Her sword spun in her fingertips.
The blade stopped an inch from his eyes.
“We give a weapon a name,” she said, “so that when it slays a man, he will remember it. Even in death.”
Perhaps the smile was a bad idea.
“Lazaris,” she said, flashing a grin that looked more like a snarl. “That is her name.”
Perhaps he was to be her prey.
Karr’s hands began to shake, the fear spreading all the way down to his toes.
“Why am I here?” he asked, willing his nerves to settle, his heart to steady. “You asked me if I knew about this Soahm.” He tried to think back on the memory of that night. The chaos, the fire, the screams and Cade’s fury before Karr sank into that world of darkness and light. “You asked me and I told you I did not.”
“People lie. Especially Wanderers.”
“I don’t know a man named Soahm,” Karr said. “I swear. I’ve never been to your planet, and I don’t even captain the damned ship. You’ve got the wrong prisoner if your goal is to find answers.”
This time it was his turn to glare at her.
Because God help him, suddenly Karr was no longer afraid. He was furious.
He’d died. He’d died because of this girl, but a miracle had brought him back.
“Why did you stab me?” he asked. It was the question that had plagued him more than the truth about the place he’d sunk towards in death. And if there was anything he knew about circumstances such as these, it was that you had to keep your captor talking. Or, at least… Karr thought you did.
“Where is Soahm?” the girl asked, instead of answering his question.
“I just told you. I don’t know.” How could he make her believe him? She seemed intent on exactly the opposite. “There’s nobody on board my ship with that name, nobody but a bunch of grunts from across the galaxy and—”
“You lie,” she said. “His scent is all over you.”
She pointed the sword at him.
“I didn’t lie!” he yelled. “I don’t know Soahm! He’s not on the damned ship!”
“Lies,” she hissed, leveling that blade ever closer.
Karr yelped in sudden panic, his hands grappling for something, anything, but the ropes were too tight, and all he got was a sharp slice on his palm from a bit of rock protruding from the ground.
He stared at his hand in horror.
Because something was wrong with the image before him, as his palm throbbed from the cut. He felt like he was in someone else’s body, wearing the skin of an imposter as he looked down.
The blood on his hand was all wrong.
Karr stared, open-mouthed, as he watched it soar from the wound.
Not drip, as it should have done, as it had always done. But soar. Like it was weightless, smoke trailing from a candle just blown out.
It was not blood.
It was shadow.
“What’s happening to me?” His voice sounded distant.
“You bleed shadows,” the woman hissed. “Shadows that have the very same aura as him.”
“What did you do to me?” Karr gasped.
His hands were shaking beneath his bonds.
He wanted to get free, wanted to scream and run but he feared that his body was no longer his, that even if he tried, he would not be able to control it.
“Tell me where my brother is.” She stood and drew closer, her sword swinging back towards him. “Tell me where you’re keeping Soahm of Soreia.”
“I don’t know!” Karr said, shaking his head.
The atmosphere was poisonous. Had it turned his blood, addled his brain so that he thought he was speaking her language? He could hardly concentrate as he saw the deep, dark blood slip from the wound, as if it had been hiding inside of him like some sort of living poison. Shadows whisked away into the darkness, gone in a puff of black.
“Your ship stole Soahm. Ten years ago, in the night, I saw the red bird fly away with him. And now you’ve returned, and your scent carries his. Lie to me again, and you will never forget Lazaris’ name.”
“Please,” Karr said, shaking his head. “I don’t know! My helmet, oh God, where’s my helmet?”
It was terror that wrapped him up now, and he was sinking, falling into an abyss he feared he would not come back from.
He was dying, surely, from the poisonous atmosphere. And if he didn’t die from that, he’d die when this woman killed him for good.
The panic roiled.
Deep inside of him, he felt something shift; a rift, forming in his chest. As if a beast had been in slumber, and now his own terror was forcing it to awaken. His skin crawled, as if his blood was boiling inside, and if he did not let it out, he would burn to ashes.
“He had blue hair. Blue eyes.” She towered over him like a monster. “He had a family and a future and a crown—and it was all stolen from him.”
“Please,” Karr begged. “Please, I don’t know a thing, just let me go.”
But a growl rumbled in the girl’s throat, and then she was gripping his shirt with both fists, her weapon discarded, her face close to his, the breath shared between them. She was so close he could see subtle hints of blue swimming through her brown eyes. Blue like the sea, blue like the sky, a pale color so drastically different from the shadows now swimming from his skin.
He felt like he was back in the Starfall again, watching his parents bleed out. But this time there were no shadows to hide in, because they’d all disappeared.
Now he was bleeding those shadows.
Now… he had a monster hiding inside of his own skin.
What had this girl done to him when she’d killed him?
“You have a final chance to speak the truth,” she whispered. “After that, you will know true pain.”
She lifted the blade, angled it towards his chest.
“Sonara! Stop this madness.”
Two figures emerged from the shadows: a beautiful girl with dark hair, and behind her, a woman that looked like she wore a skull for a head.
He was hallucinating now. Would they tear him apart, would the woman with the skull-head devour him?
He wanted to live. Oh, God, he wanted to live.
The sickness swelled, the heat inside of him rising. The entire cave seemed to tremble, as Karr’s body shook.
And just before she pressed her weapon into his chest…
Karr screamed. He put all his terror into that scream, all of his desire to live. The rift widened, and something felt like it broke inside of him. A heavy, weighted darkness dropped from a fraying string. It tumbled down, down, into his soul where it settled beside something warm and waiting and entirely brand new.
Yes, it seemed to whisper. Here I am.
Release me.
Karr’s body shook as that heat spread from him, pooling in his fingertips, his toes. He yelled and tried to shove the pain and the fire away.
A loud crack resounded, and the woman shouted and dove to the side as the ground actually fractured beneath Karr’s sprawled legs.
The fault line spread until it reached the far side of the cave, where it drove upwards into the rounded wall. The wall shifted, that raw crack of power splitting it in two, wide enough to reveal a small hidden alcove of rock just beyond.
And at the end of it, standing in the shadows as if it had been there for ages, just waiting to be discovered… a door.
Chapter 24
Cade
The message was scrawled in something so dark it could only be dried blood. The translator in his S2 shifted the strange letters around, morphing them slowly until Cade Kingston could read the ransom note, clear as day:
Free the prisoners or he dies.
You have until the suns set.
A lifetime, Cade Kingston had spent protecting Karr, only for it to come to this.
He couldn’t lose him a third time. And yet here he stood, holding Karr’s discarded S2 helmet in his hands. To remove it would mean death, for the air on Dohrsar was
poison.
His hands shook as he replayed the recording he’d pulled from the loading dock camera.
As he saw Karr just after he’d left him last night.
In the recording, Karr stumbled, scraping at his helmet as if there were something inside of it attacking him. He fell to his knees, then crawled for the loading dock door in desperation.
Cade zoomed in, close enough to see the whites of Karr’s eyes as he removed his S2 helmet. He didn’t know what he’d expected to see on the recording, but certainly not relief.
Certainly not his brother, lying on his back as he gulped in the poisonous air like he was chugging a flagon of fresh water.
Moments after, the wyvern had emerged from the sky.
The two Dohrsarans upon its back had dismounted, and Cade saw, with a sudden hatred that flared in his gut… the woman that had stabbed Karr at the Gathering, days ago.
Jameson confirmed it, along with three more of Cade’s soldiers.
The Dohrsaran woman knocked Karr unconscious with her blade, then loaded him onto the beast’s back. The video cut off, the wyvern having soared out of the camera’s view before he could accurately see which direction it went.
Karr had been gone for twelve hours now. Twelve hours, enough time for the poisonous air to kill him. But there had to be hope. There had to be. For he hadn’t come all this way, survived all that he’d already been through with Geisinger, for Karr to die. Not once, but twice.
Cade set the helmet down, unable to look at it any longer.
Was this his payment, his penance, for what he’d done to the Dohrsarans?
They hadn’t stopped working. They’d made it half a mile into the Bloodhorn Mountains, the tunnel sloping deep into the earth. Already, they’d removed their first hint of Antheon. It was real. It would pay off.
But at what cost?
Cade winced as he stood, leaving the helmet at his feet. His back ached, his legs trembled, and his chest felt like it could split open. A small price to pay, compared to losing Karr.
Why had the woman taken him? She struck where it hurt him the most, as if she’d somehow known exactly which crew member would be best to take.
He composed himself as he heard the door to the loading dock slide open behind him.
“Kingston.” Rohtt strode through the doorway, dressed in his Crossman black. He had a prisoner with him, the beautiful southern queen who walked at his side as if she were his confidant. Cade could just see the fringes of the silver mite’s legs curling forward from the back of her neck.
A painful way to take a person’s freedom.
He felt a twinge of guilt, a sickness that reminded him of just how deep he’d gone down the rabbit hole.
But the mites worked exactly as Geisinger had promised they would. Cade knew that truth all too well.
Rohtt gripped the queen by the back of the arm, pushing her forward onto the loading dock. She kept her chin high, her blue braids perfectly smooth atop her head, unshaken by the raging wind.
“We showed the footage to the prisoners, Captain,” Rohtt said as he halted a few feet away. His dark eyes flitted towards the discarded S2 helmet. “The Queen says she has knowledge on his captor.”
Kidnapper, he should have said. But Cade couldn’t quite bring himself to correct Rohtt and utter the word. He’d lost Karr too many times. Was it possible that the fault had always been his?
“Speak,” Rohtt commanded the woman.
She tilted her chin ever so slightly away from him, as if he carried a particularly unwelcome scent.
“Captain Kingston,” the Queen of the Southern Kingdom said, and Cade fully looked at her for the first time. With two simple words, she took command of the conversation.
Despite the mite, she still held herself with a straight-backed pride of royalty. In the days since her capture, she had refused to bend, to lift a hand to work, accepting the pain of the mite to the point that it had nearly killed her. It was only when she realized her actions caused her people pain, too, that she relented.
“You have information for me?” Cade asked.
He cared not, about keeping his usual mask of indifference.
This was Karr.
The wind soared past, whistling as if it knew where Karr was being held, but did not wish to share the secret with Cade.
“Information in exchange for a deal,” the queen said. “Your liaison was accommodating enough, and has already ironed out the terms with me. Myself and my court will walk free tonight.”
“Why would I be inclined to take this deal?”
His eyes went to Rohtt. Damned fearlessly bold Rohtt, who worked on Geisinger’s word alone. Cade was never in true control. The moment he’d signed on that dotted line in the room in Geisinger’s hospital, he’d given his own freedom away.
It had only grown worse, when Rohtt arrived in the hospital that night, and began the painful work that led towards shaping Cade into their man for the job.
But it was worth it.
It had to be, once he recovered Karr.
“Because if you don’t take it… you will never see your brother again,” the woman said. “You are dealing with no ordinary enemy. You know not what monster you face.”
Cade could still see the dried blood and the helmet on the ground, the spot where she’d slammed Karr over the head with her blade. He angled his body ever-so slightly away, trying not to think about Karr shivering in the darkness somewhere, suffocating slowly beneath the weight of the planet’s poisonous atmosphere.
How long, exactly, would it take until it killed him?
No, this job had not gone cleanly.
And once Cade found Karr’s captors, the mess would only get worse. He would kill them. And he would make sure he did it slowly.
The Queen glanced at the screen still held in Cade’s hands. “A Shadowblood.” She hissed the word like a curse. “An enemy of Dohrsar, and one with mighty powers that come from the depths of darkness. Some say they have found a way to break open Hell’s very gates and breed with the demons that have sprung forth from there. If it’s a Shadowblood you’re facing, it is not likely that you will ever see your brother again.”
Panic raced through Cade, but the queen was not done explaining.
“I caught a glimpse of her at the Gathering. And though I did not believe it at the time… what I have seen is indeed true. It is her, in the recording. I recognize the face, and I recognize the stolen blade she carries.” Her eyes narrowed in what looked like fury, before she lifted her chin ever higher, the mite’s legs stretching against the back of her neck. “I give you a final offering of peace between my kingdom and yours.” Her voice was diplomatic. But her eyes were as cold as steel. “The girl is someone I regret to know well. A demon that should not walk this Earth. There are a great many outlaws across Dohrsar, and for years, there has been a tale about a Devil ravaging the Deadlands. A Devil that stood against your very ally, the king. You can keep the prisoners from the White Wastes, but you must set my people free. You’ll still have enough to complete the job.”
She nodded to Rohtt, as if he were not the man holding her captive, but her servant, set to do her bidding.
Rohtt snapped his fingers, and out of the doors behind him came another set of guards, hauling in a shackled man.
This one was tall and lean and made of muscle. Though he was wounded, a filthy bandage over his arm, Cade had the faintest feeling that should he come too close to the prisoner, he might need to call upon the power of the mite. His dark eyes met Cade’s without bitterness. Only a calculating glance that went first to the dried blood on the loading dock. A slight tilt of his head, before he glanced back to Cade and the Queen.
“Jaxon of Wildeweb, confirmed by the king as the man who walks with the Devil,” the queen said with a smile, inclining her head towards the imprisoned man. “Threaten to kill him… and it is my belief that the girl will do anything you ask.”
Part Three
Bone
Chapt
er 25
Sonara
Sonara knelt in the darkness.
The ancient door before her was heavy, rounded at the top as if it belonged in an ornate castle, instead of buried deep inside the recesses of a cave in the Bloodhorns. It was made of deep red stone, with strange, ancient symbols carved into its surface.
The door had no handle, no hinges, no visible way of entrance.
Her curse, nestled inside its cage, blinked weary eyes at the door. Curious, but not quite ready to test its aura.
The one time I need you to do something, you remain passive, Sonara thought to her curse.
It only blinked wearily, then backed away from the bars of its cage.
“Markam?” Sonara glanced over her shoulder as he approached, blood on his stubbled chin, his duster filthy. “You try. You’re good at breaking and entering.”
Markam approached the door, though Sonara doubted he’d find any way past it.
The Wanderer’s power was immense.
Sonara hadn’t meant to make him do this, she thought pointedly, as she looked at the ancient red door.
She wasn’t sure what she’d hoped for, exactly, when she questioned him only an hour ago. Answers about Soahm, perhaps, or some knowledge about what the Wanderers were doing, and how to shut them down.
Certainly not an ancient red door in the middle of the very cave they’d spend their time hiding in.
A door that had kept Thali seated in silence behind her bone mask, as the Wanderer slept beside her, his raw surge of power having stolen every ounce of energy from him.
“Terra magic,” Thali said. A torch flickered in her bone-gauntleted fist. The light cast an eerie shadow across her Canis mask. “It is the greatest, rawest power of the Children of Shadow, for it is a connection to the Great Mother herself. A power I have not seen before in the flesh.”
Blood Metal Bone: An epic new fantasy novel, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo Page 24