Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  If you don’t kill her, she will kill you. Surely, you must know that.

  She wouldn’t kill him unless she had to. If there was anyone he could trust, it was her.

  You know nothing. You understand nothing.

  He understood – finally – that Ram was his enemy. All the Legends were. At the beginning, he’d thought the enemy was Etienne. And then he’d thought it was the dragons, but now he was beginning to know the truth. The enemy lived inside his mind, breathed his air, thought with him.

  We are not your enemy. We are the only ones with the guts to do what we must. We are the only salvation you will ever have.

  His hand snaked to his sword grip and the dry wood he was holding fell to the ground. He fought the sudden hold of Ram over his hand, fear spiking through him. What if Ram had wrestled control away an hour ago? What if he had crushed Marielle with his own hand? He needed to be more careful.

  He gathered up the wood as Jhinn took the clothing from Marielle.

  “Clumsy, Tamerlan?” Etienne said.

  Tamerlan looked up. Could Etienne see the guilt in his eye?

  As always, Etienne watched him like a hawk watching a mouse. It was hard to know you held a deadly secret with someone like that nearby.

  “My apologies,” he said mildly, offering the gathered wood to the other man.

  “You two certainly took your time,” Etienne said, his expression unreadable. “Anything to confess?”

  Tamerlan caught Marielle’s eye and she blushed. Warmth blossomed in his chest. He made her blush. That was good, right?

  “It looks like there is something,” Jhinn agreed, stowing away the dry clothing in the hatch of the gondola. He and Etienne were already dry and dressed. Those clothes must have been extra.

  “There was no food in the cabin,” Marielle said, changing the subject.

  Etienne held Tamerlan’s gaze until Tamerlan cleared his throat and spoke quietly, “We spoke vows. We declare that we are married.”

  Etienne’s eyes grew wide. It was nice to know he could still be surprised sometimes. “And what, you’re telling us instead of your family?”

  “You are my family,” Tamerlan said looking to Jhinn who the comment was for. Jhinn grinned, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

  “Well hop in the boat, married man. We have miles to float and I think you should take the first turn at the pedals. It might take some of that spring out of your step.”

  Etienne looked less pleased, shooting worried glances at Marielle whenever she wasn’t looking, and suspicious ones at Tamerlan whenever he was looking. But as Tamerlan settled into the seat and began to pedal, he focused inwardly instead of on Etienne. He would need methods to keep the Legends in check.

  Good luck with that. I will be recruiting help.

  There was no one to recruit.

  I think it’s obvious that your little love plans to do the same thing to all of us that she just did to the Grandfather. Remember how hard they fought to prevent the extermination of the Legends when it was Grandfather Timeless doing it? They will fight again.

  Why wasn’t he hearing them, then? Why only Ram.

  I have you more fully in my grip. But they will join me now. They will join me when they realize what a monster you have become.

  The others spoke in hushed voices, occasionally looking in his direction. But their looks were furtive. Even Marielle’s glances at him were hooded, though she also offered secretive smiles that sent tingling sensations through him at the promises they suggested.

  He didn’t concentrate on their voices. He knew they needed to work without him. Instead, he focused on pedaling the gondola and focusing inward. He imagined that the cast-iron frying pan in the gondola was in his own mind and that every movement of the Legends was being thrown into that frying pan and burned up. He threw his fears in with them. His insecurities. His suspicions.

  It won’t work. It never does. We will find a way in.

  And as the voices of the Legends began to surface again and he could pick them out one by one he focused on the frying pan in his heart, the one full of the flames he would use to burn the thoughts they tried to feed him and the horrible suggestions that they whispered in his ears. It took everything he had to pedal the gondola and to feed the fire. He let both tasks consume him until eventually, Marielle put a hand on his shoulder.

  “You’ve been pedaling all day. We’re going to stop up ahead. We think there’s a spot where we can build a fire and rest for the night. You need to rest, too ... husband.”

  The word was tentative, but it filled him with a profound sense of joy. He was smiling before he realized it, pulling her toward him for a kiss. But the moment he let the pan fire in his mind slip away, the voices roared through it.

  Avatar! Make her join us! Stop her plans. The dragons must be stopped!

  They were talking over each other so viciously that he gasped, unable to tell one voice from the next in the cacophony. Marielle misunderstood his gasp, deepening her kiss.

  Someone cleared his throat and then she was drawing away, leaving him both aching for her and terrified of what might happen if he let himself go again. Behind his mental steel, the Legends were joining forces to destroy them all.

  Snow drifted down as they pulled the gondola to shore and built a fire under a spreading tree. It kept the worst of the snow away, but they still ended up huddled around the fire with nothing in their bellies and no reprieve from the bitter cold.

  Tamerlan held Marielle in the growing dark, grateful for the honor of having her in his arms even as the Legends buffeted his mind for control. But it was still a relief when two hours later Etienne declared the camp a “complete disaster” and convinced them to gather wood and go back to the gondola. They fed the fire in the frying pan and Tamerlan took a place at the pedals while the rest of them sprawled out on the boat floor.

  “You can’t spend all night pedaling when you already spend the day doing it,” Marielle said, trying to reason with him. But he was too afraid to listen.

  He kissed her chastely but refused to be budged.

  Exhaustion was the least of his worries. Legends were far worse than that. And if he let himself cuddle up beside Marielle on the boat floor, he wouldn’t be sleeping anyway. What was worse, battling Legends for the salvation of love of his life or pedaling the boat while meditating to keep them at bay? He thought the second option was safer.

  They found a village on the second day and Etienne slipped in and bought food from the villagers. There was no inn there and the populace greeted him with suspicion, so they carried on another four days, sleeping in the boat, eating over the frying pan fire. Stopping from time to time to gather wood or slip into the bushes for necessary moments. But they never stopped longer than was absolutely necessary.

  And through it all, Tamerlan focused on the pan fire in his mind and threw himself into pedaling until he thought his legs might fall off.

  He lost track of the days and nights until the moment that Marielle announced they had reached the plains. Like a spark hitting tinder, the Legends attacked.

  One moment, he was in his seat pedaling. The next he was writhing on the floor, his own hand trying to strangle him.

  Marielle lunged toward him and he cried out. “Stop! Don’t come near!”

  His other arm flailed wildly for his sword as his feet kicked at the side of the gondola.

  We will have you. Ram.

  Quick! Get him on his feet! That was Lila.

  Who has the sword? Deathless Pirate.

  Marielle was saying something. She sounded panicked, but he couldn’t hear her with so many voices in his head.

  Now is our chance! Don’t let him shake us off!

  Ram had done it. He’d rallied the Legends against Tamerlan and all that meditation had done nothing except slow them down. He tried not to panic. He tried to find a way to fight back.

  Stop fighting us, pretty man. We have work to do and we’d prefer to keep you in one piece.
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br />   The hand on his throat tightened.

  And then Etienne yelled something at him – something he couldn’t understand. He knew the man was going to attack and he couldn’t help but be grateful for friends in a moment like this one.

  Something struck him in the head.

  Everything went – mercifully – black.

  7: Dragonblood Plains

  Marielle

  “I worry that you struck him too hard,” Marielle said as she bathed Tamerlan’s head with a cloth. A lump the size of a goose egg had formed on his head and his beautiful face was lined and twisted despite being unconscious. He muttered under his breath about dragons and avatars.

  She swallowed. This was the third day since Etienne had hit him. Three days of fretting. Three days of worrying that when he emerged, he wouldn’t be himself anymore.

  “It wasn’t me who married a madman, Marielle,” Etienne said grimly. It was his turn at the pedals. They’d all taken turns at them and though Marielle had wanted to stop at the inn in the last town, she hadn’t bothered to voice that desire. She was worried about moving Tamerlan. She was even more worried about what Etienne might do if she left him alone with her brand-new husband.

  Etienne had trussed him tightly and tied him to the gondola. And though Jhinn and Marielle shared worried looks as they tended Tamerlan, they agreed to truss him again whenever they were finished.

  “We don’t know what will surface when he wakes. He might not be Tamerlan anymore,” Etienne said harshly.

  “We all owe him.” Marielle made her words less harsh than she wanted them to be. It would be easy to feel the same as Etienne if she didn’t desperately love Tamerlan. Easy to let fear and loathing overwhelm gratitude.

  “I owe a lot of people,” Etienne said. “And I would kill some of them if I had the chance. Just because someone did one good thing one time doesn’t mean they aren’t a monster. And monsters must be slain for the sake of society.”

  “What is society except for a collection of people,” Marielle snarled. “And what are people but monsters in clothing and with fine manners?”

  Jhinn snorted a laugh at that. He was fishing from the bow as Marielle looked after Tamerlan. He’d already caught two catfish and Marielle’s mouth watered at the sight of them flipping on the floor of the boat. Or at least, it did until she remembered how Tamerlan had flipped just like that as the Legends tried to steal his will.

  “The Legends don’t have him yet. He still has fight in him,” Jhinn said, absently. He seemed more interested in the fish.

  “The people are more than the sum of individual lives,” Etienne said. The closer they got to the plains, the more he took on his arrogant assurance that he was a ruler and not a vagabond like the rest of them. The Vagabond Ruler. That was what history should call him.

  Marielle shook her head. “I used to think that, Etienne. I used to care about ‘the people’ as if that was a thing that trumped individual people. But I don’t think that now.” She ran her fingers softly down the stubble growing on Tamerlan’s face. “Not after being in the clock. Not after opening the portal for the dragons. Not now. Now, I think that individual people matter. That maybe they matter more than ‘society’ or ‘the people.’”

  “You’re wrong.”

  It didn’t really matter what Etienne thought about that. It only mattered that he saved as many people as he could while she defeated the Legends.

  “Now that we can’t trust Tamerlan to help us even a little bit, he has become a liability,” Etienne said, his voice frosty. “We can’t afford to slip up if we want this plan to succeed.”

  Marielle swallowed. If he tried to hurt Tamerlan, she would have to fight him. And he would win. She knew he was a better fighter than she was, and he was larger, too.

  “I’ve thought about it for the past few days,” Etienne said. “And while I don’t like this at all, I think you are right that the dragons must be freed. This chain of events that has shaped the cycle of our world for so long must finally end. Do you realize what that will mean?”

  “No more sacrifices,” Marielle said, turning her eyes to the horizon. “No more innocents sold by their families to die.”

  His laugh was almost a bark. “And no more temples to Grandfather Timeless. No more ‘Queen Mer library’. No more Summernight or Autumngale. All our past traditions, gone. All our rituals over. Do you know how we will devastate the people we are going to ‘save.’ Do you know what it will take to rebuild?”

  “I can’t think of that right now. I can only think about the task at hand.”

  She was surprised when Jhinn spoke. “No more Waverunners, either. You’ll have to find new transportation.”

  “How will your people get up those falls?” Etienne asked wryly.

  “Leave that to us.” He went back to fishing, his attention completely focused on moving the line just so as he trolled across the bottom of the river.

  It was warmer now that they were headed south and east – unseasonably warm. It was as if Spring was coming three months early. Had they disturbed more than the mountains when they set the dragons free? Had they changed the seasons somehow?

  “Well, then. No more Waverunners, either. We’ll be a people adrift,” Etienne said after a moment. He smelled of sharp regret – a scent not unlike red wine – and Marielle frowned at the scent of it. But traditions and temples were not her concern. Justice was her concern. And there would be no justice while the dragons were chained and innocents were slaughtered to keep them bound.

  “You’ll make new heroes,” Marielle said, her voice raw.

  “Yes.”

  “There will be new holidays and new people to venerate.”

  “Exactly.”

  She turned at his words. Her brow furrowing. It was as if he was saying more than she understood. She looked a question at him. She could smell something new in his usual mandarin and rust scent. It wasn’t quite ambition – but it wasn’t quite determination either. It was something in between. Something she hadn’t smelled before.

  “You can’t possibly destroy all the avatars yourself, Marielle. Not with Tamerlan in the condition he’s in. You’re going to need help.”

  She sighed the sigh of someone who was barely carrying the burden they already had as someone loaded more on their back.

  “Which is why, after much thought, I have decided to help you. Not just to evacuate my people – but to help with everything.”

  Her eyes widened. “I thought you didn’t like this plan.”

  “I still don’t. But I’ve turned it over and over in my mind and I can’t find a better solution. You’re headed to Yan first, right? That’s where Lila Cherrylocks was said to be buried.”

  She nodded.

  “And I’m headed to Xin to see Allegra,” he said. “When I am there, I will go to the sunken island where Deathless Pirate’s avatar sleeps and I will dispose of it. I have been there before. I will be able to find it.”

  She let out a long breath. He was going to help her! She didn’t need to do this alone!

  “Let’s count them out,” he said, his dark gaze meeting hers as if they really were a team again. “King Abelmeyer and the Lady Sacrifice are gone with the passing of our friends. Maid Chaos is gone.”

  “The Grandfather killed Byron Bronzebow and Queen Mer,” Marielle said. “And the Smudgers made a new Maid Chaos. And the Retribution made a new avatar in Choan.”

  She saw a muscle in his cheek flinch at that.

  “If I can get to Deathless Pirate and you can find Lila Cherrylocks, then that is two more.”

  “Do you ...” Marielle hesitated. “Do you know where to look for Lila Cherrylocks?”

  He laughed. “She is the worst kept secret in history. Everyone knows – even if they don’t know.”

  “What is the legend?” She let her gaze drift to the shore where snow had all but disappeared leaving fresh shoots coming up in between the dead stalks of grass from the last year. Too soon. It was too soon
for Spring. It was as if her life had sped up now that it was almost over.

  Now, why had she thought that?

  Etienne cleared his throat almost as if he could sense she was distracted. “You tell me. What do the children on the street say about Lila?”

  “That she traded her soul for a crown.” Marielle’s eyes caught on a tree in full flower. The white blossoms shook and battered at each other in the wind so that the ground under the tree was white with them. Just like she would shake the Dragonblood Plains until there was nothing left of them. She swallowed.

  “Yes.” Etienne’s eyes glittered, still focused on silly stories as Marielle tried not to break under the burden she bore.

  “That doesn’t tell me anything,” she said, tearing her eyes away from the tree.

  “Doesn’t it? They say that she was distilled into a crown. The crown contains her avatar.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. A grandfather clock – well, someone can be trapped in there, but a crown?”

  “And Queen Mer bleeding pearls makes sense? Maid Chaos being reborn into some poor soul makes sense? The magic of dragons is nonsensical because it is not of this world. We saw that in the mountains. It explains so much that always puzzled me. It doesn’t follow our rules. It twists and turns as it will.”

  “Are you saying that the magic of the Legends is stolen from the dragons?”

  “Of course.”

  “So, all magic will be gone when they leave us?”

  He gave her a long look. “Do you still think it’s worth it to free them?”

  “I still think it’s necessary.”

  He nodded.

  “But there are many crowns. It will be hard to find the right one.”

  Etienne snorted. “I doubt that. I heard rumors that Variena was looking for it. Go find your mother, Marielle, and you will find the crown.”

  Marielle swallowed. The last thing in the world that she wanted was to see Variena again, but if she had Lila Cherrylock’s avatar at her disposal, then Marielle had no choice at all, did she?