“There is one,” Turesobei said, “in our world. But the plants I’d need only grow in the hotter regions of the rainforest. They’d never survive in this cold.”
Enashoma choked back a sob. “So she … she’s going to —”
“We’re not giving up hope,” Turesobei said. “I can keep her alive long enough for us to reach the Forbidden Library. Hopefully, there we can find a way to cure her.”
Turesobei meditated and tried to tame his emotions. Healing spells should never be done in anger or distress, or they wouldn’t work well. And he needed this to work, or Kurine would die. But he was having a lot of trouble calming down. The attack and the fight with Kemsu had riled him up too much.
“Sobei, we’re changing her shirt out for a dry one,” Shoma said. “Close your eyes. No peeking.”
As they changed Kurine’s shirt, he thought back to his first meeting with her and how she wanted to see him naked and kept teasing him and even tried to sneak in a look. He could return the gesture now. He had the advantage. Not that he would, even if she were well. Of course, he was fairly certain she would’ve peeked at him, provided he wasn’t dying. He smiled, and the anger left him.
“Okay,” Iniru said. She frowned at him. “Why are you smiling like that?”
“Sobei,” Shoma challenged. “You didn’t peek, did you?”
“Of course not! I was just thinking about when I met Kurine. I was getting myself into a happier place mentally, so I can do a healing spell.”
He chanted the spell of poison drawing, putting everything he could muster into it. A pulse of energy left his palms and formed a bubble over the wound on her shoulder. The tiny bubble filled up with all the toxin it could get out of her system. With something less deadly, especially if the spell had been cast immediately, that’s all it would’ve taken. But this stuff raced into the system far too quickly to be completely drawn out, and in Kurine’s case, it had had far too long to set in. With the bubble hovering over his hands, he went outside and tossed it away. Motekeru sealed them inside the snow house after that.
Turesobei caught his breath and cast the spell of winter healing on Kurine. He sagged at the end, but Iniru caught him.
Kurine’s eyelids fluttered and opened. “Sobei,” she whispered, grabbing his hand weakly.
“I’m here.”
“You’re … okay?”
“I’m fine. We’re all safe. We got away. The kagi poisoned you, but I’ll get you cured.”
“I know … you will … I know … because … you’re amazing and … you love …”
Kurine drifted off into sleep.
Chapter Forty
A sumptuous feast of berries, goat cheese, and honeyed rice cakes lay spread out on a table beneath a cedar gazebo. Tea steamed in two bowls on opposite sides of the table, and in the center sat an iron kettle and a bowl of loose tea leaves. Sunlight sparkled on the stream that splashed over a rock fall and into the pond surrounding the tiny island on which the gazebo stood. A warm breeze carried the scents of jasmine and mimosa.
Dressed in his finest emerald robes, his hair tied neatly into a braid, his skin clean, his body rested and injury-free, Turesobei knelt at the table. He bit into a fresh strawberry, and as the sweet juice flowed over his tongue, he sighed contentedly. He’d never been so happy before … so relaxed. He didn’t have a single worry in his life.
Footsteps crunched delicately along a gravel path. Awasa, carrying an umbrella, her face lost in the shadows beneath it, stepped onto the bridge that led across the pond to the island. She wore robes of lilac, matching her deep, plum-colored eyes, over inner robes of palest pink. Ivory pins held her blue-black hair in a bun, save for two locks that framed her heart-shaped face. She stepped into the gazebo, folded up her umbrella, and set it to the side. She was taller than he had remembered. Her hips had widened; her breasts had grown larger. Funny, how on earth could he have forgotten those details? He had just seen her yesterday.
Turesobei stood and bowed. Awasa turned her pale face up toward him. Enticing, extraordinarily crimson lips peeled into a smile revealing sharp, bright teeth. She met his eyes and suppressed a giggle.
“May I?” she said, gesturing toward the table.
“Please.”
She knelt across from him and bit, daintily, into a strawberry. The juice dribbled down her chin. She wiped it away with a laugh.
“Wasa, you are the most beautiful thing in all the world,” he said.
“Silly,” she replied, delightfully. “I am so happy, Sobei. Just think. This time tomorrow, we shall be married. And tomorrow night …” Blushing, she took up her tea bowl and glanced coyly away.
“Married …” he said, sipping a strong, almost bitter, black tea. “Tomorrow?”
“Tell me you haven’t forgotten, Sobei … how could you?”
“I — I don’t know. Probably I …”
“You’ve been working too hard?”
“Probably.”
“Remember, you promised me you won’t work as hard once we are married. Not the first year or two. Kahenan is still strong. He can manage without you there all the time.”
Turesobei nodded and bit into a honeyed rice cake. It was almost heaven. “Oh, I’ve missed good food so much.”
“Missed it? How could you miss it? What do you two eat in the tower?”
“Well … I guess … I guess if I’ve been eating poorly then I have been busy. Though I can’t remember what we’re working on.” He was starting to feel disoriented. Why was he so forgetful? Had he overdone a spell and dazed himself?
“You know what I think?” Awasa said. “I think you have wedding jitters.”
“Really?” He wasn’t about to tell her, but that didn’t make sense. He couldn’t even recall having set a date for their wedding.
“Shoma told me so when we had tea this morning.”
“You two are getting along?” he said with surprise.
“Of course we are. We’re going to be sisters soon. Sobei, you know I love you, even if you are spacey sometimes.”
Awasa finished her tea. She leaned forward to scoop fresh tea leaves into her bowl. Her robes fell open far enough to reveal a mark on her chest — a raised tattoo of an eight-pointed star the color of a dark bruise, a shade that matched her lilac robes and her deep plum eyes.
But since when had her eyes been that shade of purple? Why did she have a tattoo? That was hardly acceptable. How could she have gotten one?
Awasa sat back and gave him a curious stare. “Turesobei, are you all right?”
Now that he focused on her harder, he felt, like a whisper across his skin, a pulse of magic … violent, chaotic. Awasa’s skin was not the creamy pale he had first thought, but the pale of one lost forever in night, or one returned from the dead. And on her forehead, faint but growing more noticeable, was a tattoo that matched the one on her chest. Thick veins rose along her temples and forehead. Her features sharpened. Were those — were those specks of blood in her hair?
He opened his kenja-sight.
“Sobei!” she exclaimed as his eyes turned milky-white. “Don’t! Please, don’t.”
Awasa blazed with sinister magic — magic that he knew, that he had fought — the magic of Barakaros the Warlock, leader of the Deadly Twelve. He chanted the spell of dream breaking, and Ninefold Awasa, the blood-smeared, terrifying witch that used to be his betrothed appeared across the table from him.
Turesobei staggered back as the full truth rushed back. Though how he’d come here and where this was, he had no idea. Smeared with blood and wearing torn clothes, Awasa snarled and leapt over the table. She tackled him and pinned him to the ground, squeezing her legs over his hips. He struggled to break free, but she was stronger than him. She licked her lips and fangs and ran claw-like fingernails along his cheek.
“Oh Sobei, I didn’t want to have to do it this way, but if this how you’d like it …”
“Like what?” he muttered.
“Why, being my thrall, of c
ourse. You are mine. You were mine first, long before that k’chasan slut. And now you will always be mine.”
The gazebo within the elaborate garden faded away, leaving only crumbling ruins tucked into a vast wasteland beneath an empty, twilit sky. All was dust and shadow with not a single sign of life, except for himself and Awasa. The Shadowland … a realm between Death and Life, Torment and Paradise, Oblivion and Existence — many-layered, infinite, inscrutable. The abode of nightmares and demons and stranger things still. This was the layer nearest the real world, draped over it like a burial shroud, accessible by ritual or dream. If he was in the Shadowland, he was trapped in a nightmare, though how he had been brought here, he had no idea.
Turesobei cast the simple spell of waking. Nothing happened.
“You cannot leave here until I let you,” Awasa said, sneering. “And I won’t let you until I’ve broken you.”
“How did you do this?”
She pulled back her shirt to reveal a fresh cut over her heart. She drew her finger along it and bit her lip. “Our bond was never broken. I used it against you.”
How utterly simple and devious. She had exploited their betrothal as a connection, and then strengthened it with — “Blood magic.”
“You cannot break free,” she said. “I know because Barakaros tells me it is so.”
“The Warlock? He’s possessing you?”
She slapped him hard across the face and busted his lip. “Don’t insult me like that! I am my own self. The Warlock’s ghost merely resides within me, whispering secrets, teaching me all the sorceries he knew.”
If she had stolen into his dreams with blood magic, exploiting the bond between them, how could he break free? Banishing her wouldn’t work, and waking himself had failed. Dream-breaking had already done all it could by destroying the illusion. Maybe if he hadn’t shared tea with her in the dream … that had given her more power here. He tried again to throw her off again, but it was no use. He could only think of one thing that might work, although it might just take him from the frying pan and into the fire.
“I am Chonda Turesobei!” he cried out at the top of his lungs. He didn’t know what had summoned her before, so he continued on. “The heir of Chonda Lu! I bear the power of the Storm Dragon! I’m trapped in the Shadowland! Please, by Kaiwen Earth-Mother, I beg of you to help me.”
“No one can help you here, no matter the name you use or who you call on.” Awasa put a finger to his lips, lowered herself down, and bit his earlobe. “Anything you attract here will be as bad, or worse, than me.”
“I know,” he muttered.
And then she arrived, rolling in from the horizon like a night-black cloud — punctuated by eyes of searing flame, slowly filling the sky, darkening even the Shadowland. The shadow spoke, as it had before, with a voice both feminine and primal.
“You will let the Storm Dragon go, foolish girl.”
“Never!” Awasa screamed at the flaming eyes above them. “He’s mine alone!”
“You cannot have Naruwakiru. His fate lies with me. I have waited centuries … millennia … for our day of reckoning, here at last at the end of the world.”
So this — whatever she was — was after the Storm Dragon? It had nothing to do with him or Chonda Lu. It thought he was Naruwakiru returned.
The flaming eyes plunged toward them. Awasa recoiled and reached toward her scabbard. But there was nothing there. A white-steel blade couldn’t enter the Shadowland. Awasa grabbed Turesobei by the collar and pulled him close. “I have touched your soul. You can never hide from me again.”
Then, a moment before the eyes fell upon them, Awasa released him and disappeared.
Turesobei shot up, wide awake within the snow house. Everyone was kneeling around him with concern etched on their faces.
“Master, you’ve been screaming,” Lu Bei said. “We couldn’t wake you. I thought perhaps you were —”
“Everyone pack your things.” Turesobei stood, shaking. “We have to go. Now!”
“But it’s not dawn yet,” Kemsu said. “And the sonoke —”
“Now!” Turesobei shouted.
Everyone looked at him, amazed, no doubt wondering if he’d lost it. But Lu Bei said, “Everyone do as Master says. Quickly.”
Under light from the spell of the moon mirrors, they gathered their things and ran out to the sonoke. Motekeru wrapped Kurine in a blanket and held her in his arms as he climbed into the saddle. They rode with abandon along the coast, trusting that the sonoke would spot any dangers in the terrain and adjust in time. The sun rose. A strange feeling tweaked Turesobei’s senses. He whipped around. On an inland rise loomed eighty-nine terrible shadows. The smallest one in the center bellowed a screeching war cry and charged. Light glinted off the white blade in her hand. The rest of the shadows followed her.
Chapter Forty-One
Ninefold Awasa and her eighty-eight yomon fell out of sight as the sonoke outpaced them, but the yomon were tireless. They would catch up.
“What do we do?” Zaiporo asked. “We can’t outrun them. They’ll catch us by nightfall.”
Narbenu stroked the back of his sonoke’s neck. “Sooner. The mounts will be dead by noon if we keep this pace. We’ve ridden them hard for two days with little rest between.”
“Maybe we can find a cave and hide,” Iniru said.
“Awasa touched my soul in the dream,” Turesobei told her. “She found something to exploit … a nice moment we once shared. An afternoon tea, the last one we had together before I left Ekaran, only this time without Shoma or our mothers there. Awasa used that and our bond of betrothal, and blood magic, to get to me in my dreams, pulling me into the Shadowland. Fortunately, she won’t try that again. Unfortunately, she can now track me wherever I go. There’s no escaping her. We’re going to have to face them. So just … just keep an eye out for any terrain that might give us an advantage.”
But all the terrain was the same: barren coastline and low, rolling, inland hills. One by one, the sonoke tired out, slowing to a leisurely pace. Forcing another hour of sprinting would kill them. Turesobei closed his eyes and meditated, preparing himself to change into the Storm Dragon. Because maybe if he had his mind ready, he’d have more control and a chance at turning back into himself … maybe … eventually.
“Master!” Lu Bei shouted from where he soared above them. “There’s a ship on the horizon!”
“Can we reach it?” Turesobei asked.
“Its sails are furled.” Lu Bei looked behind them. “Oh demon droppings! I can see the yomon now, too. But I think we can reach the ship before them.”
Two masts, taller than any Turesobei had ever seen on such a small vessel, towered over the flat-bottomed ship. Three skates, each made of a single piece of bone or ivory, stretched the length of the ship and were held in place with wood beams and rope. The skate-booms lifted the ship up off the ice, high enough that it could easily pass over a sonoke.
“What’s the ship made of?” Turesobei asked. “I can tell it’s not wood.”
“The frame and the booms for the skates are wood,” said Narbenu. “That’s what makes ships so incredibly expensive. The rest is processed hide. The skates are made from the ribs of ice behemoths, and the hides come from their treated skins.”
“The creatures would have to be huge!” Zaiporo said. “I hope we don’t run into any.”
“We won’t,” Narbenu said. “The ice behemoths roam the lands of the Northeast. The yomon are the ones who kill them, mostly for sport. Goronku scavengers follow behind them, bravely, and gather up the bones and hides to sell.”
Fifteen men worked on the two-decked ship. It looked as if they were preparing to set sail. A sixteenth man up in the crow’s nest spotted Turesobei and his companions and yelled out a warning. Immediately, half the crew gathered javelins, while the other half worked frantically to pull up the ship’s two anchors and lower the square, battened sails.
“We’re not going to reach them in time,” Iniru said.
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“I’ll race ahead and talk to them,” Narbenu said, “I think my mount’s got a little burst left. The rest of you slow down. We need to earn their trust.”
“Be careful.” Turesobei glanced behind him and saw the faint outlines of the yomon. “And hurry. Lu Bei, pop into my pack. Let’s keep you a secret and not alarm them with anything more unusual …” Turesobei glanced at Motekeru “... than we already must.”
Narbenu sprinted his mount, guiding it with his knees, his hands raised above his head. Luckily, the sailors didn’t hurl any javelins at him. When he reached the ship, he began talking with one of them. Whatever he said must have worked, because they allowed Turesobei and his companions to close without attacking, though they still held javelins at the ready and looked nervous, especially when they spotted Motekeru, who sent a wave of murmurs amongst them. Turesobei twice heard someone utter the word demon. The skin around the human sailors’ eyes was baojendari pale — the rest of their faces were covered with gray scarves — but they had physical builds like zaboko. Or it seemed so, anyway. It was impossible to accurately judge their sizes when they wore just as much clothing as Turesobei did.
Narbenu was bargaining with the lone, crimson-clad, incredibly rotund goronku who stood amongst the sailors.
“Captain Boki of the Falcon’s Cry,” Narbenu announced. “I have persuaded him not to kill us, nor leave just yet.”
The ship groaned as the winds pulled at the half-lowered sails. The large stone anchors were beside the ship and were now one good tug from being lifted off the ice.
“Captain Boki,” Turesobei said, bowing. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“I won’t say the same to you,” Boki replied with a gruff lisp. He was about to say something else, but he spotted Motekeru. “Who — what — are you people?”
“We come from the land beyond the Winter Gate,” Turesobei said. “Please, we are in a desperate hurry.”
“There are too many of you,” the captain replied. “It would weigh the ship down.”
Storm Phase Series: Books 1-3 Page 86
