“I said pick again, Feddel, or you’ll get something of my own choosing.”
It was a long shot, but worth the try. Jerad could tell he was running out of that favour, so time to make good on what he had. “Double rations for the slaves,” he said. “A few days at least. And rest. You’ve got what you were looking for, and they’ve all been worked half-to-death trying to get it. They need time to recover, or by the time you get to selling them, you won’t have any left.”
“Is that all?” Garden looked amused—but there was no warmth in it, not ever. “Nothing for yourself?”
Jerad grunted. “A few less beatings would be nice. I haven’t been able to breath straight since Tellern.”
“Hah!” Garden laughed and clapped him on the back. “Do you see why I like this fellow, Yourk? A practical man, he is. Alright. Fair price, indeed. As long as you keep doing what you’re told, I’ll tell my men to lay off. Besides.” A wicked grin spread across his face. “We’ve got ourselves a new toy, now, don’t we?”
Jerad nodded, but he felt sick. Like somehow, he’d just compromised. Like he’d taken one dangerous step towards accepting his fate. Is this how it’s going to be? Is that what I am now? A slave? Hyranna wouldn’t have bartered like that. She wouldn’t have accepted anything. She’d have told Garden to go shove himself.
And not been better off for it, a voice insisted. He had to do what he could. Not just for him, but for all their sakes.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Alutan Na-es
Watch me.
Her hair spun like red fire. She spread her arms, laughing at the sun and the rain.
“Here, Alutan!”
Light danced off the curtain of water. She danced with it. She laughed. Her voice was like the sun itself.
Andalina. Alutan ached at the name, at the memory of her, the bright picture of a faded past.
“From now on, I am here,” she cried. “I won’t go back to them. The forest is here, and so am I, and so are you. Don’t you feel it, Alutan Na-es Lel-na, pounding in your chest? Don’t you see? We are for one another.”
Alutan hadn’t laughed for a long time. “They’ll come looking for you.”
“And they’ll not find us.” She grabbed his hands, pulling him into the morning rain. “They’ll wander lost in the trees, around and around and around, scratching their heads like ants put off course.”
“Lina . . .”
“And I will have done it. Don’t you see? I can protect you, Alutan. I’ve been protecting you. All this time, it was me! I can protect our children, and hide them from the hunting eyes. I am the forest and the earth. I am the night wind and the rustle of leaves and the storm scent that bids the birds to their nests and the foxes to their dens.” She clapped her hands. “For the first time in my life, I know who I am, Alutan, and I am strong!”
She laughed and spun and the forest covered them and it was good.
Alutan knew happiness, then, as he hadn’t known for such a long, long time.
It was the scent of rain and the taste of honey fresh from the hive.
It was the warm nights. The shared nights. The quiet, glad surrender.
It was the murmured stories to the waiting child, the small one inside. And the routine of the turning days: the wood and the fire and the places set for two. It was her voice. It was the need to be wrong, and to give and forgive. It was the stillness between.
It was the small hand. The fingers that gripped his, like tiny, perfect images of trust. And the name of his son. The happy one. A promise of hope, like the first cracking of spring ice.
Balduin.
And Andalina carried their son through the forest and sang to him and taught him the old things. She let him soak in the earth. She whispered her name to him and where she was from, and that one day he would find her in the hidden place. And then she would teach him everything.
Everything.
“Until then, watch me, little one. For I will be your light.”
Alutan clawed awake. There was a surge of breath, a clenching in his chest.
The pain was incredible.
The ragged threads of muscle, skin, and bone began to shift and push. They twisted. They woke. The fire filled them, and for an instant, they were alive. They knew where to go. They reached for the surrounding tissues, spreading, covering. Alutan dug his fingers into the ground, crying out, convulsing in pain.
Tha-thump. His heart jumped. Uneven, raw. Like a hammer inside. He clutched his chest. Tha-thump.
Blood spewed out of his lungs. New air. New blood. He sobbed, gagging. His chest felt like it was going to explode. This was the worst of it, though, almost over. His body struggling to renew itself, Unseen power thrust against weak flesh.
Tha-thump. Tha-thump.
The last of it, the final threads. His heart settled into its normal rhythm. He took steady breaths, a hand pressed to his chest, now healed and whole. The pain subsided. The light left him.
He breathed out.
Another lingering memory to place next to the others. So many others. It vanished into the sea of them.
Hyranna.
She was alive. That’s what Ishvandu had said. It might be a lie, a trick to set him in the wrong direction. But Alutan had to try.
He gazed at his bloody sword. He hesitated, then wiped it clean and stuffed it back into its sheath and rose.
He would find Hyranna. He was Alutan. He was healer. He would fix what the Aktyr broke.
The forest was deathly silent. It was sick. Night had fallen. And the closer Alutan came, the more intensely it pulsed, like a gash in his own heart.
He’d run without pause, rushing through the trees like a shadow.
When he found the Aktyr’s devastation at last, it was abrupt. He stepped into a massive clearing, devoid of life, and wherever his feet touched the ground, hands seemed to grasp at him, threatening to drag him down into emptiness. There was nothing passive about this desolation. It screamed to destroy him, to infect him, and when it found the light in him, muted beneath shame and disuse, it knew him and hated him.
You! You! You will not stop us!
Alutan said nothing. He looked around. He saw one body, but it wasn’t Hyranna’s. Some other victim? There was a story here, more than Ishvandu had hinted at.
He paced a few times, slowly, until he found the centre, the place it had started. He shivered. The energy that clung to the withered dust was slow, but persistent, working out and out, even now. Stretching just a little further. A little further. And here was the source of its infection.
How to begin again? How to pick up what he had cast away?
Not knowing what else to do, Alutan knelt. He pressed his hands to the ground, and saw another pair of hands. Right here, in this exact spot. They were raw and dirty and smeared with old blood. But small, almost delicate. Hyranna.
“The Aktyr is waking . . .”
His eyes fluttered. A memory, something lingering here in the Unseen.
He pushed back his fear, and from this place, let his mind seek the edges of the withered landscape. He traced the pattern of brokenness, the cracks, not just in the earth, but in all the Realms, and let the memory wash over him.
“I have to keep going!” That was Hyranna. “I caused it. This is me . . .”
Another was added, deep and despairing: “The power I wield joined to yours—one to break, one to build. It must be so! It must . . .”
“Stop!”
“I am Ashkynas ab’Adani, last Al’kah. What my people have suffered, so will all the world. I’ve crossed endless sands and mountains to find you . . . Chosen of the Avanir—”
“Chosen?” Hyranna’s voice turned dark and cold. “No, great Al’kah. I am the Aktyr.”
“But the red tree. You were with the red tree. You reached out and gave me strength, you—” A terrible pause. “You killed it!”
“No. That wasn’t me! No!”
“I crossed the desert for you! I came for you. I thought you were our hope,
but you’re not. You’re just another like me. Another shard of emptiness. My sacrifice is stillborn. It will end. All the world will end!”
And then a third voice: “Don’t blame the girl.”
Alutan knew that voice. He didn’t want to hear what was coming, but it had to be done, the memory traced to its roots.
“It can’t be! It can’t be!” the one named Ashkynas cried, echoing Alutan’s own thoughts. “After all these years?”
“Then you know me, great Al’kah? Do they speak of me?”
Alutan shook his head. Oh, Vanya—is this what you wanted?
He stood and moved with the vision. Bare feet pressed to the ground, back and forth, back and forth, pacing, angry, eager—full of long-held desire.
“The Chosen were a lie! I risked everything for you. I sacrificed. I bled . . . You haven’t changed, you Al’kahs, you lords, you cowards. Now face me!”
“It was my curse to be the last . . . because of you.”
“What did you sacrifice? You are weak! You need me! Mine is the only power that can undo the Breaking.”
“Stop!” Hyranna cried. “Don’t!”
Alutan traced the moment to its crux. The breaking. A violent collision. Two forces becoming one. And then him. It was this moment. Here, right here.
Alutan stepped over the crack, not even looking down. He sensed the murderous desire, the anger and satisfaction.
“I have no rival.”
And it was broken. So easily. Alutan could feel the fragments of dust falling into the Beyond.
“Your people brought the ruin of Shyandar!”
“Shyandar was a lie!”
“Your words were the lie. Your name is a curse. The traitor. Ishvandu ab’Admundi—”
Alutan glanced at the body again, a dozen paces away, almost invisible in the dark. It had been crushed. But it wasn’t Hyranna Elduna.
No.
He shut his eyes. He felt her pain, the breaking inside of her. Used by the Aktyr, abandoned to die.
He knew his purpose.
He took long, steadying breaths, then turned and found the centre, the cracks from which all others spread. He crouched. His fingers traced over the surface.
He spoke no words. Not with his lips, or with his mind. There was nothing to say. Nothing he had the strength to say. Yet the tiny spark stirred of its own volition. Another breath, and it sprang into flame, leaping in anticipation, the thing he had carried with him for so long, and then denied. The thing he’d fought against, begging it not to heal him, not to drag him back from madness and death, over and over and over again. A death he had longed for. A madness that would have brought relief. And he’d betrayed it, cursing it, turning away from his purpose.
Yet now it came. Easily, quickly. The first outward act of his power in all those long and terrible years.
It was life. It left no room for bitterness or blame. It slipped through him. It flowed into the soil under his fingers, into the Unseen like water. It found the cracks, the brokenness, pouring down and down until the brokenness had been filled.
The Realms shifted, one and then the other, like tumblers in a lock. The key found its place, clicked, and turned. And just like that, the gap closed and the withering stopped, like a river dammed up at its source. The vision, too, was put to rest. The whispering, incessant voices fell silent.
He thought he should be surprised, but he wasn’t. It had never been about him or his own strength. It was only a matter of his will to act. He took a deep, shuddering breath. Not a full restoration. The ground was still broken and barren. But the Aktyr had been silenced and the Realms restored.
What now? He hadn’t seen the end of the vision. What of Hyranna?
A single bird sang—three notes, descending. Alutan lifted his head. A faint breeze stirred, the air changing. It smelled of crisp dawn.
Hurry, came the voice.
There was no time for mistakes. He had to think carefully. He rose, immediately feeling the aches in every joint, the weakness. One act of power and already he suffered. Had he fallen so far that pain was now more real to him than his own fire? Did he resent it so much?
He pushed the thought away. His feet carried him from one end of the wasteland to the other and back.
It wasn’t until the third pass that he spotted it. In the pale light, he saw where the withered dust had been trampled, then streaked, like someone had tried to crawl.
This person’s tracks stopped in a heap, then new footprints continued.
Alutan studied the signs, then followed them into the forest. When he found the horse’s trail, obvious even in the dark, his curiosity grew.
“Who are you?” he asked the trail. “Hyranna is this you? Did you survive?”
He wished he could see, but the vision was over, the ground closed, the Unseen silenced back into the barest shadow. He had to rely on his instincts, and right now his heart was beating, telling him to move faster, faster, to hurry before it was too late.
He ran.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Tandra Yourk
Tandra Yourk was getting worried. The girl had started to shake again, a steady, weak trembling. They weren’t far now from where the Terryn raiders had taken Mag. If she pressed on, she might catch them in the morning, but the girl wasn’t going to last much longer.
There was nothing Tandra could do for her except keep vigil. But somehow letting her die strapped to the back of a horse just didn’t seem right.
She found a resting spot and hoisted her off. The child didn’t respond. Tandra could feel the rapid, short breaths. She laid her out, gentle as she could, used what water she had to wash her, took a scrap of cloth and wiped away the blood, dirt, and tears.
“Damn bleeding bastards,” she muttered. “When I catch ‘em, I’ll get ‘em for both of us. I don’t know all what happened, but I’m sorry about it, just the same. You hear?”
Of course the girl didn’t hear. But it made Tandra feel better to say it.
She ate a cold supper, salted rabbit and dry bread. She tried to give her silent companion a little to drink, but it dribbled out of her mouth. There was no point. The only thing Tandra could do was wait.
She didn’t sleep. Eventually, the girl’s tremors ceased, and then came the rattling: breaths squeezed through watery lungs. Tandra gripped her hands—cold, limp hands—and watched. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t sat through before, but it never ceased to be horrible.
Just a little longer, Mag. I promise, I’m coming.
Morning came with a thin layer of dew, a valiant sun, trying desperately to banish the night’s chill. Tandra sat up straight. Gods be, she had slept! One hand was still holding the girl’s. It was unmistakably cold, and her companion was as still as death.
She leaned over and pressed her ear to the girl’s mouth. She waited, holding her breath. Nothing, no sound. She almost drew back, sorry she had slept through the last moments. And then she felt it. A small, tickling warmth on her ear.
“Gods be, child, but you sure hang on,” she whispered. Even so, her pulse was weak, like the fluttering panic of a dying bird.
She wanted so badly to be off, storming after Mag. But how could she leave the girl now, when she’d waited by her side all this time? It didn’t feel right. It wouldn’t be long. Not long at all.
Then her head snapped up. Someone was coming, following Tums’s trail, clear as a cobbled road. She couldn’t much help that, but it didn’t mean she’d let someone sneak up on her. She stood, pulled her revolver, and backed up behind a stout tree.
A moment later, a man appeared. He was tall, dressed in the loose-fitting garb of the south kingdoms, complete with bright hair and a fine, trim beard along the edge of his face. Tandra noticed the sword hilt sticking up from his back. What, gods be, was an Aethen doing this far north?
“Hold it,” Tandra said, drawing the hammer back on her gun. “Take another step and I’ll send you to the Rachnin Halls.”
Blue eyes regarded her, th
en they shifted to the girl at her feet. She thought she heard his breath catch, but he stood calm, ready.
“Your captive?” he asked in flawless Manturian. “Or your friend?”
“Neither,” Tandra returned. “What’s it to you, stranger?”
He hesitated, as if deciding how much to trust her. Then his eyes turned back to her, deep, thoughtful blue. “I know her. I’ve been looking for her. Let me help.”
“Too late,” Tandra said.
She watched his jaw twitch. “Let me be the judge of that. The breath is still in her.”
How could he possibly know that? From where they both stood, the girl looked dead and cold. Maybe she was.
“Impossible,” she said. Nothing—nothing—brought someone back from this point.
“Shoot me, then,” he said. “But if you value this child’s life, by your gods or whatever you deem sacred, let me see for myself.”
He didn’t wait for her to answer. He knelt by the girl. He placed his hands to either side of her head and tilted it towards him, stroking the hair back, so tenderly Tandra felt a lump in her throat. Maybe he had known her. All it meant was a painful inevitability: someone had come for her, and too late. She’d no reason to trust this man; even still, the gun began to lower as she watched, fascinated by his hope.
“You’re no Imo’ani. You’re not her father,” she said at last. “Who are you?”
He didn’t answer. He was tracing a hand over the shattered cheek, brows drawn low, concentrating.
She tried again, compelled to defend herself. “She was taken by slavers, then escaped. But I don’t know all what happened in that clearing. I wasn’t there. Just found her. Nothing I could do.”
“Shh,” the man said.
She frowned. “You can’t save her. You know that, right?”
“Be quiet.” There was a sternness now, a ring of authority, and even Tandra felt her mouth close in obedience. Maybe she should just go. She had her own business to take care of.
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