by JA Andrews
The metal was ice cold against her skin and her fingers clenched around the sword of their own accord. She was grateful for a heartbeat that her hand fit between the hilt and the sharpened edge of the blade—then the vitalle rushed out of her hand
“Sini!” Lukas twisted the sword away, but not before Umbra shot forward and sank her teeth into Sini’s forearm. Pain exploded in her arm as the teeth cut into her flesh. She clamped her eyes shut and fought to concentrate through the pain, slowing the flow of her own vitalle and funneling the dragon’s into the sword.
She’d expected to see pink light rushing out of her fingers with the vitalle, but her hand only darkened.
“Let go!” Lukas yanked the sword away from her. “It will kill you!”
She couldn’t have let go even if she’d wanted to. Her hand clamped down on the blade as though her fingers had turned to steel. Umbra shook her head, trying to free her teeth and sending daggers of pain into Sini’s arm, but her jaw was locked shut.
This wasn’t the painless energy of the sunfire. This was common vitalle and the energy burned her skin.
Darkness crept up Sini’s arm, her flesh somehow losing light.
Light.
Everything is light.
Not everything will become light the way Chesavia had. Everything is light.
The vitalle in her body was light, that was easy to see. But the flesh of her hand—was it just light in a different form?
The sword wasn’t just taking vitalle, it was somehow taking light.
She could feel the sword now, could sense how empty it was, how much it would take to overfill it enough to break it. Between herself and the dragon, she might have enough.
Except energy was pouring out of the sword into Lukas. The shadows swarmed up his arm.
“Too much of it is going into you.” Her voice sounded more strained than she’d expected. “I can destroy it if you let go.”
“No,” Lukas pulled again, turning his face away. He was growing stronger, and Sini could feel her own body weakening. Already her legs shook with the effort of standing.
“Look at me,” she begged him, bracing herself on his arm so she didn’t fall.
Slowly he turned back to her, his face twisted with anger.
“Come back to me, Lukas. Let go of the sword.”
“So you can destroy it?” He glared at her with so much raw hatred that she flinched back. “You will not destroy me!” he snarled.
Reaching over his shoulder, he wrenched the other sword from its sheath in a wide arc of blue light that cast an icy gleam over the twisted hatred in his face.
She tried to pull back, but her body moved sluggishly, and the dragon thrashed on her arm.
A strangled cry sounded from behind her and a huge form crashed into them. Rett threw his arms around Sini just as the blue blade sliced down, cutting deep into his side. He let out a bellow of pain.
A flood of energy surged from the blue blade into Rett, sending a wave of destruction through his body. The vitalle she’d been pouring into the black blade rushed out to replace it, leaving the shadow blade nearly empty again.
Rett’s weight dragged them all down and Sini stared helplessly into his face as he crumpled away from her. Umbra’s teeth tore out of Sini’s arm and the dragon shrank back into a corner.
Rett’s face was deathly pale, his expression faintly confused. Lukas threw the blue sword down and reached toward him in horror.
“I’m sorry,” the words bubbled out of Lukas like a desperate child. “Rett! I’m sorry. I’d never—” He pressed his hand to Rett’s ravaged side helplessly. “What have I done?” He turned to Sini. “Heal him!”
Sini stared into Rett’s face. “I can’t,” she whispered.
Lukas fixed her with a furious look. “Heal him!”
“There’s no sunlight!” The words tore out of her like a sob. “There’s no sunlight!”
Understanding dawned in Lukas’s face and he sank down, staring in horror at the black sword. “Destroy it…destroy it, Sini!”
So much of the energy she gave the sword was pouring into Lukas. “Let go,” she whispered.
His hand twitch on the blade but didn’t release. “I can’t.” He looked at her wildly. “I can’t!’
Sini tried again to pull her own hand off, desperate to help Rett, but everything felt cold below her elbow.
“Need more energy,” she gasped. “Need sunlight.”
“There’s no sunlight,” Lukas’s voice was rough with fear. “Take energy from me.” He grabbed Sini’s other hand with his free one and she tried to pull energy out of him. But everything was rushing into him. Nothing would come out.
Her chest started to feel dark and cold.
The bands of darkness from the black sword wove into Lukas’s body, piercing into his chest, sliding out his back and wrapping up around his neck. Fingers slid down his arms, around his stomach. Darkness shrouded his legs. Sini cast out and there was no division at all between the blade and the man.
She clamped down on the light leaving her hand, fighting against the raging pain in her arm. She was weak enough that the flow had lessened, and she could almost cut it off. “The darkness of the sword is everywhere inside you,” she told Lukas.
Lukas leaned heavily against her shoulder, his head fallen forward. “I can feel it. It’s cold. Destroy it, Sini.”
A chill fear gripped her. “It’s part of you now. If I destroy it,” she whispered, “it will kill you.”
Lukas raised his eyes to meet hers. Shadows seeped out of his skin. His eyes were pained and panicked. Rett let out a ragged moan and Lukas clenched his jaw. A new resolve filled his face. “It’s fitting.”
“I’m not going to kill you, Lukas. I only wanted to free you.”
Lukas shook his head, staring at the floor with distant eyes. “You are the only person I’ve never hated.” Lukas’s eyes turned back to Rett, who lay unmoving. “Even Rett…” he whispered. “Sometimes I hated him for being hurt, for not being strong enough to…” He shook his head. “When you came to the Sweep, you saved me. You gave me someone to fight for.”
The light flowing out of her now was slow enough that she barely needed to stop it. The truth struck her. The blade still had room and she didn’t have enough energy left to fill it. Her fear of hurting Lukas faded. He wasn’t the one this would kill.
“I can’t destroy the sword,” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t have enough left. Destroy this thing or bury it or drop it in the bottom of the sea.” She looked into his face. “Promise me you’ll let it go.”
Lukas gripped her free hand. “Find more energy. Find a way to take mine.” He grabbed the blue sword off the floor. “Take this!”
She pulled away from it. “You’ll die.”
“And if you don’t, you’ll die. So find another way. Find a way to use this blue sword to help us both. Killien said this sword was meant to ‘help mend the torn’. Mend this!”
Reluctantly, Sini reached toward the blade wreathed with bright blue ropes of light. The metal felt hot against her skin, but she couldn’t grab the energy. It was as though it were held away from her by an invisible wall. It seared her skin with heat, but she couldn’t reach the power there.
She dropped her hand to her lap.
“Sini,” Lukas whispered. “Find more.”
She rested her head against his shoulder. Her body felt so heavy. An ache as sharp as another blade pierced—a longing for the sunfire. Not even to help, just so she could feel the warmth and the goodness of it. Everything in her was so dark and empty and dead. “Just tell me you’ll destroy it once I’m gone.”
“You need to live,” he said, “to heal Rett.”
Sini looked at the still form of Rett collapsed on the floor. A pool of blood spread out beneath him. “I can’t, there is no way. But I’m glad the choice has been taken away,” she closed her eyes. “I could never have chosen between you and Rett.”
The shadows were thick around Lukas
, but he strengthened. “I can.” He turned toward the dark corner of the room. “Umbra.”
Sini’s heart fell. “Don’t,” she pleaded.
“She has more than enough, doesn’t she?”
“Lukas, it’ll kill you.” It was hard to focus on him. Everything felt heavy and dim.
He gave her a weak smile, barely visible through the shadows. “You were right. I’ve been selfish.”
He closed his eyes and Umbra twitched and hissed.
“This once, let me not be selfish.”
Sini tried to pull her hand away, but Lukas held the sword still as Umbra moved forward and set her nose on Sini’s arm.
The dragon’s energy shot through her with searing pain, pouring into the sword.
Umbra growled but her nose pressed harder, pushing into Sini’s bloody arm.
Lukas cried out and threw his head back. Shadows poured out of him, wrapping around his neck, surging into his open mouth until he was a pool of darkness in the room. The edges of his fingers smudged into darkness on the hilt.
A tiny brittle noise came from the sword, then a loud crack. A burst of light exploded out of it. The dark shadows ruptured into tiny shards of blackness and were engulfed in the light.
Sini’s hand went limp and slid off the blade and the dragon twisted away. The sword, now a dull silver, clattered to the floor.
Lukas, toppled to the side, his skin unshadowed, his eyes wide and empty.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Sini grabbed Lukas’s hand, but it was still. She cast out into him but there was no vitalle.
Scales scuffed over the stone floor and Umbra launched herself out the window into the darkness where battle sounds still rang out, but she was too numb to worry about either of those things.
Her body felt cold and sluggish and she cradled her bitten arm against her stomach. She turned to Rett, sliding over to him. She cast out and found life still pulsing weakly. The wound in his side reached so far into him that she knew it was hopeless. Even with sunfire this would be hopeless. When she lifted up his hand, he groaned. Her heart clamped down at his pain and she froze. It was better that he was unaware.
The room was dark except for moonlight coming in the window. Sini reached out toward it, looking for the weak sunfire she could find in it, but there was such a little bit it wouldn’t accomplish anything. Underneath Rett the rug was dark and wet.
But he cracked an eye open. “You safe, Sini?” His voice was less than a whisper.
“Yes, Rett.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m safe. Thanks to you.”
He closed his eye. “Hurts.”
Sini cast out again, frantic to do something. Her own arm throbbed, but it must be nothing compared to what he felt.
Lukas was cold, Rett was dimmer even than he’d been a heartbeat ago, and Roan was still crumpled on the floor over near the fire with so little vitalle she could barely find him. Even the fire in the hearth was nothing but coals.
“I can’t do anything,” she whispered to Rett, her hand hovering over him, afraid to touch him and cause him pain. “I can’t—There’s no sunlight. I need energy—I lost my ring, Rett. I can’t even start—” Her throat tightened around the words. None of that mattered. Fire would not be enough. Even sunlight wouldn’t be enough.
He squeezed her hand, the pressure almost too small to feel. “The Shield says sometimes people can’t be healed.”
“I don’t want that to be true,” she whispered.
“Find a candle. Help Sini with the fire.”
She didn’t even think of arguing. Her body felt leaden, but she crossed to the desk and brought him back a candle. He tried to lift his hand, but it fell back to the floor. She held the candle, shaking, with the hand on her injured arm, and lifted his hand with the other. The green light from his finger was so weak it was barely visible, but the candle slowly flamed to life. She set it near his head.
It was almost worse, having light. She kept her eyes focused on his face so she wouldn’t have to see the rest of him.
“Where is Lukas?”
She swallowed. “He gone, Rett. He sacrificed himself to destroy that sword.”
Rett was silent for so long that she cast out again. “See,” he whispered finally. “Lukas wasn’t bad. He always kept us safe.”
Sini dropped her head down onto Rett’s shoulder and pressed her face into him. His body rose with a shallow breath. “Don’t go,” she whispered.
“Doesn’t hurt anymore,” he said so quietly she almost didn’t hear him.
She felt him take one shuddering breath, and he stilled.
Dreading the result, she cast out. Rett’s body was empty.
She gripped his huge hand, but his fingers were slack. He didn’t grip her back, or wrap his huge arm around her shoulder, or tell her everything would be alright.
He smelled of hay from the stables and the bright metallic tang of blood. His motionless chest was still warm and stable beneath her head, like some foundation stone that she’d rested on for years.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
She cast out again and again, as though she could conjure life inside him from pure will.
He was nothing but darkness.
Something behind her caught her attention. It wasn’t alive, exactly, but there was a…something.
She turned to find the blue sword half covered by Lukas. Tendrils of blue light snaked around it. Sini fixed it with a glare of fury. Her body was still sluggish, and it took her breath away when she shifted her hurt arm, but she scooted over and picked it up by the hilt, sliding it out from under Lukas. She pushed herself to her feet, leaving the candle be for a moment, and headed for the fireplace. She’d build a fire, as big as she could, and throw this sword in.
The sight of Roan stopped her.
Roan wasn’t wounded. He had nothing that needed healing. What he needed was energy, light. She looked at the blue sword. It hadn’t let her take the energy before, but maybe that was because she was holding the black sword too.
She brushed her finger quickly over the flat of the blade and a rush of energy poured into her finger so fast it burned her. Yanking her hand back, she knelt next to Roan. The energy moved too fast for her to just touch it to Roan, but maybe she could control it.
She focused on her finger, focused on letting in only a little vitalle from the sword, and touched it again.
It pressed on her like a huge wave, but only a small amount flowed into her finger. Warm instead of hot. She set the blade on the floor next to her and laid one hand on Roan’s back. Shaking her head to clear the exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm her, she braced herself and touched the sword blade.
Keeping the flow gentle, she let energy come in from the sword, and pressed it into Roan.
It was almost like healing. There were brighter parts of him, and she funneled the energy there, in his chest and his head. She bolstered the life that was there already, and let it spread itself through the rest of his body.
The tip of her finger against the sword began to burn and she pressed more fingers to it, spreading out the energy. They burned as well, but there was too much to be given to Roan for her to pay attention to it.
Little by little, Roan’s body filled with energy. It was like slowly filling a dark hole with light. The blue stone was draining quickly, though, and Roan needed more.
Her exhaustion weighed on her like a sodden blanket. When the sword was empty Sini shoved herself up and built a fire, lighting the kindling with the candle Rett had left her. The flames were small at first, and she nearly fell asleep waiting for them to grow, but once it was burning she started again, drawing energy out of it slowly and funneling it into Roan.
The fire had burned low before he groaned. A wave of relief rolled over her and she cast out. His body was weak, but vitalle flowed through all of it.
Her vision was blurry with weariness. She lay her head on his chest and let sleep take her.
Everything
was quiet, but there was a brightness past her eyelids. Sunfire brushed against her skin, weak and indirect. Her chest held a deep, hollow ache, and her arm throbbed.
Sini opened eyes slowly. She lay in a stone room. The shutters were thrown open and late afternoon light slanted onto the floor. Her arm was wrapped in a clean bandage and her bloody black Keepers robe was gone.
Roan leaned back in the chair next to her bed, his eyes closed.
She was still so tired. She stretched out toward the sunfire and drew it in. Tingling warmth filled her fingers, flowing up her arms and wrapping around the wounds from the dragon’s teeth. The light seeped into her chest, bolstering her, strengthening her.
She took a deep breath and Roan stirred. When he saw her eyes open, he leaned forward and grabbed her good hand, a wide smile filling his face. “Hi.”
Her own smile felt tired. “Hi.” The significance of the sunlight hit her, and she sat up. “It’s late!” Pain shot through her arm and she groaned.
He winced at her pain. “Nearly dinner time. Everyone will be glad to know you’re awake.”
“What happened?” She listened for a moment but while there were noises outside, she heard no battle sounds. “Was there more fighting?”
“The Roven had left by dawn. Will’s hawk saw them skirmishing with each other as they rode back through the mountains toward the Sweep.”
“How did they get through?”
“A scout arrived late last night with the news that the pass had been cleared. He theorized the dragon had done it. Since he arrived too late to warn anyone that the Roven were coming, no one really cared about the details.”
“What about the armies from Napon and Baylon?”
“Seeing the Roven gone and realizing the dragons weren’t coming back must have been enough. The started a full retreat out of Queensland by midmorning.”
The memory of what Lukas had planned came back to her. “And your father—? Are Will and Alaric alright?”
“They’re fine. My father’s troops were…reluctant to carry out their orders, and while there was a nice long skirmish, they merely captured Will and Alaric and didn’t harm them at all. I was able to convince our men that my father was the problem, not the Keepers, and it didn’t take them long to put him under arrest.” Roan studied their hands. “He’s being taken back to Queenstown to stand trial for treason.”
