by Zora Marie
“We’re all set, dear,” Yargo said.
Zivu came around the couch and shared a quick kiss with Yargo. “Go, I’ll tell Lumid where to send you as soon as we know. Just come back to me, my love.”
“I will,” Yargo said, giving her a light kiss on the forehead. “Come. It's time.” He left the room, and the others followed him.
Eleanor was last to follow them out. She stopped in front of Zelia. “I love you. I hope you know that.”
Zelia nodded. “I love you too, Eleanor.” With that Eleanor left, Zivu on her heels.
“Yalif,” Zivu called as she passed the healer’s chambers. “We’ll need you.”
The healer joined them in their walk to the pavilion, his uncharacteristic silence showing his disapproval of blood magic. Linithion met them further down the hall, Zelia’s cloak in hand.
This time Zelia didn’t hesitate to give Zivu her hand when she gestured for it. Zivu cut a deep gash across her wrist and blood sprayed from it as Zivu pushed Zelia’s hand into the basin. Zelia’s vision grew blurry as Zivu’s chanting grew louder. Her knees shook as the lightheadedness took over, and Linithion grabbed her, keeping her from collapsing.
“Just a little more,” Linithion whispered as Zelia wilted against her.
Zivu’s chanting stopped. “They are in the tunnels beneath the fifth peak of the Darkan Mountains. Go. They know you’re coming,” Zivu spoke aloud, trusting Lumid to hear.
Yalif grabbed Zelia’s hand, holding it above her head as he worked to stop the bleeding. Zelia shook off the daze that threatened to take hold as a sharp pain shot from her wrist.
The next thing she knew, she was in Yalif’s healing chambers, Linithion at her side. “Easy, you lost a lot of blood.”
“Any word from them?”
Linithion shook her head as Zelia sat up.
“Then let’s go see Lumid.”
Linithion raised a brow at her.
“I’ll take it easy.” Zelia slid from the examining table and gave Linithion a light kiss on the cheek. “I promise,” she whispered.
The walk down the bridge was long and cold, and concern etched Lumid’s expression when they entered. One hand gripped the hilt of his sword as he stared at Mineria.
“What’s wrong?” Linithion asked.
“I cannot see them. They are cloaked from my sight.”
“So, send me,” Zelia said.
He was about to respond when the creases on his brow grew deeper.
“It’s a trap!” Rogath’s words broke into her mind. “We have to save them.”
Zelia grabbed her head as Rogath’s voice boomed through her head. He must have screamed to break through the barrier that held him.
“What’s wrong?” Linithion asked.
“We have to go.”
Suddenly Rogath was there, shoving Zelia’s armor and staff into her arms. Before Lumid realized what was going on, Rogath had initiated the switch and was pulling Zelia into the blinding light. Lumid made a grab for Linithion and she pulled a dagger from his belt as she slipped from his grasp.
When they landed in the middle of the Darkan mountains, at the mouth of a cave, Rogath stared at Linithion. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“Neither should either of you,” Linithion said, pulling Zelia and Rogath into the mouth of the cave, away from where Lumid could pull them back. She set to work helping Zelia with her armor.
Rogath growled something under his breath as he tied the other side of Zelia’s armor.
“What makes you think we should be here, Rogath? Xander can control us. What if he uses me?”
“He can’t control you while he’s fighting and he knows we wouldn’t come because of what he has done to us. But come on, we don’t have time to argue. Besides, you have another body to claim.” Rogath gave her a wicked grin as he created a ball of light in his hand and ran deeper into the cave.
Linithion held her back from following him. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“No, but I can’t just leave him.”
Linithion nodded. “Then I’m with you.” She let go of Zelia’s arm, and the two of them chased after Rogath.
They rounded a corner to find a few dead Darkans, their bodies heaped to one side. They didn’t need a map to know where to go, they just followed the echoing sound of battle. A few moments later, they came to a cavern where a shallow basin similar to Zivu’s stood in the middle. Yargo and Skylar exchanged blows with Xander. Erolith tended to Eleanor as blood poured from her side.
Chants came from a side corridor, and Zelia nodded to it. “Go help them, I’ll help Yargo.” She grabbed her golden staff and frost grew across its surface as it expanded.
As Rogath and Linithion left, Xander slammed his staff on the cave floor and instead of bouncing up from the impact it stuck, and a pulse of energy radiated from it. Right before her eyes, the fighting stopped, Yargo and Skylar frozen mid swing. Even a drip of water from the ceiling caught on its descent to the cave floor slowed to a stop.
“Xander,” Zelia snarled from the edge of the spell. She had to buy them time until the spell wore off. She threw a shard of ice towards him and it caught in his spell.
Xander seemed to realize she couldn’t get past the spell and retrieved his blade. There was a wicked gleam in his eyes as he chanted another spell, and Zelia fell back a step as her powers stirred without her will. She pushed the flames to the back of her mind, buying herself time as she slammed her staff into the cave floor, driving a vein of ice down and hopefully under his other spell before he could complete his chant. Xander grabbed his staff, moving the shield spell with him as he drove his sword into Yargo’s chest.
“No!” Zelia screamed as the ice finally reached the wizard. Her ice grasped for his ankles, causing a ripple in his spell. That was all Yargo needed. His swing finished with all the power it had before the spell stopped him and Xander’s head made an echoing thud on the cave floor.
Time seemed to slow and Zelia backed away, shaking as her bones cracked and boiled within her, fire and ice clashing.
“Erolith,” Skylar said as he caught Yargo, supporting him.
“Run,” Zelia gasped as sweat poured off her and she fought to move deeper into the mountain, away from everyone she cared about. Her first few steps were slow as she fought to hold her powers inside, but as her hands cracked, she ran.
She opened her mouth to scream as she turned a corner, and fire so hot it turned white sprayed from her mouth. It felt as though a war hammer was pounding on every inch of her over and over until her hold on her power splintered and she exploded.
She sensed rather than felt the mountain rumble, then the pain disappeared, but the disconnected feeling she got with death never came. She tried to breathe but found she couldn’t and panicked. I’m not dead, she thought as she tried to open her eyes and reach out with her powers.
All that bounced back to her was the freezing cold of ice and she begged it to melt. She didn’t know how or even where it was, but she knew she had to be in the other body Zivu had sensed.
A wash of freezing water spread away from her and she shot into a sitting position, gasping.
“I… it just went off. I just took it from him.” Rogath’s thought broke through her own. She could almost feel him falling apart, even as a sense of relief washed over him.
“Rogath,” Zelia pushed her thoughts towards him, hoping he would hear.
“Zelia!? But you screamed…”
“I exploded, but… Rogath, I’m in the other body. I don’t know where I am.” The water fell away from the rags she wore as clothes. She stood on weak legs and turned, searching for any sign of where she was. All that stared back at her was darkness. She forced herself to take a deep breath. Darkness wasn’t that bad. “Is Yargo?” she asked as she began feeling for a wall to follow.
“I don’t know. They dragged him towards the cave mouth. Oh no. No, no, no.”
Zelia froze as her hand touched the damp stone of a cave wall.
“Rogath? What’s going on?”
There was a long pause. “It’s fine, she’s fine. Zelia, I’m sorry for everything I’ve done.”
“Rogath, you can’t help what they made you do any more than I can. Go, help tend to the others and then see if Lumid can see me. I’ll try to find a way out. Just make sure Linithion knows that I’m alright, wherever I am.”
“Just be careful.”
Zelia had found what she thought was a tunnel when Rogath’s presence became faint and distant. She thought about asking right then if Lumid could see her but decided to give Rogath a little time. Maybe he was helping everyone who had been hurt.
She paused her search for a way out and rubbed her hands together, trying to regain some feeling in her fingertips. Maybe just a little one, she thought, and a flame flickered to life just above her hand. She glanced down at her body, her skin drew tight across thinly muscled bones, and she could see her own knees shake and forced herself to look away. You can’t just stop. You have to get out of here.
Her attention turned to the tunnel ahead of her and she stumbled down the path.
“Mother is coming.”
“Zivu’s coming?”
“Yes, and I need you to conserve your energy. I can feel you. Your body is too weak and you’re getting close to the block Xander put up. Lumid says it looks similar to the one Asenten used in the cave, so please just stay put.”
“But if it is like the one he used in the cave, whose life force is it tied to? Aren’t all of Xander’s wizards dead?”
“They are, and I don’t know that it is tied to someone’s life force this time. If it is, Mother will figure out who when she gets there. So um, take a nap, Linithion wants to talk.”
“How far am I from the barrier?”
“Uh, Lumid says, too close for comfort. Stop walking!”
“Alright, alright.” Zelia conceded and sat against the cave wall. “How long do you think it will take Zivu to get here?”
“I’m not answering that until you fall asleep, you need to conserve energy and you’re burning too much with that fire.”
“Fine.”
Sitting there, she realized how easy it was to breathe and how pain no longer raked through her chest with each breath. Maybe this would work out for the best.
She curled up and fell asleep with a true sense of hope for the first time in centuries.
Zelia met Rogath in that void between their minds, and Linithion swirled into existence before her.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I figured out how to bring her in.”
“How?” Zelia asked, then she noticed the stain of fresh blood on the front of Linithion’s dress. “What happened?” A wave of guilt pulsed against her and she glanced at Rogath.
“Don’t. When he took the staff from one of them, it caused a blast, and it caught everyone in it. The impact reopened my wound, but Yalif says my heart is fine. It’s you and Yargo we worry about.”
Linithion put a hand to Zelia’s cheek, and she leaned into its phantom warmth.
“They’ll free you or I’ll come stay with you.”
“No.” Zelia shook her head. “You belong in the light.”
“You are my light.”
Zelia rolled her eyes and Rogath shuddered as though they were far too intertwined with him for this conversation. Linithion fixed him with a glare and he gave it right back.
“Hey, this is my head we’re in right now.”
“Well, if you’re done blocking Zelia, you’d best get used to this.”
Zelia rubbed a hand over her face. This was going to be a long wait.
34
“Freg.” The curse jolted Zelia from her sleep.
“What?” a deeper voice asked.
“It’s tied to her own life.”
“Zivu?” Zelia asked as she sat up, wiping the sleep from her eyes as she did.
“I’m here, dear.”
Zivu bent over her and wiped the hair from her face.
“Here, I brought you some water and that bread your Elves like so much.”
Zelia looked up to find the male voice belonged to Barg and the quiet warrior from the day before lingered at the bend in the cave. Zelia took the water and bread with shaky hands.
“Thank you.” With a sip of the water coating her tongue, she turned her attention back to Zivu. “Stop my heart, after a few minutes you can move me past the border.”
“Do you know how dangerous that is?”
“It’s better than chopping my head off or stabbing me.”
“There is another border at the mouth of the cave. By the time we get you past them both, I won’t be able to bring you back, and Yalif may not be able to either. Especially since he and his sister are spending so much on Yargo.”
“If Yalif can’t, that’s alright. Without a wound to heal, I might come back faster. Even if I don’t come back faster, there should be less pain for me to feel while trapped.”
“You feel while in that state?”
Zelia shrugged. “Pain is more of an absent sense that nags at me.” In truth, it was more than that, but Zivu didn’t need to know that.
Zivu shook her head and paced the tunnel, while Zelia ate the bread Barg had given her. When she finished the bread, Zelia stared down the tunnel she had come from, where the light of the torch didn’t reach.
“Zivu, I don’t want to live in the dark anymore. If you won’t stop my heart so you can take me from here, then I will kill myself, so you’ll have no reason to leave me.” She used the water Barg had given her to form a dagger of ice. “Please, I don’t want to stay here and I don’t want Linithion here either.”
Zivu stared at the crude dagger she had shaped before conceding. “Barg, will you carry her? I’ll take the torch.”
Nodding, Barg tossed his small bag of supplies to the other warrior. Zivu paused, seeming to assess how weak Zelia’s body was.
“I’ve been in worse shape than this. I’ll be fine.” For once she believed her words, even if they couldn’t bring her back that wouldn’t be so bad. At least her body wouldn’t have to rebuild from ash, and this body wasn’t damaged from all the years in the cave. If it weren’t for the memories and the fact this body seemed to be the same age as her original body, it would be as though those years never happened.
“Be ready to move,” Zivu said and began her spell.
Zelia sat back as Zivu pulled energy from the world around them, condensing it into her hand until sparks of light crackled across her palm. Before she could think about or second guess this choice, Zivu thrust her hand against Zelia’s chest and every muscle in her body tensed. Her head smacked against the cave wall and the light of the fire disappeared from her vision as she gasped like a fish out of water. She tried to control herself, to keep this from being so horrific for them to watch, but she couldn’t help but grasp at her chest once before her body went still.
A weight seemed to lift in the cave, the same weight that had lifted the day Yargo freed her from Asenten, and Barg scooped her up. Something touched her eyelids, brushing them closed with a gentle hand. She laughed, or well her mind did, as Barg hauled her body over a shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Her body bounced and jerked as Barg carried her. He certainly did not have the grace of an Elf. She thought to mention it to Rogath, then realized their connection had severed. Where he had once been, even when blocking her, there was an empty void. It was in this void she settled and set to losing herself to pass the time. Without the pain and terror, she could just be in this place, even if it was dark and lonely.
A prick in her arm and repetitive pressure in her chest roused her from the dark and quiet place in the back of her mind. Every muscle in her body tensed again, and she shot to the front of her mind, grasping to reconnect with her body.
She forced herself to take a breath and someone grabbed her, pulling her into a hug before she was even fully there. The sweet smell of a spring forest touched her senses, and she knew it was Linithion.
“Don’t do that to me,” Linithion said. Dirt and grime still covered Linithion’s face, washed away in bits by tears.
“I’m sorry,” Zelia said, and she was. Her body ached and twitched, but not as much as her heart did at seeing the worry and concern in Linithion’s eyes. She glanced away from Linithion to see that they were in Lumid’s home on the bridge, Yalif kneeled next to her and Rogath glared at her from behind him.
“Is Yargo?” she asked.
“He’s stable for now,” Yalif said. “And for his and my sake, please take it easy for a while?”
She nodded and glanced around the room, searching for Eleanor, Erolith, and even Alrindel’s familiar faces, but there were only a few people there.
“They went home,” Linithion said. “Eleanor was in rough shape, so Vainoff went with her. Father went home too, they’re afraid of backlash from the Darkans so they wanted to increase the guard.”
“What about Skylar?”
“He’s unconscious, but he should wake soon,” Yalif said. “We put him in the study if you would like to check on him.”
“Here,” Rogath said, taking off his cloak and draping it across her shoulders as she stood.
Zelia couldn’t help but lean on Linithion as they walked to the Palace, her legs too thin and weak to support her.
“We’ll check on Skylar, then we’ll clean up and get something to eat,” Linithion said.
“Are you insinuating something?” Zelia said, trying to break the heaviness that seemed to linger in Linithion’s expression.
“If she isn’t, then I will!” Rogath said. “We’re all filthy and you need to put some meat on those bones.”
“Give me a week or two and you can help me rebuild the muscle with a bit of sword play,” Zelia said, giving Rogath a slight grin.
“You’re on. I’ve been practicing.”
“Could have fooled me,” Linithion said and Zelia couldn’t help but laugh a little at the challenge in Linithion’s tone.
“You’re on, too, as soon as Yalif releases you.”
