“If I can’t get to that egg, then I’m not much of a boatman,” Jhinn said. “The canal leads straight toward it.”
“Good,” Marielle said. “I have until sunset to get there and find Ram’s avatar.”
“What do you think his avatar is?” Jhinn asked.
“I have no idea.”
“And you think you only have until sunset to find it?” he sounded like she was mad.
Maybe she was. Wasn’t this whole thing an insane endeavor? Wasn’t she crazy to try to do it at all?
“Just get me there, and we’ll worry about that later,” she said, reaching down to smooth Tamerlan’s sweaty hair from his brow. “Hold on, Tamerlan. Fight for a little longer.”
They slid through the crowd of boats, Jhinn’s pedals whirring as he carried them to the heart of the city. If Marielle hadn’t been frantic, she would have been in awe. Massive columns soared into the sky, topped with sculptures of ships on the high seas and people stepping out of the waves. Wide terraces close to the canals were filled with people dressed in the corals, pinks, and oranges of Springhatch and carrying heaping trays of delectable foods shaped to look like eggs. Was it Springhatch already?
The sounds of the city were nervous, matching the edgy, wary scent of the people as they gazed into the distance at the dragon that had landed on their shores. But despite that, they eventually settled into the coming evening, even slipping occasionally into laughter.
By their clothing and the nervous parties starting all around them, it was definitely Springhatch. And it was unlucky not to celebrate it.
Perhaps her own future was going to end on the day when the world celebrated fertility and life.
She tried not to think of that as the sun slowly sunk lower and lower and they pushed their way between crowded boats.
“Did you see that dragon descend?” someone laughed in a boat nearby, and her ears pricked up as she listened for an answer.
“I was so shocked! I could barely go to the docks for the fish. We all wanted to go and see the dragon, but you know what the Qui’Reign said.”
There was a murmur of agreement from around that voice. What was a Qui’Reign?
And then someone else spoke. “If our great leader can bring a dragon down from the sky and pin it there while our soldiers go to bind it, then imagine what else she can do? We’ll have to stop complaining about taxation!”
“Shhh! Be silent, Ta’vor. You’re drunk!”
The speakers looked around them warily and Marielle kept her eyes on the egg, pretending not to hear or understand.
If these common people were right and the soldiers were trying to bind Yan, then she needed to hurry even more.
Bind me? Never!
She heard a distant roar and flinched. Hopefully, the refugees had all fled the city. If they hadn’t, it was too late, now!
“Almost there,” Jhinn murmured.
The Egg was so large that they could only see the underside of it now except for where it rested in a carefully woven metal net. It was as if someone had made a net of wrist-thick black metal strands and rested the egg inside. The strands ended in bold claws that gripped the egg. The structure rose up out of the water, black and tangled around the perfect, golden egg. The water reflected the gold beautifully, one shining surface identical to the other. It was breathtaking.
The surface of the egg was a light gold color, speckled with darker gold spots, irregular and of every size, almost like a speckled chicken’s egg.
It couldn’t be a real dragon’s egg – could it?
It feels wrong. Not just like an egg, but as if someone sealed an egg in stasis, Yan said. But who would do that?
Ram the Hunter. He would do that.
There was a moan in the distance, barely audible, and yet it made the ground tremble as if a great creature had made the sound.
Marielle felt a chill of dread creeping up through her throat, leaving her sick and nauseated. And if he’d frozen the egg, somehow, then maybe it was tied to his avatar. But how – where – would she find that avatar?
“Pull up to the egg,” she said to Jhinn.
She thought she might be able to climb up the woven metal and stand with the egg in the basket above the water, but as she watched it, considering what to do, she was almost knocked over as Tamerlan stood up, snapped his bonds, and leapt to the egg.
33: Breaking an Avatar
Tamerlan
He was barely holding on. Pain leaked from him in every direction. He gasped in and out of his hold on himself, Ram shaking it from him by fits and turns, but he wasn’t going to die in the grips of the Legend. Not if he could help it.
Back when the recipe had slipped from the pages of that old book on Summernight, he never imagined that this would be the result.
“For dire situations,” it had said. “for the summoning of the ancient powers.”
He’d been such a fool to think that an alchemist’s apprentice could delve into all of that. It hadn’t even been a year, and those same powers had ruined him, crumbling him bit by bit until all that was left of him was this blood-stained scrap of a human, still craving the very spices that had driven him to this moment.
Ram ripped through his strength and stole his body, leaping up despite pain that would have crippled Tamerlan and leaping past Marielle to climb up a ladder-like basket of woven metal. It looked like an art piece – if you wove art out of the metal rib cages of giants.
Pain seared through him as Ram found what he was looking for – a single dull red mark on the surface of the bright golden egg. He couldn’t hide from Tamerlan what he was looking at.
I don’t need to hide anything. This is the end. We end this here.
He spun, crouched in front of the egg as Marielle scaled the nest after him, slanting her climb so that she could mount the platform out of his reach. Wise. She’d grown so wise since he first met her.
Still his perfect nemesis. Still the one person who could end all of this. He could remember when he first met her in his dark room. She’d been so vulnerable and yet so in charge – hunting him, looking for him, ready to capture this threat to her world. If only she had.
Focus. Your wandering mind distracts from what we do here.
He wasn’t going to kill Marielle. Never.
It was a relief that he didn’t have a weapon.
Beyond them, this foreign city celebrated, sleepy and safe in the sure knowledge that nothing could hurt them while here – at the heart of it –that which had started months ago finally came to a head.
Focus.
Ram reached out and up and grabbed one of the steel claws holding the egg, snapping the tip off and brandishing it in his hand as he crouched once more before the egg.
How did he do those things? How did he use Tamerlan’s body to accomplish things he’d never be able to do on his own?
Magic. It’s all been magic. The ancient blood magic of our people before we brought the dragons.
There was no blood here.
Ram reached down and touched Tamerlan’s side and then held up his hand, slick with the blood leaking out of him.
It’s always been your blood, Tamerlan. We’ve been feeding off your life since the first time you called us, and Lila took you as her plaything. I’ll draw off of it until you collapse. But before you do, we will conquer.
“Tamerlan?” Marielle called.
Yes. She will be the avatar.
Tamerlan pushed back against him, but Ram held him at bay, holding out the claw.
“You’ll have to come for me, little woman. And with my hands unbound and a weapon in them, you can’t win. I can overpower you. I can fight through pain you can’t survive. You can carve this body limb from limb and you won’t beat me – can’t beat me. I will win this.”
Despair washed over Tamerlan at the truth echoing in the Legend’s words. He didn’t have the power to stop him.
But he had to try.
With the last of his strength, he battered at the wall.
&nb
sp; “You’re protecting your avatar, Ram,” Marielle said with a glint in her eye. “It’s the shell, isn’t it? You had to seal that baby dragon in the egg somehow – after you’d bound all the rest.”
“Do you know how hard it is to bind a dragon? To find a person willing to give their life to be what binds them?” Ram asked her. “I thought I’d won, and then I found this. The things they had to do to me to make this golden shell ... they’d haunt your nightmares for centuries if you knew. I know they haunted mine. They don’t consider me unspeakable for no reason.”
Her eyes were scanning his every twitch, looking for a weakness, looking to throw him off.
Tamerlan wanted to plead with her to leave, to run, to never return. He could feel Ram tensing, ready to destroy her and there was no way to stop him.
A spark flashed in her eye. Understanding and ... scheming?
“That red spot is the vulnerability in the shell, isn’t it?” she said, so loudly that Tamerlan was surprised that the city didn’t freeze at her words. She took a step back as if reconsidering.
“It doesn’t matter if you know,” Ram said. “You won’t survive this fight. And there is no one else here. You should have waited for your pretty friend in black. Maybe he would have backed you up.”
She took another step back, fear in her eyes now, and Ram took a step forward, following her.
“You can’t escape me now,” he said.
Her sword was up, and she stabbed it toward him, fast as a viper.
Yes! Fight, Marielle! Fight to kill!
Fool! Always, you try to sabotage the inevitable.
He deflected her thrust easily and lunged toward her with the metal claw, slashing but missing as she leapt backward. She’d duped him, not fully committed to the thrust but ready the whole time to dart backward.
She knows she is weaker. She should not have come to this place. I can access more magic here. I will make her an avatar and trap that dragon Yan on this very platform. See how she already weakens?
She was moving slower as she parried his next slash, backing up, but not as quickly as before as if she were tiring.
Please, Marielle! Please hold on or flee. This enemy is too great for you!
Even as he battled, he could feel his strength slipping away. They were on the other side of the egg from the red spot now. Marielle stumbled and Ram lunged at her.
Tamerlan wanted to shut his eyes. He didn’t want to watch her eyes widening as the metal claw arced through the air toward her, didn’t want to feel his own muscles betraying him as they threw all their force behind the blow, didn’t want to hear her moan of pain as the claw slid across her ribs or feel Ram raising the claw again for another blow.
He didn’t want to watch her die.
And he didn’t have to – yet.
Ram fell to his knees with a cry of agony.
Why? They hadn’t been hit.
Tamerlan shoved hard with every ounce of remaining strength. It shouldn’t have been enough, but it was enough. He had his body back!
He threw the claw into the water. His jaw slackening in surprise at the look of triumph in Marielle’s eyes.
What – ?
“It didn’t work, Marielle!” Jhinn’s voice called. He was on the platform! On the other side.
Tamerlan gasped. No wonder Marielle looked triumphant. She’d led Ram away from that spot on purpose!
“Jhinn,” he gasped.
Marielle nodded grimly. “He’s willing to make the sacrifice – for his people. For all the people.”
“Please, Marielle. You need to kill me this time,” it came out in a rush. “You don’t need to feel guilty and you don’t need to keep fighting it.”
He stepped forward, kissed her tenderly, a hot searing kiss filled with all the promises he’d never be able to make, all the hurts he’d never be able to take away and all the love he had left in his breaking heart. He reached down with his wounded hand and pulled her sword blade to his chest. Tears traced down her cheeks and her lower lip trembled.
“I can’t, Tamerlan.”
“It’s okay, Marielle. It’s okay,” he put all his confidence into his smile, all his love. “It’s for the best. You’re doing the right thing. I – ”
Tamerlan fell backward, slamming onto the metal of the basket and sliding to his knees. Something was hammering at the metal of the egg, reverberating through the whole thing. He heard something smash.
“It’s working!” Jhinn called.
Ram overwhelmed him, taking his body. He tried to scream as his control was taken, but it came out as a grunt.
“Wait. It stopped,” Jhinn said, anxiety in his voice. “I thought we had it, but it’s like the avatar broke and then resurfaced.”
“It has a new vessel,” Marielle said grimly, and Tamerlan felt the tip of her sword pressing against his chest.
Yes!
Do, it, Marielle! Do it!
34: Deliverer of Death
Marielle
“Just like Anglarok and Liandari,” Jhinn sighed.
Marielle didn’t feel like sighing. She felt like wailing.
She’d come so far. She’d been so close. She’d tricked Ram. They’d killed his avatar.
And none of it had been enough.
Her vision blurred as hot tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks. The point of her sword pressed against Tamerlan’s chest, digging into his clothing deep enough that red blood was welling up and staining the cloth. Ram’s eyes were locked on hers, defying her to push the blade through his chest.
“Tamerlan knew this was coming,” Jhinn said gently. He’d circled the egg to be close to her. “He told us what to do.”
But it wasn’t supposed to end like this. It was supposed to end with her finding a way to save him. It was supposed to end with the sweet Tamerlan back – the one who loved her and who cared about orphans on the streets. The one who was willing to risk everything to save the life of someone he didn’t know.
But happy endings weren’t the only endings.
And this one wasn’t going to be happy.
She clenched her jaw, steeled her nerve and drew the blade back to get enough force to strike.
Ram moved like a serpent, sliding away from her strike, his back to the egg still as he reached up to grab another claw-like point of the nest.
Jhinn charged with the hammer, trying to hit him but Ram was too strong even now. He let go of the claw he was trying to rend apart, grabbed Jhinn by the arm with one hand and tossed him aside like a rag doll. He flew through the air, past the nest to the canal beyond.
But Jhinn had given her just enough time.
As Ram was still tossing him, she charged.
Her blade slid between his ribs and through his heart. She grabbed the pommel of the sword with both hands, sobbing as she threw all her weight behind it and shoved with all her upper body strength, pushing through her hips until every ounce of weight was in her blow.
The blade met resistance, but she felt it slicing flesh, cleaving bone, and then on the other side, spearing through the eggshell behind him.
She gasped, staggering backward and leaving the sword in his chest. She was watching the eyes. She saw the moment that Ram left and only Tamerlan remained, coughing blood and gasping, pinned to the egg.
“Good,” he gasped. “Good work.”
He tried to reach to her, but all that moved was a single finger.
She rushed to him, reaching out to hold him around the sword. She was choking, too. She was choking on tears and agonizing grief. She’d killed him in the end. Just like she’d feared. Just like he knew she would.
“Tam,” she managed between sobs. “I’m so sorry.”
He coughed blood. His words were wet and thick. “Love you alw –”
“No, no, no,” she said, shaking, breaking apart. Her chest heaved as the sobs wracked her and she fell against his chest, not bothering to disguise her grief as it tore through her.
Above her, she heard a crack.
The egg was hatching.
All of this for dragons she’d never meet. For people she didn’t know.
Tamerlan slumped forward as the sword fell from the egg. Marielle caught him, stumbling back and to the ground. She wrenched the sword from his chest and threw it away. She didn’t want to see another sword as long as she lived. She didn’t want to live.
She lifted him from the net and cradled him in her arms as the cracks continued, staring at his open, glassy eye, caressing his hair and face as gently as a mother with a baby.
There were shouts on the shore and even screams and Jhinn was calling something up to her, but her eyes were thick with tears and all she could see was Tamerlan’s golden scent drifting away in the breeze.
With every breath, there was less of him in the air. As if he’d never existed at all.
And she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t be strong anymore. She couldn’t care about what was happening to the city or to Yan, to Jhinn or to Etienne. All she could do was sob and sob over her dead, wishing it had been different. Wishing she could go back to when she’d talked to him in his room at the Alchemist’s Guild all those months ago and wishing she could haul him off to the guardhouse and lock him up and get her throat cut over the dragon like Etienne had planned, because then he’d be alive. Wishing she could do it all over again and do it differently. Wishing she’d been able to save him.
A crack sounded this time that was so loud, that she finally looked up, blinking tears back just enough to see.
The top of the egg shoved up, a chunk of it sliding to the side and falling to smash on the metal basket on the other side of the egg. The nest rocked wildly.
A split ran down the side of the egg, directly where she was, thick silver fluid leaking out of it. A head about the size of her body popped up through the missing piece of the egg, wet and gleaming, its golden eye glittering in the last shreds of sunset light.
Something had hatched on Springhatch.
The hatchling let out a long keening sound, and then the top half of the egg shattered, pieces flying in every direction. It was like a dam burst. Silver fluid poured out of the top half of the egg, thick and viscous. It washed over her and Tamerlan like someone had thrown a bucket of it over them, drenching them completely.
Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series Page 97