by Tracey Tobin
Tori allowed a tired smile of her own. “You don’t know that,” she teased back. “The Chief didn’t seem keen on letting us go.”
But Jacob gave her a genuine smile then. “Sure I know. You were winning the crowd over,” he insisted. “Sometimes the blunt, honest truth is exactly what people need to hear to knock some sense into them, you know.” He gave her a wink, and she was helplessly reminded of a conversation in which he’d given her some blunt, honest truth not so long ago.
Kaima gracefully dropped to the ground beside them, quickly followed by Heln and the rest of the entourage, who wiggled the stone plate back into place to stymie the Shadows as long as possible.
“This way,” Heln told them.
They headed west down a dark, dank, cold tunnel that made Tori shiver in every possible way. It was lit every so often by a torch in stone sconces carved into the walls, but it hardly helped to break the spell of claustrophobia that the passage inspired. Tori noticed, as well, that Jacob and Heln glared at the torches as each one came into view. At first she wondered at their distaste for the little gifts of light, but eventually she had a moment of clarity and mentally chided herself for not realizing the obvious sooner: someone - and she thought she knew who - had to have lit the flames ahead of them.
The path wound in circles and split numerous times. It wasn’t long before Tori completely lost track of where they were or where they’d come from. She hoped there would be no reason for her to turn back, as she was certain she’d never be able to recall which tunnels to take. It also seemed to be getting darker and colder, she realized as they walked. In fact, the change was happening rather rapidly. Soon she began to feel as though her innards were frosting over and her brain was slowing to a halt. It wasn’t until she stumbled over her own feet and saw six confused faces turn to look at her that she realized it wasn’t the environment that was changing; it was her own body.
She let her transformation melt away like blood slipping from open veins. She’d been so preoccupied that she’d forgotten she was even maintaining it, and the moment it was gone she collapsed. Jacob only barely managed to catch her before her knees collided with the rock ground beneath her.
“Sorry… Sorry…” she mumbled, scarcely able to move her lips to form the words. Her head was swimming and she couldn’t focus on Jacob’s face. “It’s been a while… I guess I got… complacent…”
“What is wrong with her?” asked one of the guards.
Kaima took Tori’s face in her hands, carefully pressing her eyebrows up to gaze into her eyes. “We’ve been calling it ‘blood magic fatigue’,” she explained to the Coiyana. “She’s getting stronger, but her body can only withstand her magic for so long. Eventually whatever energy it is that sustains it runs out and it’s like-” She was cut off by a groan as Tori tried to regain her footing and stumbled again, nearly taking Jacob down with her.
The Coiyana shot antsy glances at one another. Heln surveyed the situation with jaw clenched. “I am confident that we are in the least likely spot for the Shadows to find us,” he announced. “Even so, the longer it takes for us to make our way out of the mountain, the more time we allow for further unexpected circumstances to come upon us.” He stopped, his body stiff. Tori noticed the way his eyes were flicking toward their destination, and the way his nose was twitching. She suspected she knew what he was thinking: the longer it took him and his companions to aid in her escape, the longer it took for them to get back to helping their friends and family.
Kaima was helping ease Tori up onto Jacob’s back when Heln suddenly dropped to his knees in front of them. There was a note of desperation in his eyes, and again he was barring his throat. He looked as though he was about to request something absolutely reprehensible. “I beg permission to carry the princess so that we might escape this place as quickly as possible,” he spit the words out so fast that Tori barely registered them. Jacob didn’t seem to know how to respond. Kaima made a sound like she was trying her hardest to hide a snort of laughter.
For a moment they all stared at each other in silence. Jacob made a face. He opened his mouth, ready to argue, to insist that he could carry her himself, but Tori squeezed his shoulder with what tiny bit of strength she had left in her. She nodded to her Guardian, offered him a tiny, pathetic smile, and then looked to Heln. “Whatever gets us through this tunnel fastest,” she told him.
Being remarkably gentle for someone so huge and beastly, Heln scooped Tori up into his arms like a small child, nestling her head in the crook of his elbow. If she’d been more lucid she thought she’d have been rather uncomfortable with the intimacy of it, but at that moment leaning into his warm furry body felt like heaven.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and felt a little of the rigidity go out of his body. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Jacob’s jaw seemed to be twitching.
“Let us continue on,” said one of the other Coiyana. “I fear for my mate.”
Heln began to run. The walls of the tunnel flew by Tori’s face too fast for her to focus on the movement. It made her even dizzier than she already was, so she squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to imagine that she was lying on a furry blanket in a moving train instead of fleeing for her life in the arms of an enormous wolf-like beast.
Because her eyes were closed she didn’t see what caused the impact. She only felt the air go out of her lungs and the rush of the wind against her face as she was hurled from Heln’s arms. Before she could discern what was happening her shoulder struck cold stone. She dropped to the ground like a rag-doll, rolling several feet down a steep incline before coming to a stop just shy of a rather steep ledge.
She heard shouting, a cry of rage, and a horrible, high-pitched ringing in her head as she struggled to support her weight on her hands and knees. The shoulder that had taken the brunt of the collision buckled, sending her face-first back down to the ground.
She managed to roll over and saw stars. The moon was still rising in the sky - or perhaps it was setting. So it was either very late or very early. That much she was able to work out before she saw the Chief glaring down at her.
“You think the Kynnon throne is your birthright, little human pup?” he growled. He was holding a long, thick staff which he waved in her face as he spoke. “Well the leadership of this tribe is my birthright, and this is a fact, unlike all the nonsense you spew about yourself.” He kneeled so that he was face-to-face with her. On his muzzle was one of those grins of his that made Tori certain that he was well and truly mad. “I won’t let you get away with jeopardizing that. These are my subjects. They will never be yours.”
Tori craned her head to see past the Chief. She couldn’t see much around his enormous body, but there was a flurry of motion, and fur flying. Her guards were indisposed, fighting with those who had followed the Chief. She couldn’t see her friends.
She had to stall.
“Are you going to kill me?” She did her best to sound as sick and pathetic as possible - not a terrible stretch at that point, but she managed to conjure a few tears and let her voice crack.
His grin revealed a mouth full of knives made of bone, gleaming like Death’s scythe. Tori couldn’t help imagining the splash of blood that would paint those teeth after he ripped into her throat like a starved animal. With a gulp she pushed the image far, far away.
“Of course I am, princess,” he cooed. His tone reminded Tori of any number of motion picture maniacs. “Did you honestly think that you’d be able to come into my home, spit some fool story at me about saving the world, and then whirl around and turn my people against me?”
Tori felt her eyebrows rise and couldn’t hold the retort in. “Your account of events differs somewhat from my recollection,” she coughed back at him.
Anger flashed in his eyes. Without warning his staff was in the air, ready to strike her down with all his strength and hatred. He swung down without hesitation and she thought she was done.
“What would they think?” she managed
to croak out. The staff stopped an inch from the dip of her throat.
A furious curiosity sparked in his gaze. “What would who think?” he asked, eyes narrowed.
Tori coughed. Her heart felt swollen in her chest and she was having a hard time taking in enough air to speak. “Your people,” she finally managed. “What would they think, if they found out you just killed me in cold blood? A weak, pathetic, useless human without even a weapon to defend herself?”
His cheek twitched. Tori saw the indecision on his face. His gaze flicked away from her for a moment, looking behind him, wondering if anyone was watching, calculating whether he could pull off her execution without any witnesses.
To herself Tori was mentally crossing her fingers. She was willing to wager that he’d be too vain and proud to diminish his reputation any further than had already been done. At least, she hoped he would be. It took him so long to think about it that she actually began to imagine him turning and walking away, just leaving her there for her friends to find her.
A low growl preceded a snap of his teeth. “Come here, you little bitch.”
He snagged a fistful of Tori’s hair and yanked so viciously that she felt he was going to rip her scalp away from her skull. She let out a tortured yelp that was silenced when his staff slammed into her chest, knocking any small breath of wind from her lungs.
Fatigue, pain, and lack of oxygen. Tori’s head throbbed and her vision wavered. For an amount of time that could have been hours or seconds she lost track of the world around her. She heard a noise, thought she might have heard her name being screamed, but it was all muddled and confused. She didn’t know where her companions were or what they were doing, whether they were even still alive, and only knew from the searing pain of her scalp that she was being dragged somewhere. The one thing that she did know for certain was that if something didn’t happen very, very soon, she was going to die. And she was powerless to stop it.
“Please…” She was disgusted to hear the actual note of a plea in her voice. “Please… Let me go…”
A snort of derision was what she got in return. “Leave it to a pathetic human bitch to beg for her life after ruining mine,” the Chief growled.
She caught a flash of stars, then stone, and realized too late to catch herself that she’d been thrown to the ground. She tried to get up, but only barely succeeded in rolling to her side. She couldn’t see the Chief, so she stared out over the cliff-side at the stars twinkling at her. They glimmered such that they almost seemed to be trying to communicate with her. A particularly bright pink one looked like it was winking.
“I just want to… help everyone…” she whispered up at the pink star.
The Chief’s voice returned to her, seething with rage. “Has it not occurred to you that perhaps the Coiyana do not want your help?”
Tori closed her eyes and sighed. The effort of it made her chest ache. “Oh,” she replied. “And you speak for all of them, do you?”
There was a loud snap. Tori imagined the Chief had slammed his staff against a rock face, and by the sound she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d broken it in two in the process.
“Yes,” the Coiyana growled. “As a matter of fact, I do! Are you really so ignorant that you know nothing of the way the Coiyana live?”
Tori took a long, deep breath. The pain was beginning to fade, but not in a good way. Her head was beginning to feel a bit like a balloon looking to float away into the stars. There was no point talking to the Chief any further. She knew it wouldn’t make any difference. He’d made his decision. Yet she heard the words coming from her as if someone else was speaking them.
“No… I know nothing about the Coiyana. You’re the first ones I’ve ever met. But I was told that you were once proud and strong, members of the royal guard. I heard that you protected the entire kingdom. And I know that killing me might destroy the only chance the kingdom has to recover from Iryen’s poison. If you want to shoulder that responsibility, so be it. But you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering… wondering if things would have been different if you’d put a little faith in a human girl.”
She opened her eyes, not realizing that she’d closed them, and his huge face was glaring at her with moonlight glinting dangerously in his eyes. They were red, she marveled, having never noticed before. His eyes were a deep, congealed-blood shade of red. “What insanity would ever possess me to put faith in a human?” he snarled. “Least of all you.”
A massive paw wrapped itself around Tori’s throat, lifting her so that she was forced to face her tormentor head on. His eyes were wild and unforgiving. With the staff in his other hand he gestured toward the mountain wall. “I’ve lived my entire life closed up in this godforsaken mountain,” he snarled. “Do you know why? It’s because of you.” On the last word he slammed the head of the staff into Tori’s ribs. “If you really are who you say you are, that’s even more reason not to put my faith in you. You and your accursed family are the entire reason I’m stuck here to begin with, hiding away in this shit-hole of a mountain while my people fight a never-ending battle against the Shadows. It’s all your fault!”
Tori’s fingers scratched uselessly at the furry noose around her neck. She hadn’t any strength left to put up a resistance. She wanted to scream at him, to tell him that he was wrong, that it wasn’t her family’s fault, that it was only him, only Iryen.
All your fault. All your fault.
What if it was somehow her fault? The Chief’s accusation echoed in her head as she began to drift into unconsciousness. What if she was cursed? Iryen had returned on the night of her birth… Could that somehow have been the trigger that had released him from whatever prison he’d been locked away in?
The thought had never occurred to her before. But now, deprived of oxygen and feeling herself fading away from the world, it seemed strangely obvious. It was all her fault. One way or the other, she was certain of it.
Well, then… her weak mind thought, that would make it your responsibility to fix it, now wouldn’t it?
There was a growl loud enough to pierce the fading night, and Tori dropped hard to her knees on the stone, coughing and sputtering, gasping for air.
“Get back here you bastard!” a Coiyana voice - Heln? - screamed. The sound of huge feet hitting the ground running faded off into the distance.
“Tori!” Kaima’s voice rang like a bell. “Are you okay?”
An arm was around her waist, lifting her. Then there was Jacob, carrying her, holding her close. “It’s okay, you’re going to be okay, I promise. I’m so sorry! They surrounded us and we didn’t realize- Fuck! It’s going to be okay now, I swear to you.”
“How…?” Tori croaked out. She couldn’t finish the sentence.
“The compass,” he explained, gesturing toward his arm. Through the tears in her eyes Tori could see that it was glowing hot red and the quivering needle was pointing at her chest. “When I realized you weren’t there with us it began to burn and pointed toward here. I don’t know why, but thank goodness for little miracles.”
Heln’s voice returned, but Tori couldn’t lift her head to see him. “We must go now!” he was yelling. There was a flurry of noise, the clanging of steel amid growls and screams of rage. Tori squeezed her eyes shut, tried to will her body to move on its own, and opened them again, but she was simply too weak. Her head was swimming, her throat felt as though the Chief had crushed it, and she could feel the full force of her body weight pressing into Jacob’s arms.
“I- I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t- go any further…”
A furry hand pressed against her head. “She’s burning up,” said Kaima’s voice. “This is the worst she’s gotten yet. Too much stress, too much fighting. She needs rest.”
“I wish we could give it to her,” was Jacob’s reply, “but we don’t exactly have that luxury right now.” He shifted, hefted Tori onto his back. Her head lolled over his shoulder. Though she didn’t feel hot, as Kaima claimed, she could feel dri
ps of sweat falling from her body to his.
“Shall I carry her again?” asked Heln.
“I’ve got her,” Jacob insisted. “You watch our backs. Keep everything off us.”
“By my honor I’ll not let a single thing touch her.”
Tori heard their conversation as though they were speaking to her from within a dream. She recalled her encounter with the Shadow who had attacked Jiki, the way its bladed hands had sunk into her flesh. It was a strange thing to remember all of a sudden. She wondered if she was dying again. She thought that she should be afraid, but she simply felt as though everything had been drained from her. There was nothing left. She didn’t know if she’d ever be able to find what had been lost…
“Blood,” she whispered, the word faint, barely a breath of air. A thought, a revelation, from the very back of her fading mind. “I need blood…”
Chapter Twelve
Jacob turned his head. “Did you say something?” he asked Tori. There was no response. He stopped short, causing Kaima to nearly collide with him. She let out an annoyed yowl as she narrowly avoided crushing Tori between them. Their Coiyana guard picked up on the cry and gathered around them.
“What is wrong, Ravenson?” Heln asked. The muscles in his face had become very tight. He kept his gaze on Jacob, but his cheeks were twitching, expecting someone or something to jump out at them at any second. “We cannot pause here. We must keep moving, quickly.”
“I understand that!” Jacob snapped, perhaps a little more harshly than was necessary. “But something is wrong.” With Kaima’s help he twisted and readjusted himself so that Tori fell back into his arms. His heart clenched at the way her head lolled back with the motion. He turned her face toward him and saw that her eyes had fallen closed, her mouth hanging slightly open. His chest felt as though his lungs may have vanished without a trace.
