orange eyes stayed his hand. “She’s inside,” Fehl shouted, then flapped his wings and sprang into the air to meet the downstroke of another immortal’s blade with the glistening sword that appeared in his grasp.
He did not need more opportunity than that. Kherron sprinted down the poor excuse for a path toward Deeprock Spire’s heavy double doors. Waves of sand lifted and struck out beside him as he moved, mostly hitting their targets and rarely falling short of success. He drew his dagger from its sheath, entreating with it now to fulfill its purpose in his hand. A silver arrow whistled through the sky. Kherron was too slow with a blade to be of any use against the pointed tip loosed at him, but the Sky Metal dagger was not. It jerked in his hand, twisting his entire arm in one seamless motion before he heard the ping of the arrow deflected harmlessly against his blade. The shock rippled up his arm, but it was no more painful than the jolt of bringing down a heavy hammer upon a lump of searing-hot steel.
The doors were so close—just a few more yards. And then the air crackled with something Kherron thought was lightning until he registered its purple light fading into the spray of mud and sand lifting at his feet. He stopped, the two amarach struggling against each other blocking his view before one of them erupted into golden light and the victor sought a new opponent. Now Kherron saw the towers rising before him and the faces in the open-shuttered windows. Perhaps a dozen men glowered down at him from these holes carved into the stone walls of the fortress, hidden safely away within a place he could not reach—not like this.
Then he found Torrahs among them, grimacing out at the battle raging along the edge of the sea and the man whose freedom he had purchased only to lead him here in the end. “Torrahs!” Kherron screamed. He barely had to think when another celestial being barreled toward him from the sky; his hand shot out, and the rising spray of a crashing wave lifted to wrap icy tendrils around the winged figure before dragging him
down into the waters churning against the jagged, deadly cliffs. “I will take her from you.” Despite the chaos of the restless waters and the battle stretching across land and sky, his voice carried up the walls of Deeprock Spire and met their target.
Torrahs the Wanderer glared at him, then turned away to speak some unheard command to whomever stood in the room with him. Kherron made to run toward the stone walls again, but a volley of static blasts hurtled down from the open windows—green, silver, purple, all of them crackling with power and leaving streaks of heat and energy where they fell. The earth erupted at Kherron’s feet once more, but not one attack struck its target. Then he realized their aim must not have been to destroy him where he stood but to drive him back, away from the fortress walls and toward the rising cliffs that dropped into the furious sea. That was, in fact, what they were doing. Kherron found himself stepping hastily backward from the barrage of colored light blasting from the towers’ windows; had he not also had to ward off the other amarach who tried their luck at attacking him directly, he might have managed to avoid the bolts of energy-warping magic from above. But even he was not equipped to defend against so many enemies from every direction, and the Brotherhood seemed less intent on killing him than the immortals. So he was herded by the green and purple streaks cratering the muddy shore where they struck until he found himself stepping backward up a rising slope against the Amneas.
When he had a brief moment to look away from the onslaught of both amarach enemies and those who’d named themselves his defenders, Kherron gazed down to see he stood now on a jutting cliff, one of only a few along what he could see of the coast that rose above the otherwise flat land and dangling over the spraying salt water at his back. If Torrahs meant to press an attack until Kherron stumbled off this bluff to his death upon the rocks, the old man was an eager fool. The Amneas would respond to Kherron’s requests just as the rest of the world communing with this Blood of the Veil in their midst.
Then he realized the volley of attacks from the towers had ceased. The double doors opened with a resounding boom, revealing the main hall within and the thin, blonde-haired figure standing just inside.
“Kherron!” The scream rose above the clatter of immortal blades and the cries of battle and demise. The sound of his name in this way brought him right back to that day so long ago, when he’d panicked to find a nearly drowned Dehlyn caught upon a fallen tree in the river beside Torrahs cottage, struggling to keep her head above water and choking out her desperation.
Now, Dehlyn sprinted from the open doors of Deeprock Spire, her pale, bare feet flying across the sodden ground and sending up sprays of mud against the hem of her white shift. If the amarach noticed her emergence, they did not respond. She made a swift, straight line toward the rising cliff and Kherron standing there, struck dumb by the sight of her here, now, running toward him while her golden hair whipped around her head.
So suddenly he could hardly believe it, she slammed against his chest and threw her arms around him, sobbing his name over and over and clutching at his middle as if he were a part of her. She trembled in his arms, then nearly collapsed. Unable to comprehend this heart-rending reunion in the midst of such raging immortal warfare, Kherron found that all he could do was gently lower them both to the ground, where he held her as she gasped and trembled and pressed herself to him. Then Dehlyn looked up at him with those wide blue eyes—the eyes that had first unnerved him and held him at bay before he came to know the wonders of the unlikely, eternal child behind them.
“I waited for you every day,” she said, holding his gaze with her own until a grin of relief and trust and agonizing love broke through her tears. Then she buried her face in his chest again, and Kherron could not help but savor the bitterness of this moment.
He looked up over her head and saw Torrahs’ tall, robed form striding across the muddied earth toward them. The man smirked as the wind tore at his long gray beard and hair, untouched by either faction of battling amarach. Kherron glared at the man, knowing his betrayer meant to join them here on this jutting cliff. That would not happen.
Though the vow he’d made to Dehlyn so long ago was broken now and did not tug at his very existence, Kherron did what he had promised that night. He protected her. The mud and sand rippled at his feet then lifted, reaching up to meet the icy ocean air around them and unite together in response to his call. The barrier of earth and sky rose above him and Dehlyn kneeling on the cliff, swirling around them into a protective globe Kherron would not release until this battle was ended. The water roared against the cliffs, and the salty spray that would have soaked them through fell upon the dome of whirling earth shielding them before it slipped back into the sea. Nothing would touch them until Kherron willed it.
Two amarach shot from the sky toward the Blood of the Veil’s rounded shield, then two rods of hardened earth struck out from the storming mass Kherron had gathered to knock them away. Kherron glared at Torrahs, who still yet walked calmly toward them amidst the fray, and then he felt Dehlyn stir.
She looked up at him, and this time, her eyes were the green of omniscience—the immortal vessel, the Unclaimed. Kherron felt the rest of the world drop away when he looked into those eyes. The whole of existence revolved around the two of them, right now, in this moment, and it was not because she’d drawn him toward her like fire draws a moth but because he had come to do what must be done. He had no idea what that was.
“Oh,” she said, part lament and part blissful realization. “A Blood of the Veil, Kherron. I knew I could not see the whole of it.” Then she glanced up at the wavering dome of earth and sky and water blossoming around just the two of them. It seemed they’d entered their own quiet bubble, an oasis within the very nexus of all the immortal creatures outside who fought as if they held the power to decide this fated end for all of them.
But the final battle would be fought and won right here, within Kherron himself. He knew as much the minute Dehlyn grabbed his hand and slowly moved it to the hilt of the Sky Metal dagger at his belt. She covered his hand with both of hers as his fist closed around the grip, staring at him with a pleading determination he’d only seen in her once before—the night she’d drawn that vow from him like a stolen breath.
“No,” he whispered, studying the bright glow of her eyes, now more intense and brilliant than he’d ever seen it.
“You must.” Dehlyn the Unclaimed did not falter in this wish. Her smile, so heartbreaking in its sadness, offered nothing but gracious certainty and an acceptance of what this last thing would mean—for her, for him, for every creature struggling against this fracturing world.
Tears sprang to Kherron’s eyes. “I can’t.” He shook his head. “I can’t do this, Dehlyn. Anything else.”
Whether it was her own fear, a reflection of his, or whatever knowledge she held within her bringing the bliss of awareness springing through her, those green eyes swam with tears now, too. “Please.”
A sobbing gasp escaped him, and he lowered his head, because he knew there was no other way; she would not deign to entertain the possibility of it just to spare him. Neither of them could be spared now from this. Only released. And the cost was one he’d already paid once before, in the void, when he’d broken their bond and tore Dehlyn from his own soul.
“I was never meant to be here this long, Kherron,” she said and squeezed his hand. “I cannot endure another minute of it. Release me.”
With his grief spilling down his cheeks, Kherron took a jagged breath and looked up. Through the spinning maze of wet sand and broken rock and muddy soil, he saw Torrahs the Wanderer standing on the other side of Kherron’s unyielding barrier and muttering unheard incantations. A few sparks burst from the end of the man’s staff, but so far, the barrier kept him at bay.
“All will be well in the end.”
Kherron looked back down at Dehlyn to see her close her eyes, perhaps delivering herself to this moment, perhaps thinking of other times and other places far less desperate t
han these.
“One Blood of the Veil still walks.”
Amazed by the fact that he did not tremble, Kherron took a deep breath and drew the Sky Metal dagger from its sheath—the weapon that had been forged where metal meets sky, where the amarach had come to walk the earth. It was a weapon made with a single purpose, just as Dehlyn had been made and by the same immortal hands. Her purpose here was ended.
The Unclaimed opened her eyes, lifted her chin a little, and nodded.
With his free arm wrapped around her waist where they knelt, his hand gently cradling the fragile, bird-like expanse of her back through the white shift, Kherron did as the Unclaimed wished—without words or harried command. He plunged the Sky Metal blade up and into her chest, feeling the immortal vessel’s very mortal flesh give beneath the pressure and the piercing edge of the weapon he had not known would carry such a devastating burden.
Dehlyn took a sharp breath, but she did not cry out. Her slender fingers seized handfuls of his wool tunic and did not release him, even while her face, so previously smooth and flawless, now hardened into something resembling stone. And that stone face cracked—only a little but enough to show the blazing purple light within her, as if some fire of violet flame had always existed within the cold, hollow shell into which her warm flesh now transformed.
Her gaze never left his, not even when the last breath of an eternal life sighed through her lips. Then she fell still in his arms, and the green intensity of her eyes clouded over in death and nonexistence. Another sob escaped him, and Kherron jerked his hand away from the hilt of the dagger still buried in her breast.
Sacrament of Dehlyn (The Unclaimed Book 3) Page 27