Ether-Touched (The Breaking Stone Trilogy Book 1)

by L. M. Coulson

  Every sputter of the fires sent a flare of otherness deep into Vylaena’s gut, and her arms erupted in gooseflesh. The smell of iron flooded her nose—a warning she knew well to heed—but she forced one boot ahead of the other in defiance of every alarm currently ringing through her bones. Slowly she walked, half-blind, up the aisle, her heart tossing itself mercilessly against her ribs.

  Then she noticed the pain.

  It was sharp and hot, a great slash across her side she knew had been caused by some sort of blade. She swallowed a gulp of air and accepted it, increasing her pace and resting one hand on the hilt of her nearest dagger.

  “Alaric?” she hissed, wary.

  “Here! Quickly!”

  Vylaena almost tripped over him in her haste to catch up. The prince was crouched before a collapsed figure, his back to her, but he glanced over his shoulder as she approached. His eyes glinted with relief. “Thyrian,” he breathed. “He’s here. But he’s wounded.”

  “That much I gathered,” Vylaena replied, scanning the immediate area for signs of a lingering attacker. But the darkness outside their bubble of light was too thick.

  A low grunt snagged Vylaena’s attention and she rounded the prince’s side, stepping into one of the rows of pews to get a better view. Thyrian lay on the floor, one hand pressed against his bloody ribs, the aisle runner stained black beneath him. The nearby sconces threw harsh, streaky shadows across his tanned face.

  Vylaena was well-versed in all manner of injuries, and she could see that this one looked worse than it was. It was shallow, the slice following the grain of Thyrian’s muscle rather than cutting through. Blood loss was the more alarming symptom; it had left him weak and disoriented.

  “Alaric,” Thyrian said, his voice strained but buoyant with relief. “It’s good to see you again, friend.”

  “And you,” Alaric said, grasping the man’s shoulder. “Though I’d have liked to find you a bit more whole.”

  Thyrian chuckled, then winced as the movement caught his wound.

  “Who was it?” Vylaena asked.

  “Was what?” Thyrian said, his eyes flickering to hers.

  “The person who bested a sun-crowned warrior.” Vylaena ignored the hard look Alaric turned on her.

  “Bested?” Thyrian snapped. “I left his corpse in the gutter.”

  “He landed a blow,” Vylaena pointed out. “Against a sun-crowed, that is besting.”

  Alaric waved Vylaena away. “Ignore her,” he said to Thyrian. “We need to get you to the palace. Can you walk?”

  Thyrian’s face was lined with sweat, but he nodded. “I think so, if you can help me up.”

  A rustling noise, like wind across an open plain, brushed against Vylaena’s awareness, and she immediately turned her head toward the impenetrable darkness, muscles tensing.

  “Wait,” she commanded, holding out a hand.

  She froze, listening, an inexplicable fear rising to her throat. The others obeyed, falling quiet, scanning the darkness that pressed in from all sides. The silence surrounding them was palatable, enveloping them in ice, sliding down their spines to freeze them where they stood.

  Vylaena held her breath, straining to listen. The air felt dense, weighty—like she was submerged in one of the subterranean lakes at Aeswic, her skin wrapped in layers of frigid water. She even felt something akin to drowning; the air was impossibly heavy, as if some malicious presence had invaded the sacred halls of the temple and begun stealing its very air.

  One by one, the sconces blinked out.

  “No, no, no!” Vylaena murmured, spinning around, drawing a useless dagger.

  Not now. Not here. Rutting Ether! Why had she thought it a good idea to step foot in this place?

  She felt a hand on her forehead and knew it was all over.

  Power, unrelenting and unfettered, poured through her body, passing through her flesh as if it were porous cotton, threatening to carry away her insides—to carry away her thoughts, her sense of self, everything that made her human. A hundred thousand sparkling colors exploded in her mind, giving the power a shape, as nebulous and writhing as windswept smoke. She might’ve screamed had it been possible, but her body had melted away, leaving behind only a floating awareness that existed outside time, outside space, outside the realm of mortal existence.

  She was in the Ether.

  Her awareness expanded, as if a blindfold had been torn from her eyes, and her surroundings ordered themselves into shapes—not firm shapes, for this was the Ether—but tenuous, misty, half-wondered ones. There was light—pinkish, and born of no source she could see—and she seemed to be floating amongst giant clouds of grey-black ether with no discernible ground below her not-feet. And why should there be? Why would the goddesses choose to walk when they could fly?

  The clouds were everywhere: some sinuous and snakelike, curling around her awareness; some large and dense and full of multicolored lightning that bore flickers of phantasmagoria with every flare; others nebulous and thin, dancing like the rogue ether she knew from the Elderwood, never taking one shape for too long.

  She didn’t think she was dead, though it was certainly a possibility. And if she wasn’t dead, her soul could not have returned to the Ether yet. But without the Mark of an ether-touched, she had no command over the paths that might have brought her here—meaning there was no way she’d stumbled here on her own. The only possible explanation was that . . .

  “You do not miss it, I see.”

  Vylaena turned—or rather, turned her awareness—to find Ikna hovering behind her. The goddess was—oddly—more human in this place than she was in the mortal realm. She bore her own form, for one, and it was elegant and strong. An inky dress of live ether floated down her body like a summer haze, putting lean muscles on full display. The edges of her gown glimmered in rich jewel tones: sapphire, emerald, amethyst; watery and fleeting as the shine of spilt oil.

  Her skin was dark—almost the same obsidian as her temple—and offset by large, almond-shaped azure eyes heavy with the longest lashes Vylaena had ever seen. The heavy coils of her hair were bound around her head and held in place by a thick metal spike, a crescent moon glowing atop the silver.

  She was beautiful, in the same way a panther was beautiful, or the overlarge waves of a storm-churned sea. Her elegance held power, and an edge of madness—a threat hidden behind the straight lines of her teeth.

  Two Wolves flanked the goddess, large as bears and with fur as dark as midnight. They watched Vylaena with steady, sentient gazes, their eyes glowing a potent, fiery blue. It was hard to look at them; the center of Vylaena’s awareness ached when her gaze drew too close. Death, they seemed to say. We are death. And one day we will have the privilege of tearing your soul from your body.

  “Why am I here?” Vylaena asked, surprised she could voice the words without a mouth.

  Ikna’s grin deepened. “You visit my temple in the middle of the night and do not expect me to say hello? It would have been rude to ignore you.”

  Vylaena would have frowned had she been able. “No,” she replied, piecing the clues together. “No, this was all your doing. A trap.”

  Ikna laughed, delighted. “I do make quite the dashing assassin.”

  Of course. Who could best a sun-crowned warrior? A goddess dressed in a borrowed body. Who just so happened to ambush her quarry near the one place she could freely enter this plane—the one place where a waylaid traveler might find sanctuary. The Cyair Temple.

  Yes. Of course.

  “Why am I here?” Vylaena repeated, her tone icy.

  Ikna hesitated, floating to Vylaena’s left, her Wolves following dutifully. She stared into the distance, her smile fading into a worried grimace. “My children. They continue to disappear. I am . . . apprehensive.”

  “I’m not your personal errand girl. You’re a goddess; fight your own battles.”

  Ikna turned a hard eye on Vylaena. “You know very well my movements are limited in your world. Why else do you thin
k that I need you to—”

  “I don’t give a shit. I’m done being a pawn. My will is my own now—you know that full well.”

  “Which makes you uniquely qualified. You are not a target, and yet you’ve been one of—”

  “Just make more ether-touched,” Vylaena snapped. “There. Solved. What does it matter if the old ones are dying?”

  “I did not say they were dying. They are being suppressed somehow, so I cannot access them.”

  “Good riddance. If they found a way to free themselves from your tyranny, I wish them the very best.”

  Ikna stared at Vylaena, holding her gaze. There was a muted, hesitant emotion on the goddess’s face.

  Regret.

  “I should have killed the Shadowheart outright,” Ikna whispered, closing her eyes. “I should have foreseen what would become of you—that you would decide it necessary to give up your humanity in order to survive. It is my fault, in a way, that you are not moved to help. That my attempt to force empathy upon your kind backfired.”

  “So lift it. Lift the Curse.”

  Ikna’s eyes fluttered open, and they were full of blue fire. “Do it yourself. I’ve done enough for you already, and I refuse to waste any more gifts on someone who will not use them.”

  “Lift it myself? How?”

  Ikna laughed, and the bitter sound cut through Vylaena’s awareness like the strike of a well-placed dagger. “Now you want me to lay down a path for you? After that big talk about being beholden to no one? I do not think so. I think I will sit here and laugh as you blindly ignore it.”

  Vylaena paused. “I know about the Breaking Stone. I know my ancestors wronged you. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  “Wronged me?” Ikna’s voice was ice; her eyes darkened until they were nothing more than black orbs; her body seeped tendrils of angry ether. Her skin pulsed, as though charged lightning, not veins, ran beneath her skin. “They watched as a madman carved me to pieces like an animal for slaughter!”

  The Ether had darkened; Vylaena could barely make out individual clouds as ether swirled around her awareness. The goddess before her swallowed up all light, shining like a dark beacon, a black moon in the swirling night, a lantern of midnight fire. The clouds of ether churned and moaned, howling like a winter wind, crashing against Vylaena as waves break on a rocky shore.

  Whatever her ancestors had done to Ikna, their Curse was likely warranted—she did not dispute that. Nor was she surprised that a mortal man had tried to maim a goddess. There was no limit to man’s ambition, no checks to ensure he procured what he wanted responsibly. Even laws could be ignored, or circumvented, especially if he was the one who wrote them. And those a man left scattered or broken in his pursuit of his desires? Nothing. There were no true champions of the downtrodden, or the unlucky, or the maligned. Even the goddesses did not interfere.

  The Ether quieted; the clouds retreated, light returned, and Ikna’s eyes flickered blue once more. The goddess stared at Vylaena, a crease appearing between her brows.

  “You do not care, and yet you do,” the goddess whispered, a tinge of wonder invading her inflection. “You believe the world has failed you—and others—and that there is no hope for better. For how could there be, when you have seen so much darkness? And yet,”—her eyes flickered to the Wolves at her sides—“you do not ask for release. What are you waiting for, Vylaena Azrel? You clearly have no plan to participate in your world. Why not leave it behind?”

  Vylaena forced herself to hold Ikna’s gaze, avoiding the eyes of the Wolves that flanked her. If only she could impart some small impression of how she felt . . . perhaps the goddess might finally let her be. Might finally let her live her life in peace.

  “If I reply, will you return me to my body? Safely?”

  The goddess smiled. “Do not worry—I have hope for you yet. I will return you just as you were.”

  Vylaena took a breath, weighing the words inside her chest before allowing them flight. “I live,” she replied slowly, “because I must. Because—of all the things I’m supposed to care about and don’t—I can’t entertain the idea of being weak-willed.

  “To endure—to live, despite finding no adequate reason to—is the only true fulfillment I’ve found. Maybe that’s truly spite, after all. But it allows me to transcend all this meaninglessness and find some small measure of peace.”

  Ikna’s smile faded, and she examined Vylaena with a contemplative gaze, her thoughts carefully veiled behind lapis eyes.

  “Very well,” she said finally, in a gentle tone. She raised her hands, and ether danced over her palms. “Until next we meet, Vylaena Azrel.”

  The world went dark.

  ✽✽✽

  “No, no, no!”

  Alaric stared at Vylaena as she spun around, warding off an invisible foe with a long silver dagger. An inexplicable terror gripped his heart at the sight; he’d never before heard her voice crack with fear, nor had he ever caught even a glimpse of the dread that painted her face. She looked, for the first time, almost . . . human.

  The temple lights flickered out.

  The darkness that swallowed them was thick and heavy, and seemed to almost slither across Alaric’s skin. He blinked, again and again, desperate for some tiny glimmer of light. Frozen inside the dark’s embrace, he was unable to speak—unable to move. It was as though his mind had been severed and his awareness was stuck in a body that refused to acknowledge it. Panic bubbled in the base of his stomach, souring the back of his throat.

  And then it was over.

  The sconces sputtered to life, dousing them all in an eerie crystalline light. Alaric took a shaky breath, glancing over to find Vylaena on her knees, arms outstretched to break the fall he’d missed in the darkness. Her dagger had also fallen—soundlessly, though that didn’t make sense—onto the temple flagstones. The mercenary’s face was shadowed, so he couldn’t read it, but her muscled arms were shaking as though they could barely support her weight.

  “Hey,” he said, reaching out to touch her shoulder, “are you alright?”

  Vylaena flinched, wrenching out of his grasp, but did not move to stand. She continued to shake, gulping in heaving gasps of air.

  “Vylaena?” he whispered, sharing a concerned glance with Thyrian.

  Vylaena took two more breaths and then held them, reaching up to grasp the arm of the nearest pew. She hauled herself to her feet, leaning heavily against the iron bench, and rubbed her forehead with merciless vigor—as though she’d been stung by something.

  “I’m fine,” she snarled. She bent, a little unsteadily, to retrieve her dagger. “Rutting goddess-damned temples. Is it morning yet?”

  Alaric glanced down the aisle toward the temple entrance. The darkness was less hazy than it had been a moment before, but it was still hard to tell.

  And then, as he watched, the portal took on a rosy glow, coating the entryway with the first touch of morning.

  The temple began to hum—a low, pleasant sound he could feel more than he could hear. The three of them watched as the etherstone blocks of the temple shivered, morphing from obsidian to rich, flushed jasper as though they were insects shedding their shells. Suddenly, the aisle runner was no longer blue, but a gentle, soothing grey. The pews softened, forming cushioned maple benches. Even the temple structure itself lost its hard edges, the warm jasper stone practically sighing as the first light of morning rose to stroke its facade.

  Alaric was momentarily stupefied. He’d never seen the temple change before, though he knew of its daily cycle. He’d been inside at least once for every manifestation, but never at the moment of a turn. His favorite time—and as a man Marked by Yrsa, perhaps he was simply biased—was this fleeting in-between hour, when the temple proclaimed its allegiance to Yrsa, the two-faced Goddess of Dawn and Dusk.

  “We’re out of time,” Vylaena said, dispelling the moment. She straightened, still a little unsteady, noting the sunrise with passive eyes. Her voice was inexplicably hoarse. “W
e should’ve been back hours ago.”

  Alaric nodded. She was right. Despite his earlier claims, he was going to be missed if he didn’t make an appearance soon—he was notoriously fond of breakfast and never skipped it.

  Vylaena motioned for him, and he bent to assist her in getting Thyrian to his feet, using the motion as an opportunity to steal a closer look at her face. Her jaw, hard and set, made her graceful lips rigid with tension. Her blue-grey eyes, normally sharp and penetrating, were clouded by private thoughts. She caught his gaze, and her lips twitched downwards—slightly, with no more than a tiny shadow to mark the movement.

  He looked away. He wished he could peer into her head like she always seemed to see into his. She knew his hurts, but he did not know hers. What burdens did she carry, quietly and alone?

  There was more to Vylaena Azrel, Alaric knew, than she allowed people to see.

  The two of them helped Thyrian outside, where the breaking dawn illuminated the dirty cobbles with a hopeful touch. They didn’t linger; back they went into the sewers, traversing the city beneath its waking streets.

  “The guards at the front gate should help us back in, now that I’m with you. Where’s the closest accessible grate?” Alaric said as they finally neared the palace.

  Vylaena’s tone was curt, warding against protest. “We aren’t using the front gate.”

  Alaric blinked at her. “We’re not?”

  “Too conspicuous. And how will you explain my presence? My face decorates every news board in the city. It’s a new day and I’m not keen on spilling blood this morning. We’ll go around.”

  Alaric didn’t argue. He’d long ago learned the worth of Vylaena’s advice, especially when it came to the security of his person. Her disinclination to raise a weapon was odd—well, more like downright bizarre—for a Shadowheart. But she’d been like this ever since he’d met her.

  He’d never felt right asking her why she was so different from what he’d heard of her kind. And not only because asking a Shadowheart a personal question was like trying to catch moonlight in your hands.