Because we are all listening, Deathless Pirate said out of nowhere. He has never told us his story. Hearing it from your perspective is ... enlightening.
I was waiting, Ram said. Over the centuries I was waiting for a new warrior to take my place.
“To die?” Tamerlan asked out loud, forgetting himself, but Jhinn didn’t seem to care. His gaze flicked back and forth between Tamerlan and an empty place in the gondola as if he were intently listening to a conversation.
No. To rule.
That didn’t make any sense.
Read more of your book.
Tamerlan turned back to the book.
“So then the people agree that a short time of sacrifice is only fitting. So they build a city on top of the dragon and they pour a girl’s blood over it again and again until they realize that they can pour it into the wound and it will keep the dragon in place for a full year and they build a clock on top of the city and put the cage into the clock to mark the time until the Grandfather’s sacrifice will be over.”
“Well, that makes sense,” Jhinn said.
“Does it?” Tamerlan asked, his face screwed up. “It doesn’t make sense of why the Grandfather can go through time. Or how the clock gave Marielle the same power. It doesn’t explain why he went on a rampage to kill all the Legends when he got out.”
“Maybe he just wanted their power.”
Tamerlan shook his head. Could it be so simple?
“Or maybe he hates them. After all, they’ve all been trapped together for centuries. Think about how well you and Etienne get along. Imagine if you were together for hundreds of years?”
Tamerlan shivered.
“Or maybe this book only scratches the surface.”
Tamerlan nodded. “Maybe it’s just what the author understood. Maybe there was a lot more going on.”
“So, what happened then?” Jhinn asked. He was packing away the food and putting on dry clothing and his fur cloak – dry now – as he laid out his wet clothing to dry and fed the fire again. Tamerlan was pleasantly warm but he couldn’t relax. They’d heard another scream far in the distance a few minutes ago. Were Etienne and Marielle close to that? What if they needed him? Would he even know in time to help?
Would Marielle even want his help? Rejection tore through him again as fast and hard as his worry, making him swallow down a wave of humiliation. He turned again to the book.
“King Abelmeyer makes a deal with Ram the Hunter, though they don’t really seem like friends. If Ram will give over the secret of how to trap the dragons, he will help Ram find another person to trap the next dragon. Together, they trap Maid Chaos.”
“Let me guess, the details are foggy,” Jhinn said.
“Yes,” Tamerlan said with a shiver, “but I saw it with my own eyes. It was not pretty. They convinced her followers that it would give her everlasting life – but they weren’t clear on the cost or how that life would be lived. They weren’t clear on that with anyone.”
“They all thought it would be temporary,” Jhinn agreed. “None of them realized it would have to be forever. So when the Grandfather started to kill their avatars and you and the others just kept replacing them they had to realize that they weren’t just trapped temporarily – they were trapped forever in the land of the dead with no way out – except through you or someone else they could grab and turn into an avatar. But that doesn’t explain why Anglarok and Liandari want you dead.”
“Doesn’t it?” Tamerlan asked him. Because it was suddenly becoming clear to him. “King Abelmeyer still hates Ram. And I think he hopes that if Ram takes me as a true avatar, and then he kills me, that it will be the end to Ram and they can all escape.”
“So all the Legends want you dead – as long as Ram gets you first. Otherwise, they want to try to use you to get a little closer, a little closer, to life again.”
We never said that, Lila protested. But it was a weak lie.
“I think so,” Tamerlan said tiredly.
“And Ram wants you to take his place – to keep the Legends locked in as the half-living sacrifices that hold the dragons prisoner.”
“Yes.”
“And what do you want?”
“I want the dragons to be gone.”
Impossible. That was Ram.
“I want the cities to be saved.”
Impossible.
“I want to live without blood sacrifices and Avatars.”
Impossible. Impossible.
“And you can’t think of a way to do that – and even if you could, they would hear your thoughts and sabotage your plan,” Jhinn agreed. “Which means it can’t be you to make the plan.”
“What do you mean?”
“Marielle or Etienne or I will have to make the plan and enact the plan and you will have to trust us enough to do what we say when we tell you to do it or you have no hope of escaping this alive or at least with your own mind.”
Tamerlan’s hands were shaking as he looked at the last scrawled words in the book. They said, ‘It will never be over as long as the dragons remain.’
“I don’t know if I can,” he said softly. “Etienne wants me dead. He thinks I’m the problem.”
“We’ll change his mind.”
“Marielle doesn’t feel the same way about me that I do about her.”
“But you can trust her. She is honorable. She is good.”
He nodded. She was all those things and more. She was life and happiness, safety and comfort, all rolled into one person.
“And I trust you, Jhinn,” he said. “You’ve been a good friend to me.”
“Sure, flatter me. Then ask for what you really want.”
Tamerlan chuckled wryly. “I’ve used you and everyone else. Used you like tools. I thought it was for a good purpose. Now, I wonder if it was just for my purpose. I don’t know if I know how to trust.”
“Then you’ll have to learn. Fast. Before it’s too late.”
14: Chase through Bones and Ash
Marielle
They'd been two steps ahead of them all night - maybe more. Every time Marielle turned a corner and found another body strung up, she knew they were doing this all wrong. They should be setting up a trap somewhere instead of chasing the Harbingers through the streets. She wasn't even certain what they were doing or why they were killing people.
"I didn't know there were so many people in the city still," Marielle gasped as they cut down another body hanging from a roof sign.
"They're the kind of people who had nowhere to go and nothing to go to," Etienne said, but she could hear the hurt behind his words. He cared about the people of the Dragonblood Plains the way a farmer cared about his animals. He felt responsible for the fact that they were being slaughtered like this for no reason. As if it were his job to protect them. She felt the same.
"It would be better to lay a trap for them," Marielle said. She felt her tattoos gingerly. Strange that the Legends hadn’t used them again to call her to them. Perhaps they were biding their time, or perhaps they had merely given up that tactic.
"We have. Tamerlan and Jhinn sit in that pool like ducks on a pond. When one of them starts screaming, we'll know the Legends have descended."
"Then we should be there with crossbows and bolts or a net, or something, instead of out chasing shadows," Marielle said. She was still worried about the Windrose. Why would they give up that great tool against her? Unless they were planning something else? "This is acting foolishly rather than wisely.”
Etienne laughed wryly. "It was your idea to hunt them like this. What made you want to be gone from that square so badly, anyway? Is it hard to watch your beloved going mad?"
"Who said he was my beloved?" Marielle asked, trying to seem flippant. It was hard to sound like that when all she felt was tense.
His expression when she left had broken her heart. He hadn't realized that she was doing it for him – saving him from Etienne's wrath, trying to give him time and space to read that book and find answers in
stead of continually giving himself for other people. But he hadn't looked grateful. He'd looked heartbroken. He hadn't taken her words to Etienne seriously, had he?
She bit her lip as she remembered it. But it was the kind of thing he might believe – Tamerlan with the sensitive heart who had been kicked again and again by the people he cared about – he would think that she didn't care just because she spoke about cold facts instead of how she felt. But maybe it was better for him like this – maybe he didn't need a distraction like her anyway. He'd given up too much to save her again and again. Maybe if she left him alone for a little while, the spell would break and he'd realize all the reasons he had to walk away, to stop saving her again and again, to go live a life with someone who didn't demand everything he had and was. Any normal man would prefer that. Any normal man wouldn't want a girl as full of drama and danger as Marielle’s life had become.
She shivered.
"What if I said I can see through your pretense. I know when someone has lost their heart," Etienne said.
"Is that experience talking? Are you thinking about your Allegra?"
"She's not mine."
"She's not anyone's. But she serves your purposes, doesn't she? She sent Rajit here – and that seems to have been with the same goals you would have. She was working to take over Xin, which I'm sure you at least partially charmed her into doing."
"She needed no nudging from me."
"But perhaps she took your advice at just the right time?"
"Perhaps."
"Perhaps she came to you for advice – among other things?"
"Perhaps. There was a faint smile on his lips."
“How did that start? It wasn’t like you would have seen her much when you were Lord Mythos.”
He led them down a narrow alley. It was thick with darkness but Marielle smelled only ash and stone and the trail of Anglarok. There were no hidden dangers lurking here.
“I met her before then – as I told you – when I was an apprentice. We saved Xin City from the plague. And we became friends. She’s ten years my senior. Ten years wiser and more wily than I am. I found her advice – helpful.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“Smirk all you like, but ruling is no easy task and having an outside perspective is helpful.”
“Didn’t your advisors mind?”
“My advisors did not know. We communicated by letter in code. Played stones by letter, but each move meant something in our own code.”
“How romantic.”
They exited the alley and crept through an open space where the moonlight jittered through a broken window high above. With every flap of the dragon’s wings, the heavenly lights shuddered. Marielle was glad she didn’t get seasick.
“It was, actually.”
“That’s why you sought her when your city was destroyed.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you stay with her. Why didn’t you seize power again with her?”
“That was the plan. But it was my fault you were stuck in a clock, Marielle. My responsibility to help free you.”
“And now?”
“And now she might kill me as soon as take me back. Allegra is a dangerous woman.”
The dragon lurched under them and Marielle caught the wall to steady herself. She fought down a wave of nausea. Maybe she did get seasick.
"If you could ally with her, despite knowing she was dangerous, can't you ally with Tamerlan?"
He clenched his jaw. "And why would I do that?"
"Because he is the key to the Legends," Marielle said. "And despite what you say, we need him to save the world. And we need him to trust us – not to fight us and destroy himself. Has it occurred to you that anything we say to him we are saying to them?"
His eyebrows rose. "Of course, I have considered that. The Grandfather raves often about that ‘creeping yellow-haired spy.’"
Marielle swallowed. She knew the Grandfather hated Tamerlan, but this confirmed her fears.
"We need to make plans without him, Etienne. Outside his hearing. But we need him to trust us enough to go through with those plans anyhow."
"And what about me, Marielle. I have a Legend in my mind, too. Are you saying that I also must blindly trust you?"
She steeled herself.
"Yes," she said. "I am saying that. You’ll both have to trust me.”
He sighed. "You’ll need a good plan. One that would be easier to make with someone trained in strategy.”
“If you are such a master of strategy, then you know I’m right,” Marielle said firmly.
“I find it convenient that you alone are not plagued by Legends and that somehow that means you need to have all the power." But she could tell this was only a complaint, not a real concern. He was going to listen to her. It was the only thing that made sense.
"Jhinn is also untouched."
"But he's stuck in a boat. I wouldn't call that a threat."
She snorted. "If you think he isn't a threat because he's pledged to remain on the water, then you may not be the strategist I thought you were."
He snorted. "I'll think on it. And in the meantime, you might want to talk to your boy."
"What do you mean?" she asked coolly.
He laughed. "I saw you break his heart back there. A heartbroken man will take insane risks. Maybe you should consider mending his heart – for all of us."
"I think you should stay out of it."
He snorted. "Again, Marielle, you're the one who brought me into it."
She could smell blood ahead – that and cunning. And insanity. Her heart kicked up to a faster rate immediately, all her muscles tensing.
"I think we aren't the only ones laying traps," she whispered, leaning up against the wall beside them and drawing her sword. "There is something strange up ahead."
"What do you smell?"
“Fear, tangled up with genius – which is bad. And through that run lines of blood and violence. And Legend.”
Etienne tensed as they both raised their blades.
“You should try that shell,” Etienne whispered. “These are not the Harbingers we are fighting but the Legends within them. Perhaps, they don’t know the magic of the seas. Perhaps, you can use it against them.”
She met his eyes and nodded. It was a solid idea.
She pulled the small yellow shell out of her belt pouch, letting it fit perfectly into the palm of her hand. She was sweating despite the cold, the stink of her nerves heavy in the air.
“They’re just up ahead around that corner, she said confidently. “We should try to get a good look at it before we rush in.”
Etienne nodded and then tilted his head toward the hulk of a burnt-out stone building beside him. Good idea.
She slipped into the empty door frame and glided silently over the charcoal that was all that was left of the floor. Thank goodness someone had made the stairs out of stone. She carefully climbed the circular staircase that ran along the outside wall. It had been set into the wall when it was built of stone. This must have been an important building at one time to garner that kind of care.
She was most of the way up the stairs when she started to hear the crying.
A child.
She knew that immediately and she was suddenly glad that Tamerlan wasn’t here. Because while a child might break Marielle’s heart if he was in pain, she knew it would undo Tamerlan and shred his self-control. Nothing could make him break down and smoke faster than that.
She slid her sword back into her scabbard as she reached the last stairs. She might need the extra hand if there wasn’t much left of the floor. She wanted to keep the shell in her hand to use against the Legends. It was a good idea and besides that, it was the only weapon she had with any range.
She barely breathed as she silently slit up the last stairs to a small stone rim still surrounding the gaping hole where the floor had once been before it was burnt to cinders. There was enough stone around the rim of the wall to carefully inch
to the nearest window and look down.
She gasped at what she saw.
They were heartless. And they were no longer the Harbingers she had known. Liandari and Anglarok had been made of honor. They’d been honor from core to cusp. They weren’t kind, weren’t soft, but they would never hurt the innocent or use a child to bait a trap. And they wouldn’t have insulted her with such an obvious trap. Anglarok could use his own Scenting to find her if that’s what he wanted. He was a prisoner in his own mind, just like Tamerlan had been.
There was no sign below of Liandari. But Anglarok was very obvious from his perch on the top of a fountain statue. The statue was of Queen Mer and he stood crouched on her shoulders, his fur cloak caked in blood and a wicked-looking sword in his hand.
What Legend had taken him over? Perhaps that would be obvious if she studied his handiwork. Was there a clue there? She tried to keep her breath even, to think this through, to use the opportunity instead of running in with her emotions high and her irrationality even higher.
Deep breaths, Marielle. Don’t look at the bait. Look at the trap.
The trap was not very elegant.
He’d made a mesh of rope and wood and woven it into a make-shift net. When had he found time to do that between murders tonight?
The net hung from a rope and the rope went over a beam and tied beside him to the statue. The outer edges of the net were heavy wooden beams that would bring the whole thing down on someone and keep him there under the net – if the stone didn’t crush him. If someone made it as far as the bait, all Anglarok would have to do is cut the rope and the trap would be sprung.
Simple.
Basic.
Too simple.
But even knowing that, she knew she could be trapped – and that Tamerlan definitely would be. Thank goodness he wasn’t here! Thank goodness that she’d made him stay at the boat.
Because there were two cages. Two traps.
In one, a woman hung upside down, hands tied to a brick on the ground, legs tied to a heavy stone the apex of the net. Her tears ran down her forehead, dripping onto the ground and a cut ran along her side where someone had sliced her just enough to bring the scent of blood in the air – just enough to slowly bleed her drop by drop unless someone saved her.
Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series Page 70