Graxx ran for the hill, and its gleaming white top grew closer as he trampled men and corpses beneath his feet. I swallowed down bile, searching for Catane, but he must have still been in Ra’shara.
As soon as I thought “Ra’shara” I was back. We ran up the side of the hill together and the part of it that looked like an ear was unmistakable as we used it to climb up to the top.
“I swear that’s an ear!” I panted.
“Of course, it is.” How did Amandera sound haughty even when she was tossing ancestors to the ground with careful weaves of air? “This is the ruined statue of the High Tazminera Ab’azareen. It fell during the dust wars and was lost to time. Didn’t you pay any attention to your studies?”
“Does it have a crown?” I ducked to the side as Kjexx threw a woman past me. Her sarette was nothing more than filmy mist when she whooshed by.
Laughter and screaming rang out in the distance along with the crack of thunder. Catane was definitely still in Ra’shara.
“Why does he enjoy killing? And how did you fall in love with a man like that?”
“He doesn’t love killing.” Amander’s answer was huffy. “It haunts him. He’s just happy to see some of the people who came before us finally get what they deserve.”
“Didn’t they already get what they deserve if they’re here?” Kjexx muttered, offering a hand to me to help me scramble to the summit of the statue.
We stood on a sharp piece of rock, jutting out over the ground below. The valley was so full of salt statues that it looked like a graveyard with prestigious markers for every departed spirit. I felt the blood draining from my face. If we prevailed we may still be too late. Would there be enough ancestors left to guide the next generation through their connection to the Common, even if I managed to save Ra’shara at all?
Catane stalked through the pillars like a tiger in the grass, pouncing on any movement he saw. He was a gold-striped beacon in the dark landscape. The bright colors of Ra’shara were slowly going black.
“I think we’re running out of time.” Kjexx sounded grim.
I blinked and I was back in reality.
“…out of time,” Rusk said, shaking me. “Can you clear a way?”
I shook myself, looking where he pointed. Elephants ridden by Veen and traitorous Tazmins plunged through our ranks, cutting us off from the hill where the Clan Leaders and our Tazmins were rallied. Behind us, a string of men on foot or mounted were following. Rusk must have swept them up as he headed for the rally point.
I nodded, feeling deep within and then unweaving a string of threads through the enemy ranks. Lightning sprang to life, zapping in every direction, uncontrolled and mindless in its destruction. Men and elephants fell or flew through the air, tossed by the power and vengeance of the pure energy released. Above us the clouds grew darker and filled with thunder so loud it felt like my head would split apart from the sound of it.
“Forward,” Rusk cried, and then we were running between the bodies of the fallen, turning our faces from the smell of burning offal and the moans of those not yet dead. I cringed back from what I’d done, refusing to look, refusing to let myself feel what I had done. I had to do it, didn’t I? What choice did I have?
I gasped as I was pulled back into Ra’shara. Amandera was gripping the front of my flowing shirt.
“Why did you want to know if there was a crown?” she asked.
“Because I think I need to find something in or on the crown.” I was still struggling to get my bearings. All this switching back and forth was making me dizzy. “Why, do you see one?”
“I think we’re standing on it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
I SCRAMBLED ACROSS THE OUTCROPPING, searching for anything that might be a clue to what the voice was talking about.
“Does this really look like a crown?” I asked.
I pulled ethereal shrubs and thick mosses up. It was a stone alright, a big one that jutted out of the ground. It did seem to be formed in a circular pattern.
“It does now that I look at it,” Kjexx said, fending off a howling ancestor.
“It’s clearly the Crown of Ages,” Amandera said after blowing the hair out of her face. She was growing winded as she fought off the last assault of the ancestors here. Their numbers were dwindling, but there were still enough of them to be a threat. “Take a good look. There’s the ring that forms the circlet, and those bumps at regular spaces are the gems that drop down from the circlet.”
When I stepped back for a moment, I realized she was right. The hill was wind and water-worn and pocked with the effects of growing things carving grooves with their roots, but under the shrubbery and the markings, it was still in the shape of a worn, wind-weathered face, minus the nose. The crown was obvious, but what part of it should I be looking for? I followed the ring of the circlet, leaning over the edge of the hill where the forehead of the statue was. I couldn’t quite reach, but there between the eyes was an indentation like a gem had been removed from it’s setting in the crown. It was the exact shape of the scintellex.
I took a deep breath …. and hesitated.
“What’s the problem, Windbearer?” Kjexx leaned over me.
“I’m not sure I can.”
“Look around us. Ra’shara is in her death throes. If she fades out completely it will mean the end of magic in Everturn, but what if she ends like she did in Axum?”
Then everything we loved would die. He was right. Regardless of the cost to me, this was something I had to do.
“If I do it, then I’m following the prophecy of the voice,” I said quietly, fingering the scintellex. Now that we were close it was vibrating and so hot I couldn’t touch it for long. Fortunately, my leather pants insulated my hip from the heat.
“And?” Amandera asked from above us. A tiny trickle of sweat ran down her temple and her hands were raised before her as she fought off our attackers.
“And the rest of the prophecy is that I must die!”
She shrugged. “We all die.”
Kjexx squatted down beside me, gripping my chin gently, but forcing me to look in his eyes. “Choosing to give your life for someone else is no easy thing. It takes love like no other.”
I felt my cheeks heat with humiliation. After all, he’d done that for me, hadn’t he? Why was it so hard for me to do the same?
“Remember An’alepp,” he continued. “Remember how she gave herself for you. Her death enabled your future.”
“So did yours,” I whispered.
He grinned and winked as sudden as the sun coming out from behind a cloud. “No regrets.”
“I’m afraid of death,” I said.
“Do you love your people? Do you wish to see them free and safe?”
“Yes,” I whispered, blinking away the tears that insisted on spilling from my eyes.
“Then seize your courage and tie it tightly into place, and you won’t fail.”
His smile pierced me and I tried to smile, too, but I was shaking now with suppressed sobs.
“I’ll stick with you as long as I can so you don’t have to do it alone,” he promised.
I nodded, my movements jerky and clumsy, pulled the scintellex out of my pocket, and fell back into the real world.
I was in the exact same spot on the hilltop, only on top of Graxx. Rusk’s shouted orders and waving arms were bringing order to the chaos of the hill.
“Here we stand! Do not fail your brethren. Look to your leaders, wait for my signal.”
“Rusk,” I tugged at his sleeve, “I have to get down.”
His eyes sought me. Weariness wore him like a skin.
“Of course, Wild Girl,” he said, turning to nod to Edrixx and Astrex before slipping off of Graxx with me.
I stumbled to the spot where the hollow in the circlet was. I fell to my knees, yanking moss out of the ground, and pulling back bushes and grasses. Rusk’s expression was flooded with confusion and worry.
“Just one more minute. I know you need to
lead, but just one more minute,” I said, my breath ragged. Was I still crying? I needed to be stronger, braver than this. I shook my tears off and pulled the scintellex from my pocket. It seared my skin so that I almost dropped it, but I ignored the pain, gripping it tightly so that it didn’t vibrate and spin its way out of my grip. It felt alive.
There was only one place in the opening where it would fit. I had to do it now before I lost my chance. My hands were sweating and I had to stop to wipe stinging tears of out my eyes. I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t sure. I had no choice but to do it anyway or lose our one chance at salvation.
I swallowed hard, summoned all my courage and plunged the scintellex into the slot carved for it so many generations ago.
The scintellex slid into place with a flash of light before a whirring noise started and then light sparked out of it like lightning strikes.
I covered my face with my hands, but it let out such a blast of force and sound that Rusk and I were blown back, landing like lifeless dolls on the ground. My head spun. Had I chosen poorly? Was this the wrong thing to do?
I opened my eyes to see a blast of white light piercing the heavens and parting the black clouds. Across the battlefield, people stared distractedly at the light. Whatever else happened, at least I knew that something was happening. It wouldn’t all be for nothing.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“TYLIRA,” KJEXX WAS TUGGING AT my clothes and I was in Ra’shara again. “We can’t stay here, come on! He comes.”
My eyes flew open and I let him pull me up to my feet. Below us, nothing moved. Everything was white salt pillars and dark clouds. Amandera took my free arm, tugging and pulling. I followed them without question as we stumbled our way down the hill.
I shifted back to Rusk.
“Come on Wild Girl, wake up enough to mount Graxx. I can’t carry you any further. Come on!”
I pulled myself together enough to scramble up onto Graxx and help Rusk tie me in. He looked at me with relief in his eyes.
“You had me scared, girl. Catane is rallying his troops for another assault. This is our last chance. Please stay with me as much as you can.”
He gave me a hurried kiss as I nodded, but I was already fading back into Ra’shara.
“This way,” Kjexx whispered, pulling me around the curve of the hill. Amandera snuck along beside me, her usually perfect hair tangled and her delicate sarette torn in dozens of places.
We rounded the corner and out stepped Catane.
“And here we are at the end, little sister,” he said before he vanished like a puff of smoke.
I awoke to the clash of swords. Rusk was fighting hard, sweat flowing freely and curses with it. Around us, our allies fought bravely. I blinked and swallowed, pulling myself together enough to send out a blast of unweaving at the foes ahead of us. They flew apart like the world had been ripped apart between them. But, as all fell still in the wake of my destruction, Catane stepped out into the empty space, his tattoos bright in the dull light.
“And here we are at the end … again.” His golden eyes glinted like it was somehow a joke that we now fought on two planes at once.
I lashed out at him, but he countered my attack easily, men on both our sides falling at the flailing ends of the threads we lashed at each other with.
He vanished, suddenly, and I rushed to follow him back to Ra’shara.
“Surrender and end this madness,” Kjexx was calling to Catane.
Catane’s eyes lit when he saw me arrive and he sent out his own whip of power. I threw up a thread to block it, but I wasn’t quick enough and his thread snaked underneath mine. My eyes widened. I tried to unweave again. But my grip was too slippery, too frantic. My desperate eyes found Amandera’s and hers coalesced into something hard. It was the opposite of that moment in Al’Karida when she had watched helplessly as I plunged into the race. This time I was wide-eyed and helpless as she threw herself in front of me, taking the lash and crumpling into a heap at my feet that shot up immediately into a salt pillar. Her lovely features immortalized in unforgiving stone. I gasped.
If I had been asked to list who might be willing to give their lives for me, the list would not have been long, and it would never have included Amandera.
I heard a moan of horror and then I was sucked back to earth.
Catane coalesced from Ra’shara before my eyes, mid-howl like a wolf mourning the death of a mate. His head arched back and his mouth opened wide as his howl filled the air. The battle continued around us, but he had eyes only for me – and they were so filled with revenge that my spine felt like water. I stood up in Graxx’s saddle, hands before me unweaving as many threads as I could at once. I didn’t dare let him attack first.
His first weave was towards Rusk and I batted it away while Rusk fought the physical enemies below us with economical thrusts of his sword. His second was to me, but I met it, too, throwing the full force of my strength behind my counter-attack. We were hard at work now, and as Graxx maneuvered to get Rusk further into the fight, Catane and I battled.
I’d never before noticed how much Rusk and Graxx were one in these moments. They worked like two halves of the same whole, Rusk stabbing an enemy while Graxx leaned in to shorten the distance, and then Rusk curving to the left to counter the charge of a mad elephant while Graxx danced to the side and plucked the Tazmin off his back. Their deadly dance was perfectly executed, and even while I battled Catane I wondered what it would be like to be so in tune with another creature. Even at our best, Alsoon and I were not like that.
I coughed and concentrated again. I knew what I was doing. I was trying not to think of what Amandera had done for me. I was trying not to let the list of names scroll through my head again, An’alepp, Kjexx, Jakinda, Toure, Alsoon, Amandera…
I whipped a strand at Catane, but the strand went out of control. What happened? I unfocused my eyes for a moment, and then I saw what was happening.
Catane aimed his own thread at me, only for it to disintegrate the same way. Around us, the scintellex was laying a new pattern – a pattern of unweaving that sank into me and Catane. It was unweaving our power, our links to the Common.
“We’ve routed them! Advance! Don’t let them regroup!” Rusk was calling orders from the back of Graxx, but I was too frozen to feel the weight of his words.
I met Catane’s eyes and in that moment I realized what was happening to us. We were being unwoven by the scintellex. It was using us to cleanse Ra’shara of the destruction we’d wrought.
My fist balled tight and my breath came too quickly. It was going to happen. It was going to unravel me. I wasn’t ready.
Catane shook himself like a bear coming out of a river and then he lashed out again with the Common, unweaving a thread oh so close to me. I didn’t pull myself out of my sudden horror fast enough.
His weave whipped through the air, smacking Graxx full on the chest, flinging the three of us through the air.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
I TUMBLED BACKWARD, MY ARM jerking at the end of the tether and then I was swooping upwards dangling by that arm. There was a popping sound and a stabbing pain shot through my shoulder. I gasped, my vision filling with firefly light pricks. I screamed, my head spinning and the ground below swirling beneath me. Something was pulling on my arm, dragging me higher with agonizing slowness. Was my shoulder dislocated? It must be.
I was jerked and tugged upwards, but my head was still spinning too much to look up. Nausea overwhelmed me and I retched. A moment later a strong arm wrapped around my belly and a second arm wrapped around my chest.
“Are you alright, Wild Girl?”
I shook myself and looked to the left and right. Massive translucent wings buoyed us up, swooping through the air. Rusk was flying again!
“Yes,” I gasped, although I was certain that my shoulder was still out of place. There was nothing that could be done about that now. I’d just have to clench my jaw and work through the pain. Sweat beaded on my forehead and th
e coolness of the wind blowing against it helped ease my nausea. I sucked in a deep breath.
“Graxx has fallen,” he whispered, his breath warm against my hair.
Tears pricked my eyes and I felt the hot drops of his tears in my hair. Why did everyone we loved have to die?
“Evanessa?” I asked, suddenly remembering that Rusk had more at stake here than even his beloved friend.
“She lives. Helixx has her safe south of the hill we made our stand on.”
“Catane?”
“Fights on.”
Far below us, his unweaving was erratic, but it was still deadly. I watched as he lashed out, his threads sometimes meeting their targets and other times disintegrating to nothing. He roared in desperate anger, and inside part of me was roaring with him because I could feel the edges of myself unweaving. I couldn’t remember what my bedroom at the Silken Gardens looked like. I couldn’t remember what grapes tasted like or why I liked Spring. It was happening. We were being pulled apart, both of us.
I slipped into Ra’shara and I knew I was panic-sobbing. I couldn’t quite catch my breath, and when I did I couldn’t catch my thoughts. They raced beyond me so far from control that I couldn’t catch them.
“Tylira?” Hope filled Kjexx’s voice as he scrambled across the rocky ground to me.
I lay on my back, surrounded by pillars of white. Just past Graxx, I saw Catane on his back, too, not far away. His chest heaved like mine. Kjexx threw himself to the ground beside me, grabbing my hand.
“It’s working. It’s cleansing Ra’shara. Just hold on.”
“Kjexx.”
“Yes, it’s me.” He gave me his lopsided grin. “I’m glad you came back. It’s lonely here, just me and Garedun left.”
I coughed. “I think I’m dying, Kjexx.”
Thunder Rattles High (Unweaving Chronicles Book 3) Page 17
