Her body twitched and she half turned her head toward us for a second, then resumed staring straight ahead as Racin lifted his arm again. I closed my eyes, but heard the sound of the lash nonetheless. It was one that would remain with me for many decades, haunting my sleep.
“Your spawn is unmoved by your punishment,” Racin told the queen, pausing for a moment to consider this fact. He walked around to touch Deo’s lips with the bloody straps of the lash, leaving a smear of crimson behind. “It is odd, do you not think, for a son to go to all the trouble of coming to Eris to save his mother, and yet, there he stands, impassive, while her flesh is flayed from her body. It makes me wonder.”
Hallow continued to draw short little symbols and send them to the queen. I blocked out the scene in front of me as much as possible, and began a communion with Kiriah, pleading with her to work a miracle and clear the clouds so that I could receive her blessing. A slight warmth gathered in my palms as I recited the prayers I’d been taught from childhood, but I was unsure if the heat came from Kiriah, or my own tightly clenched fingers.
“My son is a fool about many things, but he knows that I am strong,” Dasa replied, her voice cracking slightly. “You desire to punish me, and I am willing to accept it, but you will not break me, my lord. You will not break my son.”
“No?” Racin lifted her chin and peered down into her face. “Perhaps, then, there is someone who has a stronger hold over him.” He turned and pointed at Idril with the lash. “You, hiding behind the pirate—come forward.”
Several things happened at the same time: Idril charged past Quinn, a dagger in her hand, which she stabbed into Racin’s chest. The latter just looked down in mild surprise, then up at her, at which point he laughed. “Did you think to hurt me with this little trinket? String her up!”
A roar echoed off the walls, one that made every hair on my arms stand up. Deo lunged forward, slashing out with his legs and shackled hands, taking down several of the Harborym who had been nearest. Then the chains were gone, torn from his body, which now glowed with a rich reddish-gold light, almost as if Kiriah was giving him her blessing directly. But it was not the power of the sun that surrounded him—it was something sickly hot that prickled my flesh.
Hallow and I stood at the same time, as if we were of one mind, his hands dancing in the air while he wove spells. I nocked an arrow and sent it flying. It hit Racin in the face, causing him to bellow in pain, but he merely plucked out the arrow, leaving a wound on one of his cheeks. Several Harborym rushed toward us just as a horn sounded behind us, and a clatter of hooves on stone heralded the arrival of Lord Israel.
I snatched my swords off my back, my gaze quickly going over the oncoming rush of Harborym, trying to pick my first target, but before I could, Hallow started flinging long strands of magic in front of him, building up a barrier that crisscrossed like a net. Harborym rushed in from behind us, and I made a snap decision. Without my lightweaving, I was limited, and Hallow was far better suited to deal with the larger group. “You take them down,” I told him, spinning around and standing with my back to his. “I’ll keep them off you.”
“Have I told you today how much I love you?” he said somewhat breathlessly while his hands, moving so fast they were almost a blur, danced in the air.
I laughed and picked off the first few Harborym with arrows to the head before they were too close.
The fight that followed remains in my mind in brief flashes, little moments that seem to have been frozen in time: Lord Israel cutting down the queen, and handing her his sword while he spun around and incinerated a group of Harborym with one wave of his hand. Evidently the Grace of Alba had no problem working in Eris, because with a small bone talisman in one hand, and a sigil in the other, he leaped into battle, Harborym melting before him.
Quinn and Dexia are frozen in another moment in my memory, with Quinn in the act of beheading a Harborym while Dex attacked the face of another…with gruesome results.
But it was Hallow and Deo that I remember the best. Deo and I had once, under the influence of chaos magic, run berserk against another mass of Harborym. I knew I was seeing him in the same state when he ripped limbs from Harborym, slashing and hacking with a sword he’d picked up from one of the men he’d destroyed. His eyes were on Racin, however, as he plowed ever forward, blood spraying, and entrails spilling while he headed toward the monster who was responsible for all the ills of our world.
At first I thought all was well with Hallow, but once the last of the Harborym who had tried to take us from the rear were destroyed, I turned to see how he was doing and realized something was very wrong.
“Hallow, stop!” I grabbed at his arm, trying to stop his hands, which were moving far faster than was humanly possible. His eyes positively glowed red, and his lips were pulled back in a snarl as magic poured from his hands onto the Harborym who remained.
The chaos had him, and I knew from experience that it was almost impossible to come back from its grip once it had control.
“Hallow, listen to me.” I threw myself onto his chest, blocking his view of the Harborym fighting with Lord Israel, Dasa, Quinn, and Deo. I grabbed his head so that he couldn’t peer around me, forcing him to look into my eyes. His pupils were huge, his eyes unfocused. “My darling husband, hear me. You must fight the chaos. I know that it gives you power, so much power, but you can’t let it have the upper hand. Hallow, think of the stars and the moon and the cool, silver light of Bellias. Feel the stars beyond the protection of Eris. Use that strength to force the chaos back down.”
Slowly, his eyes refocused and lost their glowing appearance. I continued to talk, babbling, really, pleading with him and trying to ground him, until at last his hands dropped, and he blinked a couple of times, as if he’d woken up from a long sleep. “What did…was that what you felt when you were a Bane? That surge of …” His voice trailed off as he shook his head, rubbing one shaking hand through his hair. “I felt like I was a god, like I could do anything.”
“That’s the chaos magic. It lies,” I told him. I would have kissed him but at that moment, I heard my name shouted, and spun around. Quinn pointed to the other side of the square, where there were now only a handful of Harborym circled around Racin.
“Do you think you can—”
“Yes,” Hallow answered before I could even finish. He took my hand and we ran across the square. “The three of us together should be able to do it.”
“The two of you,” I said sadly, holding up my lightless hand.
“You can help keep me in control,” he answered.
“This show will do you no good,” Racin sneered to Deo. The former was unarmed, but I had a feeling he didn’t need a weapon to destroy us all. “In the end, you will fall to me as all else has. It was so prophesized centuries ago.”
Deo checked himself for a moment; Idril stood at his side. She held a short sword, one that was black to the hilt with Harborym blood. And yet, the ironic side of my brain pointed out, there wasn’t so much as a smear on her pristine white and gold gown.
I peeked down at myself. I was covered in blood, bits of flesh and tissue, a few blobs of brain matter, other assorted gore, dirt, and mud from the tips of my boots to the quiver band that cut under my arms.
“That prophesy is false,” Dasa declared, panting, her long hair splattered with blood, but the look on her face not that of a woman who was giving up. “It was so proven with Deo’s birth, and the coming of the Fourth Age.”
Racin laughed, a horrible sound that rolled around the square. Deo, who was still in his berserker state, said nothing, just leaped at the circle of Harborym protecting Racin at the same time Hallow flung a wide net of blood magic. I held onto the back of Hallow’s jerkin, prepared to help him overcome the chaos if it once again took hold of him.
But it didn’t. Racin simply brushed off the magic as if it was a biting gnat, and with an imperious g
esture, held out his hand. “You think that the birth of your spawn can undo a millennium of my plans? I have not suffered in the shadows all this time to be banished by that creature,” he said, and without turning his head, demanded, “Where are the stones?”
“My lord, they are here.” It was a woman’s voice that spoke, and a woman’s form that slipped through the circle of Harborym to where Racin stood. I stared in stark surprise at Mayam as she handed Racin the three moonstones. “Lord Israel had them hidden well, but I found them. Take me with you, my lord. Please take me with you. There is nothing left for me here, and as you have seen, I can be of much use to—”
Deo roared again, this time in frustration as Racin, with a curl of his lip, said simply, “And now the world is mine, thanks to your folly,” before holding up the stones and disappearing into a shadowy portal.
“Mayam,” I said, shaking my head, unable to believe what I’d seen. “You betrayed us?”
She snarled something rude, but before anyone could do anything, slipped through the quickly closing portal after Racin.
For a moment, silence reigned in the square, then Deo, in another mad rage, flew from Harborym to Harborym, tearing the remaining dozen of them to pieces with his bare hands.
And when he was done, he stood in the center of a grisly circle of red chaos magic, black Harborym blood, and strewn body parts, his head hanging as he panted.
“I don’t…” I let go of Hallow’s jerkin and moved forward, the words that I sought eluding my bemused brain. “I don’t understand what just happened. What prophesy was he talking about? Why did Mayam—”
It was at that moment that Deo lifted his head to answer me, but his gaze focused behind me, where Hallow stood, and for a moment, he froze, then he snarled, “Harborym,” and rushed toward Hallow, grabbing him by the neck.
I knew it was the chaos magic he was feeling in Hallow, and in his berserker state, he mistook Hallow for another Harborym, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to brain him. I leaped on his back as the two men fell to the ground, Hallow desperately drawing spells around himself while Deo snarled and tried to throttle the life from my beloved.
“Deo, let go of him! It’s Hallow, not a Harborym! Let go of his throat. He’s turning bright red. Blast you, Deo, I don’t want to hurt you but so help me, I will cleave your arms off your body if you don’t let go of him!”
Deo just growled and continued to throttle Hallow. The latter’s eyes started to roll up, his hands moving slower and slower, and I looked around desperately for a weapon, something heavy which I could use to hit Deo on the head, but at that moment a calm, cool voice pierced Deo’s snarls of rage.
“Deo, release the arcanist. He does not deserve to die, and if you kill him, we will be saddled with the care of the priest until the end of our days, and I do not wish to be saddled with her. Deo, let him go.”
Idril glided over in her perfectly clean dress, and with a hand that looked as if it had never seen a day’s strife, reached down to tap one of Deo’s massive hands.
He twitched, then released Hallow’s neck.
“You great big oaf!” I yelled, shoving Deo aside to kneel next to Hallow. “I swear by Kiriah’s toes that if you ever touch him again with the intention of harming him…my darling, are you all right? Here, let us get you up so you can catch your breath again. Deo, seriously, you were this close to being smited as you have never been smited before. Don’t you give me that look. I will smite you still if Hallow has been hurt by you!”
Idril, with a slight roll of her eyes, guided Deo off to the other side of the square, murmuring softly to him as she led him to a barrel, where as if by magic, one of Lord Israel’s men ran up with soft cloths and bandages with which she could tend Deo’s wounds.
“It’s enough to give me a complex,” I growled to myself. With Quinn’s help, I got Hallow to his feet.
“What is?” Quinn asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Hallow croaked, then with an arm around me, limped over to where Lord Israel was watching a healer attend to the queen’s back.
“—the arcanist did something to allay the pain, although I could have told him that wasn’t necessary,” Dasa was telling Lord Israel when we drew closer. “I was pleased that you treated me as a proper warrior, and not some helpless woman simply because I’d endured a little flogging.”
I averted my eyes from the state of her back. I couldn’t imagine standing and talking with that sort of damage, let alone insisting that she didn’t need the magic Hallow had used to help her through the experience. “I don’t understand any of what just happened,” I announced in a loud, aggrieved voice. “Why did Mayam betray us when she helped us get here? What did Racin mean about a prophesy having to do with Deo? And where did he go with the stones? To Aryia? Genora? Some other land? Because if we have to go back there and start the whole battle with him over again, I’m going to need a bath. A long bath. And time with Hallow. He needs some help controlling his chaos magic.”
Deo looked up at that. I was relieved to see that the golden glow around him had faded, leaving him looking exhausted, but in possession of his wits once again. “You are a Bane?”
“No,” Hallow said, shaking his head. He looked puzzled for a moment, then slowly nodded. “Or perhaps yes. I don’t know what I am other than an arcanist, a blood priest, and now a wielder of chaos magic.”
Deo looked incensed, and despite Idril’s soft protests, got to his feet, marching over to us to share his ire. “Is it your plan to consume all the magic of Alba, Hallow? Can you not be content with just one type of magic that now you must learn them all in order to lord your abilities over me? I was the first one to master chaos magic, and I refuse to allow you to best me at it.”
Hallow laughed at that, but it was a short-lived laughter. “Oh, yes, I endured Racin’s attentions simply so I could challenge you to a magic competition.”
“You see?” Deo turned back to Idril “He admitted it! I was correct, and you are wrong.”
“No, you’re paranoid, overly competitive, and stubborn as the day is long, but now is not the time to discuss those particular traits,” Idril said smoothly as she glided over to put a possessive hand on Deo’s arm.
I cocked an eyebrow at the hand, and the fact that Deo wasn’t spurning her as I expected him to do. I would have said something to that effect, but Dasa, clearly impatient at the time it was taking to treat and bandage her back, waved away the healer, answering my earlier questions by saying, “This is not over, priest. Now that Racin has the stones…” She closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head. “It was foolishness to bring them here.”
“I had no other choice,” Lord Israel said stiffly in response to the censure in her voice.
“Of course, you did. You simply chose to follow your desire to free me.” She shook her head again, looking at each of us in turn. “Do you not see what you have done? All of you, together? You have freed that which was bound to Eris, and for that, all of Alba will pay the price.”
“Racin?” Hallow asked slowly, his brow furrowed. “He wasn’t bound here, was he? He resided in Genora for more than a dozen years, after all.”
“Racin is the name he took for the form that was bound to Alba,” the queen answered, squaring her shoulders. “But he has another.”
Hallow drew in his breath, pulling me close to his side. “You can’t mean—”
The queen gestured to the sky. We all looked upward. The clouds, ever present, dense and protective over the entire land of Eris, were starting to thin. Here and there, faint beams of sunlight could be glimpsed. I stretched and lifted my hands to Kiriah, feeling a slight tingling of warmth. It wasn’t much, but it was more than I’d felt in a long time, and my soul sang a song of pure joy as I embraced it.
The joy of that moment faded with Hallow’s next words.
“Nezu,” he said, his expression th
oughtful. “Racin is Nezu.”
Dasa look furious enough to challenge us all. Instead, she said with a grim finality that chilled me despite the joy of being once again within Kiriah Sunbringer’s sight, “Lord of the shadows, brother to the twin goddesses, they who forced him into the form of Racin when they bound him to Eris. They gave him this land as his domain so that the rest of Alba would be safe…and you six have released him back to the domain of the gods, where he is sure to rain down death and destruction over all our lands.”
Chapter 22
“There are several things I wish to know.”
Hallow smiled at his wife. She sat cross-legged next to a coil of rope, the wind lifting her dark curls as she used a delicate set of tools to etch runes onto a narrow silver hinged cuff. Although he always received pleasure in looking at her, the sight of her had become even more precious since he was convinced he would die at the hands of Racin.
“I would be surprised if there weren’t,” he told her, blowing her a kiss that she caught with one hand without looking up. “I’m sure most, if not all, will be answered shortly.”
“They’d better be,” she said darkly, squinting in concentration as she etched another rune on the cuff.
He proceeded past where Dexia was telling the young woman named Ella the blood-curdling tale of just how Quinn had rescued her from the former Shadowborn regent when she was a young vanth and climbed the short flight of stairs to the quarterdeck. Deo stood frowning at a map, while Quinn explained the route they would take back to Aryia.
“I don’t see why we can’t just sail straight there,” Deo said, shoving a finger at a point on the east coast of Aryia. “Why do we have to go south to some islands that no one cares about?”
“Because your mother is a queen, and very persuasive when she waves a sword around, which I have to admit seems to be a disturbing amount of time.” Quinn shot Deo a disgruntled look that the latter ignored, simply staring at the captain. Quinn, obviously realizing he’d met his match in Deo’s obstinate refusal to have his way gainsaid, added, “The queen wishes to consult with the abjurors there to determine what they know of the prophesy mentioned by Racin. Or I should say Nezu.”
Starborn Page 27
